K'ger: Ok, just a couple of quick notes here:
#1. In this chapter, the section of Italics is a flashback.
#2. I've had an idea I want to test out, where I make a playlist for a chapter that you can use as a guide to listen to as you read. Obviously none of you have to do it, its up to you, but for me, music really effects me when I read, so this is just kinda something I'll try, so you can get a feel for the chapter like I do, since I listen to music when I write.
Dare Mo Inai Ryouriten (The Empty Restaurant) From Spirited Away.
Eto (Land of The Impure) From Princess Mononoke.
Tabidachi Nishi E (Journey to The West) Another From Princess Mononoke.
The Great Kan
Smoke. The thin, acrid scent wafted into Benji's nose, waking him from a clinging, uncomfortable sleep. He sat up groggily, and his breath hitched when he started to yawn. His lungs felt like they were on fire, like there were a thousand tiny knives ripping at his insides. He clutched a hand over his chest and tried to smooth out his breathing, tried to breath without the pain. It was useless. They pain clung to his chest like a persistent cough.
Moments later, a thought hit him, and his head jerked around in confusion. He was alive. The last thing he remembered was the sensation of harsh, salty water filling his lungs and lulling him into unconsciousness.
After his eyes adjusted to the borderline blinding sunlight, he looked around. He was sitting on a wood plank surface, with low walls made of the same material about three feet in either direction. And then he realized what he was on. He was on a boat.
Deep, Prussian blue water sloshed at either side of the small, narrow boat, occasionally hitting it with enough force to spill over the side, and come close to soaking him completely. Toward the east, faintly in the distance, he could see a glimmer of yellow and green, what he presumed to be the shoreline. It was at least ten miles away.
Not long after realizing that he was on a boat, his stomach seemed to take that as a queue to become upset. His empty stomach slowly began to ache as he sat there, dumbfounded and unsure of what to do. And as the boat continued more toward the west, toward the endless ocean on the horizon, it slowly worsened until he felt like he was going to throw up.
He had never been one for boat travel.
The nauseous ache quickly became too much, and he it was all he could do to scrabble shakily, hands and knees to the wall, leaning, prostrate over the edge. Nothing came up, and after a few seconds, dry heaves wracked his body, making his body shudder as pitiful moans escaped his throat.
It took him several minutes more for the dry heaves to subside, and as he moaned over the low edge, his head started to pound, a severe headache taking the place of his nausea, making the veins in his forehead pulse. He imagined this was what it was like to suffer a hangover.
When he finally managed to regain control of his body, a voice spoke behind him, making him stiffen from head-to-toe.
"Can't handle a little sea travel, boy?" The voice snorted. He weakly turned his head, and found himself staring up into the cold amber eyes of a woman. Her skin was a dark, caramel-tan from hours of work in the sun, and over her chest, she wore a tight wrapping of light, emerald green. Her baggy pants shared the same hue. The way her eyes glinted gave him a bad feeling.
"Well, don't worry, you won't be on the water for too much longer," she said softly, turning and heading toward the front of the boat, were another woman like her was rowing. Had she just tried to reassure him? Maybe these people weren't so bad. "Nah, soon enough you'll be underneath it."
His eyes widened again. They were going to throw him overboard? Why would they save him from drowning, only to throw him overboard?
He looked around even more frantically as another thought came to mind. Annalise. Had they saved her too? His stomach plummeted as he failed to find her. Oh gods, had he let her drown? He had let her drown. He had let her drown!
He slumped back, slouching over. He had let his baby sister drown. He had flubbed his mother's only wish. He had let his baby sister drown.
"No!" He screamed, voice ringing eerily through the old, dark hallways. He ran toward the tall, looming silhouettes that stood outside his mother's bedroom. Their heads swiveled toward him, and they put out their hands to stop him, but he refused to give way, and pushed past them, feet pounding on the wooden floorboards. He flew through the door, and stopped short.
