Heather's Adventures: The Search for Maxamus

Chapter 39. Heather

                  

"Ugh this sucks." I mumbled to myself as I kicked a rock into the middle of the dirt path they called a 'road'. I then took a seat on the steps to the shop. For the first time in my life, I didn't know where I wasn't going to be going. I didn't have a plan.

You wanted to live life on the run. You didn't wanna stay home. You wanted to go on an adventure. Now you got it. Are you happy now?

"Go away stupid," I told myself as I bit my lip.

"Well okay then, glad to know I was of a help."

I turned around and there Rheannah was with her hands on her hips.

"I wasn't talking to you," I responded.

She used a very asserted tone, "then who were you talking to? There's no one else here."

"Me. I was talking to me." I stood up, "Is there a problem here or can I go wallow in my own self-pity now?"

Rheannah was livid, "Just who do you think you are? You think you're 'so great' and 'so much better' than everyone else."

I shrugged, "I'm me, that's why I called myself stupid. I don't want to be me. You think I want to be here? My home is in ruins and I don't have anywhere to return to. My parents are reconstructing my entire homeland while I'm here on the run from my sister and brother gone rogue. You have somewhere to return to, meanwhile here I am no home, no family but Sheria, and I don't even know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. I ran away and because I did, and now, I have nowhere to return to. Life is giving me everything that I thought I wanted although now I realized; I don't want any of it. Tell me what I'm supposed to do now that I'm here and I can't even help anyone?!" I was aware that my eyes shifted from lavender to orange and my fists started to glow with a fiery glow. I even stood up to face her.

Of course, she saw me as a threat and drew her sword. She just had to draw her sword. "You think I have it easy? I just let you throw my brother's life away. He's going to be taken from his heir status and degraded until the Merrywell family disowns us. There's no one to save us from the wrath of the family. You did the damage because he'd rather frolic with you and take off running to you rather than do what is right for the world."

"Oh, and being an heir is right? Sitting on your royal hinee is going to do you nothing." I threw down my bag and grabbed my bow out. She took towards me with her sword. I used my bow to block it. She continued to attack me as the fight got physical. She didn't leave me enough room to draw an arrow or even use my fire. She was too good. I wasn't going to win this fight.

"At least I try to protect him all the time. I don't just 'save the day' to make myself look good." We continued to fight. I took damage from her blade, significant damage. Scrapes which would become scars later on were everywhere on my arms, legs, chest, even a few on my face.

"I stopped him from dying; I would've done the same for anyone. I only helped because I'm not letting a member of my team die. We're a team now, don't you know? We're not a family; we're certainly not a group of friends, just a team of idiots that can't even agree on how to save people."

"You just have to prove you're better than everyone else." She argued back to me as I flung myself backwards to gain some distance between her and I before she actually came and attacked me.

"I know it may look like that but I'm not. I'm just trying to do my part to help everyone. I was trained for this, I just...well..." I stumbled with my words, "I guess I've been just following along my intuition instead of safety standards. I put everyone at risk by not following along the training exactly as I received it. I've been careless and living life far too dangerously. But this isn't about me here, why are you asserting that I do all of this? I know I make mistakes, but I'm not terrible. At least I try to clean up my messes. If I fail I don't know what I'll do, so I just keep cleaning up whatever half-failure I make and fix it. If I didn't save him back there, would you have blamed me if the worst happened? You were too far away at the other side of the chasm to be able to reach him in time. I was just doing my part, cleaning up my mess. I dragged him into it. I came and found him. Now I'm just trying to clean up this mess and get him home. Besides. At least you two have a home to return to after this is all said and done." I turned away and walked off, bruised, bloody, and beaten. What else was there to do now? If I fought much longer trying to defend myself I'd eventually fall, or I'd have to hurt her. I didn't leave a scrape mark on her anywhere. I didn't even harm her at all. After all, she was a part of this makeshift team now.

I was quick to find a nice large tree to sit in. Didn't take long to climb it and find a nice spot to look over my wounds.

She was right, however. I wasn't following the code and just making myself look better. If I had followed the code those previous times, he wouldn't have come that close to dying there. I wouldn't have had to use that training of mine.

Then again, I was only trained how to handle situations like that and nothing else. What a cruel world only teaching me how to play with lives.