Part 2: From the Ashes
Chapter Five
"Wake up already! We're going to be late!"
Kain let out a low moan and turned over in his bed to look at Trice; his hair greasy and tangled up from not being washed. One of his eyes was closed; the other only half-open.
"Ugh, morning already?" Kain grumbled as he pulled the covers over his face. "Just five more minutes…" Kain yawned and rolled to the other side of the bed, away from Trice.
"Grr…. I'll give you five more minutes!" Trice reached down and flung the sheets from his bed. Trice's face immediately turned bright crimson; she didn't know Kain slept in the nude.
Trice just stood there staring at Kain, who hadn't realized what was going on yet.
Kain rolled over onto his back, giving Trice a perfect view of his… body.
"What is it?" Kain sleepily asked as he saw Trice staring at him. He looked at her with a confused look on his face, and then looked down at himself, following her eyes; suddenly it dawned on him.
"AAAGGH!" Kain sat up and tried to cover himself with his hands, but in his panic ended up falling off the bed and hitting his head hard on the stone floor. Trice whirled around and covered her eyes; her cheeks glowing red.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Trice was almost screaming, she had never been so embarrassed before in her life.
Kain tugged the sheets from Trice's hand and wrapped them around his waist. He rubbed the bump on his head from where he had fallen as he stood up.
"Why're you waking me up so god-damned early anyways?"
"Why? Today is the day of our exam! We leave for Jeuno in twenty minutes!" Trice still had her back to Kain; she was too embarrassed to face him. "So go shower up so you don't stink and then get out here already! And… and please put some clothes on!"
Trice quickly ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Kain stared blankly at the door for a few minutes, trying to piece together in his head what had happened. After a couple minutes, he lifted up his arm and sniffed his armpit.
"I don't stink THAT much…"
Kain rushed out onto the field; his hair still dripping wet from his shower. The open field at the front of the academy was mostly vacant now; all of the students gathered there before setting off on their missions, but only a few scattered groups were still left.
Trice and Garaku stood next to each other; Garaku screening over a map, Trice's arms folded as she tapped her foot impatiently on the grass. Trice's wyvern, Khocha, sat at her feet gnawing on some blades of grass; Garaku's wyvern, Nanaja, was hovering in the air, nipping at a butterfly fluttering around his head. Both of the wyverns were still quite young. Nanaja was the size of an average dog, all black save for the purple spots and streaks about his body. Khocha was smaller than Nanaja; his body light blue with speckles of a dark indigo; the underside of his wings, his belly, and the tip of his tail were all a light orange, however.
Kain ran up and stopped in front of them. "Heya guys, sorry I'm late!"
"Pfft," Trice glared at Kain, "took you long enough, didn't even bother drying your hair."
Kain grinned roguishly at Trice then shook his head from side to side, his hair flinging water everywhere.
"Eek!" Trice jumped back and landed on Khocha's tail. The small wyvern let out a loud yelp and flew up into the air for a few seconds. Garaku, however, stood there soaked. He hadn't realized until then that Kain had even arrived. He dried off the map he had been examining as best he could, then put it back into the envelope Freja had given him the day before.
"Well, the first step to getting to Jeuno is to go through the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah; it's not very far, about a day's walk. The only problems are the goblins, goobbues, and a few golems." Garaku explained.
"Heh, sounds like fun," Kain smirked, "so which way do we go first?"
Garaku pulled out a compass and checked it, rotating around to try and find the right direction. He looked up and pointed off into the forest. "That way, southwest!"
"Well, time's a wastin'! Let's get going!" Kain hurried off in the direction Garaku had pointed in. he walked at the front of the group, unofficially declaring himself the leader.
"'Time's a wastin'!' he says, he's the one who was late!" Trice grumbled to herself as she and Garaku tagged along behind Kain.
The forest around the academy was very thick and dense with foliage; it was not long before the forest was as dark as night. The three of them made their way through the thick brush; Khocha and Nanaja having to trot along the ground; there was no room to fly. Time passed very slowly for the adventurers, or at least it seemed to; the forest's canopy was far too thick to watch the position of the sun.
"Ugh, are we there yet?" Kain moaned as he slowly walked along, his enthusiasm replaced by boredom. He had fallen behind Trice and Garaku, too tired to worry about being leader.
