Chapter 21: Bullies

…

~~Day 2. I guess.

~~Meilont gave me this journal last night. I suppose she was just trying to help cheer me up. But I really don't know if I can. I've lost practically everything. The Island Sonata's been destroyed. And I've made shore on the surface world. All hope of seeing anything remotely resembling home is gone. And my crew—I don't know if they're alive or not. Talein said that my ship was the only one to fall out of the sky the evening before last. I suppose that can be some comfort; it means that somewhere up there, the crew and passenger of the Horizon's Eye may still be alive. Although what has become of them—I'm not sure if I want to think about it.

~~At the same time, I feel guilty. Now that I've had time to reflect on things, I can't help noticing all the signs that I missed. That dream—I remember Irleen telling me that whatever magic she used to impress my experiences with my crew onto Captain Koroul may have caused that, although I had the dream just the day before. I've spent some of my waking hours struggling to remember anymore dreams that I might've had, but they keep eluding me. It makes me wish I had the knowledge behind the magic. But worse, I wish I had her. And that's just another part of my guilt: the fact that I survived and was found, but she seems to have disappeared without a trace. I can't remember anything before we impacted the ground—I must have hit my head. I want to believe she survived, too, but where could she be?

~~I suppose I'm cond—no, "condemned" is the wrong word. I've been trying to shake the idea of the surface world as a prison. But just repeating the idea of this becoming my permanent home doesn't make it any easier to accept. I've never been long without the feel of a rocking airship beneath me. Now I'll never have it again. I just don't know what to do.

…

After dining on the breakfast Meilont had left on the table for him, Link stepped out of the house to look at the village. The sky above was dulled grey by the constant haze which he had once looked out over the edge of a ship like a sailor dreaming of adventure on the sea. The sun only had half of its power here, and some of the life about the village reflected what must have been the appearance of past generations. The half-brown grass at his feet had grown stunted. Trees on the edge of the village sported dead branches mixed with poor bunches of greenery closer to the top. Bushes here and there had a sickly coloration to them, and some even appeared to have died in the weak shadows of the trees. Having been so miserable the day before, Link had neglected to realize that Whittleton looked about as depressed as he was.

However, as he stood on the doorstep to Talein's house wearing the same clothes as yesterday, he found himself greeted by smiles from the village women and solemn nods of acknowledgement from the men. The size of the men came as a surprise to him; like Talein, they wore massive muscles under their clothes and thick beards on their faces. The women were not so large and wore full-length dresses of earthen shades with the occasional stripe of vibrant color. The children who ran about seemingly without care or conscience simply ignored him, shouting at each other, sharing a world which Link could not begin to piece together. All in all, while Whittleton appeared to be quite desolate and sickly, its people showed a powerful resolve to be happy.

Link had on a closed, brown shirt one size too large for him, but he was thankful that he did not have to explore with his bandages exposed. He also wore a clean pair of cloth trousers which fit more to his skinny frame. He had yet to receive shoes, so he traversed the exposed dirt paths before the house in his bare feet. The ground felt dry and eerily cool to the touch, as if to reveal its part in the growth of the grass around the village. Still, he continued forward, his movements stiff from the pain he felt about his abdomen.

His eyes wandered about the massive tree trunks that the villagers called homes. Although they looked nothing alike, the concept of using trees themselves as houses reminded him of the Sorians. The style in which they lived seemed so close to nature yet in completely different ways. It made his life on airships feel contrived, immoral, with how much wood had to be corrupted in order to fly. Maybe he could learn something from them.

A cool breeze tousled his hair, and he turned in that direction to feel the full force on his face. It had not lasted long, but it felt good. The first breeze he had felt since waking.

"Geddem! Geddem!"

"Take a bite outta this, Bulblin swine!"

"Come on, guys! Knock it off!"

"Watch it! Watch it!"

"He's gowin' behin' the twees, he's gowin' behin' the twees!"

The ruckus zipped past Link in a blur, and a stray hand had shoved into his side, leaving him cradling his injury for a moment. He watched a small group of children, all younger than him by at least four years, chase a single child towards a small cluster of leafless trees some distance behind Talein's house. The children in the group wielded sticks, although one appeared to be toting a wooden sword against his fleeing peer. Their commotion appeared to attract a mild curiosity from the nearby older residents of Whittleton, but Link could not help feeling a measure of concern for the child being ganged up on. Taking in a breath to help calm the pain (which actually seemed to make it worse), he started across the grass towards them.

