Problems enough, I won't bore you with it.
New chapter. I don't own Pokémon and all that shit.

Chapter 22: Lost but not Gone

His memory didn't return, despite Loua's insistence that it still could. Drew sat with her many a evening with a cup of calming tea, trying to remember all that he could. Mostly it stayed gone although sometimes there were flashes of things that could have been.

The sound of iron on iron, a flash of reflecting light and at night the remembrance of a spring smell that made his heart long in pain.

He wasn't able to place the slight flashes but he was torn in hoping he'd see more and hoping they'd stay gone, if only for the peace of mind.

He worked full days on the fields together with Reod and Fern, who seemed in his own rough way very glad with the extra market. "Decent turnover at the fall market," he told the two young men gruffly while looking at the shed filled with wheat and corn. He had promised the two that he would take them when that time came around; usually when the leaves were halfway done falling.

But despite that fact that Drew felt a calm he somehow knew he had never known before, he found himself staring north-northwest to where the bigger mountains were. There was something more there, Drew knew it but he couldn't find what.

"Are you happy here?" Reod asked, leaning on his fork while raking the land.

Drew halted in his own raking, and forking up the rest weeds on the wooden wheelbarrow. "I don't know," Drew replied. "Are you?"

Reod hummed, "Yeah, I guess I am. I was something of a hunter in my homeland…" a faraway look of longing appeared in his eyes, and Drew wondered if he wasn't the only one that missed the far past now. Maybe not in the same sense, but Drew was convinced that Reod missed his land more at times than he let on. "I never thought this sort of life would fit me. But it does. But you," Drew's friend shook his head. "For some reason I think you are meant for something bigger than this."

Drew shrugged, "Who knows," he replied and the two smirked at each other as Fern called from far away on the field to stop slacking off because the field wasn't going to rake itself.

Summer passed in this manner and Drew found that with the market drawing near, he had no time for pondering on his melancholy. When they got off he fields, Loua usually had dinner on the table and the evenings were filled with making mats of spare helms.

Fern grumbled to himself that boys shouldn't waste their time on menial labor like that but Loua had enough spunk to put him in his place. "Mats can be sold, broken helms cannot. If you don't make useful then make yourself sparse!" This was usually enough to limit the old man's grumbling as he spend the rest of the time carving figurines from wood.

"They may not bring in much money, but I like carving them and children are happy with them," Fern muttered tersely when Reod asked why.

Loua winked conspiritatively, "He has a big mouth but a good heart."

Drew found that despite their bickering; maybe even because of it, Fern and Loua had a very good marriage. He and Reod had more than once been witness to the kisses they still shared the mornings before work and how Loua knew exactly how to make his tea while when Drew or Reod tried, Fern would always find something wrong with it.

Then at one day, Fern announced they would be leaving for the great fall market in a few days so they'd better start preparing.

"Why is this one so different?" Reod asked. "Isn't the weekly market of the village not enough?" He meant the weekly market that was in the village a bit further on the road. It was where they got their usual things like meat, other vegetables and cloths.

Fern looked at him incredulously and Drew was glad he hadn't asked. "Well," Reod muttered, "I lived in a tribe."

It didn't stop Fern from looking as if he had asked why birds flew. "Are you serious, boy?" he responded. "Metal, pottery, and plowing tools don't appear by themselves. Use your brain, son." It was how Fern usually spoke; think before you ask. A gruff man who knew what hard work was.

So they prepared. Loua packed them proviance that would stay good and told them she wouldn't come with. Even if they lived far away, one should never leave the home alone for more than a day.

And then, on one morning, Drew was roughly awoken. When he opened his eyes blearily, two things came to his notice. The first was that Fern was intently staring at him: clearly being the one who had awoken him. The second was that it was still dark outside.

"Get dressed, we are leaving before dawn," the old man said and then continued to the other side of the room where Reod had his bed. In the summer they had decided that the room Drew had woken up in early in the year was too small for them both. So whenever they had time, Fern had directed him and Reod in adding an extra room.

It was not big but they both fit in comfortably. Drew had been stunned by the generosity, as had Reod, but the elder couple wove it away that they worked hard enough for it themselves.

