"I'm pleased to see you actually listened to the Stonehenge and followed it this time."
The sound of Othana's smooth and sultry voice made me slowly turn away from the beautiful rose-gold kissed waterfall I had fallen in love with the first time I laid eyes onto and towards the blue-skinned creature standing off to the side. Like normal, her eyes observed me.
"Well," I breathed softly. "After the last incident, I've been trying to stay low and not damage any more brutish yet surprisingly gentle rock creatures." I hinted at her earlier words.
With a flick of her hand, she dismissed my subtle inquiring worry. "Don't worry, the creature is fine. I've used a little bit of my essence to help it and it healed quite fine."
"Your essence?"
"My essence." She simply replied not giving me anything more.
We stared at each for a few more moments before I finally got tired of whatever game we were playing. With a small huff, I crossed my arms against my chest and narrowed my eyes at her. "Okay, what is it? We're alive and not prisoners; therefore, there's a reason for that .What is it? What do you want?"
A small chuckle rumbled in her chest, eyes dancing with amusement. This was one big game to her it seemed, and I didn't know why. "Have you've come so accustom to others wanting something from you that you automatically think-"
"Yes." I deadpanned, cutting her off. "Yes. It's always an exchange, so what do you want?"
A smirk crawled along Othana's face. "Fine, come walk with me." With that, she turned her back to me like I wasn't a threat at all, which I guess right now I wasn't, and headed to the exit. Feeling annoyance tick at me at, I watched her for a few seconds noting the way her long locks ran down her back and the way her dark dressed dragged once again was cut precisely to the curves of her body. She stopped, turning her head over her shoulder and raised a questioning eyebrow at my lack of movement.
Not having any other option, I followed Othana till I was right by her side and she was leading us threw the dimly little tunnels with only the pulsing colorful roots to keep the area lit.
"What is this?" I reached my hand out to touch the roots that have piqued my interest ever since I laid eyes on them, but Othana's words quickly halted my actions.
"Don't ever touch them." Her words briskly shot from her mouth, quicker than her usual slow overdrawn speech. "Ever."
Eyes widened at her command, and my hand slowly dropped to my side. Once again reigning in my emotions at the contemptuous attitude to her demand, I kept my cool. "Why?"
"They are what keep us safe down here."
"What do you mean?"
"Precisely why I wanted this walk." She muttered only seconds before we emerged out of the dim tunnels and into another wide cavern. Green grass covered every inch of this cavern, from the floors to the ceiling nothing was untouched. Small trees with different assortment of fruits hung from various positions around the large cavern. Some stood completely upside down, trunk connected to the ceiling and top angled to the ground while others grew sideways, and the rest grew how I normally would expect them to grow.
Uninterrupted by our appearance, creatures picked from the trees only for a fruit to grow immediately back from where they picked it. However, a few curious ones turned to us and once they spotted me their tasks at picking food wavered. Every now and then, I would catch one of them trying to surreptitious look at me before turning back to their work only to do it again or before getting someone else's attention so they both could look at me.
"They know of you."
"I know." I replied, making eye contact with a green-skinned creature whose eyes were a daunting black and reminded me of a gargoyle.
"You freed them." She said simply. Leisurely, I turned my attention back to them.
"What?"
"Think months back girl. From their stories an avenging humanoid, like something they had never seen, freed them from the Dynoats, asked them for nothing in return and then disappeared."
Memory going back to that crazy adventure Zeal, Kaiya, Mist, and I had went on in search of my father, I bit back a smile. "So they made it." I said more to myself, both content at this outcome and happy that my earlier assumptions had been spot on. I had made a huge gamble and bluffed the entire way through with Othana, but I had been right.
"Yes, indeed." Once again, her dark eyes were on me. Something akin to appreciation sparking her eyes before the emotion vanished completely. "Some were lost to the Dynoats, but the majority made it to safety...made it here. This sanctuary is mine."
"How did it come to be yours?"
A small little grunt sounded from Othana's throat and it wasn't mistaken I'm sure it was a low chuckle. "Would you like to hear a story Avril?" My name along her tongue was a slow, savory drawl which caught me by surprise considering it was the first time she had uttered my name.
"Yes, Yes I would."
She moved her arms behind her back and clasped her hands. "Then let's continue our walk." She softly hummed, the echo of her heeled boot-like shoes tapping lightly against the ground.
"Like many of these creatures." She began as we exited the cavern of food and trees and ventured further. "I too was abducted from my world."
"Where are you from?"
