Sairek always felt a little odd when the sudden rush of consciousness came back to him after having been asleep for an extremely long time. The passage of time always felt nearly instant to him but also like it had been missing, yet his body could tell that a long time had passed, if the absence of last night’s pain, fatigue, aching and… more pain, was anything to go by. Those discomforts were now replaced by new things. Hunger; a lot of it and a vital need to use the bathroom to empty his bladder.
Sairek however, not being a morning person at all, was detestful at the discomfort of being awake in the first place and wanted to return back to the comfort of sleep once more, so he groaned and rolled around in the bed for an extra five minutes, trying in a futile attempt to return to that state of sleep despite what his bladder was telling him, but it ultimately proved too uncomfortable for him and with a grunt in surrender, he finally pushed himself a little bit off of his comfortable bed and wiped his eyes with his knuckles. He tried to rearrange his mind about the events that had happened yesterday and the night before…
He had introduced Nayleen to Laure and she had guided Nayleen to her own guest room, then he and Laure had talked for a bit, with Sairek telling her about his plans that he’d be leaving soon. He remembered that she had taken his clothes last night in ‘preparation’ for today, but he didn’t know exactly what she had meant by that.
Still rubbing his eyes, he slowly sat himself up and pushed his disheveled hair away from his face before opening his eyes.
“I’ve made a few modifications to them.”
“Ah–!” Sairek yelped startled awake at Laure’s sudden voice and clutched his left hand over his chest, eyes wide for a second before he exhaled a deep breath to calm himself. “Sweet Lands, Laure!”
“Sorry, Master.” Laure apologized and bowed.
Sairek narrowed his eyes at her. She was smirking. “...As loyal of a servant as ever, I see.” He replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Made a few modifications to what?”
“Your clothes, of course, and the royal jewel as well, for safety.” Laure answered.
Sairek blinked his eyes once. “...You can do that?”
She frowned. “Of course I can. I used my own magic. Well, the enhancements are not much given the very limited time I had, but…” She trailed off, holding Sairek’s clothes to lay them down at the foot of the bed for him, facing him. Sairek leaned his body forward to look at them as she traced her hands on the shirt slowly, almost subconsciously.
“For starters, I used the largest one you had. You’re still a growing boy after all.” Sairek rolled his eyes at this. “Secondly, I enchanted them to make them a little bit lighter. It’s not much but over the course of traveling, they should wear you out a little less. The protective enchantments on them were old, but there wasn’t enough time to renew them, so I simply removed them entirely. That will make the royal jewel easier to use, which is what I spent most of my attention on.”
Sairek figured that made sense. After all, that little jewel alone was possibly more important than he was, making sure nothing happened to it was the real concern here. Nobody wanted anything to happen to him as association to that. He wondered if he should even take it with him, but Laure was pretty insistent that he should. After all, it would help him in times of danger.
“I did add a couple of minor enchantments though, to repel the summer heat and help keep you a little warmer in times when it’s colder. They are simple and aren’t much, so still seek shelter when needed, but they will help for a little bit.” Laure warned him, which Sairek nodded. “For the jewel, many of the enchantments on it are so it cannot be lost easily. I’ve linked the jewel to your soul while you were sleeping—”
“You what?” Sairek blinked. Again.
“You were so deep in sleep, it made it easy.” Laure said. “With it linked to your soul, you will be able to find it easily if it does end up becoming lost. It will make it also easier to use it in times of emergency, however, that also comes with its own negatives that you must keep the jewel in top condition or it can start to become… stressful.” Laure warned him. “In other words, don’t over use it, or you will begin to feel a terrible strain on your body as it will begin to feed into your own energy more than you will probably like. You will need to recharge it yourself with ethereal regularly. I’ve already supplied some inside the jewel. It can be used as a storage device too, just like my apron. I guess you already knew that though, judging from last night.
“Ah yes, speaking of which, storing things in it will drain it of energy over time, with the more it holds, the more energy that will be consumed. It can hold a lot, but don’t hoard absolutely everything. Usual camping supplies and enough supplies to last you for at most two weeks should be fine, but anything more than that and you will probably have to use more ethereal than you might be comfortable with. Then finally, I've made it so it will stay attached to your clothes. So nobody can just pull it off and run with it without going through the enchantment first. This is the main thing I spend my time working on, so it should be very difficult to do. Of course, if for some reason you aren't wearing this, like when cleaning them or bathing, anyone can still pluck the clothing and thus the jewel, so please be careful."
