This Chapter will be told from Kael's Point of View.
We exit the cave running, and we run for a good long time. Five minutes, at least. Five minutes of running combined with almost no rest has made me extremely exhausted, though. I can't keep this up.
There's another reason why I want to stop running, and that's because we have no idea where we are going. We're in the middle of the woods somewhere, and there hasn't been any sign of Portia, Teumi, or Kavella. We could be running in the opposite direction, for all we know.
Just before I spend the last of my energy, Sigmund stops his run and suddenly becomes still. I catch up with him and, panting, ask him why he stopped.
"I stopped because we don't have any damn idea where we're going," he confirms. I'm glad he's realized it. I have had the exact same thought for a while now.
"But I have an idea."
"Hm?" I wonder what his idea could be.
"You know how…sometimes, I have those strange dreams, right?" Sigmund questions. I nod. I know all about his wild dreams, and I know sometimes they give him some sort of psychic intuition. "I want to go to sleep, right here," Sigmund beckons to the ground. "I think I'll have a dream about Kavella. I think I'll see where she is."
"You're just going to…sleep?" I stare. At a time like this? We don't even know where we are."
"I'll figure it out, okay?" Sigmund grumbles. "I just need to sleep for ten, twenty minutes. It's the only way we can find them. I need you to stay awake, though. Someone needs to wake me up."
"What if I wake you up before you figure out what you need?"
Sigmund thinks for a moment. He hadn't thought of that, I'm assuming. "Thirty minutes," he says adamantly. "Wake me in thirty minutes. If I haven't had the dream by then, it's not worth it."
On those words, Sigmund crashes to the ground and tries his best to fall asleep. I want to sleep too, and I'm envious of him. My body is so weak. I've been awake for almost a full twenty-four hours, and I am certainly not used to that.
It's good to just get a light rest, though. I sit down and lean next to a tree. I stare at Sigmund and I notice his breathing changes. He really falls asleep fast.
I close my eyes for a moment. It won't be a big deal…I won't…fall asleep…
I blink and wake up to shaking. When I open my eyes, I see it is Sigmund shaking me. I know immediately what happened. I fell asleep on him, even though I was supposed to be waking him up. This is bad…how long was I out? It can't have been too long, the sun hasn't risen yet.
"W-what happened!?" I exclaim. Sigmund smiles at me and sits down next to me.
"You fell asleep," Sigmund says. "I woke up about two hours ago, but I figured I would let you rest."
"Two hours!?" I am flabbergasted.
"Don't worry, Kael," Sigmund tries to comfort me. "If it was a big deal, I'd have woken you up sooner. It's around four in the morning right now. I had the dream, Kael. That man, Teumi…when he showed up here, he brought a horse-drawn carriage. When he fled, Kavella was thrown in the back and he rode away with Kavella to the eastern end of the military zone. Because they had a carriage and they were traveling in the opposite direction of Whitewind, they don't think we will be able to trail them and find them. They've stopped to sleep at a place about two and a half hours away from us, walking. They're going to wake up and leave at daybreak. If we leave right now, we should get there at around…seven in the morning, if we take our time. They're going to either be asleep or just waking up at that time. It's a perfect time to ambush them.
"I feel fully rested from my little bit of sleep. How do you feel? I can let you sleep for another thirty minutes, but we'll have to walk fast on the way over."
I stand up. I feel a little exhausted, but I'm a million times better than I was before. "I can do it, Sigmund. Let's go."
He seems so confident that the plan will work, and I am happy for that. He's going through a lot, I imagine. He was starting to get close to Portia, so having her suddenly betray us and kidnap Kavella can't have been easy. I was weary of Portia all along, so I can't say I was too surprised. The only reason I trusted her was because she had no way of actually spying on us.
Who could she have been reporting the information to? Nobody. That means this was all planned out before Portia even met up with us. She must have had something situated alongside that man, Teumi. Still, she seemed genuinely surprised when Teumi showed up in the cavern back there. Was this all according to plan, or are there things going on that even Portia doesn't know about? I'm hoping that all of this information is able to be retrieved when we find and rescue Kavella.
We start walking, and I can't help but wonder what the future is going to hold. I see a connection between Kavella and Sigmund. It is a faint one, especially on Sigmund's end, but it is there. They have a mutual understanding and respect of each other, even if they don't interact much. I think if they spend more quality time together, they'll come to realize how strong their bond is. Sigmund doesn't know this, but he knows he wants to save Kavella. He'd probably have been just as determined to save me, or Noah, or anyone…but there's something that complicates this. His own untapped feelings for Kavella.
