We set out with the darkness as our only companion. Even before the first lights of twilight had come, Muriel splashed water all over us, chasing us out with a broom. She chased us smack out of town, Nathea grabbing her basket, or Kanap, which was filled with apples and Muriel throwing our weapons at us as we ran. By the time Nathea stopped running, we were too far on the course towards the Whipping Willow to turn back for real provisions.
Nathea strolled along, carrying the Kanap of apples. Each apple with an arrow pierced straight through the middle. The basket was made of Kanapa's leaves, a leathery coarse substance, and the shape of the basket was retained with fish bones. Why she was saving the apples was a mystery to me, but listening to the constant crunching and smacking of lips as she delved into the sweet fruit while my stomach growled was making me jealous.I was not about to ask her for an apple though. After the first day of training, she had suddenly become stonily quiet and reformed towards me. If there had ever been so much as a laugh or a smile on her face before, it had vanished without a trace. In retrospect, this was worse than her angry temperment, at least I existed.
Ever since, she had insisted she could train by herself, and when I came close, she would run into Muriel's hut doing who knows what in there. Perhaps Mur was teaching her witch art to Nathea.
Girls.
The first traces of black and white morning were seeping over the equally dull landscape. A soft thud on the earthen floor sounded as an apple core fell. The munching ceased after and filled with awkwardly tense silence. The gushing of a river was echoing through the otherwise strangly silent scenery. Nathea's footsteps crunched loudly in comparison to my deft movements. If I may brag myself, I had long since trained myself to walk with cunning and invisible stealth. And that was what saved me from the same fate as ma.
My stomach belched angrily.
"Um, can we go find-"
"Yes, the river sounds from afar of that direction", she interrupted in a stiff formal voice, and jerking her finger ever so slightly to indicate to the right.
See what I mean?
"Yea", I mumbled, leading off towards the direction, "I could've figured that o-"
"Yes, you could've. I'm sorry for interrupting you"
Yeah, right. The interrupting thing was usually what I did. So it was particularily unnerving for her to be stealing my posistion.
The river happened to be quite close by. Nealing down, I drank deeply from its waters. From the side of my eye I could see Nathea mimicing me. I straightened up.
"Look for a Kanap tree", I instructed while staring around. Noticing the tree right away. Swollen pods hung from the tree like great glass lanterns. Leaping over a tiny tributary, I snatched one of the pods. Unsheathing a Cat's Claw I sut a small whole at the top of the pod. Great ammounts of pus oozed out which I dumped on the ground. The stuff was poisonous.
After satisfyingly cleaning two pods and contaminating the river, I handed one pod to Nathea and filled my own water Kanap.
"To keep-"
"Water", she interrupted again, turning and catching the current in her own.
It was really itching my nerves now.
We set back upon the trail again. The quiet bugging me.
"So, um", Nathea continued to stare determindly ahead, I continued, "Did Mur teach you the voodoo magic?"
"Its not voodoo. And Yes"
I stared, was she really not annoyed at how quiet and awkward it was?
YOU ARE READING
The Blessed Child
FantasyA girl is born with the world at her feet, everything delivered to her hand, a perfect life. Yet she cannot find the small things others have. She struggles to find a sense of meaning, belonging, for love, and for a name.
