Log inOf Fates And Fetters Ch 6
Oof.
Today was exhausting. Luckily I was able to finish the bulk of this chapter during the week. So today it just needed editing and finishing touches.
Weekends being super busy are bad civilization.
Here is chapter. Please lemme know your thoughts on it!
Hope you guys like it.
=][=
I scowled at the drawing of an ornithopter with metal arms coming out of it that spewed fire. And all the components that would be required to construct it.
“No, that’s definitely too narrow.” I muttered as I erased the dimension for the vertical stabilizer in the tail. “It needs to be wider, more robust…”
That is, of course, until the explosion on the center of town toppled the church and the great brass bell clanged and rattled as it fell to the ground amidst the destruction.
“What the fuck!?” I asked sensibly.
A screech made of dying men’s nightmares roared through the town.
[WHERE IS SHE!?] It demanded. [WHERE IS PRINCESS LOUVIA!?]
I blinked out my window.
I wasn’t in a medieval world. I was in a fantasy world! And the Protagonist’s story had just started!
I needed to find my new mom and dad, I had to make sure we fled to safety, I didn’t want to be part of the main character’s tragic backstory.
I ran to my bugout bag, little more than a small canvas bag with dried meats, fruits, and cheeses, a bedroll, two changes of clothing, and two wool blankets. And made for the door.
Before I could get there, a large brick of a man came running through it, he had a mop of straw-blonde hair, and a face full of laugh lines around his eyes and the corner of his lips. His skin tanned from his work.
For the first time I could recall this life, he wasn’t smiling.
“Dart! There you fuckin’ are laddie!” He said, snatching me up off the floor as if I weighed nothing. Sure, I was five, but I wasn’t a particularly small kid either. He jogged out of my room and through the small house. “Good fuckin’ thing you’re packed boy. We sure don’t have the fuckin’ time to pack!”
He snatched a significantly bigger and heavier backpack than mine on his way to the door. “Remind me to never fuckin’ again doubt any of yer ideas like the idiot fuckwad I am son. This ‘bugout bag’ idea o’ yours is genius—HONEY, I GOT DART, LET’S GO! Fuckin’ fast.” He whispered the last.
Mom didn’t like us swearing.
“The fuck’s going on, pa?” I asked.
“No fuckin’ idea!” Dad said. “Was a night like any goddamn other, then the big fuckin’ moon has its period, then the fuckin’ church exploded. What can ya do?”
“Fuck.”
“I know right?”
We ran into mom outside, she too had a bugout bag bigger than me on her back, but hers was significantly smaller than dad’s. She was also carrying coats, which made sense, the night was freezing before everything was on fire.
“Holy tap-dancing fuck everything’s on fire!” I shouted in surprise, the heat of the flames hurting my face and making my eyes sting. “Everything wasn’t on fucking fire two minutes ago!”
“Language!” Mother chastised as we ran.
“Mom, everything is on fire! I am fucking justified!”
“Don’t take that fuckin’ tone with your mother!”
“EVERYTHING! ON FUCKING! FIRE!”
“You two are incorrigible!” Mom huffed as we ran out of the village. For once it being an advantage that we lived near the outskirts. As we left the burning village behind, the cold closed on us like a fist.
Dad did an honestly very impressive bit of juggling to put my coat on me without stopping or putting me down. They ran up a snowy hill slippery with slush and mud, until we ran past the large hollow tree that had fallen so long ago that it was, by now, a landmark of the village.
“In here! Hurry!” Dad hissed, putting me down in the tree’s shadow.
Mom did as he demanded, and I waited for him to join us as he looked down at the burning village.
I did what I could to ignore the screaming.
Mom joined me and I gripped her hand tight as dad stared grimly at the town.
“Zieg?” Mom asked, I couldn’t see her face in the shadow of the fallen tree, but I was starting to get a bad feeling.
“It ain’t right.” He said, his eyes seeming to glow a fiery blue as they reflected the light of the burning town. “It ain’t right, Claire. We worked hard to build a life here, it ain’t right it’s being taken away.”
