(GE Copy)

Chapter 18: Brothers Entwined (Part 1)

“It seems the ones open, despite their pain, are those who found answers or have at least come to want one. As the closed and bitter minds have pushed me from even trying...”

“I think I’m finally to a point that I can safely confirm, everything Belship told me is utter horse shit...” Aaron complained, resting his legs by the overlook. It was nearing the end of his lessons and he sat bewildered by the days leading up to this. No word on what the master had planned, but Aaron just couldn’t get his mind off it. “Two weeks, two, bloody, head banging weeks and then this. Finally, bloody, finally... Everything I needed.”

“Too much stress puts years on, lighten up...” Kaylemen mentioned, taking up his tea. “I’ll tell you: There was a lady who came by here, asking for directions with the most wretched sounding voice you ever heard. Came at quite a startle to me in fact, but I did my part, directed her down the path and waved her off. Well, couple minutes later she ran into some of them voice eaters and started screaming, but when she spoke, they turned ran away from her, hollering: Keep it! Keep it!” Laughing to his own joke, but turned quiet as he looked to the silent crowd. “This generation is always so up tight about everything... I bet you know a lot of jokes about old white men, too... Alright, jokes over, back to work!” Walking off to his study

Under her breath, Iswana smirked. “Talk about old white jokes, there walks one now...” But Aaron shook his head “Come on, you know he’s going deaf... It doesn’t matter how mean it is, I ain’t hurting no on that can’t hear it.” And she buggered off too.

Getting down to brass tacks, Aaron closed his eyes, and rekindled his routine: A moment of peace, a moment to take in the wind. To soak the smells and feel the sun. He returned to his meditation, and preemptive mindset for the sake of his work. Each step he took was loose and shaky but when he knew he was ready, he felt a strange wind that overtook him. Like it’s had always been aware, but his eyes merely glossed over it, and suddenly they open. He could smell the essence coming off the leaves, like sap, that fragrance was much more deep and intimate than the flavours they extracted. He could feel the air changing, from the ambient warmth to the overcast that grazed their sky. Something about it was familiar, like the feeling one gets when walking into another room. How the air changes it’s pressure, and the sound echoes differently, and the train of thought thinks in different ways.

It wasn’t much, but it seemed to develop even still, capturing the awareness of balance, and the beating of his heart. Even the isolation of muscles. “What’s the progress?” Kaylemen returned, slipping a key into the hem of his sleeve.

Taking a calming breath, Aaron uttered whatever first things he could picture; hoping to grasp the thought in it’s entirety, and not stir his progress like the dregs in a pond.“There is something about their quality, intrinsic, defining like someone’s first impressions... An emotion or memory to somewhere, like the flavour in the air comes to mind, no voices or meaning, just a place, or a thought... Something essential about being there that defines it...”

“Sounds yappery...”

Constraining his thoughts, Aaron sieved the overflow of ideas into whatever he could best surmise. “It’s like the attention to difference, to notice the change between substances, of hot to cold, and sharp to smooth. Like feeling the shift between being relaxed, to being encumbered by a worklaiden mind... It’s ethereal, almost.”

“Mnn... Our tongues are still very much foreign to the other, but I will agree to that extent. It is very much like the days where tribulations occur, yes... It is like the change that occurs, if we imagine that even the rocks and trees must endure the rain and loose, or gain some part of themselves as a result thereof... It is the inevitable that alters what we have always known, by a force we often forget. Nature is quite the Be’hatch, ain’t it...”

“I suppose it creeps in from the cracks, making miracles in unfathomable ways... Say...” Sitting himself up straight “Now that everyone’s finally taken off... I feel I gotta tell you. It’s still hard to imagine that when I needed someone to show me what I needed, I found them right away. Feels like it should have taken longer, a life time even, and I’m still self conscious about it... It doesn’t feel right, like it shouldn’t have happened, but it’s what I needed, and I’m grateful.”

Kaylemen shook his head, disappointed, and reminded Aaron. “Anyone could have been your teacher. I told you the moment that you arrived that you merely were looking for the first person to fill that gap in you, and it would appear that it still remains somewhat of a void... But, I have done what I can to aid it. I have very little to offer; if you wanted to know gems then there were, and still are, finer men than I... I would have set you on your way, but you wanted to learn the spirit behind them and that I’m certain, that you couldn’t learn anywhere else. It’s a short lesson, everything I have here are tricks upon that one principal, but that talent of discernment alone is what’s special. You have what you need to discover all gems now; without a yapping arrogant puck headed know-it-all condescending arrogant self absorbed hierarchical, ‘look at me I’m so great’, blithering professor and his arrogance... However, there is still one final lesson left to be paid. Iswana has, after much argumentation, brought me onto your arriving waters and I have found nothing special of the sort. Perhaps, as two wise individuals, we may learn a mutual understanding that I may understand how this water has guided you here. This is your final lesson, that you may put that teaching to good use and prove ready to continue on your own path... A... Payment of respects to the time spent training an ingrate such as Zachery.”