Her face stayed neutral but in those dark eyes, I could see the nostalgia. "My world is called Wiccardia, but I am more specifically from the land of Uscea."
"What do you do?" I asked gently, watching the pool of nostalgia in her eyes flush out only to be replaced with a stoic gloominess. Try as she might, she wasn't as good as concealing her feelings and acting like she was impermeable to everything around her. I could see her pain and knew she wasn't as untouched by the Dynoats as she liked to act.
"My world did magic, in your simple humanoid words you could consider me a witch." She mused as we entered yet another space in the cave. Crystals, large, wide, small, and thin jutted out from every corner in the space. There was a purple glow to the darkened cavern, yet once again those colorful vines had traveled through the space and were visible along the ceiling making the area brighter. Not stopping her stride, I wasn't able to stop for long and instead had only seconds to suck up the scene before we were back into another dim lit tunnel with those roots being the only thing keeping the area lit. "My family, we were powerful. We were great."
"What happened?" I asked slowly, hearing a sense of foreboding coating her words.
"Greed." Was all she said. For a few moments, we walked side by side and did not say a word. I felt like I had heard so many backstories that I was starting to get pretty good when to push and when to shut my mouth. This moment was one of those shut-your-mouth type of moments.
"The Dynoats were also great once upon a time, but they wanted to be greater. It wasn't our greed that killed my family and everyone I knew, but it was the Dynoats' greed." Her voice lacked any emotion. By now, her hands were not poised behind her in a display of calm and placidness, but in front of her and fidgeting. What she took out of her voice, she couldn't hide through her body language. "Our only crime was sticking to ourselves and being great. The Dynoat ruler at the time was smart, very keen. They managed to run a campaign against us and turned their people against us. We didn't even know."
"How do they do that?" It didn't make any sense. Creatures who had never interacted with individuals like Othana suddenly hated her and her kind. How?"
"Fear mongering." She chuckled, but there was no amusement and was said as if it was obvious. "You plant a seed of doubt dear Avril, you water it with lies and superstitions, and you watch the flower full of ignorance and hate bloom and multiply. Then when they come for your people, they murder, rape, and conquer and then blame you because you were born as you were. That is how you successfully conquer a group of people without any repercussions." Othana laughed, but it was a pained sound. It was something you pushed when it still hurt you, but you were so used to being numb to it that at times you forgot how to display how you really felt. "Smart bastards, smart greedy bastards they all are."
"So how did you end up here?" My words were almost reluctant, realizing I was going to hear another story of the Dynoats. Death and destruction was all they brought. How many people would die till someone finally beat them?
We entered yet another cavern. The walls were made purely out of crystals themselves that reflected off a sun pocket above that made the area shimmer in a splay of colors. The gleams caught against Othana's hair jewelry making them sparkle along with the room. A body of water that was a deep blue had occupants swimming in it. At our entrance, though, they paused their actions and turned to us. Sea creatures curiously eyed us. Some were completely submerged in the water with only their eyes above while others were less submerged. Gills and fins decorated their bodies. One creature who looked at us quietly, with its eyes and top of the its head visible only, had tentacles protruding from the top. A feminine liked creature with a curvy body was the next I noticed. Her skin was a light-greenish blue that varied along her face, torso, and arms. Dark green gills protruded from her cheeks. The most astounding thing to me though, was that instead of hair on her head, tentacles of varying length fell down her shoulders.
Othana raised her hand into a wave and the creatures waved back while I gawked like some idiot before Othana began walking again.
"Sorry, I have to make my daily rounds to make sure everything is fine. Yoth, Leng, or Rahum normally does this, but two of them are out and one I just can't find." She tisked. "How did I end up here you were saying? Well they came in the night, they had already conquered other worlds so they had weapons we had never seen before. We were the strongest in our world and they made an example out of us. We put up a fight, but it was not enough. I had 21 sisters and 13 brothers. By the end of that night, my brothers were all dead and I only had 8 sisters left."
I gasped covering my mouth as I turned to her. Her face was neutral, yet she couldn't hide the anguish no matter how hard she tried. Eyes glassy, they stared forehead refusing to meet my eye like making eye contact me with me would be the catalyst that would break the numb barrier she put around herself. "Like many of those here, they abducted a bunch of us, but like the many races that didn't make it, we weren't able to withstand the atmospheric adjustment. Many of the survivors from the first attack perished, asphyxiated, as soon as we hit the atmosphere. I watched all my sisters die that morning. My dad had been killed right in front of me the night before. The only reason why I am here today is because my mother used the last of her magic to save her last child before she too succumbed to Deteria."
