Savia's Heart [Sequel to Bastian's Song] [HIATUS]

[ 28 ]

[ Auron ]

Anger boiled his blood and made his vision blur. His hands trembled with the need to punch something. The world was cruel to everyone, but especially to the people who deserved that cruelty the least. Words bubbled up to his mouth and spilled before he could catch them.

"I'll fight them all for you, Zareb!"

Zareb. Zareb. A flash of dark skin filled his mind, rippling with muscles. Red hair caught in braids that fell over a broad chest. A smile as pure as light flashed at him from his memories.

Auron fell to his knees, clutching his head. He heard Savia shout, alarmed, but it came from somewhere far away. Zareb. The smell of the ocean rose up and crashed over him. Blackness swallowed Auron's consciousness.

When he woke, he was laying on a bed. The cabin was dimly lit by a glow that did not make it past the papered and curtained window. A headache pounded behind his eyes and he lifted a hand to rub at them.

"You're awake."

Cold hands brushed over his forehead, and Auron peeked up at Savia from between his fingers. Shame made his eyes fill with tears once more. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"Shh." Savia hushed him. "You've got a little fever, Auron. I should have noticed that you weren't feeling well earlier. Go back to sleep, and we can talk later, sweetheart."

Was that why his body ached? The scars all along his left side were pulsing with pain. Auron couldn't help the thoughts that rose to his mind. Had the fire that scarred him also killed this Zareb? Had they been friends?

Frustration made him squeeze his eyes closed. If he could concentrate, maybe he could remember more. Maybe he could catch the ends of the threads that floated all around him and force them back into an image that made sense.

Auron fell into sleep again, still clutching at the shredded tapestry of his memories. When he woke, a pair of cautious golden eyes watched him from the dark gloom of the room. Auron's heart hurt with a grief that was both brief and intense, but he couldn't tell the reason for it. Only that he recognized he had felt it before, at some point.

He sat up, and felt his body weighed down by aches and the lethargy of too much sleep.

A cold hand touched his shoulder and pushed him slowly back into the soft bed. "You should stretch a little, but you should not be up just yet. The fever is gone now, but I think maybe there was more than just an illness eating at you."

"...you're that jerk." Auron watched the golden eyes wince and then look to the floor with a studied intensity.

"I would like to say that you are wrong, but I fear that you are not. I'm sorry for the harshness of my words. I understand that I was callous, and I hope you won't hold it against me."

He frowned. The jerk spoke in a much fancier way than he did, and for some reason that fact annoyed him. "I guess I did get violent first. So apologies all around. I'm not sorry I hit you, but I am sorry if I hurt you."

The man let out a weak chuckle. "My name is Vee. I'm the star-reader on this ship."

"I don't know what that means, but I'm Auron." He looked around the room, but it was too dark for him to make out much of anything. "Where's Savia?"

Vee sighed. "The vampyre is currently sleeping in a box under the deck."

"What?" Auron shot up into a seated position, and immediately regretted the motion as his head began to swim. "Why?" Outrage colored his voice.

"Calm down." Vee lifted his hands in a gesture of peace, the pale skin barely visible in the dimness. "She wanted other people to be able to watch over you during the day, and we couldn't risk opening the door while she was uncovered. So she opted to stay below deck, but that had it's own issues. We're just trying to keep her as safe as we can given the options."

Anger clenched Auron's jaw. He wasn't sure he believed Vee, but it sounded like something Savia would do. 'Oh sure,' she'd say, 'just lock me in a box. I'll be perfectly fine.'

"I swear," Vee spoke like he could sense Auron's anger. "She will come back to you in only a few hours. Safe. And then you two can work out your sleeping arrangements."

"I sleep when she does, or I will. On this ship, anyways."

"Seems reasonable. Eryn will see to it that you are put to work regardless of what time you sleep."

Auron only grunted. He hadn't known the blonde long enough to comment one way or another, but she seemed the bossy type. "What do you have against vampyres anyways? You were pretty steamed up out there."

A sigh answered him, along with a short silence. When Vee spoke again, there was no confidence in his voice. "I have no idea. I don't remember anything from before one year ago, when Eryn found me floating in the middle of the ocean, near dead."

Surprise made Auron's eyebrows rise, though Vee wouldn't be able to see it. "Amnesia?"

Vee's head bobbed. "Yes. Amnesia. Eryn believes I was involved in some shipwreck, but there was nothing in the surrounding waters to support that, so she's not sure. But what else could it have been?" He sighed again. "I don't know any vampyres, or I don't think I do. But sometimes, I get theses...feelings about things. Like my intense dislike of garlic that I didn't know I had until someone offered me a plate covered in the stuff."

That was something Auron could directly relate to—not the garlic part, because he loved garlic—the feeling some way about things, but not really understanding why. The memories that produced those feelings had disappeared, abandoned him, but the feelings stayed behind. Sometimes the feelings were nice, like coming home to find the chores were done by someone else for once. Other times, the feelings left a bitter taste on his tongue and a tremble in his fingers.

"I'm familiar with the predicament. So, you've forgotten your past. And you had a feeling about vampyres."

"I did. Apparently, I was not a fan of them. Still am not. But I am willing to recognize that I probably did not know Savia before...before. And I will give her the respect due to a shipmate, as she deserves."

A compromise, of sorts, Auron supposed. "Then I guess we can get along okay."

Vee laughed again, a stronger sound than before. "That's a relief to me. I'd hate to have you punch me again. You're stronger than you look."

He grinned. "Maybe we'll even be friends."

"First, let's get you stretching out. Then we'll get some soup in you and go from there."

The two men worked together in the darkness of the room, and felt a sort of kinship between them. They weren't friends, might never be friends, but they understood what it was like to lose memories—to not remember who you were. Comfortable silence settled over them.