Not much later, Drew found himself sitting in the back of the cart next to bales of wheat, munching on some dried meat; if he took small bites he could eat it without upsetting his stomach because of the early hour. Reod had joined Fern on the box and was nodding off while Fern was reining a sturdy horse named Vulpix. It was a gentle animal and Drew found that he rather liked it.

They were moving with a steady tred, not in a hurry but with destination and Fern told them they would be there at nightfall. They had to go through the woods and Drew had never been that far while he was with Fern and Loua and the dark woods did not comfort him.

He unconsciously tensed up and he was not sure how his body made this feel like a natural reaction. Above him, Fern and Reod too seemed uncomfortable. And suddenly, Drew wondered. "Fern, now we two are with you, but did you use to make this trip alone?"

Fern glanced back and then faced forwards again. "No," he said gruffly. "I used to travel together with farmers from the neighboring farms and we'd travel in a caravan."

Drew blinked, "Why didn't we this time, it wouldn't have made much a difference."

Fern chuckled, "With you two youngsters helping me, the harvest was done quicker. The earlier you get to the market, the better the place, prices and goods you have. And the crop won't rot."

Well, that was logical enough and Drew felt a bit more at peace knowing that Fern did not go alone. "Are these woods dangerous?" he finally asked.

But it was not Fern who answered. "Very dangerous," a male voice said and Drew looked up to see a man pointing some old sword at him, only a few inches from the tip of his nose. The man holding it was wearing brown and green clothes and looked like he was very used to moving in the woods. His dark brown hair hung slightly in his eyes but Drew could still see the manic spark in his eyes and he had a mocking smirk on his face.

From the corner of his eyes, Drew could see Fern and Reod being removed from the cart roughly by three others. Four men in total.

Drew turned his attention back fully to the man before him who smirked wider: "Get your ass off. We're claiming this cart." Drew felt a hot wave of anger rush through him and felt a lot braver suddenly.

"No," he said.

The sound of struggling was heard behind him but Drew did not look back. "Drew! Do what he says!" he heard Fern calling. "It's not worth losing your life over!"

The man chuckled. "Yeah, Drew. Listen to the ol'man."

Drew gritted his teeth, "I don't think so," he said calmly.

In a rather painful motion, Drew was lifted by his collar, "I don't think you understand. I said we're claimin' this cart one way or the other."

Drew stared at the robber levelly. "I think you don't understand. These people have worked all year for this. It's their living."

The man laughed shortly, "And robbing it, is ours. Now I'll ask kindly one more time: Move your ass from the cart or I'll do it and you'll be in more than two pieces."

When Drew made no movement to get away, the man released him and swung his sword. "Suit yourself," he growled.

"Drew!" he heard Reod and Fern call, but all Drew could do was act on instinct and ducked away. He grabbed a long knife that they usually used to cut things when needed. It was by no means a sword.

"You got lucky," the man growled as Drew held up the knife in a motion that felt more natural than it should be. "It won't happen again." And he charged again. This time, Drew caught him head on and the metal of their weapons clashed loudly. The man grunted and moved his sword horizontally with the intent of chopping off Drew's head.

But Drew twisted his hand and the sword easily slid past him, and the man stumbled. "Hm. You're pretty good. Want to join?"

Drew growled himself, "All I want, is you gone! Leave!"

The man chuckled, "Sorry, no!" and he charged once more. Drew used the same technique to slid off the sword and kneed the man as he stumbled past. Clearly the man was not a very skilled swordsman.

He doubled over and Drew slammed his elbow on the man's back and he sank through his knees. While the man was down, Drew kicked his sword away and flopped him over and pointed his own knife at him. "I said, leave!" Drew growled.

The man chuckled, "Or what are you going to do kid? I doubt you could even really harm me." But the words had not even left his mouth before a trail of blood flowed down his cheek: Drew had cut him and was now leaning down.

"Consider yourself warned. I have no problem in cutting your throat right here.:"

The man stared back in Drew's steady eyes, and fear crept into his own. "Alright!" he squeaked. "We'll leave you alone!" Drew raised himself again and stepped back. The glint reappeared in the man's eyes. "Didn't you ever get taught to not lower your weapon?" he laughed and stormed towards Drew.