“How much ethereal do we have, then?” Sairek asked.
“Not a lot, I am afraid. The shipment from Lamen hasn’t arrived in quite some time. Perhaps you can go investigate what is going on while you are there?” Laure suggested.
“All right, I’ll see what I can do. Then I can get my own source of the stuff while I’m there, right?”
“Correct. I’d take as much as you reliably can. It doesn’t need to be refined at all, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get your hands on it every now and then, but having a few extra bottles wouldn’t hurt. For immediate medicine, if anything else.”
“Right…” Sairek frowned. He didn’t like the idea of possibly getting critically injured, but it was best to be prepared. As much as his father kept touting how ignorant he was of the outside world, he knew very well that there were plenty of things outside of the walls to be wary and careful of. They weren’t common, sure, but they did exist. “About Lamen though…” Sairek began slowly, tilting his head slightly. “It’s not the shipment you really want me to go there for, is it?”
Laure smiled at him. “I trust you will be able to fulfill my request.” Was all she said. “Now, would you like me to go grab your friend?”
Sairek sighed but nodded slowly. “Sure. Let me make myself presentable first and get dressed, then I’ll talk to her. I’ll get myself dressed, don’t worry. Give… twenty to thirty minutes, I guess? And Laure...?”
"Yes, Master?"
"Thank you for everything."
She smiled then bowed, moving towards the door to do as she had said. Sairek sat on the bed for a moment, before letting out a final yawn, stretching and got up to take care of his morning chores. One trip to his personal bathroom to use the toilet, a quick shower and drying himself off and combing his hair back into place later, he got himself dressed with minutes to spare and busied himself by reading a book before there was a knock on his door and he moved to answer it.
Nayleen was there by herself and she invited herself in by pushing past him and closing the door with the butt of her foot. “Man, this room is so glamorous~ I still can't get over how big it is!” She cheered. She was holding something in her hand and took a bite of it with a crunch.
“...Are you... eating cookies for breakfast?” Sairek asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah?” She asked after swallowing.
“Isn’t that bad for you?”
Nayleen looked down at the half eaten cookie in her hand, shrugged, then shoved the rest of it into her mouth, her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk’s. Sairek rolled his eyes at her. Then, he began filling her in on what Laure said about Lamen, which she listened to while she slowly munched on half an entire cookie in her mouth, just staring forward.
“...Did you get all of that?” Sairek asked.
“...Can you repeat that again? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of the cookie in my ears.”
Sairek gave her a glare.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that!” She whined, then dug into her shorts’ pocket and pulled out another cookie. “Look, cookie~”
Sairek’s eyes followed the little disc of pastry with his eyes as she moved it around in a figure-eight motion. He sighed and pulled the glove off of his right hand and grabbed it before taking a disgruntled nibble of it and chewed it in his mouth, falling for her bribe of an apology. Then he took two more quick bites.
“So where are we going again?” She asked, beaming a grin at him at seeing how fast he was devouring the cookie.
“Lamen.” Bite.
“And then?”
Swallow. “We get ethereal for this thing here.” Sairek said, tapping on the jewel as he took another bite, pushing the rest of the cookie into his mouth.
“And then?”
Swallow. “I visit the monastery in Lamen to see my mother.” Sairek said and blinked his eyes. “Wow… it really has been a long time since I visited there, hasn’t it? Must have been over six years ago by now...” He murmured, dusting his right hand off from cookie crumbs, before sliding his glove back onto his hand.
Nayleen tilted her head at him slightly. “Didn’t she get sick at the Holy Magic Century ceremony?”
“Apparently. Not only was it a celebration for another new century, but also celebrating three-hundred years without a war. Well, the dates don’t exactly line up, but it’s close enough that the celebration and the century ceremony were just lobbed into one giant celebration. That was all done at the foot of Yggdrasil.” Sairek answered. “And… that’s when mother’s first symptoms started showing and she just never recovered from that...” He sighed.
“Is that why you want to see Yggdrasil so badly?”
