Chapter 12: Just Being a Kid

My heartbeat faltered as I gaped my mouth in disbelief. I couldn't imagine going through the rest of the war without Sothe. He was my friend…he was finally my friend, I couldn't just let that go. "No…no way. You're staying here…come on, are you listening to yourself?" I said. Sothe dropped his head down.

"I'm no good if I can only see out of one eye. Ike won't want me to fight and if I can't fight then what am I doing here?" he replied morosely. His words stung.

"Ike wouldn't do that! He needs all of us…so what if you have one blind eye? You can still see me, right?" I argued. Sothe slowly picked up his head and tried to focus on my face.

"Well…yeah," he admitted hesitantly. I put one hand over my left eye to simulate what Sothe could see. Everything was still there to the front of me and to the right of me. But, to the left was only darkness unless I turned my head around completely.

"Good. You can see enough to get by so Ike shouldn't have any objections to you fighting. So there's no reason for you to leave!" I said hopefully. Sothe didn't reply, instead he looked around the tent as if to test how well he could see. He seemed upset and I couldn't help but to feel completely responsible. I wanted to tell Sothe why it was all my fault but not with Muarim in the room. "Hey, Muarim? Could you get another blanket? It's freezing in here," I asked. He obediently nodded his head and left. I breathed a sigh of relief since I finally had the chance to tell Sothe what was really going on. "Sothe…I'm…I'm so sorry." He looked up at me in confusion.

"Huh? Sorry for what?" I hastily unraveled my bandages around my wrist to reveal the crest.

"For this," I began as I showed him my wrist. "I-I'ts all my fault…" I rested my forehead on my palm and silently whimpered.

"What? No! I don't blame any of this on you, it's my fault I let my guard down!" he objected.

"Sothe, we ignored it! We took it too lightly and look what happened! Dammit, it's not fair though…it's my curse it should have been me not you." Sothe shook his head.

"No…it's just a coincidence. I was careless, really, don't beat yourself up over this." Sothe had a point it could have been just coincidence but I didn't want to make the same mistake.

"What if it's not? What if I'm the reason you can only see out of one eye? Sothe…I don't know what to do!" A tear gently slid down my cheek. I couldn't stand the fact that I most likely caused Sothe to lose half of his sight. It wasn't fair, it was my curse…why was it affecting other people? I couldn't stop thinking that it should have been me.

"I'm not buying that 'it's a curse' crap, I refuse! You didn't do this to me, okay? And even if by some bizarre reason there really is a curse, I forgive you. If you weren't there when it happened…I probably would have died. You saved my life…I owe you everything. Besides…I have two eyes," he said. I picked my tear-stained face out of my hand and looked at my friend. His silver left eye shimmered and he forced a smile. It wasn't like Sothe to see past a bad situation; it made me feel like that maybe I was rubbing off on him.

"That's what friends are for," I said as I wiped the tears away from my face. I looked up at Sothe with hope glimmering in my eyes. "So…since you owe me everything…promise me you'll stay. I'll beg on my knees if I have to," I pleaded. Sothe lightly giggled and a grin spread across his face.

"Yeah…yeah I'll stay," he said. My face lit up and I almost burst with happiness. It was one less thing to worry about. I smirked vibrantly at my friend. I couldn't help but to tackle him with hugs.

"Really? Ya mean it! You're the best, Sothe!" I shouted jovially. Sothe chuckled lightly and smiled under my crushing grip.

"Okay…okay…I think you might squash all of my bones," he said with a grunt. I loosened my grip on him and hung my arm over his shoulder. It was good to have the old Sothe back, even though he was blind in one eye. Somehow I knew he would work past it. Just for the one moment I tried to let myself forget about the curse and just be a kid. A kid with the greatest friend he could ever ask for.

"Y'know…I really like your blind eye, it's all silver and sparkly!"

"It is?" he asked in bewilderment. I cheerfully nodded my head.

