Pathfinder

9 - Ghost

When they'd first stumbled into people Kirsha had been on edge. She'd learned pretty fast though the kelpie was quite capable of passing himself off as a normal horse, even if to her he looked no different. They continued on like this for most of the day. Mostly traveling half overgrown dirt roads, snaking around dark pine forests, which were only occasionally broken up by wet clearings or small hamlets.

There was little doubt in her mind the locals now knew what she was. Not after the hunters had passed through with her sister in tow. And she could only guess what they thought about the horse she was riding...if one could even call her miserable, hunched over clinging to the beasts mane that much. Oh yes, as if being labeled a horsethief wasn't just about the last thing she needed added onto her ever growing pile of crimes against the good people of Tebris. Still, somehow the bigger fear of loosing her sister made all others seem small in comparison, and in the end the locals didn't really...do much. Save for some hushed whispers and initial suspicious glances the foresters and farmers tended to look away and continue going about their days. As if she was nothing, but a ghost passing through.

Gradually as the day got to it's end though their phase slowed down, and while the witch urged the kelpie to keep going, the increasingly slow walk eventually came to a demonstrative stop. When he began walking again it was now not down the given path, but with a sharp swing into the wilderness. 

Without much of a warning the witch was now forced to duck sharp branches, the kelpie seeming having quite little regard for the position she had found herself on top of his back. It wasn't long though before a particularly tight spot forced the fae to duck just about enough to allow her to slide off safely, if not entirely painlessly. She then waddled after him as best she could, shouting her grievances and insults along the way. 

Despite his enormous frame though, without her he slid through the foliage effortlessly, and when she finally caught up to him,  she found him once again as a young man...more or less, half submerged within a weirdly shaped lake that had  formed at the edge of a sharp slope. Not entirely unlikely was that it had once upon a time been the sleeping spot of something giant, only to fill up with rain once left abandoned.

Before she got to open her mouth to continue arguing though he interrupted her.

"I've kept my promise. We've traveled all day- Without rest nor water! And done so at a good phase." He exhaled sharply. "The men after have yet to catch up to us and the ones you're after, no doubt we're closer to. Now however, I need both of those things, and your insensitive whining... You can shove that right back down your throat! And choke on it!" 

She flinched, somehow caught off guard by the sudden outburst.

"You may think..." he continued "You're the only one exhausted." He raised his brows. "But! Believe it or not witch I-I..." Another sharp exhale followed, before his hands flew up to rub at the bridge of his nose. Clearly too frustrated to know how to finish the sentence he ended up interrupting himself. "You've been treating me worse than a dumb horse! And- I am not a dumb horse! And you will not get me to move one single step further down that damned road until I've at least gotten some decent sleep."

At the last bit Kirsha's eyes narrowed. "You really think this is all about you-"

Once again he interrupted her. "Nonono! That's what you think. To you I'm just a means to an end - a stupid beast!"

Her jaw clamped shut.

"I'm not wrong, am I?" He laughed. But before he got a chance to continue, she did precisely what he would have expected the least: Se admitted it.

"Yes. I can't deny it. That's exactly what you are to me. But you know what? Yesterday morning, to you I was nothing but meat!  And even now you're helping me out of obligation, not the good of your heart! So yes, I might be a foul witch, but what makes you any better, beast?" The last part was practically an open taunt.

Now it was his turn to pause. Somehow despite all odds she'd managed to make a point and put him on the spot, and she wasn't about to throw that away. "My sister, could be right around the corner. Alone. Hurt. Terrified..." Her voice was beginning to grow shrill and thick. "But I will do what I have to do to get to her and save her. Whenever that means you get a little tired is of no bloody consequence." 

He clearly wanted to voice some sort of protest, but all that came out was an angry, snarl. They were both breathing heavily. How much of it was due to anger and how much due to exhaustion was hard to tell. In any case, the air was positively dense with tension. The same way as right before a storm, only somehow even more palpable. Still, something in his eyes did eventually waver. Then he looked away. Those unnerving eyes suddenly distant as if he wasn't really there, but at another place at another time entirely. "Why do you risk so much for her?"

It was a baffling question. "Do you know what they do to our kind?! They take everything from us! Torture and kill us every twisted way their sick minds can imagine, simply for the crime of existing, and you think to ask me why I'm so desperate to save my sister!?"

He shook his head, but the look in his eyes stayed as it was. "You didn't answer my question. Why do you  risk your life for hers? Why her? " 

"Because I love her! Perhaps you don't understand that feeling, but-"

"Don't tell me what I understand and don't understand witch, answer the question."

"She's my sister! She only has me to depend on! Without me she is alone in a world that will never have a place for her!" Her voice was suddenly shaking with an anger so potent that it even surprised herself. There was something deeply uncomfortable at the way he was prodding at her. Unsettling that he dared so bluntly call into question things that shouldn't be called into question at all. "What kind of monster would I be to leave my sibling to die while I just move on as if I never loved her?!"

He looked back at her now, but still he wasn't quite there. Almost reminiscent of how he had been back at that old shack. Present in body, but not in mind. "You'd be surprised by what kind of monsters that live within us."

They stood in silence. An uncomfortably long silence only broken when he once again truly looked at her and sighed. She turned away, found herself a tree to lean against and slowly sank to the mossy ground. Somehow suddenly finding the exhaustion catching up to her. 

The world owed Damitry more than it had given her. She didn't deserve to loose her home and her mother at the age that she did. She didn't deserve to go hungry or cold. She didn't deserve the ugly stares, the insults, the stones. She didn't deserve to fear for her life. What the girl deserved was a better sister. One who could give her all she needed and honestly say she was risking it all for her and her alone. However, it seemed the beast had finally seen through her. Seen that selfish cowardly part of her finally make itself known. Or perhaps he'd seen through it all along? Heard that the desperate screaming in the forest was not only for fear of loosing her sister, but for fear of being lost without her. 

So, why risk her own life for hers? The answer deep down wasn't as unconditional as sisterly love or an unwavering sense of familiar duty. No, the biggest part of it was perhaps that she was terrified. Terrified of being left to fight this loosing fight all on her own. Because she knew as surely as the sun would set and the moon come out at night, if she didn't have anyone left to fight for, she might simply give up.