Piercing the Bleak Chapter Four

Maybe the new world isn't as great as Xacquan expected it to be...

CHAPTER FOUR

            When the skies lost their darkness, I woke up to the realization that I was, again, on my own.  Curiosity occupied my thoughts, poking at me whilst whispering, “The boy.  The boy.  Where is the boy, Ragmon?”  But I did not give in to these pestering questions.  It would most likely return soon, that boy, and if it didn’t, I suppose I could explore by myself. 

Already, my attention had been captured and I was ready to move on.  A most spectacular phenomenon had entered my line of sight.  There, to the left of the tree, were the orange flows.  I remembered them leaping in the past, but now, they had leapt higher than ever, taking flight high into the skies and congregating into a big, thick ball of burning orange light.  So powerful was the spectacle, that I felt it was absolutely mandatory to look away.  Even once I did, the afterimage burned with a bluish glow wherever I would look.  What a powerful thing!  What a marvel!  The essence of pure magic!

            I had to catch it.  But how?

            I was not lacking knowledge in this arena.  Back during my time as a nameless one, I had experimented with the orange flows, the normal ones that slithered about the blackened grounds.  From what I could gather, there was something alive about them.  I couldn’t figure it out, but they would twist and crawl of their own free will, animated by a life force that was invisible to my eyes.  Sometimes, I would take the Cray’s fallen branches and dangle them above the flows, observing whether or not they would perch upon them like the creatures in my dreams.  But no.  The flows could jump, but they could not perch.  Instead, they would eat away at the branches, making them smaller and smaller, similar to the way I would drink from the Cray but in an aggressive manner.  Any portion of the branches that the orange flows would touch, they would blacken and disintegrate.  Any part of me, they would scald.  Large red pustules would sprout up from my hands, emitting liquid to counter the pain.  It never did deter me, though.

            That being said, anything shed from a tree was out of the question, along with anything made from material similar to my soft coating.  These flows, they were a force to be reckoned with, but such a miracle form �" such a bright, flying form -  could not escape me.  By the end of the day, they would be mine!

            Perhaps I could create a cage made from the Greylands’ grounds �" yes, that was the answer!  The ground of the Greylands always seemed to resist the orange flows, closing them in and shuttling them in lines to their likings.  There was no guarantee, but if the floating orange flows were anything like the ground orange flows, they would be easy to capture.

            I wanted to pursue them immediately.  But with the presence of the new being in my life, I was faced with a predicament I hadn’t faced before.  “Ragmon!”  I shouted, but there was no response.  “Ragmon!  Return to me!  Where are you, Ragmon?”

            The boy didn’t answer.  “Ragmon!” I continued to shout.  I shouted until the orange flows disappeared behind the distant mountain tops, shouted as the sky darkened to as it was when the boy and I first began our climb.  Never did an answer reach my ears.

            So I sat back down by the tree.  Sulked.  Wondered if I missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to catch the bright orange flows that had migrated into the skies.  Wondered even more about the reason I felt I had to wait for the boy…  There was no logical explanation for it.

            I decided, right then, that perhaps there wasn’t a logical explanation for everything.  Magic was one thing, emotions were another.  The only logic in them is the title one can place upon them to give them a slight meaning.  “Why are the orange flows in the sky?”  “Why, it’s magic.”  “Why are you waiting for the little boy, even though you do not need him at all?”  “Why, it’s emotion.  And perhaps there is a bit of curiosity infused into the mix, as well.”  The explanatory title is the only logic that can be presented in that case, and even then, it is the illogical form of logic, the contradictory form of something that should not be contradicted.  Even moreso, perhaps nothing in the world is purely logical, not even the word “logic” itself.  If, in the course of my entire life thus far, I have only learned one thing, it is that one can always ask why. 

            I had also learned that, although one can ask why, it doesn’t mean one will get an explanation.  Or that the explanation will not conjure up another batch of whys, like why leaves on a why branch on a why tree.

            Somewhere in my course of thinking, I fell back to sleep.  When I woke up, the orange flows had completely descended from the skies.  Ragmon was back at my side, its head on my curved arm-top.

            Perhaps it was all a dream.  Or so I thought, until I saw the long streaks of redness speckling its clothes, its face, its feet, and the long, curved blade that it clamped within its closed fists.  I thought to wake up the boy and ask it what it had been doing while I was asleep.  But then, I remembered that not everything could be explained, and with the dark aura radiating from the little boy, perhaps it would be better that I didn’t ask.

            Then, I saw it.

            A stinking, faceless creature laid at my feet, its fur matted with red liquid and its head and legs invisible to my eye.  A putrid scent assaulted me upon bending in closer, and upon prodding it with the tip of my finger, it merely shifted in place before settling into a more awkward position.  Fur.

            My hand crept up to the mat of brown hair on my head.  I didn’t want to believe that it could possibly have happened… and with a nonthreatening creature like Ragmon?  Taken aback �" an understatement.  Although I wanted an explanation, I simultaneously, and strongly, did not.

            This new world that I am approaching �" ideally, it would be greater than this; although it had impressed me thus far, putrid fur was not a good sign.  I decided to stick it out, for I knew from experience that not everything is ideal.