Strangers

It had been three weeks since Regalion found the girl, but there was little improvement in her condition to take note of. In all honesty, it seemed her condition was only worsening. For three weeks, the child laid virtually motionless, inhaling short breaths of air and sweating profusely. Despite the amount of sweat, however, the child’s temperature had mostly remained at average levels.

Sadly, it seemed that good fortune was running out. She was displaying symptoms of T-Syndrome, a common killer among young children in the villages. It was uncommon for the symptoms to appear in children over five years old, as the child appeared to be, but this was just another mystery added to the cloud already surrounding the stranger. Over the past couple of days, her temperature had dropped to a dangerously low degree and remained there. Her breathing had rapidly increased, though, strangely enough, her breaths had become more rhythmic. Jonah would apply all of the healing arts that he could muster on the child but, despite his efforts, it still seemed to be too little. He was the most skilled healer in the region, the master of Haven’s healing coterie. The truth of the matter was, if Jonah could not heal the child here, there was little hope that she would ever recover. Jonah sighed dejectedly. It seemed his energy was now being rejected. There was little more that he could do for her.

Running low on mystic energy, Jonah paused to examine the strange creature who had fallen into his life. The child was most definitely human, or at the very least a close relative to the human species. The village was no stranger to deformity, but the girl was unique, even by those standards. Her skin was smooth, thick, and leathery to the touch. It had a golden brown pigment, like honey, but demonstrated an almost translucent affect in the dim lighting of the room. Her veins were considerably larger than any human veins Jonah had ever encountered. They weaved, webbed, and pulsed visibly underneath her skin, like the decorative marks of a tribal warrior, come to life. In sharp contrast to her skin, her hair was dark, darker than dark. Midnight blue coils, knotted in dreadlocs, cradled the child’s face. She appeared to be no older than the average ten year old, lacking all signs of pubescence. Even so, her frame was thick and muscular, betraying nothing fragile about the child apart from the grimace etched into an otherwise delicate face.

The door to the cabin creaked open and a woven basket peeked around the corner, sloshing water carelessly onto the floor. Basket in tow, Jonah’s grandson, Regalion, walked into the bedroom with a casual smirk that rarely left his young face. “Must we have this conversation every night, Lione?” Jonah scolded, though without much conviction. Regalion was unofficially training under a mystic at the protection coterie of Riverbend, a half-day journey away. Despite the distance, Regalion had returned to Haven every night, without fail, since leaving the girl in his grandfather’s care. Jonah had agreed to treat the creature, personally, under the condition that Regalion return to his own daily training routine. It was all Jonah could do to stop his grandson from attempting to heal the child on his own. “Aye, Papa, if the conversation must be unavoidable every night that I come home,” Regalion responded quietly. As he opened the window beside the girl’s bed, a blast of frigid, cold night air was introduced into the room.

“I am trying to raise the child’s temperature, not freeze her to death!” Jonah exclaimed in a hurried, raspy voice as he rushed toward the window. Regalion lifted his hand, which, surprisingly, gave Jonah reason to pause. Regalion knelt before the girl. Using one arm to hold the basket of water above his head, Regalion chanted a string of syllables underneath his breath. With his other arm extended over her, he waved his hand, enticing the water to follow his will. He tilted the basket, focusing, as the water particles responded and spread evenly across the girl’s body. A gust of night air blew in through the window, and the grimace on the girl’s face eased. “She is from the sea,” Regalion stated matter-of-factly, as he focused to keep the water from drying away, “it’s colder there.”

Jonah’s grandson demonstrated the potential to become an incredible healer, if he so desired; however, it seemed Regalion had chosen a different path. Rather than healing, the boy had chosen to nurture his energy upon a protective foundation. One of Regalion’s gifts was an ability to understand their strengths and weaknesses by reading the energy channels of living things. Thus, Regalion had a significant advantage in deciphering an appropriate course of action to help, or hurt, an organism after only a few interactions. His mother had shared the same gift. Of course, for Regalion, this was a budding gift. He was still a child; a child who hadn’t even hit his eleventh year. Even with all of his talent, that could not compensate for his lack of experience.