"Stop it! Help!"

"C'mon, Dissal, don' be such a wimp!"

"Wet us hit yeh!"

Link quickened his pace as best he could until he was close enough to see what was happening. The child being chased, a spindly boy wearing an oversized tunic of faded green and brown slacks, had climbed into one of the trees and clung to one of the higher branches out of the others' reach. Among the group were a plump boy swinging the wooden sword seemingly more at the peril of his comrades than his target, a tall boy wearing a bucket on his head and (predictably) unable to acknowledge that the object he whipped with a long stick was actually the tree their prey had climbed, a boy with long hair mounted on the shoulders of another boy whose balance was made worse by the flailing of his dual-stick-wielding rider, and a little girl whose shin-kicking was easily ignored because of poor aim.

"Get down hewe!"

"No!"

"Down? Whaddya mean 'down'?"

"Take the bucket off, stupid!"

"I said stop it!"

"What are you doing?"

Link's question only seemed to reach the plump kid with the sword. Turning to see who addressed them, his sword arm swung down and clobbered the bucket-wearing kid. With a heavy, disorienting pang, the kid stumbled backwards and collided with the plump swordsboy. The branch he was armed with flailed into the ribs of the bottom kid of the totem boys. The top boy reeled as the bottom boy lost his balance, and one stick smacked the bucket boy's armored head. Responding with no sense of where the blow came from, the bucket boy swung his weapon into the bare calf of the plump kid. This coincided with a shin strike finally landed by the girl, and the plump boy landed on the ground. The top of the totem boys realized that his steed was heading for the downed plump boy and tried to lean away. The bottom boy threw him off just as he fell, leaving him to trip over the plump boy while the top boy took down the bucket boy with him.

"What are you doing?"

"Retreat!"

The boys stood up and scattered into different directions, the bucket boy tripping over a stump before finally removing his improvised helmet. Link looked around in confusion, wondering how exactly they had managed to defeat themselves.

He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down. He was greeted by the girl, her large, green eyes sending a shiver of discomfort up Link's spine. "Y-yeah?" he asked.

"Thank you," she replied, giving him a wide grin.

"Uh… yeah…" Link said, scratching the back of his head. "I-I didn't really do anything…"

"I ain' in much a position t' complain," the boy in the tree called down to him. "Whatever gets 'em away."

Link looked up and shrugged, stepping so that he was under the boy. "I suppose. You might want to come down."

"No, I definitely wanna come down," the boy corrected him as his wobbly limbs slowly took him towards the tree trunk. "I think this branch's abou' t—"

The branch under him, at first appearing thick enough to sustain the boy's meager weight, gave way with a crack. Link ducked out of the way as the branch swung from the few splinters still holding it to the tree. These detached, and the branch hit the ground just before Link. The boy's legs fell with it, and, just as he was recovering, Link flung his arms out at the sight of the boy falling at him. Link caught him, but the sudden press of even the scrawny boy's mass sent a great deal of pain through Link's back, causing both of them to fall to the ground.

"Dissal!" the girl cried, helping the boy back to his feet. "Are yeh a'right?"

The boy, Dissal, nodded. "I'm okay."

Link let out a hiss of pain that wanted desperately to take the form of words he had heard from many an airman having a bad day. But, somehow, his meek upbringing prevented him from forming the words, so he gnashed his teeth together as he crawled over to the same stump the bucket boy had tripped over.

"Wha' about yeh?" the girl asked as they wandered up to Link.

Link gave a pained nod as he turned to sit. "I'll be all right."

"I think I saw yeh b'fore," Dissal remarked. "Yer tha' boy wha' came out Talein's house t' up-chuck, aren' yeh?"

Link nodded. "Yeah, that was me."

"Yeh feelin' any better now?"

At that, Link sighed. "I don't know."

"Well, yeh mus' be doin' a'right if yer tryin' t' catch me." Dissal held out a hand. "I'm Dissal." He gave the girl a side nod. "Tha's me sister Lura."

"I'm Link," was the older boy's response as he shook Dissal's hand. When he released, he asked, "Why were those other boys chasing you? Did you do something wrong?"

Dissal shook his head. "No, nothin' like tha'. I's… well, i's sorta this game we play."

"Tha' they play," Lura corrected him. "Yer jus' the target."

Dissal gave an irritated groan. "Yeah, suppose she's right. I don' really like playin' b'cause I'm always the Bulblin."