"Just a little bit farther until we reach the edge of the forest," Garaku replied, "we can take a break once we arrive." Garaku's stomach let out a low gurgling noise. "We can have some food, too."
Trice held her tummy. Indeed, she was quite hungry and tired as well. She looked up at trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of the blue sky above. For a split second she saw a break in the trees; but the sky she saw was a deep orange. "Have we been walking all this time...?" she thought to herself.
Suddenly, Trice tripped over a large purple crystal sticking out of the ground. She fell forward and rolled down a short, steep hill; she ended up in a small patch of dirt and moss. She looked up to see Kain and Garaku make their way down the hill. Garaku reached down to take her hand, helping her up.
"What is this place?" Kain asked, looking around at his surroundings. Trice brushed the dirt from her doublet and glared over at Kain, who hadn't even offered to help her.
They were in a large, moss covered clearing in the forest; hollowed down into the earth, thus creating a kind of makeshift room. There weren't as many trees now, and the orange sky was clearly visible. There were purple gems prodding out of the ground every few feet, giving off a faint glow. Some gems as small as pebbles, some as giant as boulders.
"We've finally reached the Sanctuary!" Garaku exclaimed proudly.
"Whew! Finally!" Kain plopped down on the ground, relieved to finally get some rest. "Let's set up camp for the night!"
"Huh?" Garaku stared at Kain, confused. "Set up for the night? But it's only-" Garaku cut himself off as he looked up at the sky in surprise; it wasn't the bright blue sky he expected, but a dark pink, almost purple. "Jeez, no wonder I'm so hungry! All right, we'll camp here and continue in the morning."
Garaku and Trice dropped down their packs. Trice began rummaging through hers, looking for something. Kain was lying on the ground, using his hands as a pillow. Garaku was still standing, looking around at the nature surrounding them.
Kain sat up and looked around as well. One of the large purple crystals caught his eye.
"What's with the weird glowing rocks anyways?" Kain bluntly asked.
Trice just shrugged, still searching through her pack.
"I'm not exactly sure…" Garaku told Kain, "I assume they're some form of amethyst, from their color, but I've heard rumors that it's really mythril."
"Amethyst? Mythril?" Trice said as she stood up, pulling a box of wyvern treats from her pack. "Why haven't goldsmithers and miners cleaned the place out yet?" She tossed a small, bone-shaped cookie to Khocha.
"Well," Garaku answered, happy for all the attention, "I suppose all the goblins scare people off, and golems tend to be found near the crystals. They say golems are born from mythril, so some researchers have theorized that the crystals were put here manually in order to bring in golems."
"Why would someone want to summon golems to a remote place like this?" Trice inquired.
"Not sure, probably to protect something, since golems are so fierce."
"So, the golems are here to protect…the mythril? Not really much here to protect…"
"They're keeping people away from…something…the knowledge of what they are guarding was lost long ago."
Trice thought deeply as she stared into one of the crystals; she soon realized something was wrong.
"Hey, where'd the good-for-nothing go?" Trice suddenly noticed Kain was gone.
"Good-for-nothing? Pfft!" Kain walked out of the dense forest walls, his arms full of logs and branches. "You should talk! While you two were having a geography lesson, I was out collecting firewood."
Kain cleared away a small circle in the moss on the ground with his foot, and then dropped the lumber down in the small clearing. Kain unsheathed his sword, thrusting the blade down into the timber. Flames burst up around the blade and Kain's hand. Kain saw the fire hit his skin, but it didn't burn; it was a gentle, warm, soothing feeling, like the touch of a loved one. The kiss of the flames on his hand felt comforting, however, he soon recoiled his hand out of the fire; leaving the sword in the ground. He hoped neither Trice nor Garaku had noticed; most people don't just leave their hands in the middle of a campfire.
"Well, looks like you're good for something after all, Kain." Trice said as she sat down in the warm glow of the fire.
Garaku pulled three sticks of meat mithkabobs from his pack and handed one to each of his friends.
"This is all we have to eat?" a lousy shish kabob?" Kain objected as he held the small stick with chunks of various meats skewered on it.
"They're light and easy to carry. Don't worry though; there will be plenty of food once we reach Jeuno." Garaku said.
"Hmmm…" Kain stuck his mithkabobs into the flames, "Jeuno, eh? When will we reach there?"