Aside from that, Jonah still had other doubts. For at least a century, the sea had been dangerous territory, polluted by nuclear waste and home to the foulest of creatures. Wherever the girl had come from, if she spent more than a few minutes engulfed in the water of the sea cave where she was found, it was a miracle that she survived this long. Even still, Jonah thought to himself, I suppose I’ve seen stranger things. Regalion gasped suddenly, disrupting Jonah’s thoughts. Staring up at the boy, in the dim lighting of the bedroom, were two iridescent eyes. Large and almond-shaped, they seemed to peer into the deepest crevices of Regalion’s soul.

Disoriented, the girl sat up and looked around the room. Fear gripped at her chest as she took in the details of her surroundings. She took note of the old man standing four paces away from her, and the boy to her left within arm’s reach. She took in the three possible escape routes: one door across the room to the left, one window on the wall directly ahead, and one window to her right. She noticed the wooden desk behind the old man. On top of the desk sat two books, one open, one closed, and a lantern lit beside them. There was a cabinet next to the desk made of the same material, filled with minerals and plants that had strange smells. The floor appeared to be comprised of a smooth stone material, with an intricately decorated carpet lain underneath the boy’s knees. What worried the girl most, however, was what she didn’t see.

Follett?! She thought to herself, as she fought to suppress the rising panic in her throat. My rod? My suit? Her clothes were gone, replaced with a drape of scratchy brown cloth that buttoned from the nape of her neck to her knees. She had no shoes.

“My brother?” She questioned shakily.

 A look of confusion spread across the kneeling boy’s face as she spoke aloud for the first time.

Where are you, she silently called out. But she could detect no scent of him… He was not here.

The girl had her eyes open for less than two minutes before she bolted out of the window. Jonah and Regalion had not known at the time, but for better or worse, they had changed the course of history. By happenstance, if you believe in that sort of thing, they had stumbled across this single child, and saved her life.

Her name was Wilde.

***

The cold air was soothing to Wilde as she ran, but the coolness of the night seemed to fade quickly. She followed her nose toward the smell of sea salt in the air. Her feet stung and ached with each step. She had no idea how long she had been running, or how long she had been on the surface. She had no idea how long she had been separated from her brother.

 An image of his face appeared in her mind, so similar to her own. Flashbacks of that night invaded her consciousness; the night that had changed everything. Wilde’s legs moved faster as she tried to outrun them, but her memory flooded relentlessly. The sound of her mother’s grief stricken scream rang in her ears. She could see her father’s face, haunted, as he told them to go. Wilde snapped back to the present. She needed to stop. The sun was rising, higher and higher into the sky. It was too bright. She squinted her eyes against the harsh rays. Her body was beginning to overheat. I have to keep going, Wilde thought to herself. She pushed. She kept pushing. Then, everything went black.

***

It took Regalion almost three days to catch up to her. He figured she would head back to the sea cave, but when he had reached the cave on the second day of her disappearance, there was no evidence of the girl’s return. Everything was exactly as it was when he’d found her there, a month prior. As he stood at the sea cave’s entrance, light rain drops dotted Regalion’s arms and disappeared, like butterfly kisses. Once again, he thought, I can’t keep anyone safe.

He had buried his forehead in his hands, willing the sadness of failure to leave him be. He caught a raindrop on his arm, then, refusing to let it dry away. As he swirled the drop of water around his skin, a thought occurred to him. Maybe she never even made it this far… The rainfall poured, steadily faster and Regalion smiled at the sky. “You may have saved her, my friend,” he had said aloud.

And now, there she was, stumbling slowly through the woods. At some point in her journey, she had stripped the medical garb that they had given her. The girl drudged clumsily past the trees in her underwear. Regalion kept his distance as he watched her and considered his best course of action. This situation had to be handled delicately, of course. He had no intention of frightening her again.

Suddenly, the girl stopped moving. Regalion watched her slowly rotate her body until she faced his direction, the markers of fear etched into her features. The two just stood there for a moment, frozen in time. Then, as suddenly as she had stopped, the girl turned, once again, and continued on her original path. His cover blown, Regalion gradually increased his speed. He was careful not to run, for fear of giving the appearance of chase, and, instead, choose to tread lightly. Soon, he was at the girl’s side. She blatantly ignored him, refusing to even look his direction. Regalion was unbothered. He continued to walk beside her in silence, a dimpled grin plastered on his face.