"Bulblin?" Link asked, vaguely remembering Talein using the word the previous day.

"They're the creatures wha' live south here," Dissal replied, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Mean mess. They don' much like people, an' they're always attackin' trains an' anythin' wha' tries to cross the plains. Me dad says i's b'cause they like to steal more than try t' live on their own."

"Have they been a problem for Whittleton?"

Dissal shrugged. "Abou' since I was born. They don' attack the town if tha's wha' yer worried fer. Jus' travelers."

Link frowned deeper. "I still don't get the game, though."

"The adults're all 'fraid tha' the Bulblins might attack the town. Been talkin' it fer days now. Bu' we ain' concerned; i's jus' a game. They're the lumberjacks, and I'm the Bulblin."

"That doesn't sound very fair."

"Don' yeh ever play games like tha'?" Lura asked.

"Well… no, not really," Link admitted. "I was always busy with duties, and there weren't a lot of people my age to play with."

"Dyoo-tees?" Lura slurred.

"Wha', yeh mean a job or somethin'?" Dissal asked.

Link squeezed the back of his neck. "Yeah, kind of."

Both children frowned. "Well tha' doesn' sound fun a' all," Dissal remarked.

"No, I guess not," Link said as his eyes wandered back over to the tree. From where he sat, he could clearly see the broken branch on the ground. Confused by the coloring, he stood up and walked over to the branch. The bark looked normal enough, but Link saw that the inside was hollow and black. When he prodded it with his foot, he found that the bark barely managed to hold its shape, so he could understand how it had collapsed from Dissal's weight. "What is this?" he asked as Dissal and Lura stepped up beside him.

"I's dead," Dissal said, pointing. Link followed the direction of his finger to the tree's trunk. There, a small splash of almost white stained the otherwise dark bark. "The lumberjacks stain the dead trees so they know not t' cuddem down."

Link glanced up at the rest of the fallen branch and saw the same, hollow blackness where the branch used to be. "What's causing that?"

"Bugs," Lura answered in a disgusted tone.

"The bugs crawl up through the bottom o' the tree an' star' eatin' the wood," Dissal added. "When they finish, they go."

"Dad says tha' they didn' used t' do tha'," Lura continued. "Bu' since the trees're dead, i' doesn' matter."

Link gave the tree a glare of suspect before turning to look at Dissal. "You mean this tree was dead before it was eaten?" he asked.

"No' jus' this one," Dissal corrected. "A bunch o' trees're like tha'."

"They make it hard for ma dad ta support us." Link started and spun to find Meilont, wearing a green dress similar to that of the previous day, standing behind him. She smiled at him. "Good ta see yeh up, Link."

Link swallowed hard. "Y-yeah, thanks," he replied.

She nodded, and the smile disappeared from her face as she glanced up at the tree. "'Where one falls, two rise'. Tha's what the lumberjacks remember when they cut a tree down. Sadly, it's no' what happens these days."

"How come?"

She pointed at the sky, and Link followed her gaze to the haze far above. "Yeh see, trees need three things ta grow," she explained. "Water, soil, an' light. But it's been years since we've seen the sun. Dad has ta travel about the realm lookin' fer places ta harvest trees. Soon, though, there won' be any trees left. No' live ones, anyway."

All four stared at the sky for a while. Link was not sure what the others thought, but he could feel a wave of depression hit him. The haze that had always obstructed his view of the surface world appeared to be the bane of this world, at least for the lumberjacks of Whittleton. He felt troubled by the news that his new home slowly died.

Meilont released an audible sigh. "Well, I bes' be off ta practice now," she said, emphasizing her need with a shake of the large quiver she held over one shoulder.

Link gave her a confused look. "Practice?"

…

Thunk!

A shaft of wood protruded from a white, monster-shaped target a good distance across an open range. Meilont readied her next arrow, aimed a long bow almost the same height as her a little higher, and released. With a similar sound, the arrow embedded itself directly between the poorly-drawn eyes of her target. Link awed at the sight, never having seen such a demonstration before.

Dissal and Lura, standing behind her with Link, clapped. "Nice shot, Meilont!" Dissal cheered, much to the irritation of the other young women on the range. Lura elbowed him and indicated the glares they received.

"What's this for?" Link asked.

"Fer protection," Meilont replied as she readied another arrow. "We don' have much problem with the Bulblins, bu' i's bes' ta be safe."

