Destined Path

Chapter Twenty-Seven; Mágoa

It was my fault.

Their blood on my hands.

My wife was thrown over a cliff for my selfish actions.

My stupid ultimatum.

Too much to process right now, my thoughts were everywhere over the two days leading today. Still a week at least away from where we left our ships, we couldn't travel the way we came in from them. I was constantly telling everyone to go, that I'll catch them on the water shortly, but they refuse. No one says anything about my trips back to the cliffs, only a quiet enquiry everytime I return, but I find nothing each time. No sign of movement. No trace of her or the dog. I did find horse prints, for hundred metres away, but it was something.

Today the Viking's body was missing; sharks. Ghostly ones, with eyes of white and a body that looked like a living corpse. I had seen them tug him into the water by an arm, thrashing as they pulled him apart under the water. It had taken them three days to smell him, so that means they weren't in the area when Nyx fell. By the Norns, I've seen her fight a bear! I had no doubt she'll feud with a shark. My wife was many things, but gutless and cowardly wasn't one of her traits. She was frightening in her careless foolishness. She didn't fear things, she just faced them. I'd be grey and old fast if she passed that onto our daughters.

Torvi and Imogen have been growing fast, I didn't quite know what to do with them by myself at night. Rekker was no help, he slept, bored of his sisters from spending all day with them. During the day, he was utterly obsessed with them; playing with them, talking to them, holding them, telling them random incoherent stories with the poor communication of his two year old mind. His stories were hard to follow, bouncing from one topic to the next, but he got to an ending eventually. I didn't know what to say to them, they didn't look like they wanted to listen to me, they both just stared at me with furrowed faces and big blue eyes. They weren't exactly identical, but very similar. It was fascinating, how they observed everything. Like fluffy, fat tiny birds. Longwinded too, I pondered, I never knew children could be so gaseous. Burping, vomiting, sneezing, farting, shitting, and pissing. Then there was the screaming, it wasn't a 'help me, I want you attention' type of scream. No, not my daughters, no they looked me straight in the eye with furious faces and just shouted at me. Yelling. Screaming. High-pitched, ear-splitting shrieking. On purpose, I was confident.

They didn't do it around their mother, no when Nyx held them they were snug, sleepy and silent. Utterly content under her spell, truly relaxed and happy. They stopped their crying the instant she showed up. They just looked at her with the same eyes my son did; full of love. Adoration; wholehearted devoted worship that consumed their little minds and bodies. I remember the first time they took Onyxia's breast, they just looked up at her as they drank, blinking slowly in a dreamlike gaze as they just watched her. It made me feel isolated, an outsider. They knew I had done something stupid, that's why they shout and scream at me. To punish me.

Sleep didn't come peacefully, as it shouldn't. If it wasn't nightmares and my mind replaying her fall over and over, it was torturously sexual. Painfully real, as if I had my wife right beside me. I could feel her fingers on my skin, the same way that she'd touch my face; the tremor to her fingers and the barely there pressure. The soft brush of her lips when she tugged me close to her body when I was inside her, as if she needed me as close to her as humanly possible. Like skin to skin wasn't enough. I missed her. More than anything, I missed her. I needed her. I would wake up and my body could still feel her, it was agonizing. Like the comfort of a ghost.

On the fourth day, I agreed to move further out. The closer we were to our ships, the more comfort everyone else had. That comfort didn't even reach me a breath's whisper. With every step my heart grew hard and felt as if it dropped day by day in my chest. As we moved, we left the deserted landscapes to come across scatters of farmers and working folk. They barely glanced our way, too focused on their own lives. Except when the children cried, then those curious eyes looked up. Every cried seemed to echo in my head. She had said, more than once, that I'd make a good father. A lie. I was failing her by failing them.