Pokota's Plight

Chapter Fourteen, Sleeping In

By Relm

When Amelia woke up she was quite cross to see that the sun was starting to rise. Pokota clearly didn't wake her for her watch. The rainclouds had cleared with just a few fluffy white clouds dotting the orange and red sky. It was quite pretty but did little to defuse Amelia's agitation. The whole idea of taking watches was to be safe during the night. So that one person didn't have to do all the guard duty and that everyone could get some sleep.

Not being woken up didn't surprise Amelia. In a way she had been expecting this. Pokota may have had personality traits similar to Lina but there was some that were completely his own. He was a very caring person and stubborn to boot. Being self sacrificing was something that went all the way down to Pokota's core. He felt bad about Amelia not sleeping the night before so he was just trying to make up for it and letting her sleep. Even though this was a nice gesture it was a stupid one. Besides ample nutrition Pokota needed sleep. For him to sacrifice sleep was dangerous to his health.

Amelia was about to give Pokota a verbal lashing until she noticed that the Tarforashian prince wasn't awake.

Pokota was sitting by the now extinguished fire sitting in the exact same spot and position he had been when Amelia had gone to sleep. The only difference was that Pokota's head was lowered and his eyes were closed.

Amelia's first thought was that Pokota wasn't asleep but actually dead. Given what they were going through this wasn't a strange thought. It would certainly explain why he didn't wake her for her watch.

Right away as that horrible idea of her friend being dead entered her brain Amelia rushed to Pokota's side. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and slight wheezing breaths confirmed for Amelia that Pokota was in fact just sleeping. More likely Pokota hadn't meant to fall asleep it just happened once he was standing watch.

Amelia felt a wash of relief when she realized he was still living but a new not so settling one crept in afterwards. 'Is this how it's going to be every time I find him sleep? Am I going to be worrying he's dead? Or am I just waiting to find him dead?' Amelia's thoughts were dark in those early hours of the morning. She shook her head trying to force them out but they held on. And how could they leave anyway? It was only a matter of time before something was going to give. Either Pokota was going to get better or he was going to die. It was a fact that Amelia desperately didn't want to face but it was the truth after all.

She didn't want to think these things; she didn't want to expect the worst. What Amelia wanted was to be positive, because things were going to be okay. She and Pokota were going to get to Siaraag, find some answers and fix this problem. Pokota was going to live a long happy life as the future King of Tarforashia.

Even as Amelia wanted to will that positive attitude into her it just wasn't sticking. It didn't matter that she wanted to be hopeful, the hope was fading fast. It made her feel sick to her stomach knowing what could happen. She knew she had to keep a positive outlook for her friend but how could she? How could she look him in the eye and smile and tell him everything is going to be okay when she herself wasn't even sure.

The only real constant ray of hope was Kopo, but the stuffed animal creature probably didn't have the brain capacity to really grasp things that were going on. Nether less Amelia found herself looking to the living doll for inspiration; a means to relight her positivity. Kopo was asleep at the base of the tree snuggled up in a pile of leaves. He looked peaceful and happy as if he didn't have a care in the world. Like there was really nothing to worry about. Looking at the sleeping doll happily snoring away didn't help matters for Amelia. She still felt the looming fear of losing a friend gripping her heart. And it didn't seem any amount of happy smiles was going to make that fear abate.

It really turned Amelia's stomach in knots thinking about what could end up happening. So much so that Amelia really didn't know if she could stomach eating anything for breakfast. But she knew that at the very least Pokota needed to eat so she went to prep a quick breakfast with the leftovers from the previous night. Starting off with rebuilding the dead fire.

...

It was very common to wake up to hearing a strange sound. The sense of hearing was probably one of man's most useful. Perhaps it went back to primal days back when early man slept in dangerous terrain. Their ears would wake them to potential danger lurking about. But your nose wasn't known to be an effective alarm clock. But when you had a stomach like Pokota it was more often that naught that it was the nose not the ears waking you up.

The smell was somewhat unfamiliar to Pokota but not in a bad way. Whatever it was it smelled delicious and he couldn't help but leave his trip in dreamland early. He was groggy as his opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that his neck hurt. Sleeping sitting up with his head hanging forward was probably to blame for that one. Otherwise the other pains of his body were relatively mild in comparison. However having your whole body ache at the same time wasn't too fun anyway. 'Gods I feel old.' Pokota thought to himself as he looked around. It was daylight and the morning looked fresh and new. The rain had cleared but the air was still a bit cool.

'I can see!' Pokota realized after a moment. It elated the prince that he almost clapped in glee.

Amelia was too preoccupied with breakfast to notice that her traveling companion was awake. Breakfast wasn't a complicated affair; Amelia was mostly just reheating what they didn't eat the previous night. However Amelia was trying to make it a tad different so as not to be boring by using berries, nuts and herbs to change the flavours. She was actually quite pleased with what she managed to come up with.

