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Walking on Water; fantasty story I've been toying with
Topic Started: Oct 17 2008, 06:25 PM (294 Views)
LionHeart
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Entropy
I've decided to post this here since it ended up being about ten times longer than I thought it would be and no longer fits in the short story section, so here it is.
I may or may not put the rest of it in my strongbox, I haven't decided yet. In the mean time, here's the first part





Part 1

One spring day the sun came up behind the Eastern Mountains like it always did and fell across the valleys beyond them until it finally glaringly hit the Arthos River. There were already ships making their way up and down the river between odd bits of broken wood, barrels, and before the sun had gone much farther, a few bodies floated past too. There had been a great storm the night before and an unfortunate ship had wrecked and the debris from it were floating down the river to the sea. The sailors passing the wreckage skirted it and all the debris coming from it, but now and then stopped to pull a body from the water to give it a proper burial, but somehow one got past them.
The body in question was far smaller than the others and belonged to a brown haired, small boy, about ten years of age who was half sprawled on what had previously been one of the ships bulkheads. When the sun hit the boy he shifted and slowly opened his dark brown eyes to glare against the sudden light, rubbed his eyes, and then quickly grabbed hold of the makeshift raft again. He was only half on it because every time he tried to climb on it completely it threatened to capsize, so he had settled for clinging to it and half floating in the water behind it. During the night it had rotated slightly so now he was actually floating in front of it, but at the moment he didn’t find that very important. More than anything he wanted to get off and get back to shore, but the river was enormous and he couldn’t have swum the distance even if he wasn’t exhausted, hungry, and battered as he was. So instead he just floated and dimly tried to come up with some way of steering his raft to the shore. Nothing immediately came to mind, and he was feeling very tired and was just deciding to just give up and go back to sleep again and ignore that strange distant rumbling he was hearing when the sunlight that had been streaming across him was suddenly obstructed. Dylon opened his eyes and saw a man crouched over him and staring at him with a mildly grumpy yet curious expression.
“What are you doing in my river?” The man asked, and Dylon’s foggy brain tried to register the question. Someone owned the river? No, that wasn’t true, no one owned the river, and he had every right to be floating on it on a piece of debris.
“What do you mean ‘your river’?” Dylon asked groggily, “No one can own the river.”
“If that was true, then I wouldn’t be here asking why you’re floating in my river, now would I.” The man said grumpily, and splashed some water on Dylon’s face to awaken him further. Dylon sputtered and woke up fully and looked up at the man, finally registering that the man was crouching on the surface of the water as if it was as solid as a rock, his bare feet not even penetrating the water. He had perfectly tanned skin, not too dark, not too light, but absolutely perfect, and it accented his eyes perfectly too. They were a shade of blue
Dylon had never seen before though; blue as the ocean, but with the slightest hints of green and gold, almost as if the ocean itself with its varying colors and sunlight had somehow been captured in the man’s eyes. Though if his eyes were the ocean his hair was the waves; completely white, short, spiky, and unruly and a short white beard on the front of his chin.
All of this Dylon found very interesting and he was starting to get suspicious when he caught sight of the man’s sharply pointed ears, the left of which had a pearl earring hanging from it, and very suddenly it all came together and Dylon realized what the man was.
“You’re a water demon!” Dylon cried, nearly losing his grip on the planks.
The man nodded, looking altogether bored with the conversation. “Yes, though demon isn’t quite the word I would choose…”
“You can help me out of the river then!” Dylon said excitedly.
The demon shook his head, and Dylon’s heart sank a little. The dim roaring behind him was growing louder, but he ignored it still and voiced his protests against the demon’s apathy.
“But water demons are supposed to help shipwrecked people aren’t they? Water demons are kind and benevolent, and…”
“You must be thinking of dragons.” The demon interrupted. “And they are exactly as you say, all those selfless wonderful things, but I am not a dragon, nor are all water demons helpful to humans in distress, earth demons are not made of rock, not all sailors can swim, mermaids are actually kind of ugly, tree spirits will let you walk through their forest and cut down trees if you ask first, and nymphs will not make love to you just because you ask, even if you give them flowers.”
Dylon was about to say ‘they won’t?’ but then noticed the demon looking disappointed about that last part and Dylon instead asked: “Are you saying you’ve tried?”
“Of course I have, haven’t you?”
“I’m ten!” Dylon said indignantly.
“Are you?” The demon replied, scrutinizing him closely. “No wonder you’re so small.”

Dylon glowered at him, but the demon remained as indifferent as before and stood up to leave, towering over Dylon, and somehow standing on the water as if it were perfectly solid and there was nothing odd at all about being able to stand on it. His clothes certainly were interesting, just like the rest of him. He was wearing ordinary trousers that ended at his ankles and a black leather belt as well as a short leather jerkin, but no shirt under it. He was an odd sort of being, even for a demon, in Dylon’s opinion. The demon started to walk off and Dylon decided to look over his shoulder to see what that pesky roaring noise was. When he realized it was a waterfall, (and the largest on the continent), he whirled around and yelled out at the demon to come back.
“Wait! Don’t leave! The waterfall, I’m going to go over! Please, don’t leave me!”
“Why not?” The demon asked, stopping and tilting his head to look at Dylon. “If you go over, then you’ll die and you will no longer be in my river. Technically you’ll be a corpse, and the seagulls will peck at you and the sharks will eat you, once you get into my gulf that is, and I will no longer be troubled by you. That’s the wonder of the circle of life.”
Dylon could not have cared less about the circle of life as he did at that moment. The waterfall was getting very close now, and he could feel it pulling at him. Desperately he blurted out the first thing he could think of.
“If you save me, then I will be your servant for five years!”
The demon looked interested, but still did nothing. The waterfall was a thunderous roar now, and Dylon had to practically scream to make himself heard over the noise.
“Ten years! I’ll be your servant for ten years!”

Finally the demon shrugged, said “very well then” and effortlessly picked up Dylon out of the water and walked upstream with him until the noise of the waterfall was gone and the demon set him safely down on the bank of the river. Dylon gasped out his thanks and collapsed on the bank to rest and get a better look at the demon, because he was definitely sure the man was a demon now. Walking across the river had made that perfectly clear. That along with the perfect tan, the perfect muscle tone that was bulging slightly under his jerkin, and of course his brilliantly white and sharply pointed canines that flashed in the sun when he grinned. Of course on top of all this Dylon had promised to be this being’s servant for the next ten years, and that was no small thing. He knew absolutely nothing about this demon, not even his name or anything else helpful except a glimpse of his personality and that did not look very promising. Beyond that there was only the matter of the river apparently being his, which meant he was most likely the guardian of it, not the owner, because the river and all the other bodies of water from the largest lake or river down to the smallest stream from the Mauer Mountains in the east to the western coastline all belonged to Marin, the son of the great Sea God. And whoever this strange demon was, he could NOT be Marin.

The demon seemed to decide after a few minutes that Dylon had rested long enough and promptly set about the business of finding out what exactly he had dragged out of the river and determining just how useful it would be to him.
“So tell me, who are you, were are you from, and are you allergic to cats?”
“My name is Dylon, my family had a farm just across the Oriens River in Moon Valley, and no I am not allergic to cats. Is that really important?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t.” The demon said bluntly, clearly wondering why Dylon asked such ridiculous questions.
“Do you know how to ride a horse?”
“I grew up on a farm.” Dylon said grumpily, “Of course I can.”
“Good. I will find you a horse then, since you couldn’t walk to Lake Cirrus if you wanted to.”
Dylon climbed to his feet and looked upstream to the far distant Pileus Mountains in the north, at the feet of which lay Lake Cirrus, the home of Marin if the stories were all true. Dylon looked up at the demon in confusion, not quite sure what the point of going there was, and told the demon so.
“We are going there because I live there, why else would we go there?”
“Do you live by Marin then?”
“I AM Marin.” The demon said with a frown. “I SAID this was my river didn’t I?”
Dylon just stared at him, his mouth slightly agape and working silently. The being standing in front of him could not possibly be Marin. According to everything he had heard about him Marin was the great and powerful son of the Sea God, he could change the course of a river with one hand, he could stop the ocean in its path, he was the patron of every fisherman, every farmer, nearly everyone on that side of the Eastern Mountains, and their champion and greatest protector. He was noble and kind and benevolent, he was everything the son of the Sea God should be. The man standing in front of Dylon fit none of those criteria.
“I gather from the blank stare of confusion that you don’t believe me.” The demon grumbled, and Dylon shook his head. The demon frowned and got even grumpier and behind him the river grew more turbulent and started to rise dangerously. Dylon took a step back nervously and after a twist of his neck to crack it the demon leaned over to look Dylon in the eyes and Dylon took another step back, the fear rising in him at the sight of the demon’s eyes. They had turned completely and entirely blue, a blue darker than the depths of the ocean, and on his forehead glowed the mark of the Sea God. There was only one person who carried that mark on their forehead, and that was Marin.
“Now do you believe me little human?” Marin asked, his deep voice resonating through Dylon with enough force to make his teeth ache and weakly Dylon managed a nod. Marin straightened, his eyes returned to looking exactly like everyone else’s, complete with an iris and everything, and the river calmed and resumed its normal flow. After that Dylon was never foolish enough to question Marin’s credentials and Marin returned to his usual self. After from his very small display of power at the riverbank he resumed his usual habit of doing nothing extraordinary at all as well as his indifferent attitude that half made Dylon wonder if he had split personalities. Marin procured a horse for him, for which Dylon was very grateful, since he could hardly walk at all and certainly not fast enough to keep up with Marin’s broad strides. When they arrived at Lake Cirrus about four days later Dylon climbed wearily off the horse and looked across the vast lake to the large island in the middle where Marin’s house sat. The farm where Dylon grew up was fairly close to the lake, but no one ever ventured anywhere near it due to the identity of its inhabitant and the fact that it was rumored that an air goddess lived in the clouds that covered the tops of the Pileus Mountains and the mortals knew better than to trespass on the homes of such without explicit permission.

There was little of Marin’s house that could be seen from the edge of the lake, just that it was very large and sat upon an even larger island in the center of the lake. The lake itself was so large that Shale, the town nearest to it, could have been put into it and still have room left over. The house looked nice enough, even if Dylon was unable to see it very clearly, but when Marin started walking over the water to it Dylon cleared his throat and called out after his master.
“Master Marin how are the horse and I supposed to get across the lake?”
Marin stopped and scratched his head, obviously not having thought of that yet. Finally he decided to let the horse loose and let it wander to Shale and someone could take care of it until Dylon came back for it. As for Dylon himself Marin sized him up and then promptly threw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour and carried him across the lake to the island and dropped him to the ground again with a thud. Dylon scowled up at him, but Marin ignored him and started walking to the house, which now that Dylon could see it closer was actually more of a mansion made of stone. It was simply far too big to merely be considered a house. There was an orchard and a garden that Marin had neglected, and though the interior of the house was tastefully decorated there was dust in every room Marin never bothered to use, which constituted nearly half of them. Marin found a room in one of the towers he told Dylon was for him and then went about giving him a long list of instructions about maintaining the house. Being the only servant in Marin’s employ made the list seem rather formidable, but not impossible. Keeping the mansion clean would be easy enough since only he and Marin would be living in it, and being a farmer the orchard and garden would be no problem at all. The only other thing to worry about was Marin’s meals, assuming he was home to eat them. By the sound of things he expected to be out most nights and so would only need breakfast for the most part.
“And what time would you like your breakfast?” Dylon asked.
“When I wake up.” Marin answered, as if it should have been obvious.
“And when will that be?” Dylon inquired, feeling his patience starting to slip again. Marin had an unparalleled talent for wearing thin one’s patience.
“I don’t know, when I regain consciousness I guess.” Marin said with a shrug. “It could be morning, could be afternoon, hard to say. It really depends on when I go to sleep.”
Dylon sighed and rubbed his eyes but nodded nonetheless and Marin seemed satisfied.
“Alright then, now you just need to know where the kitchen is.”
Marin paused and frowned slightly, turning on the spot to look in various directions and clearly lost.
“The trouble is I don’t actually remember where the kitchen is. I know I found it once, but that was an accident, must have been years ago, I never really use it…”
Dylon groaned and resisted the temptation to bang his head against the wall while Marin tried to remember where the kitchen was. After a few minutes of thinking and finally deciding it was somewhere below the third floor Dylon interrupted him and told him he would find the kitchen on his own. Marin was more than happy to accept that and grinning broadly gave him a clap on the shoulders that made his knees buckle.
“Well I’ll leave you to it then. It’s getting late, I think I’ll go into town and see some friends of mine. Don’t wait up for me!”
With that he left and went strolling back across the lake again and left Dylon to his own devices.

