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Aramis drifted off to sleep as soon as the sun rose. |
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Which was unforunate for him because he knew there was a long day ahead and, if he and Bre got started on their journey at the crack of dawn, they could make it to Jungar's Fort City by sundown. And that was not something to look forward to. Kept awake by his fear of nightmares, Aramis refused to even bat an eye that night, keeping himself awake and aware with frequent walks around his campsite's perimiter and throwing sand into the fire every now and then just to watch it flare up and die down like an Ifrit infuriated at being disturbed but too lazy to do anything about it. Most of the night, however, he watched Bre sleep. He wondered what she was dreaming, if anything at all, and if she'd ever been bothered by nightmares the way he so often was. But her sleep was peaceful, and he envied her then, wondering when, if ever, he'd attain that level of tranquility in his life.
But now, as he finally gave into fatigue, the fiery orange globe in the distance crept up over the hills and bathed him in its vivid tangerine glow, shocking him back into consciousness. He couldn't restrain himself. Angrily, he shouted a particularly vulgar explicative. Bre, startled awake by the sudden noise, nevertheless managed a wonderfully expressive yawn, extending her arms far above her head as if reaching for the dust beneath Aramis' feet, no more than half a meter away. "Good morning," she said finally, her voice creaking with grogginess. "Yes, yes, beautiful morning," Aramis replied with a furious grumble, standing up and dusting off his bottom. "Get up; we've got a long day ahead of us."
"But I just woke up!" Bre protested, slinking out of her sleeping bag and shakily getting to her feet. "At least give me a moment to wake up in here!" She pointed to her right temple, staring at Aramis in disbelief. "All right," he said with a strange smile. "I'll give you twenty seconds to wake up in there, or else."
"Or else what?" Bre challenged, blinking the sleep out of her eyes.
"Or else I make you wake up in there, and you wouldn't like it if I did that at all. You see... cold water and I are very, very good friends. I have him over for lunch and dinner every day, and sometimes, really early in the morning, like--"
"Okay, all right, I get the idea!" Bre exclaimed, angrily rolling up her sleeping bag and packing her belongings. Sure, it was great fun to tease the girl, but he had more practical reasons to want to get into town. There, there would be many pockets to pick, better food to eat, and an actual bed to sleep in once they found a cheap, suitable inn.
And so, Aramis and Bre set out for Jungar's Fort City, a rather large, crowded metropolis in the heart of Villimaroon. He'd been to Villimaroon plenty of times before, even lived there for a while, but he never visited Jungar's Fort. I really should have, he though to himself, Bre's chattering a welcomed derivative from the silence he so detested when traveling alone. The Vollans are pretty decent weapon makers, especially when it comes to knives.
"Ah, damn," he whispered, stopping suddenly and putting a hand to his stomach. Bre stopped as well, growing silent and watching as Aramis doubled over in pain. "H-hey--what's wrong?" she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Ah... nothing," he managed through clenched teeth. "Just a little stomach ache; let's keep going." Shruging it off, Bre began talking again, something about a play or a production she wanted to show off to the world but had become gradually disappointed in. Aramis, however, was concentrating on how to keep that grimace of pain off of his face.
Knives. The very word had brought back a flood of memories, all of them tethered to one name: Logan. He'd been obsessed with knives, as Aramis knew, and that was probably the definitive trademark of who he was. As much as he wanted to, Aramis couldn't forget Logan. It was an emotion akin to someone getting a particularly savage scar during childhood and growing up just fine. That person could get on with their everyday lives, uninhibited by the scar for lack of pain or, possibly, immediate visibility. But once that person undressed to bathe or to sleep at night, they could always look in the mirror and see that scar there, reminding them that the past, indeed, was real and no matter how hard they could try to forget and ignore it, that scar would forever be there to remind them.
As the day went on, the topic of discussion bounced from politics to religion to philosophy and rested only when they stopped for a short lunch break. As evening approached, the faint outline of Jungar's Fort City could be seen in the distance, and Aramis breathed a sigh of relief. Soon, they would be surrounded by hundreds of unfamiliar faces, people with whom neither he nor Bre had any sort of ties or affiliations. Here, they would be merely visitors and vagabonds, not to be completely trusted, but not to be overy wary of, either. The pickings would be great, and as long as he had a few gold coins in his pocket and someone to talk to, he was going to be all right.
 Bleeding Apocalypse · Thu May 19, 2005 @ 02:21pm · 2 Comments |
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