Chapter 5: Mirada

Chapter 5



         Chapter 5



         I felt numb. That’s the only word I can think to describe it, but it still wasn’t really accurate enough. I felt broken and empty. I felt like even though I was alive, I hadn’t really survived the night before. Natalie Treit, born and raised in White Meadow, was dead. That life was gone. But I still had a chance for a new one, because of the person walking in front of me. We were walking through the forest, our feet occasionally breaking a twig or crunching an old leaf. Well, mine were. His footsteps were almost completely silent. It didn’t seem like he was putting much effort into walking soundlessly, but his feet never seemed to land on anything that made much noise. I was holding a small metal cylinder, about five inches long and only two or three inches wide. I had read about water vials in traveling books, and they were said to be an essential tool for any traveler. I lifted the tube to my mouth, and the water crystal embedded in the bottom conjured up cool, clean water for me to drink. The spirits of nature are everywhere, all the time, and though there were places were certain spirits were stronger or weaker, there was always aura to draw from in some form. The enchantment that kept this crystal making water would last forever, always able to draw enough aura from the spirits around it.

         The Azure Demon suddenly sneezed, and I nearly choked on the water, sputtering and coughing in surprise. I stared at his back as he sniffled and made an irritated sound. “Um…bless you.”

         “Hm?” He looked over his shoulder at me. He looked very different with his energy sealed away. His hair was brown instead of sky blue, and his coat had faded to black. He looked like any normal person. Even that feel of icy fury seemed to have vanished from him, though his eyes were locked in a sort of perpetual scowl. I mean, he still looked like the same person, but… it was like my eyes told me I was looking at someone else, completely different from the sword-wielding boy in blue from last night.

         Just like my mom had said, when they want to, energy forms really can look completely human.

         “You sneezed.” I said. “So, you know… bless you.”

         He raised a questioning eyebrow, then blinked, as though he had suddenly remembered something. “Oh, right. Thank you.” He looked ahead again. Had he forgotten people say bless you when someone sneezes? Everyone does that, it’s just the polite thing to do.

Although, he probably hadn’t spent much time around people. When you’re wandering around the world by yourself all the time, I guess you forget things like that.

         I didn’t understand how he wasn’t sweating. I mean, I was just wearing a loose t-shirt and pajama bottoms, and the mugginess of the early morning made me want to just collapse and melt into a puddle. He, however, even wearing that coat, didn’t seem at all bothered by it. Maybe it was because he was an energy form, and could still control small things about his body, even with his energy sealed? Just as I thought that, his arm slashed up at a low-hanging branch that was in our way. There was a tiny flash of blue light, and the branch fell to the ground, smoldering where it was severed.

         “Um…Mr. Azure Demon?” I said cautiously.

         He shook his head. “Reim.”

         “What?”

         He looked over his shoulder again. “My name… it’s Reim.”

         “Oh.” I smiled a little. For one thing, his name rhymed with the word name. Whenever he told someone ‘my name is Reim’ he was reciting poetry. It was kind of funny. Well, I thought so anyway. More than that though, knowing his name made me feel… I don’t know, more comfortable with him. “Reim.” I repeated. He was such an unusual person. Now that I really got a good look at him, he didn’t look intimidating or scary at all. He was small, just a hair shorter than me. The features of his face were smooth and rounded, boyish without looking immature. His eyes were a nice color of green, even though I had seen how scary they can be when he’s angry. All in all, he was actually really cute-

         Wait, had I just thought someone was cute? Me? But, I never thought like that, not unless I was talking to Amy and she started talking about it first. I felt myself blushing and suddenly became aware that while I was thinking all this, Reim was still staring at me with one eyebrow raised, waiting for me to speak. It occurred to me I’d been just staring at him the whole time, blushing after I said his name.

         “Are you alright?” He asked in that maddeningly contradictory voice.