And so it went, Marin would go off everyday to do whatever he did with whoever he did it with, and Dylon was left to himself. He kept the house clean and brought the orchard and garden back to life again and tried to avoid Marin’s cat, Tor, who for no apparent reason hated him. Dylon was as nice as possible to the creature, but still the charcoal colored cat would just glare its shining green eyes at him maliciously and slice at him with his claws and hiss something terrible, which Dylon was convinced was a stream of curses. So the two of them avoided each other and Dylon went about exploring the mansion while Marin was away. Apart from Marin’s bedroom and his own there were only a handful of rooms he frequented, the training room full of weaponry Dylon was almost aching to try out, and the library among others. The library surprised Dylon, as it displayed intelligence and logic that Marin never bothered to express if he really had it at all. The books were well worn and well read though, so either Marin really did read them all or he had simply gotten them that way. It seemed very likely that Marin would buy an enormous library full of used books just so that it would look like he had read them. One day Dylon wandered into the library and picked a book off the shelf at random and looked it over for a while, admiring the intricate designs in the leather and flipping through it to look at the pictures. It looked like a very nice book and he wished he knew what it said. Suddenly from behind him came Marin’s voice and Dylon jumped and nearly dropped the book.
“Do you know how to read Dylon?”
Dylon whirled around and sheepishly hid the book behind his back, despite knowing full well Marin already knew he had it. “No Master Marin, I do not.”
“Want to learn?”
Dylon’s eyes widened and he nodded excitedly and with a smile Marin took the book from him and put it back in its place on the shelf behind him.
“Then I will teach you.” Marin said, and reached his hand out for the book, which Dylon handed over.
Marin looked at the book for a minute and finally decided it would be as good a start as any for teaching Dylon to read and promptly sat down with Dylon and started into it. It was a fantastic book and had fascinating pictures as well and it quickly became Dylon’s favorite. They moved on to other books as time went on and Dylon got better at reading them and the world seemed to get broader every time he picked up a volume from one of the towering shelves and delved into it. When he mastered the basics of reading it then came to Marin’s attention that Dylon didn’t have any other schooling either and seemed perplexed at Dylon’s lack of scholastic instruction.
“You don’t know any history either?”
“Just what I heard in stories, just like everyone else.”
Marin sighed grumpily and scratched his head while he thought of a solution.
“Reading I’ll teach you, but science, history, and all that I’ll get you a tutor for, it’s too boring.”

Just as he promised Marin found Dylon the best tutor in Shale for him who taught him history, science, and all that other boring information Marin had no interest in. It was a wonderful thing for Marin to do, though Dylon wasn’t sure why he had done it at all. Most masters never bothered to look after their servants’ education, and Marin was making sure Dylon knew how to read and write, and learn mathematics, science, and history as well as the major languages spoken in the towns. Dylon appreciated being educated like one of the rich or noble, but he had no idea why Marin bothered with it. Marin remained as lazy and indifferent as he had always been and spent the vast majority of his time away from home attending to ‘business’ all the time. He left Dylon to his own devices most of the time and in all honesty never really treated him like a servant at all. Usually he acted as if Dylon was just some person that happened to be living in his house and occasionally cooked for him. Keeping the house clean and looking after the garden and orchard seemed to be something he thought Dylon did in his spare time for some reason. Dylon didn’t mind all this, but it confused him, just like everything else Marin did.
Much like his scholastic education Marin found tutors to teach Dylon everything else he considered important, like swimming. He was appalled at Dylon’s swimming abilities and so procured some otters to teach him how to do it properly. Once Marin found out that Dylon couldn’t talk to the otters he was appalled about that too and so taught him the basics of communicating with the otters and all the other animals that lived in and near the lake. Then he left Dylon to his tutors and did nothing else personally because he claimed to be too busy. Whether or not he really was always away on business Dylon had no idea, but somehow or other things got done, petitions made at the water temple were answered, and the people liked Marin just as much as always. So either Marin really did what he was supposed to when he was out or he found some way of getting someone else to do it for him. Dylon suspected it was the latter.
When Dylon was twelve however Marin finally decided it was time he taught Dylon a few things that he would trust them to no one else. This was mostly due to the fact that when it came to walking on water there really wasn’t anyone else that could do it and so Marin would have to do it himself. Everything else Dylon had learned had been fairly easy and he had mastered them without great difficulty, but walking on water took him years to do, and he could never really master it as well as Marin. Even learning to hold his breath underwater for hours at a time seemed easy by comparison, and the whales had taught him that one. Learning to talk to the whales had been an adventure in and of itself that almost rivaled talking to the cat, who still didn’t like him very much. Walking on water was a unique skill that only Marin could teach him and it took time and effort in incredible amounts and forced him to trust Marin as never before. And again Dylon wondered why he bothered. It was almost as if somehow Marin knew exactly what Dylon wanted to know and learn without him asking and so set about teaching him how to do it. But then that would mean Marin was being selfless, and Marin was never selfless. Was he? If nothing else he still had his impeccable talent for confusing people, though after a few years Dylon managed to understand him to the point that he didn’t get frustrated by Marin as much. It still happened of course, just not as frequently. And when he asked Marin why he got him swimming lessons and why he taught him to walk on water Marin just said that he was tired of carrying him across the lake all the time.

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la-vida-loca
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Sometimes I think I was born backwards...
“Are you?” The demon replied, scrutinizing him closely. “No wonder you’re so small.”

hehe i love that line. ^.^

excellent job so far! and obviously Marin isn't just teaching him to walk on water because he's tired of carrying him, so please continue. :D
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LionHeart
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Entropy
lol yeah, that line was a lot of fun I loved using it

ah, I should continue? Very well, I'll put up the next part later today, either here or in my strongbox
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LionHeart
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Entropy
Part 2


On top of everything else he had to learn Marin added swordsmanship and just like walking on water Dylon knew absolutely nothing about it. And oddly enough it was the only other thing Marin insisted on teaching him personally besides reading and the walking on water thing. Regardless of how lazy and apathetic Marin acted he was an expert swordsman and incredibly fast when he wanted to be. They practiced with wooden swords to avoid serious injury, but it wasn’t long before Dylon was wishing he could use a real sword. Marin refused to let him have one until he could prove he could use one without killing himself so Dylon had to do without until he was fourteen. They started with blunt swords and gradually moved up to sharp ones as Dylon grew more proficient and more confident. Marin seemed to be very proud of him and one afternoon he finally gave Dylon a real sword of his own. Dylon looked down at it, speechless with joy. Marin understood though and he grinned broadly and patted Dylon on the shoulder happily.
“Try not to kill yourself with it. I’m going out, don’t wait up for me!”
He waved over his shoulder as he left and went sauntering over the lake to who knew where and left Dylon alone again after giving him a few last minute instructions, chief among which was that Dylon was forbidden to touch Marin’s sword. Marin had begun telling Dylon not to touch it ever since he started teaching Dylon swordsmanship and Dylon had wanted to touch it ever since he saw it but somehow resisted the temptation. It was more alluring than ever now and Dylon felt the familiar nagging at the back of his mind to go and pull it down and look at it. Dylon shook his head and stubbornly ignored the notion and instead happily put his new sword and belt on his waist and admired himself for a while before going to make some lunch. Marin had said not to wait up for him, but Dylon would do it anyway, no matter how late Marin stayed away. He had been doing it ever since the first night Marin had gone away and left him all alone in the mansion. Dylon had never been so alone before and he was frightened by the idea of being separated from Marin, no matter how secluded and secure the lake was or how little time he had known Marin. He just felt completely safe when Marin was around. So he stayed up waiting for Marin until he came home again very early the next morning. Once he saw Marin coming across the lake he had run back up to his tower room and jumped into bed before Marin reached the front door and so far as he knew Marin never saw him. After that though every time Marin went away Dylon would wait for him no matter how long it took and Marin never noticed, or if he did he never said anything. Dylon had outgrown being afraid of the dark and being alone, but still he had an inexplicable desire to wait up for Marin when he was gone and make sure every time Marin was back safe and he himself was safely back to his room before Marin could notice him. That particular day was no different; Dylon ate his lunch and went about the house tidying it as needed and settling down in the library that night with a book to occupy him until he took up his vigil by the window where he waited for Marin.

About half an hour into reading his book Dylon adjusted himself in his chair, felt his sword shift on his belt, and the nagging desire to go look at Marin’s sword came back. Dylon tried to ignore it but it was more persistent than ever and finally Dylon could ignore it no longer. He clapped the book shut and putting the book back on the shelf he walked slowly up the stairs to Marin’s bedroom. He had been avoiding the room on purpose to avoid temptation, but now that he was there it was overwhelming. The room itself was huge and contained Marin’s massive bed and private library with his favorite chair next to the fireplace and a set of double doors that led to the balcony. For some unknown reason Dylon tiptoed across the marble floor to Marin’s bed, as if somehow if he walked normally Marin would be able to hear him. He stopped at the head of the bed where on the wall next to it hung Marin’s sword in its sheath.
Marin’s falchion looked intimidating and heavy just hanging from the wall in its scabbard and Dylon felt a little awed looking at it. He had never seen it out of the scabbard and Marin never really carried it anywhere with him, but Dylon had seen it so many times hanging there when he cleaned Marin’s mess of a room and he yearned to feel the weight and balance of it, see how easily it cut, to see what it was really capable of. Dylon reached out to grasp the handle and felt a trickle of sweat fall down the back of his neck and just before his fingers grasped the handle he felt an odd sense of foreboding. The moment his fingers wrapped around the handle blinding pain scorched his hand as if it had been plunged into boiling water and Dylon screamed and tore his hand away from it. The sword looked the same as ever and when he looked down at his hand he could see the blisters beginning to form already and the pain was getting worse by the second. He ran down to the kitchen and plunged his hand into a bucket of cold water, relishing the relief washing over him. Then he put some burn ointment on his hand and carefully wrapped a bandage on it while the pain slowly started to fade. Then he slowly sank to the floor and cradled his hand to his chest while the tears slowly began to fall down his cheeks as the pain and shame washed over him. He had broken Marin’s trust and the one explicit rule he had ever given him and he could only imagine what Marin would do when he found out. Dylon had done stupid things that children always do that get them into trouble, but Marin had never really gotten angry with him or lost his temper completely, but nothing Dylon had ever done compared to this. Marin would be angry, disappointed, and who knew what else, and Dylon hated the thought of it.

When Marin finally came home it was barely an hour still considered night and he slept long into the next morning before finally waking up and staggering down to the dining room for breakfast, yawning hugely the whole way. Usually Marin’s idea of nightclothes was taking off his jerkin and changing into a different pair of trousers, and this was no different. He considered nightshirts ridiculous and refused to wear them and Dylon had long since given up trying to convince him that his trousers were not meant to be slept in. Dylon brought Marin his breakfast, keeping his right hand hidden behind his back as much as possible, and counting on Marin still being in a state of sub-consciousness to keep him from noticing. Marin set about eating his breakfast and Dylon thought that he had by some miracle escaped detection and breathed a sigh of relief. When Marin finished his breakfast he stretched lazily and stood up while Dylon picked up the dishes one handed to take them to the kitchen. He had barely reached for one when Marin’s voice made him freeze, his hand still outstretched over the plate, and his stomach turned to ice.
“I thought I told you not to touch my sword.”
Dylon straightened and turned to face his master, his eyes fixed on the carpet under Marin’s feet and guilt overwhelming him. He waited for a moment for Marin to say something more, but when he didn’t Dylon swallowed and quietly apologized, his eyes still fixed on the floor. He could practically feel Marin’s gaze burning into him as he did and he fought to hold back his tears as he kept apologizing as humbly and profusely as he knew how and waited for Marin to unleash his anger on him. Somehow feeling as though he had disappointed Marin made him feel more terrible than anything he had ever felt and the fact that he had betrayed Marin’s trust didn’t make him feel any better either.
After a while his apologies faded into silence in the face of Marin’s own silence and he swallowed a few times as he tried to keep his tears from escaping his eyes and embarrassing him further. He felt Marin take his injured hand and at last Dylon looked up at him and to his surprise Marin was not angry at all. He was disappointed, but not angry, and he looked at Dylon with an expression that seemed to say he understood perfectly. Marin carefully unwrapped the bandage from Dylon’s hand and looked it over to assess the damage before gently pressing his fingers to the wounds and healing them. As he did he calmly but firmly rebuked Dylon for his actions and made it clear that Dylon was not to disobey his instructions ever again or face worse consequences than a burned hand. Dylon nodded and thanked Marin for healing his hand and as he looked up at Marin he saw the smallest trace of a smile on his face and Dylon realized why he had felt so guilty all this time and why he always waited for Marin to come home. True, he was not the best role model; he was lazy, irresponsible, and mostly apathetic, chased after nymphs shamelessly, had arguments with the other demons and spirits, especially the air goddess who lived in the mountains beyond the lake, and sometimes acted even less mature than Dylon did. But still without trying he had starting looking after Dylon and worried about him and was more than happy to scold him too. What Marin really saw Dylon as was a mystery, but it was most likely as a permanent house guest. However Dylon for better or worse had begun to see Marin for what he truly was, beyond whatever assumptions he had about him before and Marin had turned out to be something much better than he had thought. It was a rather reassuring thought, however strange a role model he had found for himself.