It was true. His father hadn't lied. Next to the long unused bed that so many years ago his mother had read him stories in, and allowed him to sleep in next to her soothing warmth when a nightmare had wracked his young body or a storm woke him from his slumber, was a coffin.
He tenderly stepped closer to the coffin, catching a glimpse of black hair much like his own and a smooth, caring face permanently set into the expression of sleep. He could feel his heart start to break.
"Benji!" A smaller, younger voice called from somewhere further down the hallways. He could barely hear her, over the thrum of blood in his ears. He merely stood there, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to think, staring into the face of death.
"Benji-! Help-!" The girl screamed this time, fear dripping from her voice. He was snapped back into reality, and like a machine, eyes locked into a blank stare, he turned from his mother's casket and strode out of the room, down the hallway, down a set of stairs, and into the foyer of his father's mansion. His childhood home.
There his father stood, looming over the crumpled shape of a young girl.
Annalise.
His father's head jerked up upon his entrance, and an evil grin plastered across his lips. He callously stepped over Anna without a second glance, and stormed toward him, overtaking him in an instant. His breath was thick, and hot, and smelled cloyingly like alcohol. His father grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, hefting him a few inches into the air, until only his toes touched the ground.
"'s all yer fault," his father slurred, a few droplets of saliva flying and landing on his face. "If it weren't for you damn kids, she never would've left."
Pain flushed through his body as he was suddenly, violently thrown against a wall, his father slamming against his body with a barbaric cry.
"Daddy! Leave him alone-!" Annalise's voice came from behind the brutal shape of his father. His father let him fall to the floor, sides screaming silently in pain. He could tell that he had cracked several ribs, as an all-consuming pain burned through his sides, abdomen and chest. He looked up, and saw that Annalise had risen to her own feet, and was staring up at their father, a mixture of fear and anger swirling in her green eyes. There was a strange metallic sound as their father fiddled with something attached to his belt.
Annalise backed away, and realized a second too late what the sound had been. Benji surged to his feet, recklessly throwing himself in front of Annalise, and he let loose a cry as the blade of a rusted knife plunged into his shoulder.
His sister screamed as he dropped to his knees, the knife being ripped from his shoulder with a splatter of his own blood.
Their father was about to lunge at Annalise, knife poised, when a strange sound came from her. It sounded slightly like the growl of a wolf, one that had been cornered. From the floor, he could hear another sound, like a scuffle, and then their father fell to the floor beside him. It took only a single look to tell that he was dead, only one look to know that Annalise had done it.
With a large amount of effort, he stood, and faced his sister. Her eyes had clouded over, turning a milky blue with whitened pupils, blank and unfocused, as if she was blind. But she obviously could see him, as she backed away a few feet.
Seconds later, she bolted, pushing past him and racing out of the house. He followed after her, decidedly slower in pace, and just caught a glimpse of her escaping into the darkened forest that bordered the estate…
The wagon clattered onward, down the dark, narrow side street as Malon watched her surroundings carefully. She could feel something was off. Something wasn't right. It felt like she was being watched.
About thirty feet away, she could see that the path was widening out into a large cobblestone plaza. She sighed in relief at the sight of sunlight, as the wagon drew nearer to the open space. And then she saw it. A single human shape was standing directly in her path. The sunlight was too bright behind the person, making it impossible to make out their facial features or whether they were man or woman.
She urged Epona to continue toward the person as the mare showed some anxiety, pulling her head up, ears turning to lie flat against her neck and giving a nervous shake of her head.
"Go on, girl. It's fine." She whispered, not believing her own words. Jack stood up in the back of the wagon again when he noticed the person, and he reached for the bow again as another person came into sight, moving to stand beside the first. And then another.
Soon there were probably ten of them standing in their way, and as Epona came to a stop mere feet from the first person. Their eyes adjusted to the sunlight, and started to make out the features of the people standing there.
