Center of Attention

Brokilna Sobe

     When Dad returned from the deep woods, I saw not a fairy but an almost identical humanoid to what Smallik looked like. She had long, black hair swinging from her side as vines climbed up her scalp. She looked like she had suddenly gotten over a terrible tragedy. Maybe she had. Maybe she had learned something from Dad something I could not.
I turned to Smallik. "Don't fuck this up, okay? If you have the opportunity you have to fix this world, you have to go for it."
      "Why are you deciding to be nice now when everything you've ever told me has been mean and hateful?" he asked, turning his head to me.
      "I still think you should kill him. That thought hasn't left my mind, but I want to believe that there is another way than killing my father. There are many solutions to a problem, right?"
      He had his eyes set on anything else but me. "Sure. Let's go with that."

      Smallik had his eyes on something far away from the rest of us. Even as we stopped dead center in front of him, he was seemingly whispering to something that wasn't even there. A spirit. I touched his shoulder lightly just to snap him out of it, and he responded with a slow turn of his head. His pupils had gone from large to small in seconds as a smile stretched across his lips.
      "I'm sorry for the delay," Viobin had stated to Smallik. "There were some clashing ideas with what we wanted to tell each other. I explained to him that we also needed to tell you this information, so I had to come back."
      "Of course." He bowed his head, completely losing whatever was entrancing him before. "We all have different ideas about saving the world, I think."
      Yeah, and one of them was my son wanting to kill me. Along with a group of people called Dittas. And a man called Brokilna Sobe. There were so many people out to kill me for the fact that I was a Center, and I was surprised they decided that fourteen years after the fact was a good idea to start clashing against me. I didn't want to die again. As nice as Giartt was when I had fallen victim to a gunshot, there was part of me that felt terrible for everything I was leaving behind. I had thought most people felt like that. Dying suddenly felt like there was no control, and everything you've ever done was all just background noise. I felt like that more than anything else.
       Viobin started talking about a place that lied farther beyond the clearing in the woods we came from. She said that every tree was made of man-made metal, and even every single blade of grass had been metal. Shiny, she called it. The land full of shining trees that felt cold as you walked through even if it was the hottest day of the year. She mentioned a man living there whose body was also covered in metal plating, and he had bionic eyes. I turned to Smallik. He nodded like he knew that I was thinking that this man was from 9127. He had to be. Technology wasn't that... advanced in this time. I turned down to my arm where my Vigva had once been, and still saw nothing show up when I pressed into my arm.
       "Do you happen to know the metal man's name?" Smallik asked her. "I'm not discrediting your information, but I would like to know if we know him or not."
      Viobin had nodded, the sunset orange hitting every blue with such a bright hue. "He told me he was Brokilna."
      I stopped. My voice came out as a mere whisper rather than the shot that was filling my heart right now. "Brokilna Sobe?"
      "He said that was his name, yes. He said he had a solution to fixing the future, but he didn't tell me what it was. If that makes sense to you, Firstien."
      It made sense. It made so much sense that I wanted to faint into the recoiling leaves. I didn't think that Sobollum would be bold enough to give someone like him the same potion that he gave everyone else, but then again Sobollum wasn't even on my side. I wondered if all elves were so pretentious as to do things like that, but I just knew that he was even without being one. Smallik started to explain that we both knew of Brokilna, and we were just wondering since I seemed to be fading in an out of everything throughout our talk. Brokilna Sobe...
      He killed me.
      "I supposed I should send you off, then. It's a day's journey to the land of metal, and it will probably be easier for you two to get in if you already know him," Viobin had said. "However, you could stay with us for the night if you wished."
      Smallik shook his head despite my immediate yes. "I'm on limited time, I'm afraid. The faster we can get to our destination, the better, I think."
       "Then Firstien, take this."