Four years later things were in many ways very much the same as they had always been; Marin still went out all the time without telling Dylon what he was up to, Dylon still was free to do whatever he pleased, Marin still got into arguments with the air goddess in the Pileus Mountains and several other people on a regular basis, and the townspeople still loved Marin as much as ever, which perpetuated Dylon’s opinion that they were completely and entirely oblivious to what Marin did in his spare time. Marin’s personality hadn’t changed in the least, the only thing that had was Dylon’s tolerance of it. He now accepted the fact that Marin was determined to spend his days doing nothing but finding new ways to entertain himself and avoid responsibility as much as possible. Marin, being what he was, was very handsome and charming when needed and was completely irresistible. Marin being aware of all this had developed a twinge of arrogance that added to Dylon’s annoyance with him while simultaneously and impossibly somehow adding to his overall charm, making him even more alluring to nearly every female he came across, be it nymph or human or goddess or otherwise. Dylon really could not understand how all that was possible and did his best not to try and hurt his head trying to figure it out and instead left Marin to his own devices while attempting the occasional lecture to improve his behavior. As of yet the only result of such was Marin throwing a pillow, a comforter, three apples, two books, innumerable wads of paper, Tor, and several other household objects at Dylon. Dylon decided to leave notes on Marin’s desk in the future.

Overall there was very little about Marin that changed over the years at all. He still looked like someone in their late twenties while simultaneously having the underlying appearance of being ancient, almost ageless. It was an interesting combination, and only Marin and the various demons and gods Dylon met could pull it off. Dylon himself had continued to age and in his opinion got better in the process. He had Marin’s build now, though not on the same level of perfection, and was fairly tall as well. And had he really taken the time to study his eyes he would have found that over the years they had become more like Marin’s, no longer just a solid color but brighter and with smaller bits of color mixed in, though in Dylon’s case his eyes looked like the river rather than the ocean. They were far too brown for that. The change in his eyes was due in part to the things Marin had been teaching him, slowly giving Dylon small pieces of Marin’s power over water in its various forms. Now Dylon could do much of what Marin did only on a much smaller scale.
One bright spring morning Dylon made breakfast for Marin and for Marin’s cat and took it upstairs for the two of them. He had previously been in the orchard, but before long the cat had come sauntering out demanding breakfast from him and Dylon decided that it was about time Marin dragged himself out of bed. Even for someone like him, sleeping for ten hours straight was a little excessive. So once the breakfast was made Dylon put everything on a tray and carried it upstairs to Marin’s bedroom with the cat running along behind him. Once he got to Marin’s room Dylon put the tray on Marin’s large rosewood desk after clearing a space for it and then set about trying to wake up Marin. There were a few ways of doing it, but Dylon opted for pulling open the curtains and suddenly unleashing the morning sun on Marin. Marin grumbled something incoherent and yanked the sheets up over his face in protest and otherwise made no attempts to get out of bed. Dylon set the cat’s food on the floor and pulled open another set of curtains and opened the doors to the balcony for good measure to let the cool morning air in as well. In the face of this continued onslaught Marin rolled over in an attempt to escape the invading sunlight and ended up rolling off the bed with a loud thud.
“Master Marin really, I know you need your sleep but even for you ten hours is pushing it. Now get up off the floor and come eat your breakfast before the cat does.”
Marin snarled something else at Dylon from the tangle of blankets he had dragged off the bed with him and threw an arm back up over the side of his bed to feel around for his pillow. Once he found it he dragged that off the bed too and throwing the blankets over his head again made to go back to sleep again. Dylon frowned and with a shrug decided to resort to something more persuasive.
“Very well then, since you just want to sleep I’ll just dispose of your breakfast and you can make something yourself.”
He had taken less than three steps before Marin’s pillow slammed into his head and Marin got to his feet awake and surly with the blankets clutched in one hand as if he were contemplating throwing them at Dylon too. Dylon just smiled serenely as Marin walked past him and dumped the blankets on his head and went digging for a jerkin to wear. Dylon pulled the blankets off his head and put them back on the bed in an orderly fashion and tried to convince Marin to at least change into clean trousers, but Marin ignored him and set about eating his breakfast. Dylon gave up trying to talk sense into him and went to fetch Marin’s mail for him and dropped it on the desk for him and went to revive the fire in the fireplace. By that time it had ceased to be morning and was now afternoon and the sun was high in the sky over the lake and making the world a more comfortable temperature. Marin sat eating his breakfast and reading his letters with varying expressions depending on the contents of the letters or who sent them. Before he left Dylon decided to take a look out the window over the lake and saw a dark bank of storm clouds over the Pileus Mountains and a deep fog was starting to creep across the lake as well. He knew what both meant and he glanced over his shoulder at Marin and debated how good an idea it was to tell him about it. After a minute or two, when the fog had covered nearly half the lake and the clouds were looking more menacing by the moment Dylon decided there was nothing he could do and went to inform Marin of what was happening.
“Master, there is a very large fogbank covering the lake, and some storm clouds are coming in from the north.”
Marin, who was only halfway through his breakfast stopped in the middle of eating a piece of toast and went to look out the window. Once he saw what was happening his brow furrowed and he immediately started walking for the door. Dylon sighed and looked over at Marin’s half eaten breakfast and remembered that Marin would want his bath filled after breakfast as usual as well.
“What about your breakfast sir?”
“Do what you want with it.” Marin called over his shoulder, his voice already grumpy and steeling itself for the argument he knew he was going to have in a few minutes.
“Should I just draw a bath for you then?”
“No.” Marin said bluntly and exited the room to go stomping down the stairs and out the front door with a bang.
Dylon sighed and went to gather Marin’s breakfast and figure out what to do with it. He decided to just eat it himself rather than waste it and went out onto the balcony to sit on the wide railing encompassing it with the remaining breakfast split between himself and the cat, who was already sitting there. From that vantage point Dylon could see Marin walking out to the edge of the water where the fog was creeping up and the air goddess Chihiro was standing waiting for him, clearly not in a good mood. Marin of course had known she was in a bad mood as soon as he saw the storm clouds and fog just like Dylon had known. But of course Marin was the one who would have to deal with it, Dylon was just going to watch and see how much trouble Marin was in.
Marin and Chihiro wasted no time starting their bickering and Dylon sat complacently on the balcony railing watching them and munching on toast and sausage and half agreeing with what Chihiro was saying to him. The two of them were arguing loudly without caring who heard them and so Dylon heard the entire thing without any difficulty. The argument was the reason Marin didn’t want his bath and instead would be using a nearby waterfall for a shower instead. He only did that when he was upset about something and wanted to think, or if he had a bad argument with someone, someone usually meaning Chihiro. Today apparently Chihiro was mad at Marin for neglecting the mountain rivers again and they were overflowing from the spring runoff. At least that was where the argument started, but then descended into an argument over Marin himself and his habits, and that was where Dylon had started siding with Chirhio for the most part, though after a while even though the argument was using the right words, the meaning behind them seemed to have changed into something that only the two of them understood. That tended to happen pretty frequently when they had a dispute and Dylon couldn’t comprehend what they were really talking about. Throughout it all the angry storm clouds Chihiro had brought with her grew darker and more fearsome depending on how angry she got and the lake started rolling and thrashing about as Marin’s temper started to rise as well.
“Why can’t you just act your age for once?” Chihiro was yelling at him, and even though Dylon could only see the back of Marin’s head he knew he was glaring daggers at her when he answered.
“Maybe I don’t want to! I’ll act however I so please!”
“I can see that! You could at least stop ignoring your responsibilities and everything that’s really important!”
“I am not ignoring what is really important!” Marin snapped defensively, but Chihiro kept glaring at him venomously.
“Yes you are, and you know it! You put all your attention everywhere but where it matters most, why don’t you put your mind where it belongs?”
At that Marin’s hands balled into fists and he and Chihiro started talking so quietly he couldn’t hear them, but if their postures and expressions meant anything they were angrier than before. They went on like that for some time until Marin finally abruptly ended it and stormed back toward the house. Dylon bolted down the stairs and stood by the door with a towel ready for Marin, who snatched it from him and went off to the waterfall without another word to Dylon and leaving the lake boiling with anger behind him. Dylon sighed and with a glance out the door to see if Chihiro was still there he went and found a nice bottle of wine and put it and a glass on a tray and took it out to Chihiro in an attempt to soothe her temper a bit.
Chihiro was definitely surly when Dylon walked up to her and Dylon knew better than to ask her who had won the argument. Chances were both she and Marin would claim that they had and if they both heard the other doing so it would set them off all over again. So with that in mind Dylon silently held out the tray to Chihiro and poured a glass of wine for her. Chihiro accepted it and her expression softened slightly, but still looked grumpy and frustrated. Of course being what she was she still managed to be gorgeous anyway. Gods had it really good sometimes. Even if Marin rarely looked the part of being a powerful immortal being, Chihiro certainly did; she was tall and slender, with sky-blue eyes and hair the color of an amazing sunrise and even grouchy as she was it did nothing to lessen the general effect of her beauty.

“Thank you Dylon, you chose an excellent vintage as usual.”
Dylon smiled proudly and inclined his head slightly while Chihiro drank her wine and glared daggers in the general direction Marin had headed off into. Dylon thought about the argument earlier and it occurred to him that he actually had no idea what Marin’s age was that he was supposed to be acting and said so to Chihiro. She rolled her eyes and refilled her wineglass before answering.
“Marin is still young, just over 1,500 years old, the same as me. He’s been acting like this for about a thousand years now, and it’s getting on my nerves. It’s really a shame you never knew him before he got like this. He used to be quite intelligent and pleasant to be around, but now he’s just acting out for attention.”
Dylon raised his eyebrows at that. It had never occurred to him that Marin was actually a mature adult or something beneath all this ridiculous behavior of his.
“So who is he trying to get attention from with all this?” Dylon asked curiously.
Chihiro shrugged and looked across the lake at nothing in particular. “It’s hard to say, but I have a guess. His father must know, otherwise he would never tolerate Marin acting like this all the time. Marin’s father has the unique ability to always know what Marin’s thoughts and intentions are. The rest of us can only guess.”
“So his father knows but does nothing? Why would he do that?”
“Because, as I said his father must know what he’s really up to, otherwise he would have put a stop to it ages ago. I must say though, it is awfully frustrating being around Marin and knowing that he’s better than this. He irritates you too from time to time doesn’t he Dylon? I thought so. It’s because deep down even though you never knew him before you know that there is more to Marin than this and the person he is right now is not the real Marin. Rather aggravating knowing that and seeing the way he acts. You certainly chose an odd person for your master.”
Dylon half smiled and shrugged.
“He’s not much of a master. He doesn’t even tell me what to do half the time, just leaves me to do what I please.”
Chihiro raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing and went back to enjoying the wine for a while before venturing a question.
“How did you end up as Marin’s servant then, usually he never has any.”
“He saved me when I was shipwrecked in the river and I offered my service in exchange.”
“Marin saved you?”
“Yes. Why, is that unusual?”
Chihiro didn’t answer right away, and seemed to be thinking about something. Finally she came to a conclusion about something or other and answered his question.
“Marin can be completely selfless sometimes, but it usually requires some incentive. He didn’t save you until you offered him your service, did he?”
Dylon slowly shook his head and Chihiro sighed. “I thought so.”
Not wanting to discredit his master Dylon with some apprehension asked if Marin always had to be bribed into helping people before he would do it. Chihiro thought it over and at length replied that she didn’t think so, but it was possible that Marin would do something completely selfless for someone without being offered something in return, but then in that case it would truly be a selfless act. Offering to save Dylon only if he got something in return hardly qualified.

Dylon was silent after that a he contemplated his newfound information about Marin. He found it very interesting that Chihiro knew exactly why he had always for some unknown reason found Marin’s behavior so frustrating. But she had also said she could guess why he was doing it, and whose attention he was doing it for, and that was very interesting as well.
“So who do you think he is trying to impress with all this, you said you had a guess.”
“It’s only a guess, and anyway Marin is on his way back, I should leave before he gets here. Thank you for the wine Dylon.”
Chihiro put her glass back on the tray Dylon was holding and disappeared back into the midst of the fog as it retreated back across the lake and up into the mountains again and sure enough not five minutes later Marin came back. He was in a slightly better mood, but not significantly. He finished reading his mail and then said vaguely he had some business to take care of and left again. Dylon took care of a few chores around the mansion and then decided to go visit some otters that lived in a nearby stream to the south for a while. He needed some friendlier company after the morning’s events and the otters were always good for a laugh. He spent the majority of the afternoon playing around with the otters and generally enjoying himself until the sun began to set and Dylon thought he should head home before Marin got there. He said his goodbyes to the otters and picked up his boots from where he had left them on the bank of the stream. As he was tugging them on he heard someone walking through the trees and turned to see a young woman walking towards him with a friendly smile. Dylon had no idea who she was, but to be polite he said hello to her and talked to her for a while. She offered him an apple from the basket she was carrying and it looked very good so Dylon accepted it. He took a bite out of it and found it to be a wonderfully juicy and delicious apple, but for some odd reason he suddenly started feeling groggy and a moment later he fell to the ground with a thud. The girl smiled smugly and walked off into the trees and left Dylon lying next to the stream miles away from anything.