“He means well...”

“So does as soldier while he marches out to war, that buffoon has littered my dreams with worry! One moment I’m sipping tea, the next I’m boarding up my hidden stash. I can’t even remember what I do in and out of my dreams anymore! Are the boards missing because he has stolen my stones, or because I never installed them?...” Rubbing the seam of his hem where he’d stashed his key, “Perhaps I used them all... That’s beside the point...”

“Alright, I’ll... Figure it out I guess.”

“Now I’m wondering who removed the boulder on my drinking well. Come to think of it, who the f-f-fek would have put it on there in the first place? Might be an eindermen... Probably just dreaming of my sweet youthful upper body strength... Well? You gonna look into that water or just listen me to ramble? On with you... I mean off... Begone!

“Iswana,” Calling to the lazy youth, Aaron approached. “You’re old man wants to know how the water works, I’m calling upon you as a resource.” She seemed indifferent but let him speak. “Kaylemen told me, that when one looses one sense, yeah, yeah, I know.” Watching her eyes roll. “Well?... What is it about that water that makes a porthole compared to any other water?”

“You want to know?” Aaron let her answer herself “Even if you don’t like the answer I give you?” Aaron seemed concerned but waved her to continue. “Pbth...” She smiled and left it as that.

Standing unanswered, Aaron waited for some kind of bluff in the ruse. “Really?...”

“Yup. Not a damned thing.” She confirmed, “These places exist, and somehow the old man thinks I’m ‘special’ or something coz he can’t find it himself.”

“Well, the old man isn’t taking that as an answer on the exam, now is he?”

“Sucks to be you...” Leaning herself back against the house wall, and returning to her fruitlessly pale sunbathing.

“You pretty much just learned nothing but his sass, haven’t you?”

“There are only so many solaces in this life.” Sassily returning, her eyes unmet with his “Why become someone boring, if you can be the person that makes you smile...”

“And Zack?... Kinda put himself out there for you.”

“And his baseless conclusions?” She scoffed, “You couldn’t teach common sense to that fool if he was the one to invent the concept.”

“...Well, can’t argue that... You could at least thank him.”

“Lest he think I’m trying to copulate, he can live without any further ideas of romancing the helpless mute, prancing about in his head like a loon’s fantasy. ‘Oh boy! I’m gonna be a hero! Princess in the tower, hay field down below; I’m gonna go for a tumble!’ Have fun learning about water...”

Coming up on the two at his table, Aaron tapped Zack on the shoulder, but Zack spoke first. “He want’s us to discover water. Should I go to the store and buy some Delphena to compare it, or...?” sarcastically mocking in a softened tone.

“Well,” Aaron replied. “I suppose if there are liquid crystals, then it’s not far off to believe it has a signature to it, and we can get it over with in a jiff.”

“But, the old guy couldn’t find anything, that’s why he gave us the job at taste testing it with our finger tongues.”

“Felicity, I know you can fight but how confidant do you feel being chased by monsters twice our size and scarier than a smiling nun?”

Standing proudly, “Here I thought you were going to consider me a paper weight,” Felicity gratified. “Let’s do it...”

“Just as a fair warning,” Zack creakily got up, “critters from this point out don’t get any less nightmareish.” Leaving the porch

“Man...” Felicity heckled, “Sure is scary out here...” Sarcastically, standing by the water’s edge for the last ten minutes as Aaron could get a good portion of water. “If I see a fly buzzing by, I think it just might lick me...”

“Har, har...” Aaron replied. Everywhere he scooped up the stuff, it seemed bland somehow. Like the filament of alcohol on one’s skin, but still wet... Probably just the fiery mist. He capped the empty jar and plunged it into the depth to fill it with the denser liquid down below. It was still bland and he wondered if it escaped as he risen the bottle. He did it again, holding his hand overtop the gape as he lifted it but realized dense liquid would stay in the jar if there was such. Maybe as he kept dumping it out for a new batch, he disrupted the layers underneath, mixing it, or maybe his feet were... Otherwise, this was just normal boring ass water.

“My guy...” Zack moaned. “Does it have to come from a gold fountain or what? Just grab a jar and stick with it.”

“Maybe I need to grab it closer to the tunnel, where we actually enter in from...” Aaron called out.