Pokota was ready to pounce on the food as his stomach was grumbling wildly until one thing dawned on him. He had been sleeping. The last thing he remembered was that he was standing watch. He had no memory of waking up Amelia for her watch and then going to sleep. That meant that either Pokota's memory was faulting or he had actually fallen asleep during his watch. Either way Pokota was unsettled with the outcome and was afraid to let Amelia know he was awake.

While Pokota was sorting through things in his head Amelia had finally caught on that the Tarforashian prince was awake. "Good morning Pokota." She greeted him with as much cheery optimism she could manage.

"Good morning..." Pokota replied sheepishly.

"Are you hungry? Because I just finished preparing breakfast."

"Yes..." Pokota mumbled. "Say Amelia..."

"Yes?"

"Did I... wake you for your watch?" He wondered. A part of Pokota hoped that Amelia would answer yes and he had just forgotten about it. Even though between accidently falling asleep and losing your memory, loss of memory was much worse that was the outcome Pokota was hoping for. If he had fallen asleep then that was just plain outright irresponsible. Someone could have come into their camp and attack them while they were sleeping. And after arguing with Amelia last night that he was still fit to stand watch was even worse. Because that meant he wasn't really trustworthy.

Instead of giving Pokota the answer he wanted Amelia shook her head. "No, I just happened to wake up on my own a couple hours ago."

This got Pokota mentally cursing. "I fell asleep." He stated in angry disbelief. "I can't believe I actually fell asleep!"

"It's okay Pokota. No one tried to attack us last night. So no harm no foul." Amelia tried to reassure him.

"It's not okay!" Pokota protested. "I should have stayed awake! I shouldn't have fallen asleep at all!" His voice was filled with anger and self loathing.

"Really Pokota it's fine. Mister Gourry falls asleep on his watches all the time. It can happen to anyone. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"How can I not be? We were attacked just yesterday! What if those bandits found us when I was supposed to be standing watch? We both could have ended up dead!"

"Well we didn't and there's no sense beating yourself up over things that didn't happen. I know normally you're a dependable person but these aren't normal circumstances Pokota. You're not well it's perfectly understandable that you were too tired to stay awake." Amelia pointed out rationally.

"And what are we going to do that next time we have to camp out? You can't stay up all night every night and I clearly can't be trusted to stay awake. And it's not like we can get Kopo to stand watch, he can't even talk! Not to mention here we are doing all this yelling and he's still asleep!" Pokota pointed to the sleeping doll who really was still slumbering. It didn't seem to matter how much noise Amelia and Pokota made, it failed to disturb the living doll.

"Hopefully we'll get to a town before it gets dark."

"But we're supposed to keep a low profile." Pokota protested.

"Well then we'll stay in a small village or town. I'm sure we'll end up at one at some point in our journey." Amelia tried to rationalize. It was really hard for her to put a positive spin on the situation with Pokota shooting everything down. It was harder still when she secretly agreed with him.

"What if we don't?"

"Then we could just fly to a town if it gets dark. Or are we going to have a repeat of yesterday's argument on flying?" Amelia raised an eyebrow at Pokota as she served him breakfast.

Pokota frowned. He thought back to his thoughts the previous night realizing that Amelia did have a valid point. "Well about that... I was actually doing some thinking about that fight last night... before I fell asleep of course. I may have been a bit stubborn with insisting that you shouldn't fly us to Siaraag. Do you really think you can manage it carrying me and Kopo and fly us all the way there?"

"Of course!" Amelia exclaimed with enthusiasm. "We're pretty much the same size and Kopo doesn't weigh much at all. I mean if it were someone like Mister Gourry then it might be an issue but I know I can do it!"

"At the very least you could fly us part of the way right?"

"Yes, yes of course!" Amelia almost giggled in excitement. "Alright then we can go after we finish breakfast!"

"What did you make? It looks and smells delicious." Pokota asked while examining his plate of food.

"I just used yesterday's leftovers and added a few things. You don't recognize it at all?"

"Well to be fair I couldn't see what I was eating yesterday." Pokota pointed out almost sarcastically before digging into his food.

"Oh that's right you're not blind anymore!" Amelia's eyes lit up when she realized this fact. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I feel like an old man." Pokota answered in between bites. "Or at least I think this is how an old man feels. Everything aches." Unconsciously Pokota rubbed the back his neck.

"You fell asleep while sitting. That's probably to blame for most of the aches." Amelia decided logically. "But how are you feeling otherwise? You're not suffering any blinding pain?"

Pokota shook his head. "I'll probably have an episode or two of them at some point today but right now I guess I'm okay."

"That's good. I guess I better wake Kopo or otherwise he'll sleep through breakfast."

"He would be upset if that happened." Pokota joked with a small smile.

Amelia returned that smile happy that even though things seemed bleak there was still some hope. However as she went to wake Kopo she was unconsciously rubbing her stomach again. The pains from last night seemed to have returned.