Edited by LionHeart, Oct 20 2008, 03:28 AM.
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la-vida-loca
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Sometimes I think I was born backwards...
well that wasn't very nice of this mystery woman. :(

i love how he talks to the otters. it'd be cool if we could actually talk to animals. *sigh*

yay! next part! (if you wanna post it, that is...)
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LionHeart
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don't worry, she wasn't exactly being malicious.
as for talking to animals, I'm convinced that if my cat could talk she'd curse like a sailor.
yep, I'll post the next part :)
however, firstly I had to edit the previous part because somehow I forgot to add in a few paragraphs. ugh, sorry...

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LionHeart
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and here's the next part for everyone


Part 3



When Marin returned home early the next morning Dylon for the first time in eight years was not waiting for him. Marin found that extremely strange and scoured the house for him, but Dylon was nowhere to be found. Marin frowned and asked Tor where Dylon had gone off to. Tor had no idea and so Marin with worry starting to gnaw at his stomach went out looking for him. He hadn’t gone far when he ran into some otters he knew and they told him a strange story about the girl Dylon had met by the stream and how he had been lying there like a dead man ever since. Once Marin heard that he went straight to the stream and found Dylon lying motionless on the bank with an apple in his hand. Marin tried to wake him, but Dylon refused to wake up and Marin’s worry turned into fear. He grabbed the apple and upon inspecting it found that a sleeping spell had been put on it by that girl who gave it to him. Marin set Dylon on the ground and put protective spells around him while he gathered more information on the girl from the otters. It didn’t take him long to figure out that she was a witch of some sort, and he sent the otters to find her while he himself went to look as well. He clutched the apple in his hand and crashed through the trees with mounting rage and within ten minutes every body of water in his dominion was reflecting his wrath. The townspeople saw it and knew to stay far away from the rivers until Marin’s rage cooled and even Chihiro noticed and started to worry. A few miles from the stream the witch stopped short at the banks of the river she was going to cross and stared at its angry rapids with bewilderment. The current had suddenly changed from being calm and slow to being raging and dangerous in the space of a few minutes without explanation and she wondered if the water god who owned the river had gotten angry about something. Suddenly the river rose even higher and behind her she heard something come crashing through the trees towards her and whirling around she saw a very angry looking water demon coming towards her.
The witch had never seen Marin before and so could be excused for not recognizing him, but even so she deduced who he was very quickly once he started talking. He stopped about six inches in front of her and bellowed at her with a deep and terrible voice that penetrated to her very soul while his eyes became a solid dark blue and his fists clenched in an attempt to keep from throttling her and the apple was crushed into pulp.
“What have you done to Dylon?!” He roared and the witch looked at him in confusion and tried to tell him that she had no idea who Dylon was, but that just made him angrier than before.
“You put a spell on him this afternoon; of course you know who he is!” Marin bellowed, throwing the apple bits at her head viciously. “Now tell me what you did to him!”
“I didn’t put a spell on any Dylon this afternoon!” The witch insisted, barely managing to dodge the apple, and Marin finally losing his patience, grabbed her and took her to where Dylon lay and repeated his question. The witch looked down at Dylon and remembered that he was indeed the one she had put a spell on that afternoon, but Marin was saying his name was Dylon, and if that was true then she had made a rather terrible mistake. She swallowed nervously and explained to Marin that she had been hired by a girl in Yatestown to put a sleeping spell on some boy she liked and the boy happened to look very similar to Dylon and so the witch had put the spell on him by mistake. The explanation did little to help matters and instead put Marin in a towering fury that was now causing tempests in the Gulf of Sarin to the south.
“You mean to tell me that Dylon is in some sort of stupid coma because you screwed up this afternoon and put the spell on the wrong person?! How am I supposed to get it off him?!”
“It’s not hard, I promise, that girl asked me to make it easy to break it. All you need is for his true love to kiss him.”
Marin stared at her blankly and his anger seemed to dampen slightly with his confusion.
“His true love? How am I supposed to know who that is?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Does it have to be his true love? Or even a girl? Can’t I just get an uncle or aunt or something to kiss him on the cheek?”
The witch shook her head and Marin tried again.
“But what about the true love thing, is that really necessary? Can they just be good friends or something?”
“Love has to be involved one way or another, though I suppose it doesn’t have to be his true love. A first kiss would suffice if you really had no other option.”
“So all I have to do is find some girl to kiss him and he’ll be alright?”
The witch nodded and Marin scowled at her and informed her that she had until he counted to twenty to be out of his dominion or he would freeze her in a glacier in the Pileus Mountains. The witch thought he might be joking up until he started counting and then she started moving. By the time he got to fifteen she had the right spell ready and by the time he hit eighteen she had managed to transport herself to the other side of the Mauer Mountains and promptly decided never to cross them again.

Chihiro went looking for Marin once the mountain rivers started carrying away boulders and trees with them and once she saw the state of the lake and the Arthos River she moved much faster. She had never seen Marin this angry before and she had known him his entire life. When she finally found him he was a little calmer but instead of being angry he was more frustrated and pacing back and forth with worry next to Dylon’s motionless body.
“What happened?” Chihiro asked, taking in the scene and Marin’s agitated state.
“Some idiot witch put a spell on him.” Marin snapped, stopping abruptly and pointing down at Dylon. “Look what she did to my so- my servant!”
Chihiro’s eyebrows rose slightly at the correction but chose not to ask for further explanation about it. Instead she got Marin to calm down and tell her what had happened and after he had Marin went back to pacing for a bit before finally giving up and picked Dylon up in his arms and started walking towards Shale.
“Where are you taking him?” Chihiro asked as she tried to keep up with him.
“To find some girl who wants to kiss him, where else?” Marin demanded and walked even faster.
“Why are we going to Shale then?”
“Dylon goes there all the time, there’s bound to be at least one girl there who likes him enough to kiss him.”
“So what are you planning on doing, putting him in the town square and having all the girls in the town line up to kiss him until he wakes up?”
Marin nodded. “Yep, that was about the full extent of my plan. Why, can you think of something better?”
“Yes.” Chihiro said bluntly and grabbed his arm to pull him to a stop. She explained to him that she had a much better plan, which she refused to explain to him, and so in the interest of time he just decided to trust her and the two of them changed direction and instead headed for the Water Temple. Dylon was placed on a stretcher in the Temple and a story was quickly circulated that he had been put under a spell and Marin had gone to the great Sea God to ask for help to break it. In the mean time Dylon lay silently in the Temple while people came and went and occasionally left something by his stretcher to show their support for Marin’s servant under the watchful eye of two armored guards who stood by him day and night. They were almost the same height, but one was slightly taller and broader in the shoulders than the other and refused to talk to anyone. The shorter of the two was pleasant and friendly and could be seen smiling from time to time at the people while the taller one glared venomously at them if they came too close to Dylon for his liking.
Days went by and still Dylon lay as before and no one had even attempted to kiss him, in broad daylight or otherwise, and the larger of the two guards was getting more anxious and surly by the hour.
“This is stupid.” Marin grumbled when he and Chihiro had been standing in the temple for seven days. He was convinced this crazy plan of Chihiro’s was not going to work and that Dylon was going to be trapped in a coma forever. Chihiro ignored his fatalist attitude and told him to be patient and Marin replied by saying very nasty things about every girl in the town and the stupid witch who had put the spell on Dylon in the first place. Chihiro continued to ignore him except to remind him that unless he could control himself their disguises would be pointless and everyone in the temple would know who they were. After that Marin quieted down again but remained as frustrated as ever.
That night after everyone had left Marin went and sat down with his back against a pillar and his spear leaning against his shoulder with Dylon in plain sight. Marin absolutely refused to let the boy out of his sight for an instant and so had not slept for the past week either. It was hard to say whether or not Marin actually needed to sleep every day or if he just did it because he wanted to. Even Dylon didn’t know how long Marin could go without rest. Even so the past week had been very taxing on Marin and even if he refused to admit it he was getting tired and his head started to nod as he sat watching over Dylon. Chihiro came and sat next to him and watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was stubbornly trying not to fall asleep, especially since Chihiro was watching him, but it was getting difficult for him and Chihiro decided to make him get some sleep before he fell over and made an idiot of himself. Chihiro worried about things like that, even if Marin never had enough sense to be embarrassed about anything.
“Marin, go to sleep for a while, I’ll keep watch.”
Marin shook his head and blinked a few times in an attempt to stay awake. “No, I need to watch, something could happen.”
“I’ll wake you up if anything happens, I promise.”
Marin leaned his head back against the pillar and closed one eye, the other glaring over at Chihiro, albeit very groggily.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
He looked doubtful but finally closed the glaring eye and relaxed and Chihiro chuckled quietly at him, causing the eye to pop open again.
“What?”
Chihiro shrugged innocently. “You are quite the devoted master, aren’t you?”
Marin glared grumpily over at her. “Who said anything about me being devoted?”
“He did.” Chihiro replied, nodding at Dylon.
Marin opened both eyes and looked over at Dylon for a minute then pulled his knees up to his chest and resting his head on them went to sleep with an expression on his face Chihiro had not seen in years, but she was glad to see it there again. She waited to make sure he was really deeply asleep and then slowly and with some hesitance she reached over and brushed a lock of hair away from Marin’s eyes before gently kissing his forehead. Then with a smile she leaned against her own pillar to wait.

Not long after that, or so it seemed to Marin, Chihiro poked him in the ribs, and he started awake, his hand clenching reflexively around the handle of his spear as he looked around for any signs of danger. When all he saw was a girl from the village he relaxed and leaned back against the pillar again to watch her walk slowly and quietly to where Dylon lay casting cautious looks around her to make sure she was alone. Apparently she thought Marin and Chihiro were asleep because she barely glanced at them as she walked past them and paused next to Dylon.
“Who is she?” Chihiro whispered to Marin, who was watching the girl closely.
“A girl from the village, she’s been walking by the Temple ever since we brought Dylon in. I suppose she finally got the courage to come in here. Good thing too, she’s the one I’ve been waiting for.”
“What do you mean? That girl is the one that can break the spell on Dylon?”
“Yep.”
“How do you know, is he in love with her?”
Marin shook his head slightly, still watching the girl, who seemed to be debating over something. “She’s been waiting for a week to get the courage to come in here, but only enough to come in the middle of the night when no one will see her. Oh yes, she’s the right one alright.”
Marin leaned forward again and rested his chin on his knees while the girl meanwhile knelt next to Dylon and was now talking quietly to him in a voice too quiet for Marin and Chihiro to hear.
“This is all part of your plan right?” Marin said over his shoulder to Chihiro, who looked somewhat surprised that he had figured it out. “We leave him here but don’t tell anyone what’s wrong with him, then sit back and wait for the one girl who comes in here to kiss him, right?”
“Something along those lines, yes.” Chihiro replied. “But are you SURE she’s the right one? If she loves him, then why come here in the middle of the night to kiss him, doesn’t he love her?”
“You’re thinking of the wrong kind of love.” Marin said quietly as the girl leaned over Dylon and kissed him before getting to her feet and leaving the Temple as quickly and quietly as she had come. Marin got to his feet and stretched luxuriously while Chihiro looked at him with utter confusion.
“If that was the right girl then why isn’t he awake yet?”
“Be patient.”
“What kind of love?”
Marin stopped mid-stretch and looked over at her, his head twisted at a slightly awkward angle in the process. “What?”
“You said I was thinking of the wrong kind of love, so what kind of love is it then? What kind of love is this if she is so determined that no one knows about it?”
Marin looked back over at Dylon, who was beginning to stir slightly and with a twitch of his fingers Marin changed back to his normal appearance and smiled softly.
“Unrequited love. The witch said love was required, but she never said he had to love her back.”
Dylon was definitely starting to awaken now and Marin was at his side in an instant making sure he was completely fine and reverting back into his stressed and worried mode that even in his groggy state Dylon did not fail to notice, or the fact that as unbelievable as it seemed, Marin was exhausted. He of course was also wondering why and how he had moved from the stream bank to the Water Temple and asked Marin for an explanation. Marin for whatever reason decided to merely tell Dylon that the nutty witch he had met by the stream had put a spell on him by mistake and Marin had taken him to the Temple to sleep it off. Dylon was willing to accept that and Marin said nothing to him about the particulars of the spell or how it had been broken and not by whom. He helped Dylon shakily to his feet and Dylon looked around the Temple and caught sight of Marin’s spear leaning against the pillar, Chihiro having ducked behind it before he could see her. Dylon looked from the spear to Marin’s general appearance and obvious relief that Dylon was alright again and put two and two together.
“You waited here all this time for me to wake up, didn’t you? How long has it been?”
“Just a week, that’s all. And you complain about how much I sleep! You had everyone worried though, all the townspeople and the travelers that came through, and that was very inconsiderate of you, how could you make people worry like that? It’s not very nice of you, you know, you should know better than to trust strangers like that, you’re just a child, you could get yourself seriously hurt doing things like that…”
Dylon couldn’t help but laugh at Marin’s babbling and reached out and hugged Marin tightly before he could see the tears threatening to escape that started to fall on Marin’s jerkin as Marin hugged him back and fell silent. Dylon buried his face in Marin’s chest and cried with happiness and half laughed at Marin babbling and worrying over him and not eating or sleeping for a week because of it. At that moment the two of them came to an understanding though neither of them said anything about it. Marin was grateful for that, as he was so terrible at saying the things that were actually important, no matter how much he wanted to.

