Fantasy continuation; Elemental Royals

[jones573]

Cain and Amarina needed to sleep before any such adventure could be undertaken, that much was clear. While they did so, the others took turns resting as well, and Nima and Edare also spoke with the villagers and had supplies gathered.

Eventually they set off in a low but sturdy flatboat, designed for carrying goods and occasional passengers up and down the river. It was not overly spacious, but there was enough room for them and their supplies to fit comfortably.

Or at least, comfortably in the physical sense. Nima had not said a word to Edare and very little to the others, and though she was not a particularly talkative person, her silence seemed angry rather than just a natural state. Instead she had chosen a corner of the boat where she could be as far from Edare as possible, and claimed she was going to rest. Admittedly, she had been busier than the others that previous night, meeting with Adfri and the military leaders of the village, but- She seemed more to be staring at the passing water than doing any sleeping.

"This is... Absolutely amazing," Edare said after a long stretch of quiet with nothing but the passing scenery to hold anyone's interest. "I've traveled like this before," he admitted. "But not nearly so fast."

Perhaps it was the urgency of the situation that caused Amarina and Cain to reach such speeds against the riverflow, or the fact that this river was not as fast as the one on the journey Edare was comparing to. But he suspected that their abilities with their element also far succeeded those of a more common person.

"I feel like I have nothing to do but marvel," he said with a small laugh. "Can I get either of you something to eat?"

They had plenty of rations now, and it was important they kept their strength up.

 

[kjcanimals]

Dagon hadn't expected to sleep. If he had his way, they would have left the night before, even if that meant traveling in the dark. However, logic had prevailed over emotions. None of them had slept more than a few hours the night before, and they couldn't very well expect Cain and Amarina to tax their abilities to that extent without resting first. Even so, the fire prince had been running high on adrenaline. Despite how tired he was, he had doubted his ability to actually fall asleep.

In the end, he had requested, and was provided, a candle. It had taken some time, but eventually, his breathing had slowed and the flame fell into a steady rhythm before he dropped off. He had not only slept, but slept deeply.

And now it was once again just the five of them.

It was hard not to feel a little disappointed. They had entered Yarrin with the hope of receiving help and answers. On one hand, they were leaving fully supplied, but they had still agreed that it was too risky to bring anyone else. Small though their group was, they were the only ones they could fully trust. Still, without the guards and soldiers Dagon had imagined upon arrival, he felt vulnerable in the small boat.

With nothing else to do, Dagon found his gaze continuously wandering to where the beacon was hidden among the mountains. In the morning light, it couldn't be seen from this distance, but he knew approximately where it was. Their planned route would bring them close to it as they crested the pass. Dozens of different scenarios passed through Dagon's mind as to what they might find on the other side.

The boat rocked, and Dagon (again) reflexively grabbed the side. Was it normal for it to move this much? None of the others showed any signs of concern, so Dagon hadn't said anything, but...

 

[cosowarrior]

The chance to rest before their journey was a good idea, in theory, but truth was, neither of the siblings found much sleep in the passing night. They drifted in and out of slumber between anxious, intrusive thoughts, and then morning broke, and they were back at it again. This morning felt no different from the last, though, at least now they had some sort of direction. The boat they'd acquired, thanks to Nima's connections, was workable. Broad and boxy, it was clearly not designed with water wielding in mind, unlike the sleek, pointed vessels artfully crafted on their home island. But together, with a little force, Cain and Amarina could make do.

The two were stationed on opposite ends of the boat: Amarina at the bow where greater dexterity was needed to part the waters around the boat's square face, and Cain at the stern to push the boat forward with brute force. They both leaned over their side, elbows deep in globs of river water that connected them with the currents below. It took effort, but compared to everything else the group had endured, sailing was pretty smooth (so to speak). Amarina carved the way forward by driving the current out of their path, while Cain caught her wake and redirected it back into the boat from behind, pushing them into the clearing she created. Turbulent eddies that would have otherwise slowed them down were instead twisted in their favor. They cut through the river with pleasant efficiency.

