Lesvin
"I first woke up in an ocean. I couldn't see the bottom or the surface; it was truly endless. I had only realized I was drowning after I inhaled the water and swam to the surface as fast as I could. It hurt, it hurt really bad. I had started to breathe in the water again just before I had broken through to the surface. The only thing I could do when I got to the surface was stay on my back to float. I don't remember how long I had to do it, but I found land in the distance eventually. I carried myself there with the strength I had left. But once I got to the shore, I cried. I cried for a long time. I thought it wasn't fair that I was born in that place, with that pain, with that exhaustion; Honestly, I still don't. Over there it's mostly water, and the islands are so small you could walk across one in about 3 minutes. The beaches were sandy and I never found any plants, so I had to hunt on my own. That part wasn't so bad, a lot of the animals are weak, especially any that get on an island."
She stopped abruptly. The ethereal night sky of Aeshval stared back at her as she formed her words in silence. Isel's silence was as meaningful as the events she was recounting. He was serious when saying he wanted to know more about her.
"I didn't understand anything at the time. It all felt like a dream. I would lay on the sand, kill a poor creature, eat, and repeat. That's all life was for me. It was like that for almost two weeks, I think. And I don't know how much longer I could have kept that act up. When I went to kill something on one of those days, I was met with a man instead of a creature. At the time I had honestly thought that he was a hallucination. He ran to me when he saw me, I suppose I looked horrible. He told me his name was Leal Ansthum. We sat, and I struggled to even speak. I was fully convinced it didn't matter. That experience, my life. I believed that the only thing I would do for the rest of it was rest, kill, and eat. Even though I didn't speak, he started to tell me of the world we live in. Everything I've ever told you, I learned from him. He simply sat and spoke. Even though I couldn't speak, he would look me in the eye and continue with his ramblings, as if he never ran out of things to say. That's how I learned the breadth of the world. Every land, he would detail them. From Manichae to Lesvin, I learned."
For the first time since entering the bath, Isel turned to face the woman beside him. She wore a smile he hadn't seen on her face before. It was soft and small. Charine turned to face him.
"He took me out of my slump. Eventually I had wanted to leave, to see more of what life had to offer. So he took me with him. Lesvin is an ocean, but if you have the strength you can travel across it. Every island is a reasonably swimmable distance apart from each other. So over the course of three weeks, I swam across Lesvin with him. The man would never close his mouth, really. Any time we were on an island he would talk unceasingly. Looking back at it, he was probably just trying to give me company."
Isel finally spoke. He shifted in the water to find a more comfortable position.
"It sounds like you had it a lot worse than I did, didn't you, you?"
"It wasn't so bad with somebody around."
Isel wanted to frown as she spoke more about Leal. He knew the man was dead, and it had happened quite recently too. Charine had seemed to grapple with the fact of the death quickly, but Isel began to doubt if that was truly the case.
"Really, I don't know how it feels to lose somebody so close to you, but you don't have to hide it."
Charine looked with mild surprise at him as he recited his observation before exhaling. Her lips trembled while she drew a breath and wore a small grin.
"I'm sorry to worry you with all of that. But really, you don't have to. The truth is that I've already shed my tears, anytime I could while you were resting in Comeidlan. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to mourn in that kind of way. When somebody dies, I mean. I guess I never understood the concept fully before. But during those days we spent in that desert, I had time to think it over, to fully absorb and understand the truth."
She hesitated.
"But I think I know better than anyone that I can't change that truth, so the best option is to carry on for as long as I can."
Her words relaxed him, the knowledge that her grief was real, that alongside her own consolation. It felt as if a weight was lifted off of his shoulder, like he could truly accept being himself with the passing of Leal. To keep concerning himself with a person that he wasn't would only bring more harm than good, so he shifted the topic.
"Compared to you, I obviously don't have anything to share. I doubt you've told much of your life so far. You've seen my whole life for yourself, however. It seems unfair; I have nothing to tell you in return."
Charine chuckled.
"Well I've seen everything for myself, yes, but that's not all that people are. All you do is ask questions, Isel. That can only tell me so much about you."
"About me? I'm not sure there's so much I can say."
Charine turned her body and brought her other arm out of the water to rest her head on at the edge of the bath.
"There's a lot you can say. If you want to know so much about me, I'd like to know about you as well."
"Doesn't that seem sort of mechanical?"
"This is the only way I know how to make friends, so you'll have to live with it."
Isel looked up to the solid midnight blue that blanketed the skies above. The open foliage above him covered it only slightly, and poked through the branches beautifully. He smiled as he considered her words.
"So I can call myself your friend?"
Charine raised a finger.
"Only after you answer my questions."
Isel simply nodded in reply. Charine continued.
"What do you think of yourself?"
Isel was caught by surprise at the question posed to him. There wasn't a great amount he thought he could divulge on the topic. He found himself staring at Charine blankly for a prolonged time, spending no less than a minute trying to formulate an answer to his question. Even after all the time he spent, he eventually started talking with no main idea behind his speech, parsing for the answer as the words left his mouth.
"The world is weird, that's all I've known for the little time I've been here. When I first got here, I honestly thought I was being punished for something grave. But no, it seems I was just unlucky."
He smiled to himself as he reminisced on his time waking up. Even though it had been only days, it really was his whole life. Isel continued.
"When it comes to myself, the only thing I know I knew was my name. There was something else too though. I've felt like I need to find a reason to be here, a purpose. The more I thought about it, the further away I got from a definite answer. After I spent some time with you, I settled on a simple goal: reaching Manichae."