Sairek shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll probably find nothing. It’s not like other people haven’t been there since then. I don’t have much else to go off of to figure out what happened. She originally had an attack; like a stroke. Then she seemed to recover and be fine… for a little while, but her condition gradually got worse and worse over the years.
"Somehow, this disease, or whatever it was is something we never encountered before. Maybe she had it for a while and the symptoms coincidentally just happened to start showing up right then and there, but regardless, before that happened, she was a healthy woman, then that happened and it eventually killed her…”
Sairek took a deep but slow inhale. “Me being in her womb at that time during her attack and then my eventual birth certainly didn’t help her. Giving birth to me took most of her remaining strength, though she was very grateful I apparently was a healthy baby. She was bedridden from that point on, until passing away a couple years later due to ‘natural causes’, they claim.” Sairek said, raising both his fingers in each hand to emphasize the two words.
“Natural causes?” Nayleen inquired.
“Accelerated aging... She went from early thirties to looking like she was way past her prime within a span of three years.” Sairek explained. "A speed of maybe twenty years every year after my birth."
Nayleen made a face at that. There was obviously nothing natural about that at all.
“Diseases don’t just manifest out of nowhere. They spread through some sort of cause, and I was in her womb during that time. So… what better target for a disease to spread to than the embryo that had been inside of her for nine months?” Sairek wondered out loud.
“You’re what, eleven, almost twelve now and nothing has happened, right?” Nayleen asked.
“Yes, and probably nothing will, but it has always been at the back of mind. It haunts me still.” Sairek admitted. “Who knows, maybe I am infected by it, but I just show no symptoms. For all I know, I could be a walking pandemic. We still know nothing about what it was or how it happened, even after nearly ten years since she passed away.
"It’s a shame... Father used to talk about her a lot when I was very little after she passed away, often referring to her as a diamond in the rough. I don’t have too many memories of her, but she seemed like a fantastic person. He’s still clearly very hurt by her passing. I was hurt too, of course and I suppose in a way I haven’t gotten over her death either. Here I am, still trying to figure out what happened to her still, after all...”
There was an uncomfortable silence that fell between them. Sairek broke it after a small shake of his head. “Anyway, I’m going to visit my mother in Lamen, then I guess we’ll stick to the plan of going to your place and then seeing Yggdrasil for myself. After reading so much about it in books, I want to experience the sight of it for myself anyway.”
“Well, that I can definitely help you do. It’s going to be quite a trip on foot, though. Are you sure you are ready for it? It’ll be hard to come back home once we really start making distance.”
“Definitely.”
“Then let’s get you some proper grub and set off soon!” Nayleen grinned, patting Sairek on the stomach with a hand. “Need to give you more than just two apples this time.”
* * *
Sairek and Nayleen stepped their way through the main hall after filling their stomachs with breakfast and Sairek had checked their supplies once over again. They had the ethereal, tents, sleeping bags, lots of food—some perishable which they would go through first, some basic tools, money, a couple of extra pairs of more casual clothes and bedwear, though Sairek didn’t know how much he would be using them personally. He didn’t know if there was anything else they needed. If they needed more, buying was always an option…
They had topped off their stomachs with an early brunch with Nayleen possibly eating more dessert than he thought was healthy, but after they were done, Sairek decided it was finally time and here they were, approaching the front doors of the castle and pushing them open to walk through the main courtyard. He hadn’t even bothered saying goodbye to his father. They still hadn't spoken since he had returned and if he had to be honest with himself, he preferred it that way. He loved his father, he did, but...
“You’re not having any second thoughts about this, are you?” Nayleen asked him suddenly as she walked beside him.
“...Why would I?” Sairek asked back, glancing towards her.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay with this.” She answered. “Y’know, it’s likely you’re going to get homesick, probably pretty badly since this is the only place you really know and you've never done anything like this before. Heck, I still get homesick sometimes!”
Sairek shrugged. “This is something I wanted and probably needed to do for a good while. It feels like a prison here. Other than leaving Laure behind, I don’t have any regrets, and she’s the one who has also been encouraging me anyway.” He explained, looking ahead of him towards the gates that would bypass the walls of the castle. “I’m not sure when I will want to come back, but I will have to. I am Prince. I have to someday.”
