Lineage

Chapter 3: Unlikely Friends

The sky turned midnight blue decorated with sentinels of light that illuminates my path as I walk back to my tent. 

It's been a rough day for me knowing all those memories that were buried inside my head waiting for the right moment to resurface. Still my head is burning with pain like I've been shot in the head.

 It was momentarily gone just when I heard a song. I followed its enchanting sound emitting from the bonfire across my tent, glimmering with embers.

 As I approached closer, a silhouette of a man holding a guitar plays that song. I recognize his hair glow as if it was burning with the fire in front of him.

His song made me immobile as if I forgot where I'm supposed to do. I was locked in trance and began walking towards him. 

He doesn't seem to notice me as he plucks the strings of his guitar. The warmth from the embers made me notice myself behind him. Then an idea struck me. I need to make an excuse to explain myself approaching him. I'm going to prank him.

"Hey, nice song you got..." I say as he quickly turned behind and grabbed me in the neck and wrestled me to the ground.

I struggled to get off his grip but he tightens. I looked to his green eyes, focused and unnerving, but then I began to choke.

"Oh! It's just you. You scared the shit out of me. You cut your hair short, I didn't even recognize you." He says while letting me go.

"You scared the shit...? Wha... You scared the shit out of me!" I say while coughing. I can feel my neck swollen.

He did not make eye contact with me as he grabbed his guitar and tunes it. I reached out my hand but he left me to stand by myself. He's very rude.

"What do you want?" he asks in a different tone.

"Where do you learn that song?"

"Why do you care?"

"Question for a question huh? ...right. I haven't heard that song." I rolled my eyes.

"It's because I wrote it." He says. He resumes to his unfinished song.

"Look, I think we got off the wrong foot. Why don't we start over? My name's Jules, I'm on my own now and you're the one of the Visans that I can talk to besides the captain. Ethan taught me when I was a kid, he said for self-defense and people always underestimate me. I now know why he did it."

"Well it's nice to meet you Jules, forgive me if I'm an ass when I met you. I wasn't ready for a rascal or to be a babysitter."

"See, that wasn't so hard...Hey!" I hit him on his arm. Babysitter...what do he think he is? I'm not that young. Sure he's a bit older than me but I'm a teenager myself.

He smiled as he resumed playing his guitar. We talked through the night to know each other a little and how I was still grateful that they rescued me. 

I felt secure talking to him and knew I wasn't alone. After some time, we both became tired and called it a day. We were about to part ways but I turned around.

"Hey Charles? Thank you for listening." I say waiving my arm.

"Yeah, thank you too."

"For what?"

"...for being honest."

Should I tell him that I'm the lost ruler? It would be nice to have someone who trusts me.

"About that...I'm the--" I barely finished speaking then out of nowhere Martin interfered our conversation and joins us.

"Trainee; Charles, I need you to train with her tomorrow morning." He said to Charles while looking at me as if I did something wrong.