“I will come out there and grab it myself Aaron!”

“Well, I can’t find anything!” Flinging his arms away from them, and spilling the jar as he walked back. “Is this it? Is this it?” Scooping out random bits of the surface, and flinging it aside “How about this bit? It’s all bloody water! And it all stinks!”

“Nine tenths out of ten the old geezer is laughing himself ill silly sending us on this quest...” And he was, but not for that reason. “Guy’s got a twisted humour, that or he’s just nuts.”

“Then how do you explain passing over?” Aaron reasoned. “Something has to trigger it. These different realms, something has to make it happen.”

“You could ask Bel... Um...”

“I’m going to have a shit hemorrhage the next time I hear that name... Chances are if I did, he’d tell me to recreate the universe in order to make a pie or some shit.” Looking at the jar in his hands. “I got something, come on... Let’s humour the old guy, at least...”

“Yup... That’s water.” Kaylemen announced, sitting at his table. The boys hovered above it. “Smells like it too, but, I didn’t expect much, seeings as I’s been there already.” Seeing the disappointment of everyone, Kaylemen continued. “Not every discovery is immediate. It may take your whole lives to understand a simple concept... Hey...” Watching them continue to walk away. “I’m not finished.” Aaron stopped, awaiting some convenient last minute answer that would solve everything. “I... I think I forgot what I was going to say actually, I guess I really am finished then. Never mind, carry on...”

“Guess I’m on my own then...” Aaron announced, heading up the stairs to the flat above. “We got a jar of dirt, and no idea what’s inside it.” Sloshing it’s insides about. For a moment, it glimmered, but then the cloud covered the sun again, and it really was just a reflection.

“I’m bored.” Felicity complained. “You promised adventure, and I’m holding you to it.” Grabbing Aaron and dragging him somewhere. Zack followed in behind.

“So where are you taking me?” Aaron begged, dissatisfied with surprises.

“Anywhere at this point.”

Along the road, where there was once a man with a prostitutional problem, came a split towards danger; but there was also a road heading up the stream. The sun laid the light along their side of the river at it’s bend. It seemed to flatten out to a fifteen foot wide shallow creek bed that slipped hidden through and under the stones, glistening only at the right angle in a vast array of sparkles.

Through the shallow cut in the rock, they came onto a lush field, and then into an overlook of a lake without a mountain in sight. “Amazing,” Aaron astonished. “No matter how far you go, in a short distance, there is something new...” Falling beside a tree along the forest edge. Aaron dropped his camping canteen beside him, half parched even after wetting his lips. He looked out, seeing a ruin in along the horizon, sitting by the water’s edge. It stretched out over the lake, and upon the adjacent hill. Perhaps four stories high, and who knows how many hundred feet in length. If he wanted, he could go there, he supposed. Aaron saw the sparkle of waves rippling in the distance but Felicity walked on by.

“I’m still bored.” He announced, passing by Aaron and Zack. “You think if I knocked this tree down I’d summon something to fight, or just scare everything off?”

Zack jumped in the way. “No, no! No summoning evil today.”

“Baaawhh!” Felicity whined. “But I want to!”

“We get enough of that when we’re just moseying along...” Aaron interrupted.

“Speaking of which...” Zack mentioned, “We haven’t really... Nah, not gonna jinx that one.”

“Fine,” Felicity agreed, nudging the party onward. “Lets keep moving

“I want to check that place out...” Aaron pointed.

Felicity squinted, locating the place in question and replied, “Yeah, nah, fast pass, that’s way boring getting there; and what if there’s nothing when we show up but a bunch of dumb skeletons or weird cultists? You know how boring it is watching a bunch of guys chanting in a circle? I bet it’s super boring.”

Zack put his piece in, “I’ll take the cultist dudes over the usual calibre of freak we run into...”

Though Aaron had his heart set, there was not much swaying their party who followed in after Felicity and his lust for adventure.

Down the dusty road, they could see a quaint sight between the bottom branches of the evergreens and the sandy clay valley slope. A strange and beautiful creature that was tall and slender, basked it’s white fur in the sun of a grassy bottom glade. It stood, raising itself to only five feet at it’s ears, and slowly carried on it’s way.

“It’s a unicorn!” Zack astounded.

“Nah,” Aaron dismissed, “it’s an alpaca. No horn.”

“I’m hungry.” Felicity butted in. “It’s gotta taste good whatever it is.” Hopping down the soft slippery steep slope.

“Guess it’s follow the leader... Again...” Aaron figured, sliding down towards the only source of protection in this volatile world. It felt like the dirt from home, arid, fine grit but was distinctly reddish orange like it were infused with minerals from the wood around it.