         “Y-yes, I’m fine!” I said just a little too loudly and quickly, emphasizing just how humiliated I felt. By the spirits, what was wrong with me? I was so nervous. Shouldn’t I have been terrified? He was the Azure Demon. He was an energy form who I’d grown up being afraid of. I should have been shaking in fear, watching him and expecting him to turn his blade on me at any moment. But I wasn’t. I was nervous, but, I didn‘t mind him being there. I somehow knew I had nothing to fear from him. In fact, I felt like as long as he was around, I had nothing to fear at all.

         “…Did you have a question or something?” He asked.

         I blinked and quickly rubbed at my eyes. Once again, I had lost myself in thought in the middle of a conversation, while staring at him. He was right though, I had a lot of questions, and I had called to him a moment ago to ask some of them. “Yes. Sorry, I’m just really tired.”

         He grunted in acceptance, then turned to face forward again. “What do you want to ask?”

         There must have been a hundred different questions I wanted to ask him about, but one stuck out stronger than any of the others. “Um, last night, you told me it didn’t really matter, but now that we have time to talk about it, I wanted to ask why you saved me.”

         He was quiet for a moment, and I got the impression that he was thinking. Then he just shrugged. “Because I wanted to.”

         I stopped walking and my jaw dropped. He turned to face me. “You… you wanted to? That’s it?”

         He crossed his thin arms over his chest. “Basically.”

         “Do you do that sort of thing often?” I asked.

         He shook his head. “No.”

         “So… I was just a special case then?”

         He shrugged one shoulder. “You could say that.”

         “I don’t… I don’t understand.” I sputtered.

         “What’s not to understand?” He turned away and began walking again. “You were in danger, I decided to protect you. It’s as simple as that.”

         I resumed walking as well, pondering that for a moment. I was in danger, and he saved me. That couldn‘t really have been all there was to it though, could it? “Ouch!” I stopped suddenly as a twig that had managed to get into my slipper poked my foot. Why didn’t I think to grab real shoes before I left the house?

         Oh…right…

         I leaned against a tree and pulled off the slipper, dumped out the twig and put it back on. “So, what do you normally do? I mean, I’ve… I’ve heard a lot of things.”

         “Such as?” Reim asked.

         I didn’t want to say it, but I didn’t see any other way to get to the answers I wanted. “Well, people say you’ve destroyed entire cities, killed everyone in them. They say no one who comes across you lives to tell about it.”

         “Tch…” Reim shook his head. “If that were the case, how would you have heard it?”

         A sharp pain went through my heart and my head drooped. “That’s… what Amy said.”

         “Smart girl.” I looked up at him. Well, specifically at the back of his head, since he wasn’t looking at me.

         “So… you don’t kill people?” I asked.

         “You saw me kill three.” he replied. “Well, sort of.”

         “Well, yes, but, that was just in defense, not outright murder.” I argued.

         He was silent again for a minute before answering. “I’ve killed a lot of people, mostly people who get in my way when I have a goal in mind. Some of the people who’ve died because of me probably didn’t deserve it. But I don’t kill just anyone, and I don’t kill for the fun of it.”

         His answers were direct, but somehow mysterious at the same time. I don’t know how he managed to answer that way. He answered my questions in a straightforward fashion, but I realized I was only getting more confused, and that he wasn‘t really giving me any new information. Maybe I had just been thinking too much about it, looking for more than was really there behind his answers. Thinking that made me notice something else he said a moment ago. “Wait, what do you mean I ‘sort of’ saw you kill three people?”

         “They were energy forms, so they aren’t actually dead.” He replied.

         “Wait, what?” I asked. “Energy forms don’t die when you kill them?”

         “If you kill an energy form, yes, we die. However, killing our body won’t do that. It’s just a massive inconvenience.” He answered.

         New knowledge. All other thoughts got pushed aside. “How so?”

         Reim took a deep breath before he answered. I wondered if I was annoying him by asking so many questions. “Energy forms have a… nomadic soul. Well, more accurately, we are nomadic souls.” He gestured at himself. “What you’re looking at now? What you hear talking? It’s not really me, exactly. This body is… what I would be like if I were a human, though it’s really more of a vessel.”