Dewy eyes stared at blank eyes, yet she wasn't the one holding back tears. "Othana. " I breathed, not even imagining the horrors she must have faced.
"I acted like I was dead. When they dragged us all out prepared to leave us to rot or to be eaten by the monsters that roam these lands, I took my shot. They never noticed. I ran for days, fed off wildlife. I barely made it, until I stumbled into a cave. From there I built." With small smile, she waved her hand around as if showcasing me the cave. "from the stone up."
"So this is all you?" I asked genuinely surprised.
"Yes." She smiled, pleased with my reaction.
"How?" I asked.
"It wasn't easy." She replied. "Taught myself magic and used what I had already known. Here, I want to show you one more thing."
Silently I followed her still trying to mull over everything she had told me. She may come off like a cocky bitch, but I was beginning to understand why.
"When did this happen?"
"When I was eight." She replied, eyes forward and determined.
"How long ago?" I struggled to keep up with her. Now her strides were longer and filled more with purpose. She was no longer giving me a small tour around this area, but leading me somewhere. I should've been slightly worried at her leading me to the unknown, but I had figured if she wanted to get rid of me, she could have a long time ago.
"Seven years ago."
Once again I was sucking in a sharp breath from her words. "You're fifteen?" She was a baby practically. Yes, I know I was only five years her senior, but the fact that she was fifteen and running an entire cavern population shocked me.
"That's what trauma can do to you. Make you age whether you want to or not." My voice pipped in sadly before it was gone the next second.
"My people mature fast." She brushed it off as if it was nothing, but once again I could see through her act.
"Yeah, but your'-"
Abruptly the words dried in my mouth as we walked through a new cavity in the cave. The centerpiece seemed like the answer to most of my questions. One of the largest trees I had ever seen stood stooped in the center. It was extended upwards towards the high ceilings but began to bend sideways as its grand height pressed against the ceiling and stretched sidewards needing to relieve the pressure of its growth. Long, huge branches and roots grew from its ebony trunk branching out in every direction, sprinting towards the two exits in the cavern and vanishing into the dimly lit hallways. One part of the tree drew my immediate attention though. What appeared to be an extension of the tree itself wrapped around its trunk. The tree was an opaque ebony, yet what appeared to be another vine curved and curled around its trunk pulsing various colors like the veins of the tree that ran throughout this entire cave. While the exterior of it was beautiful, the one thing that truly called to me wasn't how it looked, but the feeling it exuded. I felt an enchanting pull to it, like it was calling me.
Eyes growing hazy, my feet maneuvered over the large roots cemented into the ground. A melodious humming buzzed in my ear drowning out all other noise. The closer I got, the more the pull seemed to increase. The thrumming around the tree intensified until it had grasped my entire attention. Up close, I could see the way the different colors grasped each other. One part of the vine changing colors and then persuading the others parts to change colors with it. My body itched to be closer to the tree, and my hand extended outwards to touch its smooth surface that was calling me...
A dark blue hand tightly latched onto my extended wrist and yanked me sideways. All at once, whatever trance I was in shattered as my body tumbled sideways trying to catch itself. Righting myself at the last moment, my heart drummed savagely against my ribcage as I tried to catch my bearings and my breath.
Dark eyes stared at mine with a cold intensity that nearly chilled my bones. "Don't. Touch. That. Tree." She gritted out looking like she was on the verge of murdering me on the spot. Her entire body language was rigid and looked like she was ready to pounce on me.
Shaking my head slightly, I let out a breath suddenly feeling her frigidness seep into my bones. "I'm sorry, I honestly don't know what happened. It was just-"
"It doesn't matter." She cut me off, eyes narrowed and a displeasured scowl on her lips. "I don't care about your reasoning or excuses. You touch that tree; you ruin us all."
I glanced at my jittering hands and slowly dropped them down to my sides. Clenching them, I fought the shaking and swallowed the irritation at her demeaner. "How so?"
"The reason why you're not dead along with all of your friends is because I need you." She bit out, the vulnerable Othana now non-existent. The way she stared at me made me feel like she never existed in the first place and what happened before was just a figment of my imagination.
"This tree is our saving grace. This tree is this cave's life force. If it goes out, we run out of light and food. If that happens we have to go above ground and as you see, the Dynoats run that."
Blinking slowly, trying to not let her see how her stoic nature was affecting me, I replied. "And how do we fit into this situation?" Nice to know that she wasn't keeping me alive just because I had helped free damn near this entire cavern population, I thought bitterly.
