Hey guys, so so sorry for not updating for three weeks! My exams just passed, and my family and I were on vacation for two weeks. I just got home yesterday. Anyway, enough of my babbling, on with the story!
Chapter 7, The Wall
Finn and his spirit animal, Donn, had a very peculiar way of waking people up by clawing off their tents and sleeping bags. Meilin decided after she was woken up by Finn, or rather, Donn, in the morning.
"What in the name of the Great Beasts?!" Rollan exclaimed in exasperation after he crawled crossly out of his tent.
Meilin rolled her eyes. "Finn, try some other methods of waking us up next time," she said, too tired to reason kindly with Finn.
Finn gave a ghost of a smile. "Well, you'd have to wake up on time," he said cheekily.
Suddenly, Briggan charged out of Conor's collapsed tent, barking madly. At the sound of his spirit animal's bark, Conor's eyes, which were drooping with exhaustion, regained his usual spark of interest less than a second later.
Meilin shot a worried look at the Euran boy. "Conor, perhaps you would like to check out the source of all this noise?" she said curtly while vaguely indicating at Briggan with her eyes. She disliked loud noise.
Conor's eyes widened at Meilin's tone. It was so unlike her to use that curt tone with her friends, that tone belonged to the old Meilin, the Meilin without Jhi.
It wasn't that Meilin disliked Conor, but suddenly being woken up always triggered her emotions, making her kind of cranky. Nonetheless, Conor's reaction struck guilt into Meilin's heart, and she quickly responded using a gentler tone. "Please, Briggan's barks are hurting my ears, I'll stay here and help Finn with packing our stuff."
Just then, Abeke returned from hunting with Uraza and overheard their conversation. "I'll come too," she said warmly to Conor. "It will be nice to have an extra set of hands." And with that, the two started down the steep slope toward Briggan. Meilin hurried up with packing and soon, they followed Abeke's and Conor's backs and started their descent down the hill with their spirit animals in tow.
With years of practice with hiking, Meilin arrived at the bottom of the hill at the same time as Conor and Abeke. Her skilled eyes scanned the clearing, roving around every tree and jasmine cluster. But her careful steps halted in confusement as she prepared a battle stance.
It wasn't that there was something dangerous out in the clearing, the reason she prepared a stance is exactly because there was nothing out in the clearing.
Frowning, Conor went to Briggan's side and tried to comfort him, but Briggan only let out an agitated whine and pawed on the ground.
Suddenly, Meilin thought she saw Rollan crouch on the ground and she loosened the tension in her muscles. The unsettled feeling in her head transformed into one of curiosity as he picked up a gold thing from the ground. Surprisingly, Briggan's whines subsided into excited yips as he padded over to Rollan's side and sniffed the pin eagerly, then giving a loud bark that made everyone jump at least three feet into the air, and Meilin thought she could still hear that bark reverberating in her ears for five minutes afterwards.
Conor let out an awkward laugh. "Well, it seems like we finally found what Brig was barking at," he said to no one in particular.
Meilin glanced once at Conor before turning her head back, focusing on the mystery object.
It was a golden pin with the letter "S" carved on it.
Rollan and Conor both gave an audible gasp as recognition flashed before their eyes. Then they gawked at each other with disbelieving looks on their faces.
If this atmosphere here wasn't so serious, Meilin would have laughed at this memorable scene.
"You first," they both said at the same time, recovering from the shock earlier.
"Fine," Conor gave in and agreed.
"Days ago, I started having this weird dream. It starts with me in a cave, then I see this plate of gold, but as soon as I touch that thing, I get transported to somewhere else and the next thing I know, I'm hanging off a cliff in Arctica," he explained calmly.
Weird to hear something this dangerous coming from such a calm voice, Meilin thought momentarily, before her attention was sucked once again into Conor's explanation.
"Anyways, I see a man towering over me, I plead for help, but he takes out his dagger and stabs my hand with it," he said with the same calm demeanor, eyes scanning his friends, before continuing plaintively. "Then I wake up. I didn't get a chance to study the thing in my dream closer, but the size feels similar." He glanced uneasily at Rollan, "Your turn."
"Well, it's just that when we were at the marketplace a few days ago, Essix showed me this image of a girl. She has raven-black hair, wears a black cloak, and pinned on top of that cloak is this pin."
"Are you sure it's the same one?" Meilin wondered out loud.
"I'm not sure, it might be a copy, lets keep it for now," he replied while handing the pin to Finn, who was silent the entire time.
Meilin's head was full of questions circling around and around in her brain. She was tired from her unpleasant morning and there were a lot of things nagging at her brain. She hated that feeling.
She jogged to keep up with Rollan's quick pace, wanting some company to talk to.
"What do you think is going on?" she asked worriedly once she had caught up with him.
"I don't know," he admitted. "How far ahead is the wall?"
Meilin craned her neck to look over the sheer cliffs down at the villages below and recognized the village meeting hall. "About two hours from now," she replied.
The group started the slow descent down the mountain and Meilin drifted into her own thoughts with the sound of birds chirping sweetly in the background. She admired the beauty of her country and breathed in the crisp autumn air, mingled with the slight sweetness of maples harvesting. The scent made her mouth water. It was very relaxing. Meilin found herself wishing to have a vacation here after all this mess, but Rollan's word were true, in a way, trouble does keep following them.
(Rollan said this in chapter 2)
Lost in her thoughts, Meilin didn't notice the stray branch hanging in her way and it tore a horrifyingly long tear in her green cloak. She gasped in horror, holding the tattered remains of her cloak. The other three kids gaped at her, until Abeke broke the silence with a timid voice, "Meilin, perhaps you would like to change into your spare cloak?"
Meilin looked at the Niloan girl in a daze before she quickly collected herself. "O…oh right, yes," she stuttered.
She felt herself turning red. How could I lose control like this?! she thought, and for a brief second she thought she was going insane before common sense kicked in and she quickly shook her head to clear those thoughts. Meilin started to fold her cloak but let out a painful cry as her finger pricked on something tucked under a fold in her cloak and blood blossomed out of the cut, staining her cloak red.
Rollan rushed to her side and busied himself with cleaning her wound while Meilin took out the sharp thing from one of the folds in her cloak and held it gingerly between her fingers.
It was, Meilin discovered, a scale, an emerald scale that glowed in the shadows that the maples cast over them. It probably came from a large breed of lizard, judging from its size.
"Hmm… suspicious," Rollan mused.
"No, I don't think it's suspicious actually, there's a breed of lizard that lives here, I think the scale came off in its shedding season," Meilin explained, running her hand over the smooth surface.
Finn walked ahead in a hurried pace, glancing agitatedly at his pupils from time to time to make sure they were following him. "Meilin might be true, but at this time, everything that happens unsettles me. We'd best move on, I want to see the wall as fast as possible."
So… what do you think is going to happen next? Comment below! Again I'm so sorry for not updating for so long. Did you guys realize that my writing format is different from before? Comment if you noticed!