When Marin and Dylon returned home Marin went straight to his room and flopped onto his bed, falling asleep in an instant. Having staved off eating and sleeping for more than a week Marin was more exhausted than he had ever been before and did not awaken for ten days. Dylon waited patiently for him to get his rest, knowing full well how much he needed it. Dylon himself as a result of the time he had spent asleep was more refreshed than ever and hardly needed to sleep at all for quite a while and spent most of his time cleaning the house that had been neglected for more than a week and apologizing profusely to Tor for not feeding him for so long. When Marin finally did wake up again Dylon gave him an enormous breakfast to go with the giant pile of mail he had waiting for him and left Marin to deal with both. Things changed very little after the whole affair with the spell on Dylon at least on the outside. Dylon knew now though exactly what Marin would do should something happen to him, and it was a comforting thing to know. Altogether Marin had been acting more responsible and mature than usual lately and it was a very nice change over his previous behavior, which still had a habit of resurfacing from time to time.

The next spring Marin seemed to be getting a large number of letters that unsettled him for some reason that he did not see fit to disclose to Dylon, though Dylon thought it might have to do with the rumors of trouble up north past the Pileus Mountains that was threatening to trickle farther south before long. Marin soon found it necessary to go on a business trip and left Dylon to watch over his realm in his absence. Dylon was incredibly flattered and rather scared at the idea of being in charge of everything and found it incredible that Marin was trusting him with such a great responsibility. He tried to convey that to Marin, who brushed it off and muttered something about Dylon being the only one capable of keeping things in order while Marin was gone so of course he was being put in charge. Dylon half rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh at Marin as he put on his sword and made for the front door while still giving Dylon last minute instructions.
“There was a lot of snow last winter, so be careful of the spring runoff, you might not be able to handle it. If you get into trouble send me a message and I’ll get back as fast as I can and don’t forget to feed Tor, he’s still angry with you about that, and if you go out you need to wear your surcoat.”
“I will remember that Master Marin, stop worrying, I know what to do.”
Marin frowned in a way that made it clear that he was going to do nothing of the sort and Dylon sighed as he opened the door for him and Marin poked him in the shoulder as he reminded him to wear his sword when he went out as well and then stepped out the door.
“But what do I need my sword for? I’ll be perfectly fine without it!”
Marin turned around so fast Dylon felt the wind rush past him and blinked in surprise at the expression on Marin’s face as he stepped back inside the doorway to loom over Dylon.
“Dylon, you are not to leave this house without your sword, is that clear?”
Dylon swallowed and nodded fervently and Marin finally satisfied went out the door again and on his way. Dylon heaved a sigh of relief and pushed the heavy door closed, leaning against it for a moment before going to find some dinner for Tor.

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Entropy
and on to the next



Part 4



The spring runoff was higher than usual, just like Marin said, but it was not so great that Dylon could not control it even with his small share of power and abilities given to him by Marin. It was rather tiring though keeping the rivers in check and Dylon decided to float down the Arthos River for a time to rest, so he lay on the surface of the river and floated downstream for a while as he napped in the morning sunshine. He drifted down the river for quite a while and found it very relaxing until he suddenly heard someone on the bank screaming something about a dead body in the water. Dylon was on his feet in an instant and looking in every direction for the dead body in the river. However there was none to be found, but there was some girl standing on the bank of the river staring at him in amazement. It was at that point that Dylon realized that A: he had been floating down the river dead to the world, and B: he was now standing on the water while the current flowed past him and he remained stationary in the middle of the river, and C: all of this put together was most likely why the girl was staring at him.
Dylon walked as quickly as he could to the riverbank given how fast the water was flowing and then went to talk to the girl on the bank. She was a girl from Shale, that much he remembered, but he didn’t know her that well. She looked at Dylon from head to toe, taking in the sword strapped across his back and the dark blue surcoat he was wearing with Marin’s red phoenix on it and after dwelling on Dylon’s face for a few seconds promptly turned bright red. Dylon found that very confusing, but only because Marin had never told him about the girl that had broken the spell on him and that girl was now standing right in front of him.
Dylon coughed and looked confused at the girl’s change in color scheme but decided it must have something to do with him floating in the river and decided to explain himself.
“I am sorry for startling you; I assure you it was purely accidental. I was just tired and lay down on the river to sleep for a while and I guess I forgot how that would look.”
The girl wasn’t quite the same shade of red anymore and Dylon took that as encouragement and finally remembered his manners. “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself: I am Dylon, Lord Marin’s…” Dylon paused, having realized that he wasn’t exactly sure what his title was, and so settled for all the ones he could think of that sounded better than servant. “Lieutenant.” He said finally. “I am Lord Marin’s Lieutenant, assistant, and steward. Who might you be?”
“I’m Olivia, I live in Shale.” She suppressed a smile as she looked up at Dylon and contemplated the titles he had given himself. “I remember you; don’t you come to Shale all the time? I see you in the market, but usually you don’t wear your sword.”
“It’s just a precaution.” Dylon replied. “Because of the trouble up north and everything. Marin has gone to investigate the rumors and he left me to watch over things in his absence.” Dylon added the last part almost impulsively, as if his mouth was doing its best to impress Olivia without his brain knowing why it was doing it. Olivia did look impressed, and Dylon felt his ego inflate ever so slightly for a minute.
“So you’re Marin’s servant then, I thought that was what you were.”
Dylon’s ego deflated rapidly and his stomach fell to the region of his ankles and he half stammered in an attempt to regain what dignity he had left.
“No, well yes, but not in the sense you’re thinking of, I’m really more than an average servant since I am the only one he has after all and to be perfectly technical I’m really his steward, just without any other servants under me and I act as his lieutenant in his absence and I can act in his name to a certain extent and I can walk on water…”
Dylon realized he was babbling and starting to sound desperate and so promptly stopped speaking immediately before he could embarrass himself further. As it was his brain was becoming mysteriously muddy and he couldn’t account for it. It was possible that it was a result of standing there with Olivia, but that seemed unlikely. After all, he had seen her plenty of times in Shale and even occasionally talked to her and yet now for some reason he was completely out of sorts and it got worse the more he tried to talk to her, even just looking at her, and seeing her smile. Dylon changed the subject to the weather since that seemed a safe enough topic, but it hardly helped and he could feel himself blushing at something she said, got embarrassed by it, and promptly blushed even more. He heard someone say something to him from behind him in the general area of the river, but he was still in the middle of talking to Olivia and so just called a reply over his shoulder to them.
“What is it?”
“An urgent message for you at the Water Temple sir, your presence is required immediately.”
“What is it, what has happened?” Dylon asked, finally turning around at the sound of urgency in the messenger’s voice and found that he was speaking to a crow and Olivia was looking at him very oddly for it. Dylon coughed slightly and walked over to the crow so as to have a more private conversation with him and asked for further details on the situation.
“Something about a river flooding to the north near Samas sir, your assistance is greatly needed. If you would just follow me, I will fly ahead and tell them you’re coming.”
Dylon quickly said his goodbyes to Olivia as politely as possible and ran after the crow, heading north to the Water Temple.

At the temple Dylon found a wet and miserable looking messenger from the town of Samas, which sat at the fork where the Noir River flowed south from the Pileus Mountains and met the Dragon River, which flowed from east to west. The spring runoff had been so great that the two rivers were colliding and combining to flood miles of the surrounding area and threatening Samas chiefly as well as the scattered farms downstream and causing terrible destruction. And so it was Dylon’s responsibility to stop the rivers’ flooding and if possible divert the flow to a safer path until the townspeople could be evacuated with the farmers. Idyllically the extra flow of water would be channeled down a new course that would alleviate the stress on the Dragon River and send the water flowing farther south towards Emerald Lake. However, doing so would essentially create an entirely new river, and Dylon was not capable of doing such a thing. The best he could do was try and slow or halt the flow of water coming from the Noir River and divert it just enough to allow the people to get to safety and he wasn’t even sure he could accomplish THAT. Still, he had to try. With Marin gone Dylon was the only one who could help them so he would just have to do the best he could for them and hope he could handle things. If not, his best bet would be to send a message to Marin and pray that it got to him in time.
Dylon borrowed a horse from someone in Kenton, since it was closer than Shale to the Temple and rode hard for Samas. He was not as gifted as Marin, who could walk and breathe under water as easily as Dylon walked on the ground, and so had to settle for nearly killing his poor horse trying to get to Samas fast enough and cursing himself for not being able to go as fast as Marin. When he arrived at Samas the flood was at the level of people’s doorways and rapidly rising. The people were still trying to evacuate, but the rivers were making it very difficult. Dylon jumped off his horse and ran to the edge of the river and looked upstream to gauge the flow of the Noir and estimate how much time the people would need to get to safety. By the looks of things they would still need a lot of time and he wasn’t sure he could give it to them. He could certainly try, but could guarantee nothing. After all, he wasn’t Marin, just his servant with a fraction of his power. Still he had to try, the townspeople were looking to him for help and protection, and he was determined not to disappoint them.
Dylon took a deep breath and walked out onto the Dragon River and drawing on his power tried to bring the flow under control and away from the town. The water was turbulent at best and was in no mood to listen to him and even as he pulled at the water to bring it back to its proper bounds he realized that unless he could lessen the flow from the Noir River all this would be pointless. Dylon chewed on his lip for a few moments while his brain worked furiously to throw together a plan of action that could somehow hold off the Noir River and keep it in control long enough for the people to evacuate. Marin he knew would have dealt with this in a timely and effective manner by now, but Dylon no matter how hard he thought about it he came to the same conclusion: he was not Marin, and the only thing within his power was to hold off the Noir and then release it again once the townspeople had gotten to safety and hope that he had the power to pull it off.
“Marin, I need you so badly right now.” Dylon muttered to himself and ran his fingers fretfully through his hair. Like it or not Marin was not there to help him and he would have to just stand on his own and take care of things as best he could. Even if he did send Marin a message, it was too late now and it wouldn’t reach him in time. Dylon was on his own. He squared his shoulders and walked quickly to the fork where the Noir came pounding into the Dragon and summoning every ounce of power and strength in him Dylon braced his feet, stretched out a hand, and stopped the river. He gave the slightest twitch of a smile at his success, but that was all. Stopping the river was one thing, but now he had to hold it back, and that was going to become very difficult very quickly.
With the Noir in check the Dragon River raged onward, but slowly began to lessen and the townspeople kept trickling out of reach of it, but not fast enough. Dylon had done things similar to this before, but nothing on this scale or this difficult. He considered himself to be better than the average person, but still, holding back a river for two hours would be taxing on anyone, and Dylon was now using both his hands to hold off the river and sweat was trickling down his forehead and the back of his neck and after another hour his arms started to shake from the strain, as if he were holding up a wall instead of water. Dylon gritted his teeth and screamed at his body to hold on just a little while longer, but his legs were starting to seize up too and the townspeople burdened as they were with provisions and what possessions they had saved were not moving very quickly to safety. Dylon closed his eyes and put every ounce of concentration he possessed into focusing on that river and keeping it at bay, feeling his strength fading and his power draining but still fighting. After three and a half hours Dylon’s body finally reached its limit; his arms dropped, his legs gave out, and he fell face-first into the river. Dylon was so tired he couldn’t even try to fight off the current; he just let himself sink into the water, ready for it to carry him away. But then someone grabbed hold of him and pulled him out of the water and Dylon felt an arm around his waist supporting him while he coughed the water out of his lungs that he hadn’t bothered to try and keep out. He blinked the water out of his eyes and saw that impossibly the Noir River was flowing at a normal pace as was the Dragon River and a temporary smaller river was now branching off the Noir to alleviate the stress on it as was its twin to the south draining the Dragon River. Dylon knew he hadn’t done all that and he looked up at the person holding him and saw Marin smiling down at him.
“I’ve got you; everything’s going to be alright.”
Dylon smiled with absolute joy and relief and pulled himself to his feet, leaning against Marin for support while he caught his breath again. Marin let him rest for a bit then picked up Dylon in his arms and carried him to the shore and let him lie there for a while until Marin returned from ensuring that every single civilian was safely away from the rivers and the damage to Samas was not critical. Dylon had done an excellent job holding off the river until Marin had managed to get there and so had averted major disaster. Dylon lay on the riverbank feeling more exhausted than he had ever been in his life but enormously relieved that everything had worked out alright and Marin had come in time. He found that part hard to understand though, since he knew he had never sent Marin a message asking for help and yet Marin had found out anyway. Dylon suspected an otter or something from the river had managed to find Marin and give him the message that things were going badly, but no otter could have found Marin and gotten him there that quickly. Even Dylon had no idea where Marin had been all this time; there was no way some random river animal would be able to find him. It was a puzzling thing, but Dylon was too tired to really put much effort into thinking about it and so he just relaxed and went to sleep right there on the riverbank.