But Drew sidestepped and because of the man not holding his sword there was no harm to Drew. But he was getting tired of the man and quickly turned and kicked the man's back so that he tumbled off the cart. Drew jumped after him, his knife raised; "Want to play again?" he asked.

The man shook his head and scrambled towards his comrades. "Let them go!" he snarled. "We're leaving!"

The one holding Fern immediately let go but the other one hesitated. The third one had already retreated back into the woods after a glance at Drew's tense posture. "The man is no normal guy. If you don't want to lose your life, let's go!" and he went ahead himself.

The others quickly glanced at Drew and the knife glittered in the sunlight filtering thought the trees before deciding that running was their best course of action too.

Drew stood poised until he was absolutely sure they were gone. Then he started shaking and he dropped the knife as if it had burned him and he stared at his hand in shock: what the hell had just happened?

"Drew! Are you alright?' Reod called as he came jogging over.

Drew exhaled, "I'm fine," he said after a moment's pause.

Reod shook his head, "What was that! Drew, I've never seen you fight before!"

But Drew could not answer him: he did not know himself.

Fern came walking towards them. "Who the hell were you before you lost your memory?" he asked, his voice holding a mixture of gruffness and awe. "Because that was the finest swordsmanship I have ever seen before."

Drew gaped at him: he couldn't explain. The fighting felt natural. The knife in his hand felt comfortable if light and he hadn't needed to think at all. Fern shook his head, "Still, that was a foolish thing to do, boy. Don't bring yourself into danger for things like this." He shook his head again and got up the box. "Come on boys, we still have a long road to go"

Reod glanced once more at Drew and then got back on the box as well as Drew crawled in his spot on the cart.

The journey was silent from that point, with Fern pointing out things around them while Reod asked him questions, but Drew didn't participate. He had a lot of thinking to do.

Who was he and what kind of life did he live? Drew didn't know as he turned over the knife in his hand pensively. It didn't bother him so much that he was clearly skilled with a weapon. What did worry him was that he had no way of knowing how he used that skill.

The man's words had put a thought in his head. What if he had been a mugger? A brigand? What he did know, and it hurt him, was that if he had been indeed on the wrong side of the law, he would leave the place he now called home.

He wouldn't stay with Fern and Loua, that wasn't fair to the two.

"Arden, you are going to tell me where we are going right now!" May demanded. She had been following the man through the sandy city, but he hadn't said a word of where they were headed.

Arden didn't bother turning around at her but May could see from his tense posture that he was not like the situation. "Arden!" she called frustrated. May saw the telltale muscle in his jaw that told of his irritation.

"We're going to the port," he ground out.

May was confused, "Why the port? I didn't even know they had water here!"

Arden glanced back at her. "You can not build a city in the middle of a desert. This one has access to the sea."

May huffed, "Yeah. But why are we going there?"

Arden didn't answer but looked forward in stubbornness. "Because, princess," he mocked. One could clearly see the goose hunt had taken its toll on him. "A galley is a ship. Drew will be long gone, any trail dead, but it's the only thing we got."

He sounded so angry that May was afraid to continue asking. She still didn't know what exactly a galley was. They didn't have those in her homeland. Was Drew now on the stretched out blue sea? In lands May didn't know of? Did he ling for home now that he knew there was so much more?

Perhaps she romanticized it a bit: she didn't know what a slave was supposed to do on ships and she doubted that he would be sold as anything else.

Arden was meanwhile glad that May had stopped asking. The galleys of all damned places they had to look. It was from the frying pan into the fire. The wheels were harsher, but Arden knew the galleys. If the ship hadn't sunk Drew would be in places May and Arden could not reach him.

There was almost no hope.

But how could he tell his queen that? Arden smirked to himself at that. In his mind he had started calling May a queen already; for going she technically was a princess. He had seen her grow from a stubborn child into a headstrong woman.

She still had a lot to learn before she could ascend the throne but by God, Arden would make sure she'd get her rightful place. 'You'd better not be dead, Drew' he mentally muttered to his general.