Oh no.
“Papa you can’t!” I said, struggling out of my mother’s grip to hug his leg. My arms almost couldn’t close around his thigh. “That’s a monster! You can’t!”
His huge, warm hand landed on top of my head. “Don’t worry lad, your old man ain’t weak.”
He looked over my head, his craggy face breaking into a grim smile, I felt my mother’s legs at my back as she embraced my father, only due to my position between them was I able to hear him mutter. “I love you, Claire. Look after Dart.”
He then gently pried me off, his face twisting into pain as he looked at the tears on my face. “Be strong for your mother, son.” He said, and ran back to the town, his posture changing into something predatory.
“Dad! Dad come back!” I shouted, but he didn’t listen.
I tried to hold in my sniffles (child emotions may be uncomplicated but they were strong) and watched him go into his all-too-likely demise.
“Your father is strong Dart.” Mother said, running her hand through my hair. She knelt next to me and cupped my cheeks. “You have his strength.”
“Mama?” I asked, dread twisting my stomach.
“I need you to be strong and wait here, by yourself.” She said, planting a kiss on my forehead. “I’ll go protect your home with your father.”
Awakening as an adult in a three-year-old’s body had been an understandably disorienting experience. Still, being in a stable home, I’d decided to make the best of my circumstances.
I was the very opposite of a problem child. Other than the cursing to get a rise out of my mom and get my father in trouble, I was well behaved. Sure I found myself babysitting my ‘peers’ more often than not, never quite feeling comfortable unless in the company of mature teens or adults, but that was nothing different from my past go rounds in the karmic wheel.
I’d never before thrown a tantrum, always able to maintain my composure (The occasional sniffles and tears could be forgiven, I think). All the parents around Neet often asking my mother what her secret was to having such a well-behaved boy.
Right then, as grief for my almost certainly doomed father crashed into rising panic at losing my mother. I didn’t bother.
I threw the messiest, most undignified crying and screaming fit I could. I cried so ugly that my eyes burned and my throat bled, clamping my arms around my mother’s neck so hard I was in genuine danger of choking her out.
I screamed, and I hollered, and I wept, and I babbled. I reset my grip any time she managed to pry off one of my hands. I hyperventilated to the point I threw up, and I screamed some more.
I refused to sleep for fear that she would go fight while I was unconscious. I continued so long I lost all track of time.
When next I was…mostly together, it was morning, and I couldn’t make a noise above the meekest whisper. Holding tight to my mother’s hand as we wandered the ruins that used to be a thriving town. Of our home, only embers remained.
My mother’s face was carved from marble, but I could see the glint of unshed tears in the corners of her eyes.
I spotted something shining in the ashes and bent down to retrieve it.
Out of the ashes, I pulled out my dad’s favorite rock, the shiny white gemstone he never went anywhere without.
And I knew then, no matter how hard we searched, we would not find his body.
=][=
“And that’s this rock.” I said, showing the sphere off to Shana and Lavitz. “My dad’s formerly haunted rock.”
“Haunted?” Lavitz asked while Shana wiped at misty eyes.
“Oh yeah.” I said, pretending not to notice her distress while she got herself together. “This thing always gave me the heebie-jeebies, I always felt like it was glaring at me while planning something nefarious. But everything changed when the Black Monster attacked, and from then on, it was just a really smooth and shiny stone.”
I put it away and crossed my arms over my chest. “Anyways, that was eighteen years ago now. Took my mom a while to forgive me, I think, but I can’t say I’m sorry. I don’t think she would have survived.”
“Dart.” Shana said with watery eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I blew a raspberry. “Shana you weren’t even born when it happened, and last I checked, you’re not some ancient eldritch entity that burns down a town every one hundred and eight years. Literally none of what I said could be your fault.”
She sniffled more, and accepted the handkerchief I offered her to dry her tears.
“What does ‘Eldritch’ mean?” Lavitz asked.