"Is there really that much concern about them?"

Meilont loosed her arrow, but Link's question proved enough of a distraction that the arrow did not hit her target. Instead, it landed in one nostril of the overly-ornate nose of the target next to hers. She aimed a cross glare over her shoulder. "I like archery, too."

Link swallowed hard and took a step back. "S-sorry."

"Maybe yeh should go home, Link," she said, turning back to the range as she readied another arrow. "Make sure yeh don' work yerself too hard."

Link nodded, taking the silent hint not to distract her anymore lest one of those arrows should find real flesh next. He turned and walked away with Dissal and Lura in tow. His eyes scanned across the local grounds, which appeared to be some kind of training place. They were situated quite some distance from Talein's house, close to the edge of the surrounding forest. There appeared to be three separate groups: the archery range, used mostly by women; some kind of practice range, used by some of the smaller men wielding different kinds of wooden weapons against dummies; and a sparring ground, where a bunch of boys appeared to be beating the snot out of each other using weapons similar to those used by the men. Although that last one might just be kids at play, Link rationalized after recalling the scene earlier of Dissal being chased up a tree.

Dissal hid behind the taller Link. Link barely caught this out of the corner of his eye, and he knew why Dissal did this. Among those sparring was the same group that attempted to use Dissal as a practice dummy that morning. They appeared to have formed a camp and horded the weapons of the defeated. Link, Dissal, and Lura watched as they ganged up on two people and pummeled them, swiping their weapons before they left the boys crying in the dying grass.

"What are they doing?" Link asked.

"Bein' bullies," Lura replied with a pout.

Link sighed in response. Living among airmen for most of his life, he knew what it meant to be bullied. He never found the prospect of being a bully too exciting, so he often wondered how to deter a person from behaving like one. On an airship, either a skipper or the Chief Airman of the Deck, along with any of the specialist chiefs, had the authority to tell someone to quit it. Part of Link's problem here, though, was that Whittleton was not an airship. It meant that his status as a lieutenant of a Skyrider vessel held the same meaning as pile of excrement, if not lower.

But, clearly, Link was older and, in a manner, more experienced. That should be a kind of authority they should respect. Believing this to be a good cause, Link took in a deep breath and straightened himself to full height. When he strode, it was with the air of someone about to hand out an order by nailing it to a person's forehead using his bare hand as a hammer: calm and strong.

The gang saw Link approaching. Their faces formed looks of confusion, wondering why this blond kid from earlier was walking towards them with such a stupid gait. Wonder gave way to annoyance very quick, and each one tightened his grip on his wooden sword in anticipation of smacking the hell out of this kid, too, even if he was not armed. Link drew to a stop in an attentive posture, arms at his sides.

"Give them back their weapons." It was a direct order, no room for interpretation unless one wanted his sword shoved in a personally important space. At least, that was the impression Link wanted to give them, making sure the message was received and followed without question.

The three other boys turned to look at the plump boy standing on the pile of stolen goods. The plump boy's head recoiled like someone wrongfully accused of farting in a room. He gave Link an imitation of his stone-cold serious face.

"No."

Link glanced around at the other boys before replying, "I said give the other boys their weapons back."

"I heawd yeh," the plump boy said. "And I towd yeh 'no'."

"This is not a discussion."

The plump boy stepped off the pile, brandishing the wooden sword in his hand. "Who do yeh think yeh awe?" he asked. "Yeh don' scawe me. I'w do what I want. What awe yeh gowin' t' do? Tew meh pawents?"

Link saw one boy, the tall, lanky one who now wore a different bucket on his head, slide off to his right. "Maybe I should," he suggested.

The plump boy sneered. "I dawe yeh."

Without warning, Link felt the blade of the lanky boy's sword slap into his back. His lower back, right about where his bandages began. Pain engulfed Link's senses, and he fell to the ground screaming loud and hard. The boys backed off in horror, surprised by how fragile this tough-looking teenager had really been. They wondered if they might have broken something.

"Wha're yeh li'l motheh-cryin', spi'-swallowin', sacks o' cow puss doin' t' me patient?" came an angry adult's cry across the practice grounds. Link could not be sure who it was. His eyes squinted shut and his voice the loudest thing for what felt like miles, the masculine voice seemed too far out of his mind for him to fully comprehend.

"I's Beld!"

"Run?"

"Wun!"

The boys scattered again, dropping their swords where they stood moments before. Link could not see where they went. In the next moment, he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders.