"Uh-huh! It's so elusive and it makes you look more threatening! No one is gonna mess with you!" Sothe playfully rolled his eyes and snickered.

"Haha yeah I'm sure because I have two different colored eyes people are going to be afraid of me," he said jokingly

"You'd be surprised! The eyes are the windows to the soul!" I said poetically. Sothe burst into laughter. "People will fall to their knees and tremble before you just begging for mercy!" My friend's eyes started to water from laughing so hard.

"I always thought you were insane," he managed in between laughs. I swiped a small dagger from his pocket and stood up. I swung it around wildly and rolled across the floor with stealth.

"But you won't give them any mercy! Because you're a lethal mercenary who can do all kinds of amazing things with a little knife!" I stabbed the air horizontally and vertically with Sothe's dagger. "Hyaaa! Hyaaaa!"

"Is that supposed to be me? I don't really look like that, do I?" I flashed him a menacing smile.

"This is exactly what you look like!" I replied. Sothe shook his head and grabbed my elfire tome that was sitting close to where the medical supplies were stored.

"If that's what I look like, then this is what you look like!" He opened my tome and held it obnoxiously close to his face. "Blah blah blah….Fire!" he screamed. My lips curved downwards and I crossed my arms.

"Hey! That's an elfire tome, and 'blah blah blah' is not a part of the ancient text! Let me show you how a master does it," I said confidently. I swapped Sothe's dagger for my tome and delicately flipped through the pages of it.

"Um, Tormod…you're not really going to cast a spell are you?" asked Sothe. I shook my head without looking up and continued reading through the text.

"No way! I'm just showing you how it's done," I replied simply without thinking.

"But wouldn't that require…"

Before he could finish his thought I cleared my head of every noise around me until it was complete silence. I muttered a few lines of ancient writing and screamed "Elfire!" like I had done so many times before. Suddenly the crackling of flames resonated and the smell of something burning tickled my nose. I opened my eyes to see Sothe in an uproar.

"Tormod! You set the tent on fire! What the hell!" he yelled. It took a moment to process, but he was right. The wooden limbs that held the tent up were the first to catch fire. I hastily grabbed a blanket off the floor and fanned the flames. Sothe did the same but it didn't seem to be doing any good. "This isn't working! Ugh…we are so screwed." Then an idea popped into my head. I uncovered a wind tome that I rarely used, since fire was my affinity.

"Aha! I'm a genius! I'll just use a wind spell to blow out the fire!" I boasted. Sothe watched me precariously as I cleared my mind once again to focus my energy on another spell. Gusts of winds traveled from every direction picking up the flames with it as it went. I groaned aggravatingly because my brilliant idea had utterly failed. If anything, it made matters ten times worse. It caused the fire to spread even more across the tent. Sothe brought his hand up to his face and sighed. "Sothe, this tent is a goner let's get out of here!" I yelled. My friend stood his ground with his arms crossed.

"We can't just leave…ugh…here at least grab Rhys's medical supplies so it doesn't burn up," he suggested. It was a nice thought but it was getting hotter by the second and difficult to breath. I covered my mouth with my hand and hesitantly nodded my head. It rained ashes as we swiftly scooped up whatever healing staves we could. Sothe held his gray scarf over his mouth so he wouldn't choke. Suddenly a plank of wood descended from the top of the tent and crashed only a few inches from Sothe. I swiftly pulled him by the collar of his neck to stop him from getting any closer. The fire sizzled on top of the plank, blocking us from reaching our exit. My eyes widened as I realized we were completely trapped.

"We now how have permission to freak out!" I said worriedly. Sothe grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me to the other side of the tent. He unsheathed one of his knives and sliced the tent open for us to step through. "Wow, Sothe! You're so resourceful!" I said. He held on tighter to my wrist and quickly stepped out of the burning medical tent with a few staves in his other hand. I followed close behind with a few more heal and mend staves. As soon as we were able to breath in fresh air we both fell to our hands and knees, gasping for air. I wiped the sweat that was forming on my forehead away with my hand. When I brought my hand back it was covered in thick ash. "Ah sheesh we're covered in soot!" Sothe did the same as me and wiped his face with his hand.