He woke up the next afternoon in his own bed, his boots sitting next to his bed, his sword was propped up against a chair, and his surcoat was hanging over the back of the same chair fully dry now. Dylon looked over at them and caught sight of a tray of food sitting on his desk waiting for him, still warm. Dylon’s first thought was that somehow Marin had managed to find the kitchen again, and then moved on to assess his being tucked into his own bed and everything else. Marin had done all this for him, something incredibly kind and selfless. He remembered again though, as he went to pick up the tray and see how good Marin’s cooking was, that Marin had come and found him so quickly without Dylon asking and he couldn’t quite figure that out. He decided to ask Marin about it if he hadn’t gone off chasing nymphs already.
Dylon ate the food, which was excellent, and then went to find Marin. He found him in the library pouring over some maps and looking very serious and occasionally muttering something to himself as he flipped through the maps and consulted a calendar. Dylon couldn’t recall the last time he had seen Marin like this, so serious and absorbed in something that he hardly seemed to be aware of anything else. Dylon quietly moved to sit on the arm of a nearby armchair and sat watching Marin from behind, waiting for a good time to talk to him. Marin didn’t seem to be in the sort of mood to be interrupted so Dylon was content to wait. He let his eyes and mind wander, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged and precarious on the arm of the chair.
“Are you alright Dylon?” Marin suddenly said, catching Dylon off guard and nearly making him lose his seat. “I meant to ask you earlier, but you were unconscious.”
“Yes, I am thank you.” Dylon replied, steadying himself on the chair. Marin’s back was still to him and one of his fingers was idly tapping on the map in front of him slowly and quietly. Dylon wondered what he was thinking, what his face looked like, but something about Marin’s posture told him it was best to stay where he was. Marin was the sort of person that could talk a lot but never tell you what you really wanted to know, but because of that Dylon had become very good at reading his and other people’s body language and their eyes especially. Marin was simple enough to understand most of the time, even without needing to try and read his body language. But lately even though his speech hadn’t changed at all Dylon thought that something had changed in it, that Marin was hiding something, and even his eyes couldn’t tell Dylon what it was.
“Marin…” Dylon said tentatively, and Marin’s finger faltered for a split second then resumed its tapping.
“Yes, what is it?”
“I wanted to ask you… How did you know I needed help? I never had the chance to send out a message to you and I thought you were still too far away to get there in time, still up north somewhere.”
Marin seemed to contemplate that for a while, and then shrugged amiably and Dylon wondered if he had been imagining Marin’s strange behavior all along.
“Let’s just say that I have eyes and ears everywhere Dylon and I keep a very close watch on you. You’ve never tackled anything like the Noir River before and I knew you’d have some trouble with it so I didn’t wander too far away from you just in case you ran into trouble.”
“And here I thought you had some confidence in me.” Dylon said sulkily and threw a pillow at Marin’s head. Marin dodged it easily and just laughed at him and flipped over another map to scrutinize.
“I have boundless confidence in you Dylon, whatever made you think otherwise?”
Dylon stuck his tongue out at Marin knowing that he wouldn’t see it but doing it anyway because it made him feel better. “By the way, why are you staring at those maps?”
“Research.” Marin said simply. “And just so you know, I want you to rest for at least a week before you go out again.”
“A week?! Why so long?”
“You need rest after that business with the Noir River so you’d best do as you’re told and take a vacation or I’ll lock you in your room if I have to.”
“I need rest, yes, but not an entire week of it!” Dylon cried indignantly and stood up quickly in an effort to add emphasis to his argument, but Marin of course had been right and Dylon’s still weak legs gave out on him and he fell flat on his face. Apparently he had used up all his energy just going down the stairs and looking around for Marin and now he was completely drained and feeling annoyed that Marin had been right and Dylon had proved his point more effectively than Marin ever could have. Dylon sighed in resignation and somehow managed to roll over onto his back where he found himself staring up at Marin’s amused face looking down at him with “I told you so” written all over it. He picked up Dylon as though he didn’t weigh a thing and took him back upstairs again to his room and set him in his chair then giving him once last reminder to rest Marin left again to pore over his maps in the library.
Dylon sighed and dragged himself out of the chair to flop over again on his bed and resigned himself to doing as he was told and resting for the next week. Of course Marin had been right all along and Dylon really did need a week’s worth of rest and he felt much better after he had gotten it. After that he returned to his usual duties and Marin continued to pore over maps and the letters he had been getting, all the while becoming more agitated about something. But as the days lengthened and became warmer Marin’s mood improved and by the time summer was in full swing he acted as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Dylon for his part enjoyed the summer to its fullest, swimming in the lake, jumping down waterfalls, and finding excuses to go to Shale just so he could “accidentally” bump into Olivia. He knew Marin was aware of what he was up to, but uncharacteristically Marin hadn’t said a word about it and didn’t even tease Dylon about it, which was very strange in Dylon’s opinion. Still, he thought it best not to complain about it and focused on enjoying his improving relationship with Olivia instead. He liked her more and more as time went on and when winter came he was fairly sure he was falling in love with her. It was a wonderful thing of course, but Dylon knew absolutely nothing about love. He would have to ask someone for advice on the matter and despite all the things Marin had taught him and undoubtedly his experience with romance in general Dylon decided to ask someone else about it. So far as he could tell Marin didn’t know the first thing about love, but just in case he thought that he would perhaps ask Marin in very general terms about it and go to someone else for the specifics.

He found Marin standing at the edge of the island looking out over the lake with a curious expression on his face he tended to get sometimes when staring off into space like that. Dylon wasn’t really sure what to think of it and for some reason he had never thought of asking Marin what was going through his head whenever he got that way. Deciding that was as good a way as any to start a conversation Dylon went and stood next to Marin and after fidgeting a bit for a few moments he looked up at him and asked him what he was thinking about.
“I’m watching the wind. It seems to be trying to make up its mind about something judging by how it’s moving.”
Dylon followed Marin’s gaze over the lake and scanned it from shore to shore, but saw nothing, not even a rustling leaf to indicate the wind was doing anything whatsoever. Marin was probably just making up things again to tease him and avoid actually telling him what was going through his mind. It was probably nymphs anyway Dylon thought grumpily and shot Marin a look that clearly said “did you really think I would believe that?” Marin just laughed at first, but then stopped and bent over to scrutinize Dylon closely.
“What’s the matter, why are you giving me that look? You can see the wind can’t you?”
Dylon shook his head and Marin blinked a few times looking rather confused.
“You can’t?”
“No. Why would I be able to see the wind, it isn’t exactly a common talent Marin.”
Marin scratched his head absently and thought that over for a bit then shrugged it off.
“Well I suppose I’ll have to teach you how later if you’re not too busy chasing after Olivia.”
Dylon felt a blush rapidly consuming his face and started sputtering which made Marin nearly double over with laughter and it was some time before Dylon regained his speech and managed to get Marin to stop laughing at him. The broad grin plastered on his face however Dylon knew he couldn’t do anything about so he didn’t try. Instead he settled for scowling up at Marin and wondered why he had thought it was a good idea to come talk to him in the first place. Marin seemed to find the scowling extremely entertaining as well, but he was nice enough to refrain from laughing and settled for teasing instead.
“What Dylon, I haven’t struck a nerve now have I?”
Dylon refused to answer and felt his cheeks going redder.
“If you get any redder you’ll look like an overripe tomato.”
Dylon gritted his teeth and stared out at the lake as if it were the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.
Marin bent over and smirked at Dylon, thoroughly enjoying himself now while becoming all the more curious.
“Why so embarrassed Dylon? She’s just another girl right? Or maybe not, hmm? What’s so special about her?”
“I…I think I love her.” Dylon whispered, half to himself and surprised he had said it out loud at all.
Marin hesitated, pulling back and standing upright again and looking at Dylon with curiosity and a touch of smugness. “You what?”
“I’m in love with Olivia!” Dylon said loudly, still refusing to look at Marin and inwardly yelling at himself for saying anything at all. Marin would just make fun of him even more now and he’d never hear the end of it. But when Marin did answer it wasn’t what he expected at all.
“I thought you might be, but I was just waiting for you to come out and say it. Well, good for you, she’s a nice girl.”
Dylon finally looked up at Marin and found him smiling pleasantly and by all appearances wasn’t going to mock him at all. Dylon wasn’t sure what to make of that and the color drained out of his face again just from shock and resumed its natural color.
“Yes, she is a nice girl, a wonderful girl actually.” Dylon said finally once he had gotten his voice back. “Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Then why how do you know she is a nice girl?”
“I know everything.”
Dylon started laughing at that and kept going for a minute or so while Marin rolled his eyes at him and ignored him. After that Dylon suddenly remembered what he had come there for in the first place and cleared his throat a few times to make sure he had Marin’s attention and to stall for time and when Marin’s full attention was on him again and he was looking confused about all the throat clearing Dylon took a breath and started asking Marin questions.
“Marin, I was wondering, since you happen to be older than me and you are my friend, well you seem to get around a lot and you are always with those nymphs and all, so I thought that maybe you could tell me…what it’s like, I mean love and everything.”
“You don’t really think I’m in love with some nymph do you?”
Dylon’s mouth worked silently for a moment in an attempt to answer that and with some effort he managed to get some sound out again, trying very hard to avoid saying something stupid.
“Well I thought that maybe you were since you’re always…always um, getting up to mischief with them and… other things… and well…”
“What other things?”
Dylon felt himself blushing again, and Marin was looking pretty grumpy about this line of inquiry while still somewhat amused at Dylon’s attempts.
“You know what I mean, all those things, the rumors, the things people say that you do.”
“And what do people say I do Dylon? You know you can’t believe everything people say, especially if you’re getting your information from the herons, you know how they love gossip.”
As it turned out Dylon had gotten most of his information from the herons and now that seemed pretty ridiculous.
“So what they said, it’s not true? And you really are not in love with those nymphs?”
Marin sighed and half rolled his eyes. “Dylon I know exactly what people say about me and what I get up to and really you should know by now, even if what they said was true, that isn’t even remotely love.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“What, that I don’t spend my time chasing nymphs or that I’m not in love with them?”
“Both.” Dylon said with a smile and Marin chuckled.
“Don’t worry, I only spend some of my time chasing nymphs, not all of it.”
Dylon’s eyebrows shot up at that, making Marin laugh outright and once again left Dylon confused as was Marin’s usual habit. Dylon shook his head and accepted his defeat, convinced he would never understand Marin or the crazy things that went through his head. Still, he might as well try one last time to get a serious answer out of him before giving up on him entirely and moving on to someone with a higher maturity level.
“So you’ve never been in love then.” Dylon said, only half listening for the answer that he was expecting to be ridiculous. “I really can’t believe I’m asking you of all people for advice about this.” Dylon muttered to himself and looked at Marin out of the corner of his eye for his obnoxious reaction. For some reason though, it wasn’t there. Instead Marin’s face had become an emotionless mask that Dylon had never seen before and when he spoke he sounded apprehensive, almost confrontational.
“So is that what you wanted to ask me all this time?”
“Yes.” Dylon replied slowly, feeling a little frightened by Marin’s change in mood and completely confused as to why he was reacting this way. “So…have you?”
“Once.” Marin said bluntly. “Just once.”
“And?” Dylon prompted hesitantly, not sure if Marin was going to explode at him or something, having never seen him act this way before and not liking it at all.
“I made a mistake and I wouldn’t apologize and she wouldn’t forgive me. I guess we both made mistakes but we both refused to admit our fault and kept finding ways to hurt each other, so it ended before it could really begin.”
“Who was she?”
Marin looked him up and down in an appraising sort of way, blinked, and then patted Dylon on the head. “Take good care of that girl of yours. You’re not as stubborn as me, you’ll be alright. If you’re lucky you might actually fall in love with that girl after all.”
“But I do love her!” Dylon insisted, and Marin raised an eyebrow dubiously.
“You think so?”
“I know.” Dylon replied stoutly, but there was a slight waver in his previous conviction.
“Well I guess you’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?” Marin said.
With that he turned and left Dylon standing on the beach while Marin started walking back to the house. A breeze went past and something else occurred to Dylon and hoping that it would improve Marin’s change in mood and distract him Dylon called out another question to him in an attempt to get him to come back, but no such luck.
“Marin, wait, I forgot to ask you: how can you see the wind?”
“Chihiro taught me.” Marin said over his shoulder and kept walking though now slightly faster as if he was determined to get to the house as soon as possible before Dylon asked him anything else. Dylon however had run out of things to say and sat on a rock thinking about Marin’s replies until inevitably his thoughts wandered back to Olivia again and he was able to smile again.