…

"Ah neveh 'eard o' such a stupid idea," Beld barked from the side of Link's bed. "Goin' t' pick on a bunch o' bullies jus' b'cause yeh think theh respec' someone oldeh. Wha' are yeh on aboot, playin' the 'ero?"

Link gave the sheet covering his legs a downcast stare. "I'm sorry, Doctor."

"Yeah, ah'll be' yeh are now," he huffed. "Le' tha' wel' on yer back r'mind yeh o' wha' kind o' shape yer in, boe. Now ah'll 'spec' yeh t' stay inside the nex' day an' le' tha' 'eal. B'cause nex' time yeh go do somethin' so stupid, ah'll be chainin' yeh t' tha' bed."

Link swallowed. "Y-yes, Doctor."

Doctor Beld sighed as he stood up. "Ah don' know wha' i' is, bu' ah feel like ah jus' gave a soldieh an ordeh." As he past Meilont standing in the doorway, he told her, "Make sure 'e stays."

"Sure," she replied. "Thanks."

Then she turned to Link as he settled under the bed sheets. "Wha' happened, Link?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he answered.

"Tha's too bad." She crossed the room and took a seat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. "Because I wanna."

"It was stupid."

She nodded her understanding. "Tha' explains why yer back in bed."

He continued to stare at the ceiling, a little brighter from the somewhat stronger afternoon sun bouncing off the quilt. "They were bullies."

"An' yeh thought yeh could stop them?" Meilont replied with an undertone of humor in her voice.

"Yeah, I guess." He took in a deep breath, sighed it out, and took in another for a moment. "I… don't like bullies."

"Well, nobody likes a bully, Link. But from wha' I saw, yeh came across as one yerself."

Link took a moment of thought before responding. "I guess I hadn't thought of it like that."

She smiled knowingly at him, as if to say, "now you do". "Well, wha'ever yeh meant, it didn' come across right, did it? I think we can safely say tha' yer bad at bein' a bully, Link."

Link chuckled, causing a surge of pain in his abdomen. He paused until the pain subsided. "I wish I knew that sooner."

"Probably bes' yeh learned it at all," she giggled. "At leas' yeh won' do it again."

"Not for a day, at least."

Meilont stood up. "I'll be makin' dinner soon. Do yeh wan' me ta bring it up fer yeh?"

Link shook his head. "No, I'll come down. Just… I'll rest a bit." He grinned at her. "Promise you won't tell the doctor?"

She gave him a helpless smile. "Fer a sad face like tha', I don' think I have much choice."

Link settled his head against the pillow after she left. Being back in his borrowed room gave him a lot of free time to think. Of course, foremost on his mind was his incident with that group of boys. He wished now that he had given his idea of flaunting authority they did not care about a little more. Meilont had been right; there was no other way for him to objectively perceive the flow of the confrontation without the realization that his own actions had been just as defining as a bully as their own, pigheaded attitude towards those beaten kids. It had been childish and petty. Most of all, it had not worked out too well. And now, he was just a little fool.

After he berated himself for what felt like an hour, his tired thoughts turned towards the sight of Whittleton. A village made up of lumberjacks, and yet their stock was either dead or dying. It seemed horrible at first, but when he reflected on how poor that particular tree had looked when Dissal had broken the branch, his assessment jumped up to horrific. The inside of that tree reminded Link of the Undying Storm: dark, and full of danger. He recalled part of his discussion of Meilont the previous morning. She had told him that Talein would travel about looking for other area where plants were dying. He could not help coming to the conclusion that the whole surface world might be dying. The cause seemed obvious; if Meilont had been right, then that haze that he always looked down on had taken the role of killing the trees and endangering the people of Whittleton. It was reasonable enough, but there remained a question.

Where was the haze coming from?

…

~~Just finished dinner with Meilont and Talein. She didn't tell him about what happened earlier, and I find that I'm grateful for it. I think I've had enough people tell me how stupid I've been for today.

~~I'm sitting in my bed now, writing using what light I have left from the setting sun. It feels so strange not being able to feel the full warmth of the sun on my face. The haze I've come to know from looking beneath my feet now feels like it's made a permanent home high over my head. Was I really so d—stupid to not realize what kind of problems it would make for those who still lived down here? Are w—Are we really that ignorant?

~~I've toyed with the idea of setting out and discovering what makes that haze. But I think part of me would rather stay in Whittleton. With her.