“Silent strange and unnatural, something that inspires fear due to its…erm…unnatural…ness. Or something.” Master of eloquence, that’s me.
“I see.” Lavitz nodded, then stood, testing resting his weight on his injured leg. “Either way, I think it’s best we head out.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I said and glanced at Shana, who looked considerably more put together. “You good?”
Shana nodded. “Y-Yeah.” She held up my handkerchief and grimaced before tucking it into her pocket. “I’ll wash that and return it later.”
“I scouted a bit further down the main road, it leads to a river. I think it’s normally calm or shallow, but there must have been quite a bit of rain up near the mountains, because at the moment the current is too much to safely cross.”
Lavitz grimaced. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Yep. So we’re gonna have to figure that out. Cause there aren’t any bridges that I could see.”
“Any ideas?”
I nodded. “Shana will shoot an arrow with a rope tied to it to the other side, and we’ll use that to cross!”
“Dart.” Shana sighed. “There is no way that’ll work.”
“It’ll work, I’ve got rope and shit. It’ll totally work!”
“I’m afraid I must agree with Shana.” Lavitz piped in.
“Yeah well, when you can magically make a bridge, we’ll try your idea. For now, unless either of you can come up with a better idea, we’re trying mine.”
They, in fact, could not come up with a better idea than I had. So off to the river we went.
The river was anywhere from sixty to eighty feet across, the water gurgling by rapidly and violently. Squinting, I could see what looked like submerged cobblestones of the road heading into the water, lending credence to my theory of flooding.
I pulled out my rope, took one of Shana’s arrows, and tied it as securely as I could before dropping the bundle of rope at the edge of the river.
Shana sighed, but walked to the edge of the river and got ready to fire the rope.
She pulled and loosed in one smooth motion, the arrow soared up, the rope’s coils undulating as the arrow traveled, before hitting a knot. The whole two hundred feet of rope jerked and rose to the air, the arrow plummeting down into the river, almost reaching the halfway point.
“Fuck!” I swore, and dragged the arrow and rope back.
The second attempt went much the same, only worse because now the rope was wet.
For the third attempt I uncoiled the rope fully. That one at least made it to the other shore, but the extra drag on the arrow made Shana miss her target, that being the tree near the shore.
“We’re almost there!” I said, grinning as I pulled the rope and arrow back.
“I will admit, this is working somewhat better than I expected.” Lavitz admitted.
“See? You just could not understand my genius!” I laughed.
“If something stupid and it works, it isn’t stupid, right?” Shana sighed.
“GENIUS!” I insisted.
Shana’s fourth attempt sunk the arrowhead into the bark of a tree, but one solid pull to test how solid the hold was, was enough to yank the arrow out.
Once I’d managed to retrieve it, I studied the arrow with a frown. It was a war arrow, thicker than the hunting arrows Shana was likely used to. Trying to bend it, I didn’t have much success.
“What now?” Shana asked, shifting back and forth on her feet.
“We should probably start looking for another way to cross.” Lavitz said.
“Nah nah. One more try.” I said, and continued talking before they could voice their disagreement. “Shana, try and aim for the branches of the tree. Just, get it really tangled up in there.”
She tilted her head in thought, then her eyes widened as she understood. She nodded, nocked the arrow, and loosed once again. The projectile soared, fell, and disappeared into the leafy branches.
I pulled on the rope, and I could see the tree swaying. A solid yank gave me more swaying, but the rope didn’t come loose.
Good enough.
“Alright. I’ll cross first.” I said.
“Oh, so you learned to swim?” Shana asked.
“Nope.” I said. And before I could do anything, Shana had thrown down her bow and quiver, grabbed the rope and jumped into the water. I stared at her as she drifted downriver, then hastily grabbed the rope to give her a better anchor on this side. “You dumbass! I said I’d go first!”
She didn’t answer, concentrating instead on shimmying to the other side with the rope. Once across, she worked the arrow free and tied it around the trunk of the tree.
She waved, looking so smugly proud of herself.