Eventually, he offered her a water capsule. The container was weaved with healing herbs and bound with animal hide, infusing the water with its healing properties. The girl sniffed at the water and stared at the container, a mixture of longing and skepticism tugging at her dark eyebrows. Understanding her hesitance, Regalion pulled an identical container from his backpack and offered her that one as well.

After a few moments with no response, Regalion pulled back the original water capsule he’d offered and began to drink. Satisfied that the water was safe enough, the girl grabbed the container from Regalion’s lips and drank thirstily. Somehow, she did so whilst, still, managing to avoid his gaze. Generally pleased with her reaction, Regalion took a swig from the remaining water capsule and offered the rest of the water to the girl. This gift she accepted, Regalion imagined, almost graciously. Encouraged, he offered his name.

“My name is Regalion.”

At last, the girl looked at him briefly. Again, Regalion felt vulnerable. Naked, as he had felt when she first opened her eyes at Haven.

The feeling only lasted a moment, for the girl quickly closed her eyes and returned her gaze toward some path that existed only in her mind’s eye. Regalion recovered just as quickly. Have her eyes been closed this whole time, Regalion wondered, amazed that he hadn’t noticed before. For the first time, his brain registered the almost inaudible clicking sound escaping from her throat. Blind? He wondered.

***

From his bag, Regalion pulled a food capsule, this one filled with chicken and vegetable stew. He offered it to the girl. “We should rest and eat,” he said. She shook her head once, and continued to otherwise ignore him.

They had been walking for hours at the same dizzyingly slow pace. Whether Regalion slowed, sped up, stopped, or veered in a different direction, the girl would just keep walking her own course at her own pace. So he just followed, lost in his thoughts and daydreams as he so often was. Satisfied. He had found her, and she was safe. Regalion was not the worrying type.

It was late afternoon when he realized that he was approaching the sea cave, once again. The girl was obviously exhausted. Regalion really couldn’t see how she was still moving. But she was, and so he followed behind her without input. As the two drew near the shore of the cave, the girl broke into a run. She was surprisingly quick, particularly when Regalion considered the feebleness of her prior movements.

Lying near the shore of the sea cave was an orange, adult-sized hard suit, or at least what was left of it. Regalion had heard tales that, long ago, people explored space as easily as people explore caves. Astronauts, they had called them. From the descriptions he’d heard, the suit lying in front of him now seemed to match the outfits worn in those explorations. Not that the source of the information was particularly reliable. And, of course, it wasn’t as if Regalion had ever seen an actual image of the suit. But still, if such a thing existed, this is what it’d look like, Regalion thought to himself, smiling at the image of an astronaut concocting in his head.

As Regalion daydreamed, the girl rummaged through the suit, clearly intent on finding something. Regalion knelt beside her and touched the solid, smooth material in front of him. It was strong armor, with every joint linked by some aluminum-like metal. And still, it had been pretty decently damaged, Regalion imagined, silently. Metal forging was a rarity in this region. Finding scrap metal was a job often posted among the seeker coteries with high rewards, and the opportunity to protect a person who could forge the material was a rare jewel among the protection coteries. With all of his imagination, Regalion could not envision what this girl could have gone through to have any connection with the damage inflicted on this suit.

Regalion focused his attention on the young girl. Looking at her now, he could clearly see that she was in pain. Her breathing was quick and short, which he’d come to accept as normal for her, but there was something not quite right about its rhythm. Her feet were badly cut, and fresh wounds seemed to take root over many of the month old scars. The brightness of the sun obviously pained her. But not once had she complained. Regalion felt a rare swell of admiration for the strange creature.

At last, the girl seemed to find what she was searching for. From the suit, she pulled a small orange cylindrical device and inserted it into her ear.

“Follett…”

Her voice rang out, low, but strong.

“Follett, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

She pulled, from the suit, a small bag containing three more identical ear devices, and followed a similar routine with each one. After three failures the girl, once again, rummaged through the suit until she pulled out an orange box, slightly bigger than her hand, from yet another hidden pocket. She opened the box and began to fiddle with the wiring inside, speaking those same words in her strange dialect, “Follett, can you hear me?”

                Nothing.

Angered, the girl threw the box.

