MoonBlade

MoonBlade: Chapter 6: Part 5

“So, Airic,’ Thrash broke out once they had travelled deep into the trees, ‘I hope I did not separate you and Haul in the midst of something important.”

“No” Airic answered. Though the thought of Haul’s mangled face did invoke some laughter.

“What is this about?”

Thrash looked at him and sighed sadly. “Your sister needs someone right now.”

Airic didn’t understand what Thrash meant.

“Angela?” He asked shakily. “If that’s the case then I think you’re the one who should go instead of me.” He said, wanting to pass the buck onto Thrash. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to see his sister. But he knew that if he went, he’d probably end up doing something stupid to worsen the situation.

Thrash scratched at his dirty eye patch, “I can’t. Right now Angela needs her brother, more than anyone else. It’s my fault, I guess. I failed to realise that your sister…well, she can be a little touchy.”

Airic’s legs froze. “What do you mean, ‘touchy’?”

“I’ll let you find that out for yourself.” The barbarian spoke cryptically, pointing somewhere faraway in the trees. Airic didn’t know why but he sensed something wrong. His feet instantly broke into a run as he cruised along the thicket in search of his sister.

Trampling the grass under his feet, he rushed into the direction Thrash had pointing. And even though he tried his best to suppress it, fear had started crawling into his mind. If anything had happened to his sister…No!

Leaving Thrash far behind, he ran through the trees, arriving somewhere deep in the forest. Not knowing where to search, he carefully listened for a sound. But apart from the wind breezing on his face there was none. Finally, he cupped his hands together and called out his sister’s name.

“Angela!” He yelled.

“Angela!” He called again but there was still no answer. Airic was about to let his voice resound again but-

“What?” Angela quipped, sitting right to his side, mere feet away from him. “I do have ears, you know!” She retorted.

Airic thought of a snide remark to be even with his sister but her small shrunken face made him reluctant to do so. He could see that Angela was suckling on a large cache of hair, which was usually a sign that something was either wrong, she was nervous or she’d spilled something sweet over her hair. It was just a matter of guesswork. In the present situation, however, Airic could safely discount two of those.

“What’s wrong?” He asked as gently as he could.

“Nothing.” She replied briskly to his inquiry.

Airic took no notice of her words. He knew that she was lying, partly because he knew her very well and partly because her eyes had puffed up the size of two large nuggets. But still he said nothing. Over the long years Airic had developed a basic strategy for approaching Angela. It involved just two simple steps: Step one was to get her to talk, somehow, by any means necessary. Step two was even simpler…to shut up and let nature take its course (Angela’s nature that is!). With these two simple straightforward steps, success was guaranteed. Already he had completed step one, now the only thing left was step number two.

Throwing his back against the tree, Airic slid unnoticed next to his sister.

From there on it was a matter of wits. Both of them said nothing, gazing only at the swaying grass in front of them. For quite a while this went on until-

“Thrash is a pig.” Angela blurted out.

Airic silently yelled a cry of triumph and asked casually.