Under any other circumstance, this might even have been fun. The familiarity of being on the water again was a comfort. It also made the siblings long for home. Though they worked in silence, they were both entrenched in thoughts of what might be going on on the Island that very instant, and how they were going to make it back.

Luckily, Edare broke their thoughts before they could get too dark. Cain instinctively hid his concern with a smile. Amarina, on the other hand, simply shook her head in response. Her stomach felt too tight, too anxious to eat, and at any rate, they were in too great a hurry to take a break now. Cain noticed. He turned away from the edge and frowned.

"No, no, you should rest a moment and let me handle the boat for a while. You didn't have anything earlier, did you?"

"We don't have time, and this takes both of us," Amarina insisted. Even the two seconds in which Cain paused made them slow down noticeably. She added sharply, "Get back to pushing!"

"How much ground do you think we'll lose in two minutes?" Cain argued in return.

"Too much to spare."

"Not as much as we'd lose if you pass out."

"Just push."

Cain leaned back over his side, but remarked, half-joking, over his shoulder, "Edare, if you don't mind force-feeding my sister--" Amarina shot him a nasty scowl, "-- or finding her something she can eat with one hand, that would be very helpful." A fair compromise, though Amarina huffed in response.

 

[jones573]

"I'll pass on the first, thanks," Edare said with a laugh, trying to keep the mood light. "We've got some jerky that will do fine, I think- We'll be coming up on some turbulence soon, so you should eat," he said, hoping he sounded encouraging and not over bearing.

It was around one of these upcoming curves, he was pretty sure, when the water got deeper and faster for a stretch. It was navigable in either direction- not like the rapids and the falls that came after them, where the river poured down from its source- but he imagined if a crew of Bright Folk with oars and poles and rudder needed to have extra strength and attention about them, so would the water royals.

"That's not jerky," he muttered as he opened the pack at his feet and found mostly cheese and crackers. "Dagon, I think the jerky is in the bag next to you," he said with a nod towards it. "Could you pass us some?"

He stood carefully and walked slowly towards the center of the small boat, so Dagon could do the same from the opposite corner and they wouldn't throw the craft too off balance.

 

[kjcanimals]

Dagon's eyes darted to the bag in question. It was about two arms-lengths away from where the prince sat, which meant to reach it he would have to stand up. And walk it over to Edare. Without tipping over the boat.

"Um, yeah. Sure."

Easing himself out of his seat, Dagon took a couple shuffling steps over to the bag, keeping one hand on the side of the boat. There was a slight delay as he tried unsuccessfully to first open the bag with one hand before being forced to reluctantly release his hold on the railing in order to retrieve the jerky. Then came the hard part. If his acrobatic training had taught him anything, it was choosing a focus point to keep yourself on track. Edare was already moving towards him, and so Dagon forced himself to lock eyes on the guard and ignore the way the water was moving the floor beneath him. Or that one false move could throw off the balance of the whole vessel.

Focus.

Keeping his center of balance low, Dagon mirrored Edare's movement and slowly crept across the boat until he was close enough to pass over the jerky. Then, not daring to turn around, he started just as slowly backwards toward his seat, reaching one hand behind him to feel for the side.

Well, that hadn't been so bad. Maybe the boat was more stable than it felt. Perhaps he could get used to this. After all--

The floor bucked underneath him. Dagon's hand found the railing a millisecond before his back. By then, the momentum was too great to keep his feet from following. He had just enough time to let out a "Sparks!" before hitting the water.

 

[cosowarrior]

Edare had a good point, even Amarina had to admit. She did so with silence.
Actually, had he not said something, she might not have noticed a change in the water up ahead. The bends in the river threw off any early indications of other differences. Only when she really focused did she notice the gradual shift in the current, its hastening flow, the bubbling turbulence, the sinking of the riverbed. These all increased the longer they waited for Dagon to fish out the jerky from their other supplies and hand them over to Edare.

It was a bigger difference for Cain; the faster the water moved, the harder it was to redirect and push the water against the rest of the current. His full attention was, for a while, on his one task. That is, until an exclamation from behind him broke his focus. He looked over his shoulder, but in that split second, it had already happened. He heard a splash, and when he turned back, there was Dagon being swept away.