Charine's expression returned to a calm and flat one as Isel spoke. His gaze had drifted off towards the water they lay in since he started talking. It seemed as though his mind was elsewhere, and there was some clear mental conflict. Charine had a general idea of what it might concern.
"But you know that's not a purpose, don't you? What will you do once you get there?"
There was no response this time, after a short moment of silence Charine took as is a sign to continue.
"I'll tell you what I think, then. I've seen a lot of what this world has to offer. During the time I spent with Leal, I had a lot of time to deliberate over something like this. In Lesvin I believed that my purpose in life was simply to survive. To eat, to kill, and to rest. In Hourlal… I don't even want to think about it, actually. From Comeidlan to Manichae, I found more things in life that changed my perspective in too many ways for me to even consider right now. But in the end? In the end I found that I don't need to have a grand purpose. No matter how much the urge to find one pulled and tugged on the rope that wraps itself around my head, I just couldn't decide on something like that for myself. And I know you might not think the same way, but that's not the point. The point is that you don't need to have a constant reason to guide you along along; If you feel that something like that exists for you, then don't be in a rush to find it, your purpose."
Isel looked back at her, his eyes motionless as his mind was struck by intense cogitation. His mind fluttered, attempted to find a retort to answer her with, a reason why he couldn't accept what she had told him. He tried, but with no success. Eventually he could converse once more.
"I guess I'll need to think about it, huh?"
Charine's soft and passive grin returned.
"Yeah, I guess you will."
Charine stretched her arms as she jostled around in place, attempting to find a comfortable position with no avail. Isel stared shortly before he turned back to look at the sky. There was an indescribable feeling that flared up in his chest when he saw her. Perhaps it was nervousness? He fought the urge to look back, scared of facing the feeling once more. He would figure out what it meant later if it ever happened again. Charine's voice startled him back into reality.
"I'll be getting out, stay looking that way. My skin will fall off if I stay here any longer."
"Oh, I'll leave too then."
Charine responded with astonishing haste.
"Wait until I'm out, at the very least."
Once again, Isel's thoughts staggered. Of course he should wait, or else… or else what? He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the odd feeling, so he simply gave in to his instinct.
"Right."
Charine left the bath, and Isel waited to make sure he couldn't hear her wet footsteps on the ground. After he heard the wooden door to the bath close behind him, he waited for another couple minutes before finding a towel and leaving. He acquired his clothes from the locker and went to a changing area. Putting them back on was simple, but slightly arduous. After the undergarments he put on his torn and ragged pants while making a mental note to himself to replace the worn out pair. The upperwear was where the struggle began. First it was the skin-tight shirt — which was simple enough, but then the intricate wrappings of the black straps arrived. He cursed himself as he realized he should have asked Charine how to properly put them on. For the first tim he was able to observe the straps closely. There were five black straps of varying length, each of them composed of a thin cotton fabric that was no more than 3 centimeters wide. First, he wrapped the longest strap horizontally across his torso as tightly as he could while still remaining breathable, tying the back that ended on his tailbone. Then were the arms, which had their own shorter individual straps that could be tied back to the upper chest. Afterwards, he struggled with the cross of the black straps that came over the chest and back which he was able to tie at the intersection on his back. He did his best to ensure that the layer underneath the straps wouldn't poke through, but failed pathetically.
After a couple more minutes of fidgeting and adjusting the straps, Isel left the bath. Although the bath itself was indeed relaxing, the ordeal caused by his clothing made him incredibly tired. Charine sat on a chair with her arms crossed in the lobby of the bath house. After noticing him her eyes became wide with realization.
"Remind me the next time you have to take those off, I'll show you how to put them back on…"
He wanted to glare at her, but restrained the urge and sighed.
"That would be nice."
Walking back to the inn, Isel took a moment to observe the settlement during the night. It was still active, but far less so than it had been a few hours earlier. Fire lamps lit up the winding brick streets as the warm glow crept along the faces of passerbys. Isel had already figured for a long while that there was no electricity here, just as it had been with Comeidlan, but the enkindled lights only proved the thought more.
The inn building itself was just as big as it had been before, yet in the night under the midnight blue sky the three story building only seemed more grand. However once stepping in, an unsettling sight greeted the two.
The lights had been cut out, and mud was tracked on the carpet that led to the desk of the inn and to the right into the hallway that led to their room. Charine walked at a brisk pace to the front desk. She lingered over for a few seconds before dashing to the hallway and shouting in distress.
"Isel!"
She didn't say any more before she was out of sight. Isel picked up the pace immediately and sprinted in the same direction as her, stumbling across the simple furniture. He could hardly make out his surroundings in the darkness, however deep in the hallway there had been a singular light creeping out of a room, Isel already had a creeping suspicion that it was theirs. The mud from earlier had led to that very room. Charine had reached the room only slightly before Isel. He stood frozen in shock while quickly taking in the surroundings as he arrived.
The contents of the room had been thrown about, a bedframe was broken, some of the walls had been scratched, and the contents of charine's sack had spilled about the floor. However the mess held his attention the least out of everything. He was horrifically captivated by the most frightening sight in the room: a tall and lanky figure — even taller than Siphos, he could tell. They were crouched right above the couch where Siphos lay; pale hands tightly gripping his neck as the man kicked and fought against them. They were trying to kill him.