Chapter 9 | The Duty of a Seed II

   For the entire morning, Tyna couldn't keep her eyes from Asena. During breakfast, she attempted to approach the lone wolf perched at the top of the structures. When they were told to pack, she desperately searched for even just a hint of that spring green lock. 

   "Dame Asena, can we fill the cart?"

   Asena nodded, pressed a familiar gem on her vambrace, performed her magic, before stalking off, leaving the knights and common people to throw their bags into the empty cart.

   The elderly climbed onto their designated transportation while some of the knights took to their horses.

   For a while now, Asena could feel a set of eyes watching her, but like the night before, she decided not to pay too much attention to it.

   Instead, she made her way towards two men whispering to each other.

   "Will you scout the air for the next clearing?"

   Rusen nodded in acceptance.

   "Anything I can do?"

   "Bored?"

   Hands behind and slightly leaning forward, she nodded.

   "I suppose that is the reason, yes."

   "Come with me at the front this time. Panu and I are wondering if we should send a few, back to Belmasse Port."

   "I can go–"

   "I would rather send a team of four."

   Asena tapped her foot continuously and crossed her arms in deep thought. Sure, he could send four. Or just send her.

   "I could just send only you. I know, Asena. But this, this has not gone unnoticed by me."

   He grazed the back of his hand on the bandaged portion of her arm.

   "The knights tell me, you let the blood of the infected spray all over your face as well."

   "Yet, I'm fine."

   "For now."

   They exchanged glances.

   "Think– Consider... what would happen if you became infected, õekene." She let him brush her bangs off her forehead. "Not as your lord, but as a brother, I ask that you be careful."

   She was only ever called that when they were trying to make a point like how Elder Monik took to calling her 'babu' when he needed a certain type of magical assistance.

   They were like code words, signals made so that she could understand their emotions better.

   "Fine."

   "You look mad."

   "That requires actually being able to feel."

   "Yet, you still look mad," Aleksi laughed off.

   "Then, I suppose I am."

   "Are you?"

   She tilted her head.

   "Confused," Aleksi laughed again.

   He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and made their way to the front of the march. Along the way, he gave out instructions to knights passing by.

   "She's riding in the front?" Tyna observed as she took Bridgette's hand to mount their horse.

   "Who, my lady?"

   "That girl."

   "Lady Asena?"

   "Yes, her! Who is she?"

   Giving it a moment's thought, Bridgette clicked her tongue to get them moving along. It wasn't as if she was obligated to answer a vague question. Though, she could just imagine Tyna asking endlessly throughout the journey.

   "So? Who is she?"

   "She is a Drakonian Knight like many of us."

   A vague answer for the annoying vague question.

   Tyna hummed, "okay, but why do the knights give her so much respect? Even you! And you're like a leader, right?"

   The Seed eyed Bridgette’s uniform.

   "As I have told before, Lady Asena is the youngest to ever be knighted in the entire empire. Not only that, but she was the ward of the Damyanov until just last year. She would've been adopted had she been an orphan."

   "I thought anyone could be adopted by a ducal family, regardless of their situation. Did she have to be an orphan?"

   Tyna could hear Bridgette swallow and scrunched her nose in response.

   Bridgette restrained herself from losing patience, yet again. Something about Tyna irked her like a pet peeve.

   "Teacher Asena's a alkimist!"

   A familiar boy set Bridgette free.

   "What's that?" Tyna asked, but the boy ignored her.

   "She's also very helpful around town. She always visits Madam Ola and Elder Monik. You know, the oldest in town. But Madam Ola had Jerome to help her out sometimes. So why did she always call for teacher?"

   The boy waited for Tyna to answer.

   "I... don't... know?"

   "Asena teaches the children earth magic at times, right Kaipo?"

   Kaipo's mothered nudged him.

   "Yes! She's not a very good teacher, but we've learned stuff from her."

   "She's a teacher too?"

   "Not a good one because she's all like, well you just follow the flow of the energy and then boom."

   Kaipo outstretch his hand, but nothing happened.

   "She's supposed to tell us how it feels first, like how teacher Huxley did. But he died from being too old so he can't teach us anymore."

   Tyna chuckled.

   "There's not many of us with earth magic. But! She also teaches the other kids. Jojo is an Anima, so teacher Asena uses her arm-things to demonstrate air magic."

   She assumed the arm-things were the armor Asena wore that often glowed.

   "She also fabricated our armors," a knight commented in passing.

   "Lady Asena's an integral part of the duchy." Said another.

   At the Temple, someone like Asena would definitely be revered had she only had the ability to wield light magic.