On the ground, a few feet from the hard suit, was a thick tubular mechanism. The thing was about two feet long and two inches wide, but otherwise unassuming. It was black, but seemed to be made of the same material that crafted the hard-suit. The girl walked to the mechanism and lifted it with both hands. Clutching her prize, as if for dear life, she took off once again. The girl ran, somewhat clumsily, toward the calm, cerulean sea.

Regalion bolted after her. Covering the distance quickly, he wrapped his arms around her, restricting her movements. With a new burst of energy, the girl screamed, kicked, and struggled. She was stronger than Regalion had anticipated, but still, he did not release her. Regalion stood half a foot taller, and though he was thin and lanky, there was no doubt that he was strong. The struggle was short lived.

The girl had exhausted her energy reserves, through and through. Her kicking quieted. Her prize dropped to the ground as her arms fell limply to her sides. Her high-pitched screams decrescendoed into a single, guttural wail. The pain in her cry seemed far too potent for one who had lived such a short life.

She sank to the ground, and Regalion sank to the ground with her. He loosened his grip. To his surprise, the girl laid her head in his lap. She curled up into a ball, and cried. For hours and hours she cried. For hours and hours, Regalion sat there in silence. He stroked her hair, and he let her.

***

     The sun had gone down. Wilde’s sobs had eased into a quiet slumber. “We should head back,” Regalion said gently, shaking her awake. He had a warm smile; the kind that could melt away your troubles, even if only for a moment. Wilde awoke with a clearer head than when she had fallen asleep. She stared at Regalion, for the first time, feeling grateful for his company.   A single dimple flashed on his left cheek, like a hidden valley in his mahogany skin. How fortunate am I, she thought to herself, to have found a friend?

Wilde could see clearly, now, that her earlier attempts had been nothing short of foolish. I am just a child, she thought, out of my element and weak. Nevertheless, her goal had not changed, and neither had her resolve:

Wilde would find her brother, or she would die trying.

A key realization, however, now occurred to the young girl. Just as Follett was the only family in the world that she had left, she was the same for him. Her recklessness had already cost their home. It had cost lives. It had destroyed their family. “We are always going to protect each other, you know? Two for one and one for two.” Wilde replayed the well-worn words in her head. At the very least, she owed it to her brother to cease her reckless behavior. To not leave him all alone. Not if she could help it.

“Lione…”

Regalion was taken aback momentarily. Very few called him by that name.

“My name is Wilde,” she, at last, confided.

As he heard the nickname, given affectionately to Regalion by his mother as she held her fearless, rambunctious toddler, he braced himself for the rush of painful emotions that so often followed. The grief. The anger. The blame... The longing for people who he would never see again. This time, however, those emotions did not come. Instead, there were the remnants of a warm glow, the affection that he used to feel when his mother’s voice would call him home. He felt a familiar sense of pride and duty, similar to the feeling that clutched his heart when his baby sister had mumbled his name for the first time. Zorai…

He wondered, then, how long Wilde had been awake before she’d opened her eyes at Haven.

“My brother and I were separated. I will find him. But, I am presently ill-prepared, and do not believe it safest to do so alone,” Wilde confessed.

Regalion looked at her thoughtfully. There had been no sign of another person when he’d found Wilde. Given the state that she was in and the difficulty bringing her back to consciousness, if this brother had made it out of the sea, his chances of survival were slim at best, even if he stumbled upon a decent healer. There was a twinge of sadness in Regalion’s dark brown eyes as he asked her,

 “Are you sure he’s still alive, Wilde?”

She waited a few moments before providing her answer.

“Sure is an inaccurate word to describe my feelings. I am confident that he is alive, yes.”

Without offering any additional information, Wilde began gathering the communication devices that she had scattered across the shore.

“Is there any particular reason you feel that way,” Regalion probed.

Again, there was a long pause before Wilde responded,

“My brother would not leave me here alone.”

With some effort, Wilde gathered her rod along with her communication devices, and started back in the direction from which they had come. Apparent that the conversation was over, Regalion let the subject be, and started behind her.

Shortly thereafter, remembering the damaged suit of his dreams, Regalion raced back to the shore of the sea cave. With a giddy smirk, he lugged the hard-suit away and out of the open. The suit was remarkably heavy. Wilde couldn’t have swum with this thing on, he thought to himself as he dragged the bulky material.  