“A remarkable woman.” Lavitz said, earning himself a stink eye.
The fact that he wasn’t wrong was inconsequential.
I tied our end of the rope around the nearest sturdy rock, gave it a few good test yanks, and called it good.
Lavitz and I gave each other a solidary nod, and promptly stripped.
“What are you doing!?” Shana shrieked from the shore.
“Being smart!” I shouted back as I shoved my clothes, weapons and armor and Lavitz’s neatly folded equipment into my handy sack, tied it closed, gripped it with my teeth, then keeping a solid grip on the rope, shimmied across as the river did its level best to drag me away and drown me.
The water was colder than a witch’s tit, I could feel my balls trying to crawl up into my chest in search of warmth. But while discomfort is temporary, none of my clothes and equipment being waterlogged when I still had weeks left of travel, was priceless.
I made it across to the other side, and promptly pulled out a blanket that would have to serve double duty as a towel. I also handed one to Lavitz when he crawled shuddering out of the river.
We dressed while Shana stood nearby, her hands covering her face even as she peeked through the gaps between her fingers.
Once I had my equipment back on, I walked over, glaring down my nose at her, and said. “Strip.”
Her blush went from her cheeks to everything above her neck. “What? Here? I…I’m ready but, couldn’t we…in a more appropriate location?”
“Shana.” I sighed, pulling out another blanket. “You are soaked, in freezing water. We have weeks of travel ahead of us, you’ll get sick if you don’t dry, and you can’t do that wearing soaked clothes. So off they come.”
She blinked a few times, then looked away while pouting. “I’m good.”
“Shana, you are soaking wet.”
“I said I’m fine!” She pouted harder, taking a step back that audibly squished as her boots and socks were also waterlogged.
“This is what you get for doing things stupid.” I said sagely. “Now strip, you can wear one of my spare shirts, and we should be okay to build a fire tonight to dry your clothes.”
“I don’t wanna!”
“Shana.” I said in the tone I used when she was little and making a fuss in public, making her twitch. “I am taller than you, stronger than you, and faster on a footrace. Your clothes are coming off, just like when you were little and didn’t want to take a bath.”
“We agreed to never speak of that again!” Shana shouted.
“You’re getting naked, dry, and changed, your compliance is not a factor.” I continued over her attempted interruption. “Will you do it the easy way, or the hard way?”
She pouted and glared harder, but mumbled her agreement, took the blanket and spare shirt, and went to the other side of the tree to change.
“The rope will be an issue.” Lavitz said, scowling at the river. “Not only does it point to which direction we went, we built the very instrument they need to follow us.”
“Meh. I wouldn’t worry if I were you.” I said.
He blinked and turned to me, raising an eyebrow.
I smirked, and used my bayonet to fray the rope until it was held together by a few groaning strands. It might, might, survive a hard tug. But it would not support even Shana’s weight across the river.
“You are a ruthless and devious man.” Lavitz said simply. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”
“I pay my debts.” I agreed, and turned to see Shana, barefoot and utterly engulfed by one of my shirts. The rim of the shirt went down to mid-thigh on her leg, and was so loose on her frame as to make her look like she was wearing a small tent.
“Umm…I don’t know what to do with my clothes.” She muttered.
Not trusting myself to speak, I took the bundled clothes and blanket, shoved them into my handy sack. Then swept Shana up into my arms, in what girls back in my former world called the ‘Princess Carry.’
She squeaked, her arms flailing until she settled for holding my shoulders. “Dart!?”
“You’re not wearing shoes, and there are sharp rocks on the road.” I said, not trusting myself to look down and absolutely not thinking about how soft and supple the skin of her legs was.
“R-Right.” She murmured, thankfully not making it difficult to carry her.
Lavitz chuckled as he jogged past me, wisely keeping his eyes averted from Shana’s…state of disrobement. “I’ll take the lead.”
“You do that.” I muttered.
“Your armor makes this kind of uncomfortable.” Shana muttered, squirming in my grip.
I grunted. “Everyone’s a critic.”
