Chapter 3: Rodain.

We moved as fast was we could for eight days only stopping to eat or to sleep. I understood why Masiaka wanted to get away so quickly. The more I thought about it the more I realized how the leaders would react when they found I had run off. They’d go nuts. Once when we stopped to hunt and eat I asked Masiaka if they would miss him.
He told me that he like to go off by himself for weeks at a time sometimes. He wouldn’t be missed until it was too late.
We were headed to what seemed to be north. I had a vague idea of where the White mountains were but Masiaka seemed to know exactly where they were located. He seemed to have an overly natural since of direction. It was odd. Then again everything about him was odd, from his green fur to the way he never SEEMED blind despite the fact that he clearly was. The way he looked at me with those eye covered with their milky fog, unseeing yet seeing, sometimes gave me chills as I tried to understand how he could do so. I eventually gave up and attributed it to the innate magic all the sightless seemed to have.
After eight days we slowed down a little. We were both tired from the strenuous exercise but Masiaka only showed it in how fast he feel asleep at night and how much he panted. I on the other hand was limping, panting, practically passing out when night came, eating like I hadn’t eaten in weeks, and stumbling. On the seventh day I had snapped at him for going to fast and he said something about me being a warrior and he wondered aloud about me being tired when he knew that the Kyrnin had to fight almost daily. He then wondered weather I was really Kyrnin. I thought he was being sarcastic.
I got angry after that and exploded at him. I vaguely remember ranting about how we didn’t fight like the Rowalkin with our muscles but rather that we fought with our will and our wits. Using our magic and intelligence and speed to win rather than running ourselves to death. I finished my rant panting from the effort it took after running all day.
He looked so hurt I realized that he had NOT been sarcastic. Merely confused. After that we went slower and he never said anything about it again. I kept trying to apologize for yelling at him but I just never could. I’ve never been very good at apologies.
The journey was still tiring however and it got worse as the terrain changed. At first we were in the forest I was used to when I walked in the wolves’ world. But now it was getting slightly colder and the ground was more rocky. There were also more streams at first and soon the streams turned into rivers which got harder and harder to cross.
I soon lost count of the days and day blurred into night. It became so it didn’t matter when we walked and we simply slept when we were tired.
Masiaka was good company. He was quiet but I soon learned that his quiet nature didn’t mean that he was un intelligent. Quite the contrary infact, he was very intelligent and a good listener, and easy to open up to. I found myself talking to him about how sacred I was, and how I had been promoted to quickly and how horrible it was to fight with the scalefangs, to watch my pack brothers and sisters burn to death at the claws of the scalefangs and their horrible flames.
He listened quietly to my ramblings and occasionally gave his sympathy or advice. But even after all my rambling I realized I knew as much about him as the day I met him. I began to question him about his life. At first he told me simple things but when I began to pry deeper he got angry with me, so I stopped.
One evening we came to a large river that we needed to cross. The water was flowing really fast and we couldn’t find a place to cross, so we had to go downstream along the bank looking for a place where the water was not flowing as fast, or it was shallow enough to get through.
The stones along the bank of the river were sharp, and they cut my paws. Masiaka made me get in the river and at first I was ticked off with him, but then I realized that he had a reason for making me get in the water. I couldn’t just leave a trail of blood behind. Anyway, the rocks were smoother in the river.
After what felt like hours we reached a place where Masiaka said it looked like we could cross the river. It seemed shallower to me, but the water was still going just as fast. I didn’t really care though. My paws were numb from the cold water and I just wanted to cross so I could get past this stupid place and its sharp rocks.
We started across and it was hard going. The water actually seemed faster here. With my numb paws I couldn’t get a good grip on the rocks. I moved slowly, and by the time I was almost halfway through the river Masiaka was all the way across. The sun was setting and I could see him silhouetted against the light filtering through the trees.
I slogged through the river, mentally cursing water and all tied to it. I contemplated using the elements to make my crossing a tiny bit easier but I am strongest in earth and fire, I doubted I could conjure up enough of Air to freeze the water in front of me, or enough of Water to make the water around me flow differently. So I kept on.
I was a little over halfway across when it happened. I was up to the bottom of my head in the water and my feet barely touched the bottom. The icy water swirled around me. I was nearly out of the deepest part and I made myself pull onward. I heard Masiaka urgently calling to me but I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I felt the urgency in his voice and scrabbled forward as fast as I could.
Then I felt something strike me, I think it must have been a branch. When it hit me I tumbled over into the water and fell into the current. The water pulled me along and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t regain my grip on the ground. I fought the current desperately but it was futile. Soon I was in the deeper water and no matter how much I strained to touch the bottom I couldn’t feel it any more. The water got rougher and I felt like a twig.
I fought to keep my head above the water. I knew I couldn’t pull it off for long, I was tired from walking earlier and from fighting the water.
I heard some one calling to me and turned as best I could in the water. I saw Masiaka swimming towards me yelling something. It sounded like he was telling me to keep my head above the water. The yelling encouraged me even as I felt the urge to just give up and let the water take me.
After what seemed like hours Masiaka reached me. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck in his jaws like a mother would grab her little cub and started paddling towards the shore.
But with my added weight the current was to strong for him and we were washed further down the river, the water getting rougher and rougher as it dragged us along.
Finally the water got to the point where I couldn’t breathe without getting some of it in my lungs. I choked and gagged, still keeping me head up.
Masiaka began fighting the current with renewed strength and I wondered why. I blearily looked downstream at what we were heading for and my eyes widened with fear. We were headed for rapids.