I can see that he is happier when he is with her, and that he is at ease. When he's around her, he's eager to laugh and to smile. Ever since Merava first appeared, Sigmund hasn't laughed or smiled nearly enough…
I tried to tell him about Kavella's feelings, but he turned a blind eye. That was before I knew for sure. Kavella has since confided in me that she does truly love Sigmund, but she doesn't feel like she could ever be with him. She feels like it is her duty to protect the world from Spirits, not to engage in personal affairs. I tried to tell her she could do both, but she seemed to not like the idea.
Kealie Madera…is that who you really are, Kavella? I've heard the last name, but I'm not familiar with the story. The Madera family is one of the wealthiest in the country, but there's a lot of secrecy and potential corruption that goes with the name. I wonder just how Kavella fits into that.
"Sigmund, how do you feel about Kavella?"
I can see the look in his eyes. He's wondering why I'm asking about that, again. We'd already talked about it several times, and each time he's more and more hesitant to answer.
"The same way I feel about you," he replies. "The same way you feel about Natalia."
I guess he means 'like a sibling'. I doubt that, though. He might just be throwing his real feelings aside. I can't say it matters, at this point. I shouldn't try to intervene with their whole situation anymore. It's not doing any good.
I should try to focus more on the pursuit. We still have a long way to trek before we reach this supposed camp that Sigmund saw in his dreams.
I like to think of myself as a fairly grounded and logical person. I can discern right from wrong, and I can tell a good decision from a bad one. I don't let my emotions rule me, but at the same time I take my emotions into account very seriously when I need to make a decision. I am level-headed. Much more than Sigmund, who tends to shut down and argue against the things he doesn't like. Much more level-headed than Kavella. She has a good mind, but she can be overcome with anger and at times her emotions bottle up so much she just has to talk about them. I don't fall victim to these things.
Because I am more level-headed, I can normally tell when something is preposterous or insane. Running through the woods at four in the morning because someone had a dream is preposterous. It is insane. I go along with it, though, because I have something much greater than common sense. I have faith.
Not faith in a deity or anything else, but faith in my friends. I have faith in Sigmund. I know that, even if he doesn't make the best decisions, he won't lead me astray. I will follow him to the end, if I have to, and I'll always be there to give him advice. That's how our relationship has always been, and I hope that's how it always will be.
"What do you think we'll find when we get there?" I ask. I want to try to strike up a conversation.
"There will be a carriage in a clearing. Portia is sleeping inside, with Kavella. Kavella has chains binding her hands and feet together. Teumi will be in a sleeping bag next to the carriage with a big old sword with him. I don't know why, but he won't have a gun. Portia also dropped her gun inside the cavern, so she doesn't have one either. They seem like they're ready to fight Spirits, which is…I don't know, strange?"
Sigmund isn't wondering what we'll find because he's seen it all in his dream. I should have known that.
"What do you think of Kavella?" Sigmund suddenly says. I give him a strange look.
"What do you mean by that?" I shoot back. I can't imagine what triggered such a question from Sigmund, but I'm curious to find out.
"Well, you talk to her all the time," he starts. "And you mention her to me all the time. I was just wondering, how do you feel about her?"
Well, I obviously think of Kavella as a friend and nothing else, and Sigmund knows that. He's trying to use my relationship with Kavella to imply something more. It's dirty tactics on his part, and ultimately useless, but then I realize I've been doing the exact same thing to him. I guess it's a two-way street.
"I think she's amazing and beautiful," I say. "The smartest, and would-be strongest girl I know, if I hadn't met Natalia."
Sigmund smiles when I say this, and we keep walking. "We're still a way off," Sigmund says. "Want to play a game?"
"Sure."
"I'll say a name of someone we know, and you have to tell the honest truth about what your first impression of them was. No holding back, be as brutally honest as you can. And then you can ask me."
I raise an eyebrow. This is Sigmund's idea of a game? It sounds like something a bunch of teenage girls would do at a slumber party.
"Okay. Let's see…Mira. Mira Beger, from our Spiritguard class. What were your first impressions on her?"
I think about that for a moment. It's been so long since I met her, I don't remember exactly what I felt. I can take a guess, though.
"I was overwhelmed," I admit. "She was so talkative and full of energy, and back when we met her I was still extremely shy. So when she came over to us and just started talking and talking, all I could think about was how different she was from me."
"Anything else?"