         Woah. This was new. This was really, really new. “A vessel? For your soul?”

         “For myself.” He stopped and turned toward me. He held out his hand, and after a moment a sky blue light emanated from it, slowly swaying and dancing like a flame in slow motion. “The soul itself isn’t normally visible to the eyes, just like spirits aren’t. You have to rely on other senses to know they’re there.” He looked from me down to his own hand. “The light you see here? It’s manifested energy from my soul. It’s will given physical, tangible form, and it’s the closest you can come to seeing what I really am.”

         “Wow…” I stared at it, and as I did a strange feeling came over me. It trickled up my spine and spread through my entire body in small tingles. It made me think of the cold, angry edge in Reim’s voice, of the fear I felt just being in the presence of his killing intent during battle. It made me think of sorrow and pain that wasn’t mine, but the mere echo of it was so strong that it almost brought tears to my eyes. It made me think of a small light burning brightly even as the dark threatened to engulf it. More than anything however, it made me feel something I couldn’t properly define. A sense of familiarity, or companionship, the kind you feel when you’re around someone you’ve known for years. I hadn’t known Reim for years, I hadn’t even known him for a full day. As I looked at the light in his hand, however, I got a sense of a person I could connect with the name “Reim.” The sorrow, the anguish, the coldness, and that fierce, unbreakable will. I felt like, somehow, I really knew who Reim was.

         Then he closed his hand, and the light vanished, taking with it a large amount of that strange sense of familiarity. I looked at him, and saw he had been staring intently at my eyes. “Hm… you saw more than just the energy itself, didn’t you?”

         “I, uh…” I didn’t know what to say. I felt embarrassed and nervous again, and a little awkward, like how you feel when you accidentally walk in on someone changing clothes. “I’m sorry.” I muttered, looking away.

         “For what?” He turned and continued walking. “I showed you, didn‘t I? Why would I care that you saw me?”

         I continued walking as well, trying to shake off the cold sadness I felt. There was my own heartache, that I was trying very hard not to dwell on at the moment, since I was sure I would fall down crying again if I did. Then there was the remnants of whatever sadness I saw in Reim’s soul. I would have expected anger or hate, or maybe even a void of emotion, but not such pronounced sadness. It made me wonder what he’d been through, what would leave such a strong mark on his very soul that just seeing a small portion of it would make me feel so forlorn. I guessed it wasn’t something he would want to talk about, so instead I kept the conversation focused on gaining new intelligence. “Well… what happens when an energy form dies? That is, when their body dies?”

         Reim slashed another small branch out of our way, and it fell to the ground with a dull thump. “For a moment, our soul is defenseless, trapped in the dead body. Then we leave that body, essentially nothing but a ghost.” He stopped and glanced to his right, where a squirrel darted through the wood and up a tree. “…Then we find a new host mother. We merge ourselves with her soul temporarily, and sleep inside of it. If our host becomes pregnant, we can create a new body for ourselves to be reborn into, along with their true child.”

         “Reborn?” I repeated in awe.

         He nodded. “It’s still us. We still have all our memory and skills, and no matter what the parents are like, our bodies will always look almost exactly the same. However, despite our ability to alter our bodies, we still have to let them build and grow like any normal body, at least until they reach an age where we can properly use our power without destroying them.”

         I took another sip from the water vial as he spoke. “So, that body you’re in now. A human mother gave birth to it and raised you?”

         “…Yes and no.” Reim answered. “This body is actually a homunculus. It’s a copy of a body I was born into a long time ago.”

         “You can do that?” I asked.

         He shook his head. “I can’t, no, but it can be done, and I have an arrangement with someone who can.” He replied.

         “Wow, that’s amazing.” I looked him up and down again. “But it still functions just like a normal body?”

         Reim shrugged. “ It is a normal human body. It was just created, not born, and lacked any soul or spirit of its own.”