   Jolted by a sudden stop and slamming against Bridgette's back, Tyna was brought out of her thoughts. Looking around, the rest of the march had also stopped to a complete halt. The people were murmuring and trying to peer beyond what was in front of them.

   "What happened?" Kaipo asked his mother.

   "The Seed! Call the Seed forward!" Rusen's voice echoed directionally from the front of the line to the back. "Hurry, Bridgette!"

   Without another second of delay, the knights cleared away for the horse carrying the Seed. Bridgette did not have to think of maneuvering around the people as they parted before her.

   Rusen hastily wrapped his hands around Tyna's waist, apologizing as he did, to assist her in dismounting the horse.

   "Quickly now," Aleksi ordered alarmingly.

   Tyna was confused only until she spotted Asena's lifeless body on the ground. She could tell that the girl had fallen from her horse from the way her leg bent and the blood pooling behind her head.

   They all turned to her, expectantly. Rusen egged her to move closer to the body, but she was more than hesitant to draw in closer. Her heart raced. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and her temperature rose continuously.

   "I-I... I-" She stammered a few times, struggling to tell them her embarrassing truth.

   "What is it? You'll have to work around your fear of blood–"

   "It's not that!" she shouted.

   "Then what is it?"

   Rusen grabbed her shoulder roughly. 

   "I-I... I can't heal that! I don't know, how," she whispered.

   Aleksi racked his brains for a solution, something, anything, but all he could do was nurse Asena's back of the head with his cape.

    Rusen tried to reason with her, "but you came from the Temple. Tours are only held by Seeds who can heal."

   "I wasn't on a tour... I was on a vacation." She murmured half in tears. "I was on a vacation. I only wanted to get time away from my studies."

   "You told me you graduated top ten of your class," Bridgette said accusingly.

   "When I was 10!" she cried.

   Rusen wiped his mouth and paced back and forth as he repeated profanities under his breath.

   "Ssh..." Asena whispered, pulling Aleksi to her.

   "Õekene."

   Aleksi lowered his ears to better hear her.

   "Hide me," she quietly gasped.

   Quick to catch on, the young lord began barking consecutive orders.

   "Bridgette, take the Seed back. Rusen, call on Manny and Elder Monik. Panu and Former 1st Commander, Anastas, continue to lead the march."

   Panu reorganized the line to march around the fallen dame and their lord. His dyadya beckoned them to continue. Meanwhile, Rusen led Manny and Elder Monik to his sister.

   Bridgette and Tyna galloped past them. Tyna glanced back both in shame and worry.

   "Will... she, live?"

   "I would not worry too much."

   "But you were worried before," Tyna quickly claimed. "Are you no longer? How can you not worry? She was bleeding a lot. And what if she's infected? Your lord was touching her blood."

   Bridgette turned her head to the side, "she spoke, did she not? She will be fine. Trust me."

   Tyna would have, but she had no reason to. She looked back again, but a thin fog obstructed her view.

   "That's weird..."

   "That should be enough to keep prying eyes away," Rusen murmured.

   "Good, good," Elder Monik agreed.

   The Elder was now holding Asena's head as Aleksi occupied himself by burning the blood off of him and their surroundings.

   "It is safe on this side as well," Manny commented.

   "Õekene, the coast is clear." Rusen took his sister's hand in his to calm his profusely beating heart. "You can go ahead."

   Slowly, her ragged breath steadied. A light glow at the back of her head reflected against the palm of the old man. Her leg straightened out with the same light glow. But before they could celebrate, the bandages around her arm started to sear off.

   "The fuck." 

   Rusen tried to suffocate the unrecognizable fire, but it did not die. Aleksi also attempted and failed to put it out. The last bit of the bandage disintegrated just before the fire burned out.

   "Her skin," Elder Monik's hand traced the burn mark just centimeters from touching her, "they are void of color."

   "Did it hurt?" Manny asked in a panic.

   Asena slowly got up, resting on the uninjured arm as she did.

   "Did what hurt?"

   "Your arm..." Rusen directed her eyes to the issue.

   She looked where they stared.

   "No. It has been doing that since yesterday."

   "Since when!" Aleksi shouted louder than he'd intended.

   "Now, now, my lord. We shall let her rest and convene when camp has been set. Night chases us as it did our ancestors."

   Elder Monik beckoned everyone back on their horses. They followed along the back of the march attentive to the unusually weakened Asena.

chapter footnotes:

1. Õekene means dear sister in a language I can no longer remember. This term is mainly said by Rusen and Aleksi to Asena.