Zack rolled to the bottom, staring back up at the rolling dirt, as though expecting something to meet him. Only pine needles, and discarded acorns.

Aaron came upon his protector, shaking the sand out of his shoe, and gave it a few taps. No saving his socks though, it caked in with the moisture and became a stain he would have to explain to the laundry crew.

“Nope... She gone...” Felicity lamented. “All we got now are birds... Getting real tired of them.”

Looking out, Aaron pointed to a shifting in the grass. “Look, a boar...”

Zack began to look nervous, checking back for where they came, until informing. “I hear they are really deadly... They kill like half a dozen hikers every year, and that’s just in North America...”

“It can’t be that threatening,” Felicity mocked, eyeing the juicy cut of prime rib steak walking in front of them.

Nudging his friend, Aaron jested. “Try saying ‘fuck you’ to it, Zack...”

Zack moved to the back lines.

“Come on, it can’t really be a curse, can it?” Aaron heckled.

Zack shook his head harder, “You don’t know it like I know it... Hey!” Calling out to the boar, it lifted it’s head and snorted. “Yeah, I’m taking the back seat on this one...”

“Boar!” Felicity called out, pressing his thumb between his middle and index fingers, “Up yours!” Zack probably shouldn’t say shit like that, and fortunately, this time it wasn’t him. The boar charged them without hesitation in fiery tears, proving that literally everything in this world was educated in profanity, and hostile when provoked. Felicity sidestepped the creature, smirking at it’s imminent, hunger quenching, feeble demise; but it kinda just ignored Felicity, stunning the protector with rejection, and kept going to chase after Aaron and Zack instead... Wait... Nope just Zack. Zack screamed, getting pricked from behind and chucked overhead. “BOAR!” Felicity hollered. “Dammit it all! Making me chase you...” Walking up to the confrontation. “BOAR!” Challenging it. “I command you to BE HEEL!” Which sounded really powerful and threatening, at least until the boar rammed Felicity square in the dick and sent him sideways.

Sheer dread overtook the party, watching their last bastion of defence squirming along the ground like an injured snake. Felicity cussed softly, and they knew they were screwed.

All they could muster was to dodge it’s momentous charges, but the boars’ breaks turned more quickly than they could distance themselves from and it locked them into close combat. An advantage that put them in peril. It eagerly tailed them before ramming the boys onto the ground, leaving whoever was still standing to tag team and grab the boar’s attention for the other to get up again. After the second boot to the ass, the boar kinda gave up changing targets as the weak feeble kicks were only an annoying distraction from whatever poor sucker was still trying to get on their feet. Zack kicked from below trying to push himself away from the angry jaws of death but could never apply enough force to stun it. Aaron threw a low angled roundhouse but the bore intercepted, snapping at his boot. Aaron tried again, same story. It seemed nigh on impossible to sever the boar’s hunger from the filling plate of Zack Cordon Bleu.

Returning to their feet, Felicity stamped over towards the beast, adorning the ethereal blade in a firmly vexated grip and scowled. “Make me wince...” Still walking a little funny. With a swing of his arm, the ground by Zachery’s feet broke, shattering material up in against the boars neck, lifting it with the force of the impacting rubble. Gripping the neck, Felicity lifted the beast further off the ground, “Not so funny with it’s your package, is it?” Before exchanging it with a swift return to the dick. Wriggling in his hand, the boar cried, stiffening like a board under the pain. It’s body was chucked aside, and rolled like a stiff brick. Finally returning to it’s feet, the boar scramble away, whimpering into the treeline. “Right...” Felicity affirmed, still staggering to catch his breath as he stood up straight, “I understand why you people get killed so often... Ah, damn, it got away...”

“I can’t believe how powerful that was!” Aaron shouted out. “You blew the entire ground apart with that swing!”

They heard something in the distance, a loud, distorted malignance with a vengeance. From the edge of the forest, in it’s dusty old skin and anger; it was from the distance they heard the cursing, of and even larger effing boar. It snuffed, with it’s little one beside. It flipped them off. Can you believe it? What are they teaching this little shit?

Aaron stood proudly, “Haha!” holding his ground as he imagined the power that would be unleashed if Felicity actually hit them directly with such a strong weapon. “I’ve nothing to be afraid of anymore! Felicity! Fel... Felicity! Wh-where did you go?... AH FUBAR!” Watching Felicity waddle away, still agonizing over his smunched groin.

“I did my part,” Felicity bestowed “you can have the rest...”

“NO!” Aaron cried out, “TAKE HIM! TAKE HIM! TAG TEAM! TAG TEAM!” Which, to save on details, he did, eventually.