         “Wow…” I repeated. Energy forms were fascinating people. Sure, I’d grown up hearing that our bodies were just housing our true selves. When we die, our spirit moves on to the spirit realm and such, but… energy forms were an actual, physical representation of that. When they died, they just found a new mother and were born again. …Which meant the members of Guardian he killed would be back some day, and wouldn’t be very happy with him. Which reminded me… “Oh, Reim?”

         “What?” He answered.

         “Why did Sever call you a freak? You’re both energy forms, right?” I asked.

         Reim was silent. He wasn’t thinking about a reply or anything, he just… didn’t answer. I remembered that sorrow I saw in him, and wondered if I had just stomped on an old wound. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

         “You didn’t.” He said, but I couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth. “It’s just… not something I want to talk about.”

         I looked down sheepishly. Why did I ask such a clearly sensitive question so blatantly? You don’t just ask someone “Hey, why does your face look so weird?” when they have a disfigurement. “I’m really sorry.” I repeated quietly.

         “Natalie, it’s fine.” Reim said with finality.

         

         We walked in silence for a while, then Reim suddenly stopped and looked behind him. It was just like what happened when he shoved me aside last night. I didn’t want him to get hurt because of me again, so I jumped away of my own volition and looked behind me.

         I felt a little silly because there was nothing there but trees.

         “Damn. They must have guessed where I’d be leading you.” Reim said with a sigh. “Natalie, keep going ahead. It’s only another two miles or so until you reach Mirada. It’s a human town, but they should help you.”

         I looked ahead, then back at him. “What about you, Reim?”

         In answer, he clenched his fists, and I felt it when he released his hidden energy. It was like one moment I was standing next to a person, the next I was next to a fierce, wild animal. Reim’s features didn’t change, it wasn’t anything physical that made me feel that way. Well, his hair turned sky blue, and his jacket changed color to a darker blue again, but that alone wasn’t the cause of the sensation. It was the power of his soul that made me feel that way. I felt like the boy I had been talking to was gone, and that the Azure Demon had come back, and for just a moment, I felt the fear I had when I first saw him in my house the night before. It reminded me that no matter what he looked like, he wasn’t a normal person, not in the sense I understood them.

         I quickly shut that thought away. It didn’t matter that Reim wasn’t a normal person. He wasn’t just some wild animal or monster. He wasn’t just the Azure Demon. He was Reim. He saved my life. That made the fear vanish instantly, but a wave of guilt replaced it. He was about to fight, and probably get hurt, to save me again. “You really have to fight again? Can’t we just run the rest of the way?”

         He shook his head. “Maybe if I carried you, but if the people of Mirada knew I was coming…” He shook his head again. “No, slowing them down so you can get there is the only way.” He turned to look at me, and I felt my heart quicken for a tiny second. His eyes bored into mine, and I got the impression he saw more of me than I did him. “…Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t ask me to do this. I’m doing it of my own free will. I’m protecting you because I want to.”

         I blushed again and looked away. I can’t tell you how deeply it touched me for him to say that. I grew up reading stories about heroes charging in to save young damsels in distress, and I had imagined what it would be like so many times that I thought I‘d know exactly how it felt. I hadn’t. He spilled blood, suffered pain that I nearly screamed at when feeling only a fraction of it through my meager healing spell, all to protect me, from his own will and nothing else. You don’t really understand the word “hero” until you’ve been saved by one. “Just… promise me you’ll be careful.”

         He didn’t. He just turned back toward the route we had taken. “Just head for Mirada. You should be fine if you keep going.”

         “Reim… promise me.” I pressed, looking back at him.

         His eyes met mine again, but I wouldn‘t look away. “…If it’ll get you moving, fine. I promise I’ll be as careful as I can be.” He turned again. “Now go.” Then he started running. I wasn’t able to keep track of him. He started moving so quickly, it was like there was just a flash of blue, and I noted a blue light in the distance, rapidly getting farther away, like a streaking comet.

         I sighed. My hands started to tremble as I held the water vial. I was alone. That made me remember that my town was gone. My friends, my family, everything was gone. My protector had run off to protect me… and I was alone.

