Across the ocean Book 1: On the run

Chapter Ten : A Father's Love

-''Mayen, wake up... Please wake up...''

Rowen's haggard face was the first thing Mayen saw, then Mulette when his father hugged him tightly. It felt warm and nice. The hand on his forehead felt awkward, not fully awake to understand it was to check for temperature. Yawning somehow helped, though he felt drained of energy for more than simply waking up. It came to him it was still night. Despite not having a single window open to look outside, it was just that dark within the tower. He felt a chill, not a bad one, just the kind he liked when normally waking up in the morning. Normally it was the refreshing air he needed to stimulate his head when still fighting sleep away. It was also the kind to make you enjoy a good fire in some early summer nights. However, with both his father's body warmth and that of the fireplace, it did not take long to actually feel a tad too warm.

His eyes widened and blinked at the sudden increase of vision, as if the eyelids complained they had not been warned. Last he knew the animal was still tied up to a pole in the pen outside.

-"Father? Why is she in here!" Thinking was hard at first, as if his thoughts were steps in a snow reaching his knees. "What happened? I thought she was in that pen."

-"Come now!" said his father. "She wanted in, so I brought her. So... How do you feel?"

-"Disoriented. Uh... Was I not outside?" He was about to add the last thing he remembered when the mere thought reminded him of the real last thing he had done. "Father, I saw--"

-"It's all right, no need to start chopping yet my boy. Just tell me how you feel, we are safe here. Walls of stone, sturdier than our own home. All I want to know is how you feel. Was worried sick when I saw you drop on the spot. You started mumbling nonsense, then fell unconscious."

Panic swirled in him like a tempest, like a hurricane when the winds of the ocean swept over the land, or like the turbulent waves crashing over the shores of reality. The eye, the questions and the answers, the information it now had... So many details to give which made him unable to decide how best to start. That night back one year ago, then this night, then a pinch. A pinch? His father was pinching his cheek! And then he was breathing again, though he had not realized he had been holding his breath.

-"Ouch! I am fine, but why did you do that?"

-"You are with me again now, my boy? Good. Let me repeat my question, how do you feel, like, are you sick?"

Right now and then, he could have fisted really hard his father; talks of questions and of insisting for an answer was definitely not a thing he would allow himself to suffer anytime soon. Then he blushed at the undeniable legitimacy his father had for wanting to know.

-"No, I am not sick. However there was something outside and I swear its dangerous!" His father spoke over him, but he would not let such important details be left untold. "Did you see the eye? The shadow, those two golden eyes?"

-"Everything is all right, we are safe in here. The rangers will come if there are bandits or goblins out there. It is a hideout of theirs after all. Shhh... Mayen, my boy, listen to me closely." He fought hard not to swallow, nor to give any hint of suspecting and fearing for himself. "There are many things which can give glowing eyes in the dark. You yourself know. Deer, bears, owls, hares, racoons..."

It was true that many animals had eyes which could glow in the night, and he was willing to accept his father's suggestion. He knew a lot about survival skills during daytime, therefore the unfamiliar "gna" could have been the noise of a frightened and surprised animal during nighttime. "Whatever animal can make such a cry," he thought with a doubt which would not go away so easily.

-"What about the eye, you saw it did you not? In that dark mist! Darker than night."

-"I saw night and shadows of trees."