"It's still about another day's walk…" Garaku said as he rummaged through his pack in search of a map. He pretended not to hear Kain's groan. "This is where we are now." Garaku pointed to the northeastern tip of s map printed on rather old parchment, to the square labeled "H-7." Kain and Trice huddled around him to see where to head next. "We just go along here until we reach the edge of the sanctuary and the end of the forest." Garaku said as he traced a trail along the map with his index finger. "This will stick us in a small canyon which leads to the Meriphataud Mountains. It's basically a large desert area with lots of, well, nothing really but weeds and rocks." Garaku grabbed the map of the mountain area. "The sanctuary lets out here," he pointed to the northeastern edge of the map, "all we do is head west; there's an old outpost here," he pointed to a red dot on the map, "so we can take a break there for food. Once we leave the outpost, we'll head northwest into the Sauromugue Campaign, a wasteland covered in old ruins. I highly doubt we'll make it to Jeuno in one day, so we'll find a nice old ruin to camp out in for tomorrow night. Once it's morning, all we need to do is continue northwest, and we'll reach the Harbor Bridge that leads to Jeuno in a matter of hours."
Kain stared at Garaku with a blank look on his face.
"Ugh, just follow me and we'll reach Jeuno day after tomorrow."
"Great!" Kain exclaimed as he pulled his mithkabob from the fire and took a big bite from one of the chunks of meat. "Sho," Kain tried to talk with his mouth stuffed with food, "vat do ve do onth we weach dis Jwuno pwace?" Kain gave up and swallowed his food.
"Well, it depends on how fast we get there." Garaku explained to him, trying not to watch Kain sloppily eat with his mouth open. "If we get there early enough, we'll have time to walk around and check out the shops, Jeuno is a huge trade city. If we're slow and arrive late, we'll need to report directly to Crawd."
"Crawd?" Trice asked, Kain had stopped paying attention now that he had warm food to devour.
"Crawd, AKA The Shadow Stryker, is a direct descendant of Erpalacion himself; he's the most skilled dragoon on the planet, and is the main commander of the dragoon corpse." Garaku finally stuck his mithkabob into the flames. "The envelope said he was the one to give us our briefing."
There was a long period of silence between the three adventurers, each lost in their own thoughts about the journey ahead. Trice sat there, nibbling on her mithkabob while she gazed into the dancing flames. Garaku had propped his mithkabob between two rocks so he could sit back and read through some books and maps while it cooked. Kain leaned back, picking his teeth with the vacant stick as he gazed up into the stars, a faraway look in his eyes.
"H…hey Kain?" Trice looked from the fire up at Kain.
"Hmm?" Kain turned his face away from the sky to look at Trice.
"Well…how are you able to do, well, everything you do? You're a dragoon, but use a sword instead of a lance…and you don't have a wyvern…" Trice placed her hands on Khocha's head, gently petting him. "You could shoot flames from your weapon better than the instructors on the first try. You can even shoot fire from your hand, no dragoon has been able to do that before…"
Kain looked back up at the stars, as if searching for the answer in them. He thought long and hard before breaking the silence.
"Well…when I was little, I lived with my father in the Tavnazian Safehold. Well, we didn't actually live in the safehold, just outside of it, in a small cottage in Lufaise Meadows. You all know how successful my parents were as dragoons, so my father taught me everything he knew. Polearms and lances were always too big and awkward for me, since he taught me at such a young age, so I quickly took a liking to swords." Kain closed his eyes as he spoke, lost in memories. "I soon developed the ability to jump like a dragoon, but without farming a pact with a wyvern. My father was a very wise, very kind man; he told me I was born with a pact, I simply hadn't found my wyvern yet. He taught me how to fight, and I developed the ability to project flames from a blade on my own. However…" Kain opened his eyes, gazing once more into the stars, searching for answers. His eyes were deep, swimming in thought as he studied the stars, asking them to help him, "I'm afraid I don't know why or how I am able to make fire with my hands. It has only happened a few times, when I feel enraged or full of anger."
There was a long silence for the rest of the night. Trice and Garaku both finished their mithkabobs and went to sleep, but Kain lied in that same spot for what seemed like an eternity; looking to the stars as countless thoughts flew through his mind before sleep finally caught a hold on him.