         I shook my head fiercely and looked toward the path ahead. Reim had said I’d be fine if I kept going, and he was right. I couldn’t waste time standing there feeling sorry for myself, not when he was risking his life. So I took a deep, steadying breath, squared my shoulders, and marched quickly through the woods, heading for Mirada.



         For the record, no matter how determined you are, or how steely your resolve, walking all morning in the increasingly sweltering heat, being covered in a suffocating cocoon of sweat and muck that you haven’t had a chance to wash off, is downright terrible, and will drain all the determination out of you. When I reached the edge of the woods and saw the town, the memory of my old town came into my head for a moment, but by the spirits, I was just too tired to feel sad about it at the moment. I leaned forward, resting my slick, sweaty hands on my knees, noting the filth that had accumulated on my pajamas from walking through the forest in this heat. I was out of breath, my body ached, I couldn’t feel my feet, and I could just smell the sweat and smoke and dirt on me. I must have looked like an absolute mess.

         But you know what? I was alive, and I made it. If someone didn’t like how I looked after what I’d been through, they could jump in a lake, I didn’t care. I stood up, took another swig from the water vial, and resumed my march into Mirada. I took a quick look around, not bothering to take in much of the sights, and almost instantly noticed what I was looking for.

         A tall, wide building made of dark wood, four stories high, with several windows, and a wide, welcoming door. Glowing crystals set in glass spheres were embedded on both sides of the door, but their light was practically invisible with the sun almost directly overhead. A sign over the door read “Blade Brothers’ Inn.” I let out a heavy breath and walked to the door, opening it and stepping inside.

         The change from noon-time sun to the relative dimness of the inn nearly blinded me. I suddenly shivered and put my arms around myself, shocked by the change from sweltering summer heat to magically cooled air.

         “Oh, no, not another one. Richard!” I heard a woman’s voice sound, and I blinked several times as my eyes adjusted. A thin woman somewhere in her forties with work-worn clothing, graying brown hair pulled off her face, and a distressed look came hurrying over to me. Something about her ruggedness told me she was a human, along with her very human-styled jeans and t-shirt. She put her arm around me and led me further inside the lobby, and I dimly noted that I had stepped onto a large, circular brown rug directly beneath a plain chandelier. The room itself was all wood, just like the outside, with pillars here and there supporting it. Off to one side, I saw a door leading elsewhere, and a set of steps next to a desk with another door leading off somewhere else.

         From that door, a bulky man with dark, wild hair and beard came out, wearing a brown button-up with the sleeves rolled up off his muscular, somewhat hairy forearms. “By the spirits…” he growled. As the woman led me to the desk, I looked up at the man behind it. He was intimidating, but his eyes were soft and warm. “You from Xander, Miss?”

         “No… White Meadow.” I replied numbly.

         “Spirits, no, they went after White Meadow too?” She exclaimed.

         I felt the small seed of hope that had appeared in me shatter like a block of dropped ice. When she had said “another one,” I had hoped she meant someone else from White Meadow. If she didn’t even know Guardian had attacked there though…

         “Lisa, would you take her to room 309?” He rummaged around under the desk, then returned with a small key which he handed to me. “Here you go, little lady, don’t you fret. Lisa here will take you to your room, and if she wouldn’t mind, I’ll have her fetch you some food and a change of clothes or two.”

         “I wouldn’t mind at all. Come on now, let’s get you taken care of.” Lisa said, urging me toward the stairs.

         I looked from the key, to Lisa, and then to Richard. “But, I don’t have any money or anything…”

         Richard cocked his eyebrow at me then shook his head. “Didn’t ask for any money. Don’t need any money. Now quit fussin’ and let us do something nice for you.”

         I felt fresh tears slide down my cheeks as I heard the warmth in his stern voice, and felt Lisa’s arm tighten around me ever so slightly. I had heard humans weren’t always the friendliest or most selfless of people, but at that moment, I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone more friendly or kind. “Thank you.” I sobbed, and let myself get led to my room.