"What's that?" Amarina asked from the bow.

"Oh dear. Man overboard," Cain responded.

"Who?"

"Dagon. The river is really picking up." Between the current and the speed of their flatboat, the space between them and Dagon expanded rapidly. It did not help that the water had picked up such speed that it began to churn as it rushed between heightening banks and over boulders that lined the river floor.

"Can he swim?"

"I don't know." Cain attempted to gather the younger prince in the waters under his command, to pull him back onto the boat, but could not. The water had swept him too far. Cain cursed. "I can't reach him. We need to turn around."

Amarina immediately withdrew from the water. The boat decelerated, stalled, and then began to drift backwards. It was enough to stop Dagon from floating farther away, but it did not close the gap between them.

"Give it some more," Cain directed, his eyes locked onto the Fire Prince. Amarina obliged. She leaned back over the front of the boat and forced the water against it. The boat lurched at first, until the flow steadied around them. They moved at twice the speed they'd gone in the other direction, now with the river on their side.

"Steady," murmured Cain, "I almost have him." Dagon gradually came within his range of control. Amarina eased up on the acceleration as she peered over her shoulder to watch the rescue attempt. The water around the prince twisted and reared up into a wave that pulled, unnaturally, towards the stern of the watercraft. Cain's full concentration was on it, as was half of Amarina's. This proved to be an error on their parts: it was Cain's position to steer the ship, and with all the distractions, piloting fell by the wayside. Before Amarina could notice, the boat's heading had twisted at an angle to the current. They came too close to the riverbank. A fallen tree, half submerged and jutting out from the water's edge, found itself suddenly shoved up under the boat's hull. The entire vessel jolted. The wave encasing Dagon broke. Cain was knocked off his feet, and he slid into one of the boat's corners before grabbing onto the railing under both arms. Amarina's knees buckled under her, but she clasped onto the rail quickly enough to keep herself anchored.

 

[jones573]

Dagon's curse and the splash that followed was enough to pull Nima from her sulking, and she looked up in alarm. She reached out to grab him but even if she'd been faster, it wouldn't have mattered. He was already out of reach.

"Not likely," she answered Amarina. As far as she knew, swimming wasn't a hobby that royals from his Kingdom had much practice with. Maybe she was wrong. Hopefully.

Though based on the way he was struggling to stay afloat, she doubted it.

She hated how useless she felt suddenly, knowing that her own abilities could do nothing to improve the situation. All she could do was keep her center of gravity low and try not to get in the siblings' way, aware that Dagon's chances of survival were almost entirely up to them.

On Cain's side of the craft, Edare watched the rescue attempt with worried eyes and breathed the slightest bit easier when the young prince came rising towards him in an unnatural wave.

"Almost there," he reassured both princes, reaching out to pull Dagon back on board. One hand was closing around Dagon's first wrist and the other was reaching for his opposite forearm -

"Tree!," Nima shouted, but like the others, she'd been paying more attention to Dagon than to their surroundings, and the syllable was still half in mouth as they hit the obstacle.

-And Dagon slipped from Edare's grasp as easily as if he'd never been there at all.

"I can swim," Edare said abruptly, shrugging off his pack, and might have dived over the side if Nima hadn't shouted, "No!"

"Not well enough to bring him and yourself back against the current," she said angrily.

 

[kjcanimals]

In hindsight, the exclamation was probably better left unsaid, as all it earned Dagon was a mouthful of river water. Even so, the prince kept his head enough to know which way was up. He broke the surface of the water an instant later.

Dagon gained a brief glimpse of the boat, now at a surprising distance away, before a wave splashed in his face. Blinking and sputtering, he tried to clear his obscured vision, but no sooner had he done so before the next wave hit him. The focus quickly shifted from locating the others to merely staying afloat. Unfortunately, the river with its current was far different from the calm mountain lake where Dagon and his siblings had been taught to swim (or at least taught how not to drown). The instructor's admonition to simply go limp and float when he started struggling seemed like a bad option in the choppy river, but treading water wasn't getting him anywhere either.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. Dagon's heart, which was already running at full speed, jumped into his throat, and he startled away from the unnatural, twisting water before he realized what was happening. Although it was a strange sensation to be held up by something that didn't feel solid, he forced himself to relax and let the conjured wave carry him upward, entrusting himself to whichever of the Water royals was controlling the water. As Edare reached toward him, Dagon did likewise.