"I guess so," I go on. "I thought she was sort of pretty, for a girl, and I was nervous to talk to her. More nervous than I am with others, but that was because she had such a charismatic personality. When I first spoke to her, I thought I was supposed to be just as talkative. I thought she'd be bored of me if I was quiet and shy, but that wasn't the case at all. I think she prefers quiet and shy, actually. That way she can talk even more."
"I agree with you there," Sigmund grins. "Alright. Your turn."
"Right. So what was your first impressions on Natalia? We met her when we were out training with the wooden swords for the first time, do you remember that?"
"How could I forget," Sigmund replies. "I thought she was just trying to act cool when I first saw her. I sized her up and thought there was no way I could lose to her. Then, when we started fighting, I was pretty surprised. She had just as much skill as I did, and she was a girl. Back then I underestimated girls, because I'd only really been around you and Lance. I thought they would all just paint their nails and do silly stuff like my mom, but Natalia…she's more of a fighter than we are. She was definitely interesting, when I first met her."
"When I first met her," I add, "I was a bit scared of her. She took a liking to me right away, and I was in some sort of…situation." I laugh when I say this. "I warmed up to her quickly though, and I saw she wasn't scary at all. She's actually the least scary person we went to school with, I think. I mean, she's trustworthy, and she makes me feel safe when I'm around her."
We've spoken about our first impressions of Kavella several times, so I don't expect her to come up. "What about Marc?" he says quietly. I can see he's a little bit bothered by mentioning him, but I'm glad he did. Merava is dead now. Sigmund feels like he's finally gotten vengeance for Marc, and now he's willing to open up and talk about him.
"Marc and I got along pretty well," I say. "My first impression was that he was like me. Shy. He wasn't afraid to talk to people, though, he just didn't have much to say. That was sort of unlike me. I always had a million things to say but I didn't want people to judge me.
"I thought he was interesting, and I thought he was a good guy. I didn't think much of him, though, not when we first met him, because we'd only spoken to him for about three minutes that first day."
"First impressions on Cabel?" I ask.
"Big," Sigmund laughs. "Big and scary. What about Noah?"
"I thought he was a self-righteous…" I stop myself. "I thought he was a jerk," I say, calming myself. "A jerk that only cared about himself and didn't value other people's help. A flashy showoff with two stupid swords that thought he was better than everyone else. An arrogant, thick-skulled brat who doesn't know the words 'thank you' or 'please'."
"And what's different now?" Sigmund flashes a devilish grin.
"Hah, very funny Sigmund," I reply. "Noah's not a bad guy, I can see that now. He just goes into a mood when he's fighting, and you can't get through to him. That's the reason he was injured when we were fighting the Spirit King. He rushed in at a stupid time, just so he could get some cheap shots in. Outside of battle, he's a pretty great person. He's funny, and a bit of a cynic."
"I haven't talked to him much," Sigmund says. "Just a few words. He seems okay, though. Anything else about him? You seem to have noticed quite a bit in the short time we've known him."
"I guess he isn't hard on the eyes," I say coyly.
"Ah-hah!" Sigmund laughs. "There it is!"
Neither of us have talked to or seen Laela enough to tell our impressions of her. I'm sure we both have a similar view, though. She's righteous and pure. I'd like to have a chance for a real conversation with her, some day. To see what she's all about. I have to say, I'm interested in her past. She apparently knew that man, Teumi. How did she know him though? What's their connection?
We are still walking through, and I feel my exhaustion building up again. I consider asking Sigmund for a break, but he suddenly stops walking and puts his finger up.
"We're here," he says. I look out and I see the edges of the forest. Ahead of us is a carriage, and next to it a dark form on the ground. The sun is just beginning to rise, but it is still dark out. We've made it here ahead of schedule.
Sigmund stares at Teumi's sleeping form and draws his sword. I notice the blade is quivering in his hand. I assume his plan is to walk up to Teumi while he is asleep and kill him, but there's no way that can happen. Sigmund doesn't have it in him to take a life, especially one that is sleeping and defenseless.
I put my hand on his shoulder. "We don't need to kill anyone, Sigmund," I tell him. "We just need to get Kavella and get out, okay?"
"R-right," he says. He is still shaking. The idea of battling against another person has him visibly bothered.
"I'll get him with an Animus technique to bind him, and you go raid the carriage for Kavella. We'll cut her loose and get right out of here, okay?" I am trying to calm him down.
"Okay," he says, and he takes a step forward toward the carriage. As he steps forward, his leg touches a trip wire placed around the forest's edge. The second he touches that wire, a loud and horrible buzzing sound goes off. I see Teumi jump to his feet and grab his sword. Damn it.