They passed a corner and Arden pulled up his nose: yup, they were definitely in the right place: he smelled fish. Rotting fish. It was late on the day so that was no wonder. It had been out in the sun all day. He heard the calls of the vendors trying to sell their last wares.

At least, he assumed so since he couldn't understand them.

Then suddenly it dawned on him what was considered wares here and he turned to May to warn her, but the look on her face told him he was already too late. He followed her line of view to one of the ships where new slaves were loaded.

Chained behind each other, he understood her renewed horror after they were basically kicked into the belly of the ship. "Arden, is that…" she said with a hollow voice as they saw a body or three carried out and dumped into the water of the harbor.

Arden nodded grimly, "Yeah, that's a galley, May." He saw her eyes go to the big oars and he saw the light dawn in her eyes on what the purpose of a galley slave was. But she had apparently decided to man herself up because he saw only a small trace of despair cross her face.

Despair that Arden shared. But they couldn't dawdle. He went up to a merchant and held up the scroll Suha had given them. That he didn't speak the language didn't mean he couldn't communicate. Apparently the document meant quite a lot, Arden did hope it didn't specify too much information, because the merchant widened his eyes.

Actually Arden thought that the eyes bulged more out of his head, and the man looked around frantically. Then he waved over his wife. She had seemed to be haggling with some other woman over a few fishes, and seemed reluctant to let it go, but with a few words of her husband, and they sounded urgent enough, she immediately accepted the offer given. Hurriedly the coins changed hands and she came over quickly.

She too widened her eyes, and then muttered something to the man who replied defensively.

Arden scraped his throat. "Where can I find this man?" he said slowly, tapping the paper. Arden was not sure they understood but the woman pointed to some docks further. Arden nodded his head and went to May who had been waiting with the horses.

Behind him, he head the couple talk in hushed voices frantically and he knew they had probably left an impression. Not what he wanted but it couldn't be helped.

"And?" May asked.

Arden shrugged, "They pointed to that dock," he said, nodding with his head towards it.

May followed his line of direction to the dock and then glance back; "Let's go then."

Despite that Drew still felt pretty worried about where he actually came from, the fall market was proving to be busy enough that it was difficult to think a lot. Fern had said that they were early but Drew felt it was already crowded.

Fern got greeted as an old friend (he probably was too, Drew thought) and he and Reod got looked at curiously. There was no malice in their eyes as there were a lot of strangers. Tall pale men who sold white pelts and colorful cloths and beads, a rough looking group of both males and females who sold horses and stared anyone away that came too close.

He and Reod ducked away hastily when they passed a trader that looked of Kamesh's origin and while they doubted they would be recognized, they were still runaway slaves and they had no intentions of going back being one.

Their small group found a good spot near some friendly farmers who, judging from their accent came from further down in the land. All in all Drew had enough to look at.

The ambiance overall was friendly too and Reod was fairly amused with groups of growing females who thought he couldn't understand them, "Don't you get tired of playing with them like that?" Drew asked after another group of girls had slinked off because, while appreciating of his physique (there was a reason he had been bought into the harem as well) they had been a bit disappointed in his incapability of communicating, or rather, the illusion of the incapability.

Reod laughed lightly at Drew, "I am not harming anyone, Drew. I only take as much as they give. You wouldn't do bad either," he said suggestively.

That, Drew knew. He hadn't been blind to the coy eyes in his direction. Grimly he thought of his shady background: like he was going to react on any advances while being unclear of that. Besides, he thought while munching on some piece of dried meat, he felt it was wrong flirting with stranger girls.

There was something wrong with them too. He couldn't quite out his finger on it. There was an absolute preference to brunettes on his side, but then the color eyes wasn't right or the wrong shade of blue. A sile too coy or too docile.

Drew doubted it was the girls that were wrong so he let it rest and spent his time with Fern, selling at the stall or roaming the markets. He was impressed of the horses bred by the strange people, but he couldn't remember he had actually ridden a full-blooded fire of a horse so that was just another mystery.