       She grappled onto a vine that had been stuck into the roots of her hair, and she ripped it away from her head. The vine squirmed like it was a living thing that had been ripped away from its host. She pulled me close with her free hand, pushing the vine to my scalp. It scraped against my face until it coiled back into my black hair, and it seemed almost alive as it attached itself to the root of my head. Viobin had touched the tip of one of hers. Suddenly, it had ripped through the air until it hit the ground. It swirled, much like it had when Lia had led us to this place, and it formed a portal to the clearing we had been in. I saw the glowing bugs, much more prominent as their light started to show in the darkness.
      Viobin had laughed a little as she came forward to touch the vine that was now in my head.           "It's your way back. You were lucky Lia was there at all, so I just want to make sure that if you ever need somewhere to go, even in the future when you go back, you can open up a portal to our world by pinching the ends."
      "Thanks." I was touching the top of the pointy vine like I had just gotten a new haircut.                      Smallik started to pull me to the portal without so much as a wave to Viobin, but I made sure to wave. This might've been our last meeting. She'll be gone when I get back to the future, and she'll be sad if I don't fix the future enough to save the faeries. Now that I met them, I saw them all as tiny children, excited for someone who wasn't like them to step into their lives even if they were in their own world. Smallik had pulled me away from that will one tug on the shoulder as we disappeared into the clearing from before.
      There were a few faeries that were running about out here, but they were talking and conniving with themselves more than they cared about us. Smallik breathed for a moment before pulling me in the same direction we had been going for as long as we left Ortim, and the Sun was setting its final rays as he started to lead us through the woods. Trees were pretty. Every limb and branch had its own pattern even if the bigger picture made them look all the same, but at the same time it was creepy. You could hear the chirping of birds through the night. Yet, everything you heard could not be seen. It made me stick even closer to Smallik.
      "So, who is Brokilna?" he asked me. "You seemed like the name was haunting you when Viobin mentioned it."
       I sighed. The name was still sitting at the bottom of my chest like poorly digested food. "I... I was killed. Met Giartt, you know? I was killed by Brokilna Sobe."
      "I'm going to guess you don't trust the fact that he's running around in this time, do you?"
       "Is Sobollum the only one that can make that time travel stuff?" I didn't want to blame him for anything. "Brokilna Sobe is definitively from our time, has to be. If he's making trees metal and is said to be covered in plating, there's no reason he shouldn't be. However, I don't remember plating on him." He had a bandanna covering most of his face. Of course I didn't. "I'm just... afraid."
       "An Enforcer? Afraid? Of what, a gun?"
      "This is serious, Smallik. He had cornered me in a room and shot me in the chest before I had the chance to react, and it was all because he knew that I was the Center. He probably would have shot me despite that, but the calloused look in his eyes was frightening."
        Smallik nodded. "I've been there, staring into the eyes of the beast." He stopped dead in his tracks as two pairs of eyes had been ahead in the dark. The pupils were like slits, cutting away the darkness. They looked at us, and I heard a snarl come from its direction. I gulped. Was this going to be like the Eldritch?
       No. The beast was a large, scaly thing with a thin face. It approached with its head high, like it was trying to show that it was superior to us in every way. I knew this creature. Large scaly things had fallen into the category of dragons, but this one had no wings to show for it. A drake. A large, over-sized lizard that still had the power to kick anyone's ass. Its long neck stretched downward until it was face-to-face with us. Smallik, like always, was unfazed.
      "A spirit, then. Of a drake," Smallik muttered to himself. He turned to me. "She isn't real. Well, she is, but she's not on the physical plane. She's a spirit of a drake from a long time ago."
I turned back to the drake, staring into the calmness of its eyes. "I thought you were the only one that could see spirits?"
      "Not in this part of the forest. Spirits show themselves when they want to help, and I believe that this drake wants to guide us to the metal land. An old home of her's."
       "So, she's safe?"
       He had stood next to her, eyes ahead. "No spirit is bad, Firstien. They just think that there way is the way that you need to follow. Not every spirit is good to listen to, but all must be heard." His wings had fluttered a bit in joy. "We all have voices, and we all want someone to hear us scream."