"From your memories, I've seen what you and your friends can do. " Her voice lowered as she moved closer to me. "As we speak, this tree is dying. We are slowly running out of time. I have runners above ground who are looking for a new sanctuary, but until then we have to stay put. Time is ticking and we are running out. To not cause fear, I have told none of these inhabitants of the approaching demise, but the food is starting to run out and the clear water lakes are drying."
"You need us to stabilize it." I guessed.
She eyed me. "Precisely."
"You couldn't do that?" I questioned. "I mean, you've practically created this entire thing. What's stopping you."
"My magic can only go so far." She snapped. "I am not a god. Right now, I'm using most of my energy to slow down the deterioration of this tree."
Gritting my teeth, trying to not check her at her tone, I placed my hands on my hips and took a deep breath before speaking to her again. "Have you thought of ever fighting back?"
She snorted condescendingly. "That's a dead's man mission. I would never put my people into risk like that."
"These are you people?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Absolutely. They treat me like a queen and in return I give them another shot at life, a safe life."
"You know, I feel like if we banded together we could actually take down the Dynoats down and-."
Throwing her head back, Othana let out a laugh that worked to vanquish any sentiment I had with her. "Are you mad? No one can beat the Dynoats, they'll take you out before you even have a shot." She laughed again, the tenor patronizing. "I wouldn't be that foolish to put my life on the line."
"That's what you're going to be doing when you have transport these people." This time I couldn't keep the bite out of my tone.
She quickly shook her head. "We'll do it in groups not as whole to not risk getting found."
"We were a small group and they found us." I scoffed. "Are you going to be hiding from them for the rest of your life? Don't these people deserve to live a life not in fear? You have the manpower, if-"
"Stop!" She cut me off. "You may be okay with you and your people dying, but I am not." She stepped forward, pointing her finger in my face. Bitch.
"Have you asked your people what they want? Or are they simply going by what you do? If their stories are anything like yours, I know they ache for vengeance as their familys' murderers walk around free doing the same thing to others, that they have did to them and you!" I hissed, breathing heavily. "I may be crazy, but I'll be damn if I don't put up a fight so no one else will have to go throw this."
"It's over now." Othana crossed her arms, eyes staring at me with daggers. "It's not happening to me anymore."
"Just because it isn't happening to you doesn't mean you don't fight for it." I lowly spoke, staring into her eyes filled with fury. "Don't you know that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere."
"That is enough!" Othana yelled. "I've had enough of your words today! You are on my territory and can easily be kicked out or killed. You may be queen in your land, but I am queen here and my word goes."
"What is life without freedom?" I clenched out, ignoring the way she threw the authority card in my face.
"We are safe and we are sound. You will not change my mind. I have grown past what has happened in my life alien." She glared at me hissing the word 'alien' out so hard that I knew it was meant to be an insult. "It would do you some good to grow past yours too."
Her comment stung because I knew that due to her being in my mind, she saw some dark moments from my past. Any genuine sincerity I had for this creature diminished. I pushed, I realized but I was only pushing her to what was right. She did have the strength and manpower to stand against the Dynoats, I had thought. But maybe I was wrong. She feared the unknown, and I probably had pushed her too hard. These creatures she took care of probably boosted her confidence constantly stroking her ego and telling her how great she was. She had probably been so boosted up that when criticism finally came, she wasn't ready for it. I may have pushed her, but it still gave her no right to throw my past in my face. That was one way to make an instant enemy out of me.
So nodding slowly, I let her words fall over me. "Alright, I'll get to my duties. Thank you for letting me and my friends live." My words were almost mocking as I turned away from here.
"By the way." I called over my shoulder. "Till you face it, you don't grow past it. You just learn to accept it." My fist clench as I bit back the pain of the truth. "Trust me." Then I was gone.
VOTE. COMMENT. FEEDBACK. THOUGHTS.
Hello lovelies! Once again thank you all for patience. I've recently moved so I've been doing a lot of unpacking. Life is busy, but things are slowing until they speed right back up. To all the well-wishers for my job applications dilemma, thank you all a ton. I got a job and will be starting this week!
Anyways, I'm pretty sure I have asked this before but I would like to hear your guys opinions once more because I do like reading them. I'm still debating on whether or not to create a mature chapter for when Ike and Avril consummate their bond. I know some of y'all really aren't into that and I know some of y'all love that. So I'm still debating on whether or not to put one, and I'm still debating on if I should add it within the book or create a mature book for the scene. It'll be my first time with mature so let me know!