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Girl-N-Da-Hat
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*jaw drop* no that's not fair....there needs to be more!!!!! Is he in love with Chihiro?!?! is that why she kissed him O.o
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LionHeart
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Entropy
Is he? I'm not telling. :P
I'll put up another piece of this later, sorry I'm so behind on it.
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Ben Zwycky
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Fearsome Fleet Leader :D
That happens, LH. Good work on the story. I'd definitely go for the waterfall shower, myself :nod:
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LionHeart
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Entropy
Ah, yes, I'm very jealous of that waterfall of his
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LionHeart
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So, here it is, in all it's hugeness. I didn't want to chop it up, it would have disrupted it too much for my liking. So, sorry, you'll just have to bear with it.

Part 5


Summer moved onward, Dylon’s 19th birthday came and went, and before long the farmers would be beginning the harvest as usual. Dylon used to get sad at harvest time, remembering his family farm and all the years he spent there. But as time went on the pain lessened and became a dull ache though every year he would still find a hill to sit on and watch the farmers harvest their crops and drink a toast to his parents. Despite his freedom to move about he had never ventured terribly far from the river network that branched from the Arthos and never too far east along the river that formed the southern border of Moon Valley. His father’s farm lay along the river and something in him wouldn’t let him go back just yet and he wasn’t sure if he ever would.
When harvest was well underway Dylon awoke to greet a slightly chill morning and after changing his clothes and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes he wandered downstairs to find himself some breakfast. In the kitchen he met Tor who was sitting on the table and casually cleaning his paws. He looked up at Dylon as he came in and paused for a moment.
“Marin is awake.”
Dylon stopped midstride and looked at the cat in surprise, then out the window at the morning sun. That couldn’t be right; Marin was never up this early. Dylon told the cat so and Tor just shrugged.
“’Course he isn’t, but today he is. And I think he’s lookin’ for you too. Best hurry upstairs, he’s in a big hurry for some reason.”
Dylon raised an eyebrow, but decided to avoid arguing with the cat and just go see for himself. He jogged up the stairs to Marin’s room and found that sure enough Marin was already awake. Not only that, but he was wearing respectable clothing instead of his usual casual style and was even wearing boots. He had a clean pair of trousers on too, and a long sleeved white shirt under his breastplate and blue surcoat with his red phoenix on it and a blue travelling cloak over everything. Only his hair remained the same and Dylon was convinced that even a god wasn’t capable of taming it. Marin was busy pulling on his leather fingerless gloves and so didn’t notice Dylon come in. Once he had them on he looked himself over in the mirror and saw Dylon behind him, turned around and looked pleasantly surprised to see him and said he was just about to go looking for him.
“Tor said you were going somewhere.” Dylon said, noting that Marin was wearing his sword as well and for the first time in the nine years he had known him Marin was completely clean-shaven rather than his usual growth of beard on the front of his chin.
“Yes, I’m going to go visit my father for a while and there’re some things I need you to do while I’m gone.”
“Your father?” Dylon replied and then a second later that registered fully in his brain and he blurted it out again. “Wait, you are going to visit your father?”
Marin nodded and gave Dylon a quizzical look. “Yes, my father. Didn’t I already say that? What’s so fantastic about visiting my father?”
Given that Marin’s father was one of the most powerful Gods alive Dylon thought it was fairly obvious why it was such a big deal that Marin was going to go visit him. It just wasn’t every day one went to visit the great Sea God Kraal.
“Why are you going to visit him?”
“I haven’t been to see him in 80 years; I thought I should drop by for a while.”
“80 years?” Dylon said, completely dumbfounded. “You went 80 years without seeing your father?”
Marin just sighed patiently and put some pieces of parchment from his desk into a bag before slinging it on to hang at his side.
“Dylon, when you live as long as we do 80 years is like you waiting 8 months to visit your family. In the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that long. Just like my staying there for a month won’t be that long either.”
“Why did you wait until now to tell me you were leaving?”
“So that you couldn’t argue with the assignments I’m leaving you with.”
Marin gave Dylon a stack of parchment and went through it with him, explaining battle plans and supply routes and making sure Dylon understood everything perfectly. When Marin was satisfied he understood everything Marin smiled, handed him a small leather bag and with a hug from Dylon he left.

Marin was halfway across the lake when he met Chihiro, who was going the opposite direction toward his house and by the looks of things had something to talk to him about as usual.
“Hello Chihiro, what is it now? I’m kind of in a hurry and I don’t want Dylon to have to stand in the window for too long.”
Chihiro took in his appearance and looked over his shoulder back to his house where she could see Dylon standing by a window watching. “You’re going to visit your parents I take it?”
“Yes, I guess word travels quickly. Much quicker than I thought it would…”
“Why now Marin, what are you up to? You’re leaving Dylon by himself to coordinate the defenses and the negotiations? Since when do you leave him alone like that?”
“He’ll be fine; Dylon can take care of himself.” Marin said a touch defensively. “What are you so grumpy about anyway, are you worried I would leave without giving you a good-bye hug?”
“We both know the answer to that.”
Marin let that hang in the air for a minute or so until the silence grew too awkward and he coughed shortly and changed the subject.
“Look, it’s not like I want to leave him alone and make him shoulder all the responsibility, I just think it’s time I went to see my parents again. It’s been nearly a century since I did and I’m sure we have some catching up to do.”
“So you’re telling me you are going to leave for all this time just because you think you and your parents have some catching up to do?” Chihiro’s glare bored into him and Marin deflected his gaze over the lake in a completely different direction to try and escape it while he tried to come up with an answer that would satisfy her.
“I need to talk to them alright? It’s just been a really long time and my father wants to check up on me anyway.”
“I understand that, but Dylon needs you Marin, everyone needs you. No one wants to go into this without you and Dylon especially. It’s unlike you to leave something like this in someone else’s hands like this for so long. Are you giving him some sort of ridiculous test or something, is that what this is all about, seeing how he can handle being without you for so long?”
Marin brought his gaze back to glower at Chihiro grumpily but he looked a little guilty too. He really didn’t understand why they were talking like this again; Dylon wasn’t there to overhear them. But maybe it was habit or some underlying apprehension that somehow Dylon would hear what Marin was saying. Either way Marin kept at it anyway and tried to think of something to say that would get him out of trouble with Chihiro and let him leave.
“It’s nothing like that Chihiro, really. I’m just going for a short visit and letting Dylon learn how to handle things by himself for once without me looking over his shoulder. He has to learn that eventually, it might as well be now. Nothing catastrophic will happen to him if I leave. He’s much better prepared for this than he was when the rivers flooded or that time the nutty witch put that spell on him. Everything has been taken care of and it’ll be fine until I get back. The army can take care of itself you know. I’ll be back before the fighting starts, don’t worry.”
Chihiro looked skeptical so Marin heaved a sigh and threw his hands in the air with resignation.
“Fine, believe me or don’t, whatever you want.”
He stamped a foot on the water and a tidal wave erupted behind him, obscuring him and Chihiro from the view of the house for a very short amount of time. Marin snuck a look back at it then with a small smile swept Chihiro into a hug that took her completely by surprise.
“I will be back in time, I promise.” He whispered in her ear then quickly let go and walked past her and dove into the water to speed on his way across the lake and down the river to the southern bay and the ocean. Chihiro contemplated going after him for a split second, but then thought better of it and instead cloaked herself in a cloud and sped back to her mountain. Marin could swim faster than even she could travel on the air currents so there was no way she could catch up to him anyway. So instead she went back to her home in the mountains and busied herself with her own preparations for the impending battles to come satisfied that she could talk to Marin when he got back.

It had been in midsummer when word of the invasion from the north reached Shale and the other towns and everyone started to mobilize for war. The king, having been informed by Marin and his own agents of the impending invasion had been mustering troops for months and Marin had been gathering support of his own. Marin and the other demons, gods, and other such beings had been asked by the king to help repel the invasion and they were more than happy to do so. Dylon went as Marin’s representative and had numerous responsibilities from attending war meetings to organizing supplies and the troops flowing in from every corner of the kingdom.
The kingdom itself was one of the largest on the continent, stretching from the eastern Mauer Mountains across the western plains and past the enormous Sorne Mountains in the west that were only slightly shorter than the Pileus Mountains in the north where Chihiro lived all the way to the western coastline. The Pileus Mountains were a very long mountain chain indeed, so long that to go around them to enter the kingdom from the west would take about a year just to get past the mountains. So the only way to enter the kingdom from the northern part of the continent with any sort of convenience required going through Byron’s Pass. Byron’s pass was the gap in-between the beginning of the Pileus Mountains and the western slopes of the Mauer Mountains, which continued on northward for many miles more and even farther southward, not bothering to stop until they reached the southern coastline. The pass itself was only a few miles across, bordered on both sides by the sheer walls of the two mountain chains and the only route allowing trade between the north and south. Moon Valley and Marin’s lake home sat precisely on the other side of the pass and were directly between it and the rest of the kingdom. And so the invasion coming from the north could only come by one route and that route led right by Marin’s home and the massive network of rivers under his control that was the lifeline of the kingdom.
Marin’s dominion included every body of water on half the continent, far beyond the reached of the kingdom. This gave him a vast information network that had warned him of the coming invasion long before the king and so was able to warn him about it. In Marin’s absence however, poor Dylon was left with all of his responsibilities as pertaining to repelling the invasion and everyone, the gods and humans alike, were all looking to him and his master to provide the most decisive defense since Marin’s house lay so close to the pass. Of course none of them knew it but Dylon’s old home was at the southern end of Moon Valley, just across the Oriens River. So now he had two homes to defend and an entire army expecting him to be the god that everyone thought he was and that he knew he couldn’t possibly be.

It had become clear fairly soon into things that everyone thought Dylon was some lesser water god Marin had taken as his apprentice. Dylon wasn’t sure how to react to that, and tried to explain who and what he really was, but no one really understood or wanted to believe him anyway, so he gave up. He sat at the campfire with some of the other soldiers one morning applying his cooking skills to their breakfast and idly listening to the conversation going on around him. To his right Flin, one of the king’s generals, was having a grumbling sort of argument with the forest god sitting next to him about something or other and the god was getting impatient and threatening to turn into a bear again. Flin came from the Sorne Mountains and was a pale-skinned and dark eyed fellow who was missing his left eye and a decent sense of humor. However, he was one of the king’s best generals and despite his lack of ocular perfection and humor he was a valuable asset. Dylon got along with him fairly well, but still found it best not to try and interrupt an argument between him and a grumpy forest god who could turn into a bear.
“And Marin will be here any day now, won’t he Dylon?” Flin turned on Dylon suddenly, both he and the forest god looking at him expectantly as was, Dylon expected, everyone else sitting around the fire since the other bits of conversation had suddenly dulled.
“Yes.” Dylon answered, focusing his attention on his cooking pot and avoiding their collective gaze. “Marin told me he would return within the next two or three days.” Dylon snuck a look up at them and added “he went to visit his father” and that settled things instantly. No one was going to argue with that.
In all honesty though Dylon was becoming more worried by the hour about Marin’s return and the unexpected delays. Marin had said he would be gone a month, but that was a week ago and Dylon had received no word from him about the delay. Of course Dylon had not seen fit to tell anyone else that and instead was now lying constantly about it. He desperately hoped that Marin would show up by the fictitious date Dylon had created for him before things really took a turn for the worse. As it was the sentries had reported that the invading army was expected to arrive at the pass within the next two days and the king’s forces were rapidly creating a defensive barrier across the pass as best they could. If Marin was still unaccounted for within two or three days they would be in big trouble. The rivers were an enormous asset with him on their side, but without him they were nothing more than a vast road network waiting for the invaders to exploit.