“I honestly thought you were excited over fighting the creature,” Felicity confessed, standing the victor of a long and brutal fight. Blood falling from the blade as he returned his sword to the ether, “I had no idea.”

“You got a warped sense of humour” Aaron scowled, kicking the last of a dozen angry brutes that followed moments ago.

“You’re alive” Looking to the piles and piles slain beasts who entered the fray. “Besides, these look really tasty.” Licking the blood from his hand. “Augh! It’s all fatty.” Spitting it out. “But that one...” Looking out to the bystander. “That one looks particularly meaty...” Scaring it off.

“Alright...” Zack panted. “You’re cool, and you’re strong... I’ll give you that... But...” Catching his breath. “Could you fend off aga...” Having his mouth pressed back by Aaron, his head rotating with it. “Nemnumnganan...” Removing the hand, Aaron let Zack finish. “Fine! No encore match, let’s go, we had our adventure.”

“Fine... Let’s head back” Felicity agreed, wiping the pigs blood from their hand. He turned towards the hill, and Zack cleared his throat, twice, thrice, frice, sixish. “What?” Felicity moaned.

Jacking his thumb behind him, Zack motioned. “It’s that way... You try’na start more wars?”

“Um... Zack,” Aaron regretted to inform them. “It’s uh...” Aaron stopped to actually question it before suggesting the way back was but turned to see the particular white rocks with orange coloured moss to the left as well, and then again the right and maybe in front, then he kinda gave up.

“...You mean we’re lost...”

“No...” Aaron pacified.

“Exactly,” Felicity assured. “Because I remember where we came in, it was down from this hillside, because we had that acorn roll past us that scared the crap out of you.” Pointing to Zack

“Yeah, well...” Zack huffed, defiantly, “Where there’s acorns, there’s squirrels...” Acting more bravely than dictated, Zack continued. “Like I said, the hill was back there. We cleared the trees after landing on the bottom, the hillside here is wide open.”

“Shit... We are lost...” Aaron lamented.

“We’re not lost!” Felicity and Zack both overlapped. “It’s that way...” Pointing in, yeah, separate directions.

Shaking his head, Zack mockingly jested. “Alright, which was is home, map boy?”

Aaron pointed in both directions, with his head hung low. “Any of us know how to fly?” But, that wasn’t really in their skill set as of this moment, and they made due with the best they could.

“You’re right...” Felicity called down from the treetop, having sufficiently scanned the surroundings from the tallest sucker they could find. “I can’t see shit... It’s all woodland, and no trails. Can’t even see anything that we passed by either..”

“Why not just go up the hill a little,” Zack suggested, “and after fifty feet, if we don’t see anything we recognize, we just fall back into the open field and try another way out?”

“They teach you that in boy scouts?” Aaron questioned.

“Nope, we had compasses, and a declination. We could split up...”

“Sure...” Aaron figured “Beats standing around.”

“Wait, no! Don’t split up!”

After three failed hillside prodding attempts, they sat back at the valley floor. Aaron turned to their boy scout leader, “Still don’t want to split up and look for clues?”

“I’d rather say ‘I’ll be right back’ in a haunted house.” Zack instilled, chucking a rock out to the field.

Pointing up at the hills, Felicity mentioned. “I’m wagering that mountain there will give us a good vantage.”

“I don’t remember seeing a mountain before...” Aaron recalled, “They’re kinda, you know... Easy to notice.”

“Then I bet that’s where we came from.” Zack announced.

“What?”

“All we’ve seen have been overlooks, and wide valleys, we would have seen a mountain by now, UNLESS... We were right beside it the whole time, with the blinders of the tree line directly brushing against our faces. It’s ALSO the only direction we haven’t gone yet. North, South, East, West, it’s gotta be one of them right?... Besides, there is still the vantage point idea while we’re up there.”

Aaron shook his head, “I don’t like it. Besides, what makes you prime leader material anyway, it’s all our lives at this point and you’ve yet to use a single boy scout technique this whole trip. There’s gotta be a better way.”

“And what? Get chased by the army again? Remember who said to walk quietly in the streets so the people who were running after us wouldn’t recognize us in the crowd?” Cutting off Aaron before he could counter it. “Who convinced the old crone to cover for us? In the moment, WITH the best Shakespeare you’ve ever heard.” Sticking his wedge firmly in the door to the adventure’s cockpit, “AND! Found the narnilaid in the back of the fridge while you were passed out dreaming about daises? I did!”

Aaron sighed, “I guess unless we find the road back, there is no point in getting extra lost... So, there’s no point sitting here wasting time either... Alright, Zack... You’re leader then.”