Nayleen mused at that. “Guess that makes you either very determined, or desperate. Kinda unfortunate that’s how you feel about it, though I guess I never told my parents either. I just left a note and went. They’re probably worried sick about me but if I had told them they would have never allowed it.”
“Well, this is my place to return to if I ever get tired of being out by myself, but right now, if I come back here, it will feel too soon.” Sairek drawled.
“Hey, could always hang out at my place for a bit~” Nayleen egged him with a gentle nudge of her elbow.
Sairek chuckled. “I guess, though I’m not sure how much Kior would appreciate that, but I suppose I don’t have a need to sneak into the country anymore. I can do everything officially, now.”
Sairek moved towards the gates and pushed both of them open with a bit of a grunt. There were like giant doors, but that didn’t make them any less heavy. Nayleen moved to help him, taking one side as he took the other as they slowly pushed them open and stepped through them. After stepping through, they both made their way down the hill the castle rested on top of, making their way down the walls of Marid. Sairek made his way towards the gates of the village, where two lookouts wordlessly moved to open the door to them both and nodded at them. Sairek nodded back and stepped through.
Once the doors closed behind them, Sairek looked back, seeing and hearing the large doors shut and a bolt locked them back up tight again.
“Are you okay?” He heard Nayleen ask him, causing him to turn back around to face her. “You look kind of spooked.”
“No, not spooked. It just feels surreal still. Like a dream…” Sairek murmured. “Unless you count our little escape, the only time I’ve been out of these walls last was over six years ago, and the total number of times that happened was only twice… I don’t even remember what any of the landscape looks like, besides from what I can see from my bedroom window every morning.” He answered, looking back behind him again, but this time at the castle. Even here, he could see his bedroom window, though very far away.
“Hmm, I have a plan to fix that then!” Nayleen chirped.
“Huh? What’s that?” Sairek asked, and blinked when Nayleen grabbed his left hand with both of her hands.
“First I grab you like this…” She began.
“Umm—”
“Then, I pull you over like this…!” She continued, suddenly pulling Sairek along at a sprint, yanking him forward and causing him to nearly stumble into the ground as he was pulled along with her.
“H-Hey! Come on! I don’t need to be dragged…!” Sairek argued, but she kept pulling him along and along until nearly half dragging him up towards a nearby tall cliff edge. When they reached the top, she let go of him and Sairek needed a moment to collect himself before he looked upon the view and drank it all in.
It felt like from up here, he could see for miles. It was lower than his bedroom window and similar to it in a lot of ways, but it was still a new perspective he hadn’t seen before. The landscape in Ceareste had always been fairly 'bumpy'. Little cliffs here and there, lots of hills, very mountainous and it had a lot of valleys, at least until you got much further up north, that was where it flattened itself a fair bit more. Sometimes in the southern regions though, the terrain was so mountainous, that some traveling was done underground through small caves that had been man-built, or so he had heard, anyway.
“You know, Kior doesn’t have any places that look nearly as awesome as this.” He heard Nayleen say to him as they continued to gaze at the view. “Kior’s machinery has polluted the region so badly, it’s nearly just a wasteland now and what areas are left were mostly desert regions anyway. It’s only near the outskirts of Ceareste and Kior that vegetation is still around aplenty.”
Sairek turned slightly towards her as he continued to look. “Well, it may look pretty, but that’s still going to be tough to travel through to make our way to Lamen. Ceareste does no favors in helping people who travel on foot and it makes horses fairly unpopular around these parts.” He tilted his head slightly in thought. “I remember when we went to Lamen six years ago, we went in a carriage—well, it was more like a convoy, I guess. Either way, it was so slow and difficult to get through like that… I think walking would have been faster. It should only take us three days on foot still, though. It's not terribly far, just annoying to get to from here.” He frowned. Setting the castle here he supposed was also another mechanism of defense from centuries ago when war was more rampant. An army trying to march through this stuff would have been difficult, for sure.
“Well, what better time to get started than right now? Who knows, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll get to spelunk a small cave or two along the way~?” Nayleen offered giddily.
Sairek sighed. She was serious just a moment ago and now she was brimming with such childish optimism, even more than he was.
Well, regardless, whether through thick or thin, Nayleen was his partner now, and despite knowing so little about her and it only being a couple of days, Sairek trusted her implicitly.
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