As Dylon mused over these things after breakfast he nearly accidentally walked straight into a company of soldiers that had just arrived at the frontlines. Dylon caught himself before he managed to walk into their commander and stopped short at the sight of them. They were at first glance what seemed to be some sort of relatives of Marin’s that he had never met; varying hair colors that ranged from pearl to mossy green to a shade of blue Dylon wasn’t sure he had ever seen before and their eyes captured every shade of sky and cloud and body of water conceivable. These were the dragons and even among the gods they were considered nobility. The dragon clans along with Marin’s, Chihiro’s, and a few of the fire and mountain and forest clans were the noble and elite families among the gods as well as the most powerful. Dylon hastily apologized to the commander and swept into a bow while cursing himself for his negligence. The commander was a very amiable sort though and he just laughed the whole thing off and even was excited to meet Dylon anyway having heard so many interesting things about Marin’s apprentice. Dylon just smiled weakly as they all filed past and for the hundredth time dreaded trying to live up to everyone’s preconceived notions of his abilities.
Two days later, right on schedule, the opposing army came within a few miles of the pass and sent out their messengers. The king leading the invading army insisted upon meeting with the commander of the king’s forces defending Moon Valley and wanted to discuss terms or some such thing. And so Dylon along with Flin and two other soldiers on horseback went riding out to meet the invading king. The two groups stopped about ten feet apart and sat sizing each other up in a calculating and slightly arrogant manner for a while until Dylon decided he’d had enough of it and demanded the king say whatever it was he wanted to say and get it over with. It was then that Dylon got a good look at the king’s herald and was taken aback at the sight of him. The herald was an old friend of Dylon’s that had left Shale years before to seek his fortune elsewhere in order to get money to support his father’s faltering business in Shale. Clearly he had found strange employment and Dylon at once felt betrayed and angry at the sight of him.
The herald, Korlin, refused to do anything until Dylon properly introduced himself. Clearly no one on the other side recognized Dylon as any sort of general or anyone else important, and so as per tradition and by the constraint of manners Dylon had to state his credentials or at least the credentials of the person he spoke for. Dylon thought that the signet on his right hand would make it pretty clear who he was and who he spoke for, but he couldn’t very well ignore protocol, so he cleared his throat and in a loud clear voice stated his business and the credentials of his master. Doing so gave Dylon authority and made it clear to the invading king just who he was negotiating with. However, the king it seemed along with everyone else had some nagging curiosity about who Dylon was and the signet was responsible for that.
“Who are you and by what authority do you come to treat with us?” Korlin had demanded after the king had said something in an arrogant and irritating voice. “And why do you wear a signet of authority?”
Dylon felt everyone’s eyes burning into him as he frantically tried to think of a good answer for that. They accepted that he spoke for Marin, but there was still the burning question of why and who and what he really was. No ordinary person could wear the signet bearing a coat of arms, least of all the coat of arms of the greatest of the water clans and one of the four most powerful of the noble families. Given the circumstances there were only two possibilities he could think of, and neither of them was very appealing. Still, the challenge had to be answered and so he gave the best answer he could, noting the change in their expressions as he did.
“I am Dylon, the master of the Oriens River, and the lieutenant and brother of Prince Marin.”
Korlin digested that for a few moments before he delivered his message. He was clearly nervous, and there was a flurry of whispering going on between the two groups which was making Dylon sweat a little. Declaring himself Marin’s brother was no small matter and everyone knew it. Still, the king couldn’t back down just because his opponent had impressive credentials, and so Korlin gave his message detailing the absolute surrender of Marin’s army and a vast portion of the kingdom and other such ridiculous demands both parties knew he would never accept. That got Flin angry and he started an argument with the herald, who also acted as the king’s interpreter, and the two of them went at it for quite a long time with even the king getting involved and riled up over it. Dylon just sat and watched, his anger with his friend turning to resentment with a generous dose of confusion and just outright indignation with the king and everyone else. He tired of the arguing and decided to settle the farce of a negotiation and give the king an ultimatum just as Marin had instructed him to in case things turned out this way. Marin had not told him what to say, just how to say it, and that was enough.
“Enough!” Dylon thundered and everyone fell silent and looked at him in surprise, Korlin especially. If nothing else Dylon had learned to get people’s attention and leave them in no doubt of his mood from Marin and now he used it to the best of his abilities. His voice became low and thunderous like angry waves in a storm and even if the king couldn’t understand the words the meaning was inescapable.
“You will go no further. You now stand on the edge of our borders with the intent of looting and pillaging our land, murdering our populace, and taking everything we hold dear in the interest of satisfying your own greed and we will not stand for it! You will leave this place immediately and return to the lands from whence you came, never to return. We have tolerated your coming thus far, but you will go no further. You now stand on the brink of our borders and our homeland and should you cross into our kingdom you will all be utterly destroyed and no gods or men will save you. Leave now and we will spare you, but should you continue with your intent you will face the wrath of all the men, gods, and demons that defend these lands and only the rumor of your annihilation will return to your homeland. Now go, or in the name of Marin, Chihiro, Terrus, and Ignis I promise you will be obliterated from all knowledge and existence.”
For a full minute everyone just stared at Dylon until Korlin finally swallowed and delivered the message to the king, who paled slightly, but otherwise retained his composure. He said something to Korlin and then Korlin sighed a bit nervously and gave Dylon the king’s answer, which Dylon suspected Korlin was editing.
“We will give you our answer tomorrow morning. For now we will halt our armies as you have asked and will go no further.”
Dylon nodded and the two parties returned to their respective camps and the rumors started to fly. People were convinced more than ever of Dylon’s supposed divinity and he knew there was nothing he could do to convince anyone otherwise so he chose to say nothing about it and keep to himself. Still, the whole thing was making him more nervous than ever and he dreaded what people would be expecting of him once the inevitable battle did happen. He was a good fighter, he knew that, but his powers so far as divine ability was concerned he felt were severely lacking. He could manipulate and control water but not on the same level as Marin or he suspected any of the other water gods and demons that had come and there was one other problem; he had absolutely no idea what Marin was really capable of. If Dylon didn’t even know that how was he supposed to measure up as his presumed apprentice that everyone was expecting to perform great feats of power and godlike ability? In essence Dylon considered himself doomed to failure and probably death and terrible embarrassment to top it off.

The next morning Korlin came alone to deliver his message to Dylon, who came only with the standard bearer. Korlin delivered the inevitable defiant message from the invading king and Dylon in no uncertain terms informed Korlin that he would make good on his promise that he had made the day before. Korlin accepted that, but looked very unhappy about the whole thing, and not just because Dylon was threatening to annihilate him and every other living breathing being in the invasion force. So Dylon decided to have a nice long talk with his old friend. He found a secluded spot in-between the two camps near some trees and built a fire and sat across from the miserable Korlin who sat staring down at the flames and refused to make eye contact.
“What are you doing here Korlin?” Dylon asked after a few minutes of awkward silence. “I thought you went to go work the mines years ago. What ever happened to helping your parents and the rest of your family?”
“I am helping them.” Korlin said quietly and Dylon gave a short mirthless laugh.
“Helping them how, by turning traitor and leading those murderers to our very doorstep?”
“The mines were failing Dylon, I was desperate, and they said they needed an interpreter.” He paused and if possible looked even more miserable than before. “They said they would keep my family safe if I helped them Dylon.”
Dylon looked incredulous at that. “And you believed them?”
Korlin shrugged. “I guess deep down I knew they were lying, but there was still a part of me that wanted to believe it, even if it was a lie. It was a comforting lie and it made me feel less guilty for what I was doing. I knew it was wrong Dylon, I still know it is, I just…I couldn’t stand up to them.” He looked up at Dylon finally and as he continued Dylon felt his stomach twisting with he didn’t know what as he listened.
“I’m not as brave as you, Dylon and I never was. I’m just an average man who does the best he can to save his own skin with his average abilities. Just your standard mortal, that’s me. But you, you’re I don’t even know what. A god, a demon, what? You’re the faithful lieutenant of Lord Marin who can stay a river in its course and who knows what else. You probably aren’t afraid of anything, but the rest of us, we’re afraid. I’m so afraid I betrayed my entire kingdom in some pathetic hope that an invading army would decide not to kill my family when they take over the country.”
Korlin ran his fingers fretfully through his hair and shrugged. “I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t have an excuse Dylon. I’m not even going to lie and say I was really sorry about it either, just saving my own skin again. But Dylon, will you pretend we’re still friends and promise to do me one last favor?”
“Yes.” Dylon replied automatically, not even pausing to think what Korlin might possibly make him promise and not really caring either.
“Make them keep their promise not to harm my family will you? Will you do that for me?”
Dylon nodded and Korlin looked a little bit less miserable after that. They talked for a long time afterward about what had happened in the years they had been apart and by the time Korlin finally got up to leave the fire had long since died to embers and the afternoon sun was shining overhead as he walked back to his horse.
“Dylon, one last thing before I go, I think you should know.”
“What is it?”
“The long march here they were asking me about everything, the army, the rivers, the roads, everything that would help them in the invasion, including whatever I knew about your master. That’s why they’re camping up in the pass here, miles from the lake and the river so that Marin and you won’t be able to have any water to work with. They think it will give them enough of a handicap to tip things in their favor.”
That certainly explained things Dylon thought to himself and his brow furrowed at this new obstacle. Previously he had been planning to lure them far enough into the valley that he would have the lake on his side, but now…
“And one other thing,” Korlin added as he swung up into his saddle and turned the horse toward his own camp again. “They have gods and demons of their own on their side to fight against you, the desperate hotheaded type who are too stupid to respect the lingering rumors about Marin and the others. And Firand is with them too.”
In an instant Dylon’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened in surprise and fear. “Firand? He’s ventured this far south? But he hasn’t dared to leave his mountain since the gods’ council banished him!”
Korlin shrugged and started looking miserable again. “I know, but he is here anyway, banishment or no. He’s the most powerful fire demon in the northern territories and I guess he has some sort of grudge against Marin. That volcano of his hasn’t been quiet for years since Marin moved to the Pileus Mountains. It must have been too far north for Firand’s liking. Anyway, I thought I should warn you in case your master wasn’t already aware.”
“Thank you Korlin, for everything.” Dylon answered, still recovering from the revelation. “And I will keep my promise.”
Korlin smiled weakly and rode across the no man’s land back to his camp while Dylon did the same. He went directly to his tent where Tor was sitting on his cot and looking up at him quizzically as he entered in a fluster and informed him of everything Korlin had told him. Tor digested the information, his tail twitching quickly behind him as he did and not looking at all happy.
Tor, for whatever reason, had been sent with Dylon by Marin, who had claimed that Dylon needed to have the cat with him when he went into battle. Marin had made some strange requests before, but taking the obnoxious little gray animal with him to a major battle just didn’t make any sense at all. However Dylon knew better than to argue with Marin so the cat came along and spent most of his time lounging around in Dylon’s tent doing nothing in particular.

While Tor stewed over the information Dylon started sifting through the maps and charts he had in an attempt to find every possible water source near the pass that would be helpful to him and Marin, should he decide to arrive in time. His prolonged absence was making Dylon extremely nervous and nearly terrified, especially when he considered the prospect of facing the opposing army without Marin’s help.
“So it looks like we’re in trouble then.” Tor said finally and Dylon turned to look at him, meeting Tor’s green eyes and not liking what he saw.
“Unless Marin gets back here before tomorrow morning, and you know they’re going to attack us tomorrow, so we’re all doomed really. You feelin’ up to fighting off an angry fire god by yourself tomorrow?”
“NO.” Dylon said bluntly. “Do you think he will get here in time Tor?”
“Maybe, maybe not, I really don’t know. Far as I know he doesn’t know Firand is here. If he did you bet he’d be here to do something about it.”
“Yes, but he does not know, so where does that leave us?”
Tor shrugged, an odd gesture coming from a cat. “He knows you’re here, that’s got to count for something, right?”
Dylon absently rubbed the signet on his right hand that had been in the leather pouch Marin had given him before he left and shrugged. He knew what it really meant, even if no one else did, and it did give him some confidence, but was it enough? Marin had faith in him, the army had faith in him, even the gods believed in him. They couldn’t all be wrong. So what it came down to was this: It was on Dylon’s shoulders to lead the attack the next day, there were virtually no bodies of water anywhere that he could use, an angry and very powerful fire god was coming to try and destroy them all, and Marin and Chihiro were nowhere to be found.

“Are you sure?”
“I haven’t been this sure about something in years. And something this important, of course I’m sure.”
“I had to ask.”
“I know.”
“You have heard the rumors, have you not?”
“I keep my ears open, yes.”
“Then promise you will be careful.”
“I’m always careful, stop worrying. I’m not prone to making rash decisions, this is no different. And don’t look at me like that you’ll make me lose what confidence I have.”
“So, you are frightened then.”
“Who said anything about me being frightened?”
“It’s written in your eyes, like always. Now promise me you’ll be careful. This decision of yours I cannot argue with, but it does make me worry about your expectations.”
“Expectations? I expect things to happen as they are destined, that’s all. I’m just being careful like you asked, that’s all this is. I’m thinking ahead and all that.”
“Of course you are…Get some rest, you look tired and stressed.”
“I will, stop worrying.”
“Stop making me worry then. Besides, it’s my right and privilege to worry about you.”
“Have it your way. But please at least consider it won’t you? I’ve never asked you for something like this before, you know that.”
“I will consider it, you just worry about yourself. And keep your promises.”
“When have I done otherwise?”
“I meant keep them no matter what. Come what may you are bound to the oaths you took and you can’t be afraid to face the repercussions of upholding them. You have to be willing to do that or it was all for nothing.”
“I will do what I must, how could I not? There’s so much at stake…”
“Yes… Just remember that and you will be fine. Promise me you’ll be careful?”
"I promised once, do I have to do it again?"
"Yes."

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Ben Zwycky
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Fearsome Fleet Leader :D
Very nice. Oh, the tension!
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LionHeart
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Entropy
*evil laugh*
Yes, I love tension!
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