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Previously on Sea Dragon Apocalypse … Keiliki leads new friends away from Alaire and tries to heal Toma.
AS DAWN BROKE, KEILIKI WAS SPORTING AN INTENSE HEADACHE unlike anything she’d ever experienced and was feeling feverish. When she first awakened, she told herself to go back to sleep, to get the rest she desperately needed, to ignore the troubles of the world, but deeply ingrained habits had trained her otherwise. Even if her sleep hadn’t been nightmare-ridden, her personal rituals ruled much of her life, kept her moving, trying even when she didn’t feel like it. Without giving the slightest thought to it, she sat up to rub a gritty substance from her eyes, wiped it on the grasses and repeated the process. Whatever it was, she found it all over her skin and determined she wouldn’t be able to clean it all off without a bath.
Bad timing, she thought. So much to do.
Realizing her efforts were futile without water, she gave up for the moment and surveyed her new home to observe who else might be awake.
None.
She was alone for a moment. Her eyes rested upon each of the women in turn, wondered how they’d ended up on this path, why they’d become Darkened in the first place. Before her own experience, she’d never really thought about it. She grew up believing that only the worst criminals ever suffered the worst ritual cursing of her people. She had a new perspective now, seriously questioned her long held reality.
One of the women, a Sa’Yino by birth, scarcely appeared nineteen. What could she have done to merit a lifelong punishment? She wasn’t rugged, neither had she shown any inclination toward violence or sarcasm as they’d marched the night before, nor had she served anyone with any attitude besides meekness or kindness the few times Keiliki had seen her at camp. True, both virtues could be faked, and convincingly so when fear motivated a woman, but that didn’t seem to be the case. In that moment, the woman, Keiliki’s relative, rested her head on a small pile of personal belongings and bore the unmistakable expression of youthful innocence.
Looking upon her, Keiliki began to doubt for the first time in her life the depth of corruption that might have been present among her people. Perhaps, this young woman hadn’t done anything meaningfully evil at all. Perhaps, the Darkened camp was larger than it had right to be and had been filled with individuals who brushed along the wrong edge of the council’s ideological perspective.
Keiliki sighed, continued to inspect each of the other women who’d followed her, pursued similar lines of questioning for each of them. Later, she’d ask them, require everyone to be transparent one with another. If they were to survive, they needed to stick together, to find common ground, unity. Maybe they could spare time each day reading inspirational sayings on their robes and discuss them, to foster camaraderie. Gods knew, without common principles, they’d never survive out here for long.
Soon, Keiliki found herself walking away from camp, thinking about these things, her mind riveted upon duty and pressing needs. Scouts would follow their tracks. When they did, Keiliki would be required to kill more people, her people, and likely, innocent people, an eventuality she couldn’t begin to embrace at any level. Already, her dreams were haunted and after yesterday, she understood she’d need to learn how to leave those horrible events behind. Perhaps worse, there would be no promise that her followers would be spared. She likely couldn’t protect them all, not until they grew in power.
Only a few dozen yards away from camp, Keiliki summoned the thirteenth chi, hummed the tune, modified her walk to include a modified pose for the thirteenth rune, and gestured toward the paths that they’d walked, all while interjecting melodies from the seventeenth song to restore the health and vigor of vegetation they’d trodden down. All this, she did wearing thin, leather slippers she’d taken from her home. The Darkened normally walked barefooted so the minimal tracks of her slippers would draw little or no suspicions. Besides, she’d add more illusions on her way back and perhaps obfuscate her own marks as well.
When she’d retraced a few kilometers, Keiliki sat down to rest on a grassy patch a few meters east of the path, only to notice several large paw prints leading to a stone she was resting against and resuming on the other side. It didn’t take a master huntsman to recognize the tracks were notably fresh. Oddly, the sight didn’t cause her undue stress but she found herself shivering regardless. A moment later, she dry heaved. This, she recognized, was illness, not fear. Nevertheless, she didn’t want scouts to find her thusly compromised so she cut her rest short, began her final efforts to set long-lasting illusions as best as her skills allowed.
Already, she could barely find or follow tracks from the day before, only her own, subtle slipper prints, but she could do better on a second pass.
Keiliki walked backwards, alternating between the same two chis as before, only this time, focusing on adding new details, a bush here, a small boulder there, and other images that would suggest no one had traveled this area for quite some time. These would appear to remain whether or not someone physically touched them or walked through them. Only a ripple would be noticeable and typically, untrained observers counted that as a mental glitch, a misperception.
Massive jaguar paw prints she treated differently. These, she replicated and multiplied using the first song. Saber toothed tigers were known to hunt in packs. Who was to say mutant, Asian jaguars wouldn’t do the same? Regardless of whether or not that was true, the appearance of multiple large predator tracks would discourage scouts after yesterday’s news. Stories of massive, mutant beasts mutilating troops would have spread throughout her small village. Saya would have made sure of that and if Jugo had died … everyone would know what she’d done.
And thus Keiliki continued until she was only about one kilometer away from her practicing area, her new home, all the while, walking backwards to ensure she left few to no new tracks. Stumbling on a small change in terrain, Keiliki’s headache and nausea intensified again, leaving her too weak to continue walking. Surrendering only for a moment, she told herself, she half knelt down and half tumbled to the earth, where she lay down to rest. Only for a moment, she repeated.
Good intentions notwithstanding, she awakened frightfully from the same nightmare she’d had earlier that morning. Images of Saya having her face gruesomely shred apart somehow haunted her worse than images of soldiers and council members she’d killed afterward. She hadn’t known any of them well but Saya, despite her treachery, had once been her friend and for some reason she’d never be able to explain, Keiliki couldn’t see past that irrelevant detail. Pity for her friend couldn’t be denied. Almost no one deserved such a fate.
As Keiliki awoke, she gasped loudly, sat up with lightning speed, and nearly screamed.
That only made matters worse.
Icy cold blue eyes snapped wide open with surprise. The hulky, mutant beast retreated only far enough to ensure its safety, roared with the most terrifying cry Keiliki had ever heard, and swatted a paw toward her as if warning her to stay on the ground. Hearing large cats roar in a recording was intimidating to say the least but hearing it in person, less than a foot away from your face, was a different thing entirely. Nothing prepares you for that sort of thing. All that remains is instinct and if you don’t come through the right family line, there is little to none of that to draw from.
Teeth bared, mouth opened as if ready to attack, and balanced on each of its legs to pounce, the massive saber toothed jaguar roared a second time, this time, with less energy and for a shorter duration but those subtleties didn’t assuage Keiliki’s primordial fear in the slightest.
This one, she hadn’t summoned. This one, she’d neglected to notice while it had been hunting her and those two details mortified her beyond reason. Not that it mattered. There was no time to think.
Uncontrollably shivering and frozen in fear, Keiliki began humming the second tune, wondered if the ninth had been a better choice, but it didn’t matter. She passed into blackness. Two beasts growling in discordant harmony was the last noise she heard.
or maybe spot me some Elvish Tea for second breakfast?
Thank you for reading Sea Dragon Apocalypse! I post roughly twice a month so come back soon for more intrigue and action!
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