Then his support suddenly vanished.

Finding himself hanging in mid-air, Dagon instinctively tucked himself into a falling position: chin down, knees bent, arms coming up to cover his head. This time he managed to keep his mouth closed when he hit the water. His foot came into contact with something solid, and he pushed himself upward. The boat appeared to be lodged against something, a tree judging by Nina's shout, but it was also momentarily protecting Dagon from the brunt of the current as a result. Close to the bank as they were, this allowed him to grab onto a handful of thin willow branches as he drifted by. He doubted they would hold for long, and unfortunately the bank was too steep at that point to try pulling himself up, but at least the distance between himself and the boat wasn't getting any larger.

His attempt to shout at the others, however, only earned him another mouthful of water...

 

[cosowarrior]

Amarina was pulling herself to her feet just as Edare began throwing off his equipment to jump in. Luckily, Nima stopped him before he acted too rashly.

"She's right," she agreed with a tinge of harsh determination, "We can handle this."

She crossed over to the side of the boat where the tree was caught, gathered up some water, and warned the others, "Hold on." With the raise of her arms, the water bulged up against the side of their craft. The boat began to lift askew. Whatever supplies they hadn't secured slid across the wooden planks. Cain held fast onto the corner into which he had fallen. In a quick motion, Amarina slashed down. The water recoiled in return, thrusting against both the boat and the tree and dislodging them. Their boat leveled off as the waves settled.

The siblings repositioned themselves swiftly: Cain returned to his post, while Amarina stood beside him facing aft. The current swept them along. With Dagon hanging on to branches, it didn't take long for them to catch up to him. Amarina pulled in the water to hold them steady in line with the prince. Cain, meanwhile, tried again. He stopped the current around Dagon and pulled the tide towards him.

"You can let go," he called to him, "I have you."

 

[jones573]

Nima grabbed tightly to a handhold as the water rose around them, changed her grip in a moment to reach out and grab at the supplies sliding away. A few pieces of jerky from the open bag went to the river, but she managed to catch most of it.

Edare helped Dagon onto the deck, where he lay in a wet heap to catch his breath.

"Is he all right? Does he need healing, how badly-"

"He needs a chance to breathe," Edare interrupted Nima from where he was crouched low beside the Fire Prince. He was worried too, but Dagon was conscious and coughing on his own, which were very good signs. He probably didn't need everyone crowding around him.

Nima gave an audible sigh of relief. "Good," she said, relaxing marginally. "That was very impressive," she told the siblings genuinely.

 

[kjcanimals]

Dagon really wasn't given the option of NOT letting go. His grasp on the slender branches was already tentative at best, and the swirl of the water threatened to pull them away from him. Whatever the Water Royals did to dislodge the boat was impressive, but it also removed the barrier protecting Dagon from the river's current. The force of the water dunked him under again. He couldn't remember letting go, but when he resurfaced, gasping and sputtering, the branches were gone. Fortunately, by then, Cain was once again drawing him toward the boat.

Edare helped Dagon over the side, where he collapsed onto the deck and promptly tried to cough up a lung. Dimly, he was aware of voices around him, but his body's sudden realization of its need for air took precedence. After what seemed like half an eternity, Dagon managed to expel a mouthful of foul-tasting water. The next gasp brought a welcome rush of oxygen into his chest.

He flopped backwards, staring up at the sky until his breathing found a normal rhythm again.

"So, Amarina," he croaked in a far too casual tone. "How's that jerky?"

 

[cosowarrior]

As soon as Edare had Dagon aboard, both Cain and Amarina broke their hold on the water. The current resumed, carrying the boat slowly along with it, but they hardly noticed in their single-minded concern. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to tend to him. Amarina and Edare beat the them to it. When Edare implied the young prince needed room to breathe, Cain obliged by hanging back.

