The Jump

They, isa and winfry of course, had been bludgering about the pastoral-turned-infernal LusciousLockian woods for a fortnight looking for… Well, they didn’t know what they were looking for; they just knew that they were looking, and that it, whatever it was, was there in the temperate zone of the arboreal nation of LusciousLocks. But it wasn’t like they had much of a choice–I mean, not after what had happened in nilbmah.

So there they were, getting lost in the labyrinth of row after unending row of space-bound trees that put sequoias to shame. At night, well it had been a while since night and day could be properly distinguished in these woods, but when they could no longer resist sleep pounding on their doors with a sledgehammer, they hid themselves, in a mound of old leaves, from the myriad dangers they faced head-on while awake. While walking the woods, anything could and did happen: it rained blood or something uncannily similar; they were nearly killed by what appeared to be bats on crack; a symia tree dropped all of its fruit, feeding winfry and isa for two days until it gave them severe diarrhea for a day; and yeah. winfry had made it to first captain in the youth guard, but isa’s life in rural nilbmah was better, still inadequate but better, preparation for this adventure. In other words, even with isa’s quilaire and winfry’s librem, they were hanging on to dental floss. Had they not had each other, delirium would have taken over three days in.

However, after two weeks of wandering, sleep deprivation, adrenaline overdoses, and approaching despair, things fell into place. Sort of. It was time for lunch, more out of a sense of hunger than a sense of time. So winfry wrote in potatoes with the librem and isa bent fire to bake them as they had for the past eleven days (it took winfry three days to figure out the potatoes).

“Try not to burn them like last time.” It was the first thing either of them had said all day and winfry regretted it before even saying it. winfry had been hungry since two hours earlier and isa’s habit of sniffing her nose while they walked had crawled under his skin and was rolling around underneath all morning.

“Well, it would be easier if your potatoes were a little more consistent. If you don’t remember, our last potatoes had more eyes than a male peacock during mating,” isa spat back instinctively and before winfry could apologize. Clear thinking had been avoiding isa for two days. As the more experienced of the two, most of the divining was left to her, which is to say she had to channel the quilaire more in one day than she had in the past year. At that moment, even blinking was an effort. In other words, analyzing winfry’s sharpness would have killed her; so she didn’t.

“Excuse me if I haven’t even been doing this for a month. It’s not like I’ve had the comfort of two years to figure everything out.”

“Comfort? It’s not like you’re the one killing all the beasts that attack us or making shelter for us when it rains blood or looking across the woods to see where we need to go or any of that. So stop complaining about the little divining you do.”

The conversation was crescendoing and tempers were cracking their chrysalises as winged spiders.

winfry jumped to his feet. “It wasn’t my bright idea to come here, to this godforsaken inferno.” This comment cut straight to isa’s sense of self, sending her face into his and adding a snarl to her voice.

“We didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes we did! But you let them se”

“Ingrate! I was saving y”

“AAAAAAA,” shrieked the dark red blur as it sped towards isa and winfry, talons bared

winfry, who was facing the creature, lunged into isa knocking her to safety but wasn’t so nice to himself. One of the two-inch black talons caught winfry’s shoulder blade tearing through muscle. winfry hit the ground hard and writhed. Two weeks ago, isa would have been paralyzed. But not now. She saw winfry’s back stain red and seethed. The abomination was swooping around for a second pass.

isa stood her ground, faced the fiend and grasped her quilaire. The demon then wrapped in its wings and shot, fangs-forward towards isa. Time slowed and seconds streched into minutes, literally, and isa’s gaze pierced the black orbs of the startled assassin–even in this fiction, time control is an anomaly. And ever so slowly the deranged bat continued to barrel towards isa, who waited and waited. It was one and half meters away and she still hadn’t done anything. By then, the assassin had regained its confidence and bared its fangs with a shriek. That’s when isa flared her eyes.

“Fucking bitch!” And the red comet exploded, splattering blood and innards across isa’s face.

Without hesitation isa ran to winfry, adrenaline damning fatigue. She was crying hysterically. “winfry! Oh god no! winfry I’m so sorry for getting angry with you! Oh god I’m so sorry! Forgive me!”

But winfry wasn’t speaking or conscious for that matter. He had already lost a considerable amount of blood; his face had grown deathly pale.

isa's panic jumped up three floors.

“Shit! winfry! No!” she screamed as she clenched her quilaire and threw herself onto her winfry’s limp body.

________________

When winfry woke, he was lying in a bed in a room with no windows that resembled a dungeon except that the bed was relatively nice. There was another bed next to his with someone, with isa!, in it. She was fast asleep. Before he could start to remember what had happened and wonder why and where he was, he noticed a woman sitting in a chair across the room. She looked like she had been staring at him for quite some time. She was dressed in a military uniform and her face was cold, no hint of emotion whatsoever. Seeing that he had noticed her, she jumped up and went straight to business.

“Good afternoon. I am Lithuania Starr, First Commander of the Foggistani Helo-Fleet. I saved you. Who are you and why are you here?”

With eyes rolling and head falling back to his pillow, winfry thought, “What a bitch!”

But we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. There really is so much to tell of why winfry left nilbmah for LusciousLocks, of what on Coralende they are looking for and of how winfry can divine without a quilaire. But all that really is a long story and I’m tired. So it will all just have to wait. Sorry to disappoint.