Prince of Time

Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Arrival of Dawn

Maple was trapped. They discovered that fairly on in the procedure of removing the rubble around them. Nicanor got free easily, a little bruised and battered but none the worse. Maple was simply stuck.

“I could pull you,” Nicanor offered.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Maple winced, remembering the previous attempt. “Currently, my legs aren’t broken, though the one with the arrow in it hurts like hell. But if you pull me, I think every bone in my body will shatter.”

Nicanor rubbed his face with a dusty hand, smearing it with grime.

“Then we wait,” he flopped down, exhausted. “And pray somebody friendly comes along to rescue us.”

“Maybe the others will come back?” Maple suggested.

“Maybe,” Nicanor conceded. “Or maybe we’ll die down here in a ravine.”

Maple, already lying down, dropped her chin into her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, sarcastically. “I can see that it’s going to be a wonderful day or two of waiting.”

“Midmorning,” Nicanor decided. “If we see no escape for you by midmorning…”

“And we won’t,” Maple added.

“Then I will go and find help,” Nicanor finished. “Happy?”

“I’ve been better,” Maple shifted, uncomfortably. “Dark, isn’t it? The moon doesn’t seem to reach down here.”

“Very dark,” Nicanor shivered. “Cold too.”

They remained in silence. Maple shifted to try and find a way of lying that didn’t send shoots of icy pain through her leg. Nicanor twisted his hands together, already finding the night far too long.

“We should talk,” Maple sighed. “About, I don’t know, something deep and philosophical.”

“Fate? Destiny? The meaning of life? The value of existence? The purpose of death?” Nicanor listed a few topics. “Any jumping out to you?”

“No,” Maple admitted. “I’m a warrior. We don’t think about life and death. And fate and destiny are….complicated. Too complicated for me.”

“Agreed,” Nicanor nodded. “I’m not a thinker. I’m a fighter. Oh, I can plan in a battle but when it comes to worlds and ages and people…that’s not where I belong.”

Maple yawned deeply. “I’m so tired but I’ll never sleep here.”

“We wanted this,” Nicanor said, unexpectedly. “I know you’re like me. We wanted this. We wanted the adventure, the death, the fear. We wanted it desperately.”

“Yes.”

“It was our everything.”

“It’s so easy,” Maple said, moodily, “to think you have the right to something. I always did. I bet you did too. I bet as a child you thought you had the right to a brave and exciting life, a place where you were greater than all others.”

Nicanor remained silent, which was confirmation enough.

“But we don’t,” Maple continued. “We don’t have any rights at all. We’re just breaths, just dust motes, just lives as small and insignificant as all the other lives we scorned. The difference is that our stupidity has brought us closer to what we wanted in the first place.”

“You’re saying stupidity is good?”

“I’m saying stupidity is dangerous. If we die here, we die of our own naivety.”