Though he'd kept his cool long enough to pull off the retrieval, now that they were out of immediate danger, Cain noticed that his heart was pounding in his chest. It wasn't even a particularly treacherous rescue, and yet his hands were trembling from the adrenaline. He flexed one of them into a fist in an attempt to regain control.

The compliment from Nima turned out to be pretty grounding. Cain gazed up at her and managed a small thanks. Amarina, on the other hand, took it hard. In her mind, there as nothing impressive about their performance. They were sloppy, distracted, and, frankly, an embarrassment to their culture. One would think that with years of training between the two of them under the best instructors the Royal Navy had to offer, the heirs of the Water Kingdom would be able to provide safe passage up a river without a problem. That they endangered a new ally made it worse.

Guilt and shame compounded, but Amarina held her tongue. She dropped down beside Dagon and placed a hand on his back, in case she needed to help guide the water from his lungs. Luckily, Dagon managed on his own. Amarina drew away and sat with legs folded beneath her as the younger prince rolled onto his back and breathed a moment. They could all breathe a moment.

When he finally spoke, Dagon's remark stunned her. At first, Amarina felt an immediate flare of confusion, maybe even anger. But those feelings broke almost as quickly as they arose. It was replaced by a relief so absurd that she burst into laughter. A near-death experience, and his first response was to crack a joke.

"Not nearly worth it," she replied, her laugh slipping into a sigh of relief, "I'm just glad you're all right."

Amarina looked up to survey the vessel. Everyone else seemed fine as well, although their supplies were in disarray. Cain stooped to pick up what spilled out of their bags. Meanwhile, the boat continued to drift aimlessly without their direction. As nice as it was for the tension to be broken by a moment of humor, she still had work to do. She stood.

"We need to get back on course," she stated, and whatever joy she'd expressed was washed away, just like that. She crossed back towards the bow, to the confusion -- and concern -- of Cain.

"You still haven't eaten or rested, and after that-"

"We're much farther behind," she interrupted, "We can't afford the distraction."

"But should we even continue on water now?" Cain questioned. He looked between his fellow passengers, but it was clear that Dagon was the one he was most worried about. The incident was a fluke, he was sure, but he wouldn't blame Dagon if he'd lost confidence in the plan. Or them.

 

[jones573]

Even Nima cracked a small smile, relaxing a bit as Amarina's laughter broke the tension.

But the other girl was right- They were drifting back downstream again, and would get sucked into the rapids again if they weren't careful.

"Anchor," Nima said quickly, reaching along the back of the craft and freeing a large weight attached to a rope, which she let slip through her fingers. Edare did the same with the front anchor, and after a moment the boat slowed and stilled.

Nima frowned down at the water and pulled at the rope to adjust it a few times- It seemed her anchor hadn't quite caught on the riverbed as securely as she'd like, but with the help from the front anchor they should at least be all right for a bit.

"We could row," Nima suggested, as a way of alleviating the burden on the siblings. The long pole oars were stowed in a long compartment between the two pontoons

"This boat usually has a crew of eight to take it upriver," Edare pointed out.

"It's a crew of 8 to get through the rapids and the swiftest parts, which we've already passed the worst of," she responded. "Usually it's just six."

Edare raised a brow- They didn't have a crew of six either, especially if the goal was for Cain and Amarina to rest. Dagon needed some time to recuperate as well.

"Maybe two rowers and one water bender? We could still make at least some progress, and you could alternate resting," Nima proposed. It would be slower- even the strongest arms couldn't compete with the siblings ability to command the river- but it would keep them moving.

"There's a docking point up ahead," Edare said, having picked up on Cain's concern about the youngest prince and looking at him with concern. He seemed to be doing all right, but Edare couldn't be sure. The riverbanks were steep and rocky for the most part, but staircases had been carved at occasional intervals to lead up to sites where crews might camp for the night. "I think it's even got some trails that'll lead us to the main path eventually."