I began to attempt paddling too, but it was already too late. I watched with horror as the rapids drew closer and closer. Then the water spun the two of us around so I couldn’t see the rapids. Another wave of water struck me and closed my eyes fighting the urge to whimper because I knew that would just let more water get into my lungs.
We were soon in the rapids. The first rock we hit knocked me out of his jaws and I was on my own again. I tumbled through the water smashing into countless rocks. I was pulled under and came bobbing to the surface time and time again, furiously gulping air when I could and only getting a lungful of water half the time.
I went of a mini-waterfall and was plunged underwater. My lungs already burned from lack of air and now they ached. I knew that if I did not breathe soon I would die, and I even if that didn’t kill me I would probably by killed in the rapids that came after this.
My world began to grow dark around the edges and my head felt light. I barley noticed hen something semi-soft hit me. I looked over , only halfway aware and noted it was Masiaka.
I bobbed to the surface and began to instinctively gasp down air. I was soon dragged underwater but ever the temporary breath of air had cleared my head a little. I grasped at ideas that just wouldn’t come and finally managed to cling onto one. I realized that my only hope was to use the elements.
I closed my eyes and formed the brook in my mind. Surprisingly it came easy to me this time, but instead of being a trickling brook of elemental power this time it was a rushing river. I grabbed out at the part of it that was the essence of air with my jaws, like would grab the neck of an animal I wanted to bring down. I felt the power of the raw element fill me and knew that it was mine to control.
I opened my eyes and saw the water around me. Only now it glowed. I could see that this water had air as a part of it. That was what the fish must breathe I thought for a minute, then quickly chased away the thought. I needed to focus on the magic and on the magic alone.
I called the air in the water to me and let it form a bubble around me. Slowly but surely it came and the bubble formed. I gasped in the air , I could breathe now! I held onto the essence of the air in my mind for dear life. I saw a dark form up ahead in the water. It looked dead. A shock ran through me as I realized it was Masiaka. I focused harder on the air and made it push me through the water. As I focused more and more on it’s power it glowed so brightly in my eyes that I thought I would blind me.
Masiaka hit me body and I abruptly lessened my concentration and let the air stop pushing me forward. I grabbed Masiaka by his scruff like he had grabbed me earlier.
I rammed into a rock and it nearly shattered my concentration and grip on Masiaka. I realized I needed more than air. I needed to get us out of the river.
I closed my eyes again and focused on the torrent of elemental power. I saw the essence of water sliding along part of the rainbow of essences that made up the river. I reached for it, still holding onto my grip of air tightly. I nearly had the essence of water in my jaws in I hesitated. Controlling water has always been difficult for me. I couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if I messed up. But I realized it was the only hope, not only for me but for Masiaka. I couldn’t let both of us die.
Yet I still hesitated. I made myself thinking about what would happen if I didn’t find Lightfall. About what would happen if I didn’t stop the scalefangs. About how they would first kill my pack, my family and friends, and then they would ravage the rest of the world killing ruthlessly.
The otherworld had barely kept the scalefangs from ravaging the lands of that world. And that would was inhabited by powerful creatures that had magic far stronger than any of our own. If I did not complete this well…quest, or sorts the whole of the wolven population could be at stake.
Swallowing my fear I grasped the essence of water with grim determination. I felt it’s power surrounding me, great and full or power far beyond what I had expected of it. The essence writhed in my grasp, but I fought hard and managed to hold onto both it and the essence of air.
When I opened my eyes the whole world was ablaze as both air and water around me glowed with the sight I had when I touched the elements. I felt the water around me fighting the power I was gaining over it. I inched along gaining more and more power I forced the currents to change. Dragging us toward the bands instead of further downstream.
The water fought fiercely but now I had a hold on it. I could see the banks approaching quickly. I made the water around my build into a wave and then held it back until the moment that we struck the shore. At the very moment that the entirety of the wave, Masiaka, and I hit the shore I let go of it and the wave crashed onto the banks, hurling our already broken bodies onto the shore.
I forced the water away from us as it sought to drag us back into the river. After the wave had gone I lay where I had had landed and clinged on to the elements. The essence of air was still gathering air to me and I could feel the pressure building up on all sides. I let it go, but I continued holding onto water for a few minutes. Making sure that nothing happened that would drag me and Masiaka back into the horrible river.
After I was sure we were both safe I released the essence of water and slipped out of the semi-awareness of the world I always had when grasping the elements. I felt the pain in my body coming to awareness in my mind. It had been little more than dim shadow while I was holding on to the elements. I stared to groan and then I realized I was still holding Masiaka in my jaws. I let him go and tilted my head back and tried to see where I was. The effort was too much after the ordeal and I wasn’t strong enough to support the weight of my own head. I let it fall back to the ground.
I heard a scuffling and looked over at where Masiaka had been laying. He was standing on three legs now, or at least trying to. He stood there for a second, eyes tightly closed teeth clenched before he collapsed to the ground hacking up water.
I tried to speak to him but found that I couldn’t speak. I let out a weak cough myself. He moved his head and opened his blind eyes and ‘looked’ at me in that weird way of his and said something. I couldn’t quite make it out but it sounded like he said “ So you really are an Aldhi.”
I made another weak choking noise then sighed, letting it sink in that we really were out of the water. I tried raising my head again and this time succeeded for an instant. The sky was a light blue. The sun had just finished setting. I thought for a moment about how the entire ordeal had only such a short time, and then gave up on thinking. I was too tired.
I closed my eyes and let sleep take over.