It must have been about three days after arriving and Fern ahd said the biggest mass had yet to come so Drew had been allowed to go off on his own. Faintly amused he pondered that a twenty-something needed allowance to go off on his own while not even being blood-related.

He had just passed the horse-people when he heard a voice say: "A few coins, sir. Only a few coins.' Drew looked around and saw nothing but a cloaked man sitting on the ground, a pair of naked feet and arms coming from underneath it.

"Sorry?" Drew asked, not sure he had heard the voice from underneath the hood.

"Please, a few coins," the voice said again and Drew was now positively sure the voice was male. It sounded strange, like it had once been completely sure of himself, but now had lost all lack-luster.

"I don't think I…" Drew started but suddenly the hood turned upwards and Drew met a pair of watery grey eyes that were glaring at him vehemently.

"I thought I recognize that voice!" the man spat as he struggled to push himself up. Drew could now see the face of the man and found him unhealthy looking. The face hung as if he had lost a lot of weight in a short time and the greasy skin might have shone once but was now also decidedly covered with filth.

"You!" the man snarled looking infuriated.

Drew took an indecisive step backwards. "I am sorry?" he tried. He couldn't think of what he had ever done to this man.

The man had now pushed himself up by the fence he had been seated against and stepped towards Drew teetering on his feet. From his spot Drew could smell the waft of alcohol from the man. "Sorry?!" the man snarled, sounding slightly insane because of the high edge to his voice. "You'll be sorry alright!"

Then with a speed that Drew could only pinpoint to the man's anger, the drunk grasped for Drew's neck. Despite that the man was unhealthy he had a vice grip and was also taller than Drew. Drew grasped at the fingers around his neck, gasping for breath. "I didn't do anything! I don't even know you!" he tried, wheezing with the slight air he had.

The hands only clenched further, "You took everything from me: the shrew, the throne, the power! And you say you don't know me! You little cad!"

Drew barely heard what the man was saying. Black spots were dancing in front of his eyes. Was he going to die here? At the hands of a stranger, dumped at the back of an alley?

"'nhand 'im" Suddenly a female voice said and the grip lightened on Drew's neck, but by no means was Drew free yet.

"No! I will have my revenge!" the man said vehemently.

"Ye'll lettin'im go, yer heyr me!" the female voice man grunted but seemed to have no intention of letting Drew go. "I heave mere than 'nough of yer crap. Lett'im go or I'll be techin'yer a new one, gertit?"

When the man still didn't let go, the female apparently got out some sort of a weapon because Drew felt the man recoil. "Now, this had nothing to…"

"Tis me terrain, lett'im go 'r the knife goes b'tweyn yer ribs and taka lot moar out than wentin!' Apparently this was enough of a threat because the man threw Drew down and scuffled awat. "An' I don't wanna sey yer ergain gertit?!"

Drew coughed a little and wheezed in some breath before opening his eyes. Before him stood a woman of the fierce horse-tribe. Her straight black hair was bound in a tail on her head, a side covered with beads. Most of her clothes were either leather or simple pale cloth so her reddish-brown skin came through visibly.

In her ear were teeth of an animal Drew couldn't readily identify. She was just about decently covered but in no way did she under for any man, sporting arm- and torso muscles that probably helped with the horses. She was brandishing a knife that could easily be considered a sword; a nasty one. The hooks in the blade looked destructive to a human body.

She huffed angrily and then turned to Drew."Yer ok, yun'un?" she asked. Drew decided not to mention she was probably only a 10 years older and let her help him up. "Sorry 'bou tha'. The drun' crook has been hengin' 'round hear. Got me a good excuse to gett'im off!"

Drew nodded, "Thanks for saving me. I thought I was done for."

The woman nodded, "Nah, it's good. Yer'good with th'horses. Th'guy ha'som'thing 'gainst yer, yer kno' why?"

Drew shook his head, "No clue, he said, "I can't remember him." But as he waved goodbye to the kind horse-woman, Drew wondered if he hadn't actually done the man wrong. Maybe he had deserved what the man had wanted to do to him.

I had to cut the chapter short or it'd be too long for the usual amount. Reviews? Even if I am late?