Regalion drudged along until he and his paragon of exploration stood a few meters into the nearby wooded area. A sweet memory of his mother teased at the edges of his mind. Years ago, Regalion’s mother had shown him the sea cave. It was a secluded area that had been abandoned and mostly forgotten over the years, due to the high toxicity of the water. His mother would bring him there to teach him healing arts. “Because they are forgotten does not mean that they are not important, Lione,” she would say as they healed the suffering plants and small animals that lived there. During one of these excursions, she had also shown Regalion her secret stash spot, a deep hole in the woods where she’d hidden her most valued items. When Regalion inherited this stash spot, he’d expanded it. For his precious treasures, he had deepened the hole and, within it, built a large box. The top of the box rested a foot and a half from the surface, and he’d filled the excess space with dirt to act as proper camouflage.

As he drifted back to the present, Regalion furrowed his brow at the realization that he didn’t have much time to dig out his box. He revamped his smile as an idea formulated in his mind. Regalion removed a large foldable basket from his backpack and raced toward the sea. His mother’s soft voice echoed in his ear, “My brave boy, never go near the wate-” Regalion shook the warning away. He dipped the basket in the untouchable water until it was full, and walked it, very carefully, back to his spot.

Regalion set down his basket and sat for a few minutes, meditating, calling on his connection to the universe and stirring the mystic energy inside him. As he felt the energy surge through him, he poured the toxic liquid over the soil blocking the lid of his box. With great concentration, Regalion controlled the water, containing it within the one and a half feet of dirt atop his hidden treasure. Chanting his mantra, he slowly mixed the water with the soil until the dirt transformed into a sloshy, liquid mud. Regalion was pushing the limits of his concentration, and his mystic energy. But, determined to see his plan through, he sloppily guided the muddy water, up and back into the basket, until the opening latch of his box appeared before him.

Pleased with himself, Regalion hurriedly opened the box and pushed the hard suit inside. Unfortunately, after replacing the lid, Regalion realized that he had no dry dirt to re-cover his box. If he poured the muddied soil back into the hole, the toxic water would contaminate all of the surrounding organisms. Annoyed, Regalion removed a hand shovel from his backpack and began to manually refill the hole. The feeling of annoyance quickly evaporated, however, as Regalion recalled his latest feat. Controlling such a large amount liquid, with such precision, proved that the young mystic was growing in power. His smile widened.  

Satisfied that he’d hidden his stash, Regalion searched his backpack for empty containers. Smiling to himself, he filled as many empty containers as he could find with the muddied liquid, and walked the basket back to the sea. After completing his mission, Regalion expected to have a hard time tracking down his new found friend in the dark. But there she was, waiting for him at the edge of the woods.

***

Night had fallen. Regalion needed to rest, but they were making such good time. Wilde moved swiftly, confidently, in the dark. Regalion struggled to keep up with her. Drained, he asked in his gravelly voice, “Wilde, do you know where you’re going?” She tossed him a sideways glance as she responded, “Is this not the direction from which we came?” Wilde detected the slight breathlessness in Regalion’s voice when he spoke. “Aye, but there is a place that we need to go to first,” he said quietly. Wilde stopped walking and turned to face him, “Okay. We shall rest here while you tell me where we are going.” Regalion shook his head, “We still have a ways to go, and we should try to make it before morning.”

Regalion kept moving, but Wilde sat down where she was. “I do not believe it safest to continue as we are. We rest, just a little,” she said in a concluding tone. With no energy to argue, Regalion sighed and took a seat next to Wilde. He could feel the exhaustion overtaking him, drawing him in, like a magnet, toward slumber. “The moon,” Regalion pointed at the sky as he spoke, “when you can’t see it anymore, make sure that I’m awake and we’re moving, aye?”

Wilde nodded as her gaze followed his finger. At home, well, what had been her home, there was no view of the sky. She’d only ever witnessed it in pictures; images that, she now knew, had done it no justice. It was beautiful. And for the first time since she’d arrived on the surface, Wilde took it all in. She breathed deeply, and let the feeling swallow her entire being. She was mesmerized, caught in a trance; only, instead of losing touch with her surroundings, she felt so much more in tune.

As Regalion faded and, at last, gave in to sleep, he saw an image that soothed the core of his spirit. Regalion couldn’t be sure, but such nuances have never dampened his satisfaction. Real or imagined, right before his eyes closed, Regalion had finally seen his comrade smile.