It was a mixed group, perhaps a few more men than women, all of them wearing dark clothing regardless of their sex. The one standing in front of the group was the tallest, with jet-black hair that was wild and unkempt. His eyes were bright green, with flecks of silver swirling within the emerald orbs. His clothes were like the rest of them, dark black, but with a different style. His shirt was long sleeved, with a few cuts in the fabric, while his pants were slightly tighter than the cargo styled pants the rest of them wore, with several pockets on the front and back.
Around his waist, a sash of dark blue fabric was tied, and a bandanna of the same color was tied about his neck.
She definitely didn't like the look of him.
He looked at her curiously, and then moved slightly to the side, eyes meeting those of Jack and McKenna, staring, without a trace of fear, as Jack notched an arrow.
"Who are you?" Malon asked cautiously, pretending to be calm, willing her heart to slow down from the racing beat it was at. The man smirked at Jack, and returned his gaze to her.
"Me? I'm the Great Kan…"
She loved the smell of salt water. She had no idea why. There was just something about it, the way it felt on her skin, the way it tasted on her lips. She had only been to the ocean once before in her life, when she had been very small, but the experience had stayed with her all her life.
And now here she stood, on the fine white sand of the western beaches. Smiling as a breeze caught hold of her long black hair and sent it billowing, she leaned down and removed her simple leather shoes, to stand barefoot in the sand.
And then she walked, leaving her shoes behind as she strolled, leisurely, along the shoreline.
She walked for close to an hour, just enjoying the warmth of the sunlight on her skin and the feeling of the sand beneath her feet, shifting and ever changing in shape, never coming back to be in the same position again. But as she walked, something strange in shape came into view, far down the shoreline. She raised a hand, shielding her eyes from the sun to get a better look. And as she approached, she realized what the shape was.
It was a human. A small girl, probably close to twelve years old. She way lying crumpled on the shore, just out of the water's grasp. She dropped to her knees, and quickly pressed a hand to the girl's neck. There was a very faint pulse that bumped against her fingers.
She was alive.
Looking to the little girl's side, she saw foot prints, strange ones, ones that didn't belong to a human, leading out of the water, around her body, and then back into the ocean. Her only guess could be a Zora.
After being dragged further up the beach, almost as if on queue, her eyes fluttered open.
The girl looked up at her in pure confusion.
"W-who are you?" The girl asked, tone shaking with fear.
"My name's Charise. What's yours?"
The girl looked at her for a moment more.
"M-my name is Annalise," she looked toward the ocean, looking around as if lost. "Benji? Where's Benji?"
She jumped shakily to her feet, racing back toward the water's edge. Charise ran after her, and grabbed her by the arm before she could plunge into it.
"Hey-!" she gasped. "What are you, crazy? You don't just jump into the ocean!"
Annalise jerked her arm out of her grip, and looked at her as if she was a demon, clutching a hand over where she had been grabbed. It was almost like she had been burned by her touch.
"Who's Benji?" She asked the girl, starting to question the girl's sanity. But the girl didn't answer, she looked almost like she was going to cry, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes. After a few moments, she merely sank down to a crouch, hiding her face against her knees.
Here she had been, enjoying her first foray of freedom since she had been a little girl, and now she was left with a decision. Leave the girl like she very well wanted to do and continue on her jaunt, or try and help the (possibly insane) little girl find whoever Benji was.
If it was you, wouldn't you want help? Her mind reasoned. She let her head droop slightly. Damn her conscience.
"Hey," she whispered, leaning down and reaching out to rub her back. The little girl shied away, giving her a glare. "Don't worry, I'll help you find Benji…"
K'ger: Now I have really important business to attend to.
I want to give special, incredibly grateful thanks to Link'sLily. You've done so much for me in the past, and now you're teaching me even more...I just can't thank you enough! You're so nice, I owe you big time! I think to pay you back I'll make you another drawing for According to Legend. Oh, and everyone! read her story! Its great, the characters are so well done, and its so well written I can see everything taking place! She needs more readers people!
And did everyone like Courage of Awesome's character, Kan? Don't worry, this is just the beginning, his character is going to be fleshed out more in the next chapter. I like him, he's gonna be a great character!