"That's the least of our problems! You set the tent on fire! Come on, we have to find some water before it spreads," he shouted. I lightly coughed in the cup of my hand and turned to face the burning tent. Clouds of smoke hovered over it. I picked myself up off the ground and sprinted with Sothe at my side. I didn't think or look where I was going all that was going through my mind was water. Suddenly, as I ran I crashed into something hard and fell to the ground. I instinctively rubbed the back of my head that burst with pain.

"Hey watch it!" I picked my head up too see Soren with a scorn written all over his face.

"You…" Sothe growled. I shifted so I stood on my knees then slowly brought myself to a standing position. I dusted some snow off that stained my crimson shorts.

"Oh hey there! Sorry about that! Kinda in a hurry to find some water," I replied rapidly. Soren stood up and folded his arms across his chest. He rolled his eyes and let out a disapproving puff of air. Then his eyes wandered to Sothe. He stared at him for a moment intriguingly and then looked away. I could only imagine that Soren was fazed by Sothe's left eye.

"I assume that," he pointed to a cloud of smoke traveling from the burning tent "is your doing." I chuckled nervously and scratched the back of my head.

"Well…it wasn't all me." Sothe tightened his hands into fists and narrowed his eyes at me.

"What! Of course it was you!" said Sothe furiously. Soren shook his head in disdain and glared at us both.

"I don't care who did it! I saw some smoke before and I decided it would be best to check it out and make sure our base wasn't raided by enemy soldiers, but I should have known it was just you two acting like fools!" snapped Soren. I was immediately taken aback and pursed my lips into a thin straight line.

"Look we were just about to find some water to put out the fire and we even saved Rhys's staves that were inside," said Sothe. I moved to his side.

"Yeah! We could really use your help!" I said. Soren began walking towards the flaming tent.

"Just leave it to me," he said in an exasperated voice. I turned around to catch up with him. What was he planning on doing without any water? Sothe and I followed him to the ablaze medical tent. The flames that engulfed it crackled and popped. I couldn't even see the outline of the tent anymore; it was all a haze of red and orange. Soren slid an interesting tome out from underneath the side of his arm. I silently observed him as he barely parted his lips to mumble something I could hardly comprehend. He lifted his arm in the air like he was holding up something heavy and then brought it down forcefully. An icy breeze bit at my skin that was warm from the heat of the fire. Suddenly a frosty blanket of ice appeared and shielded the raging fire. As the ice came into contact with the fire it triggered a sizzling sound. In only a few seconds the flames had ceased to exist. The screen of smoke slowly dissipated into the atmosphere.

"THAT WAS SO COOL!" I shouted. Soren satisfyingly closed his tome and slid it underneath his arm. "What kind of tome is that?"

"A blizzard tome, it's very rare," the mage replied. I gaped my mouth and stared in disbelief. It was quite possibly the most impressive spell I had ever seen. It put out the fire like it was nothing.

"Amazing! Just amazing! Soren, we owe you one!" I said. He slowly shook his head and frowned.

"You don't owe me anything. However, you have some explaining to do to Rhys and any wounded soldier. The medical tent is just a pile of ash now," he replied. I uneasily bit my lip.

"I already told you, we gathered his staves! We did what we could," said Sothe aggravatingly.

"Well you can save the explaining for Rhys. If you'll excuse me…" he said as he carefully slid past us. Suddenly a feeling of guilt churned in my stomach. I prayed no one was seriously injured. But, the army would probably be marching further into Daien by the end of the day, so hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

"Well, I've really done it this time," I said. Sothe nodded his head in agreement.

"I always knew you were insane," he replied.