Beating (Book 1: Acts of the Hearth)

Chapter 28

Travis watches the young chief from below. He is soon welcomed by a familiar sting at his fingertips as Walles steps down from the stone. The young man ignores the burning pain from the Blessing and rushes over to the young leader.

     “Walles, why are you in such a hurry to go back to that place? Your people still haven’t fully recovered.” Travis expresses to him with great concern. “Why should my son listen to a man who has run from his duties as leader?” Angela addresses to Travis with contempt in her voice. The young man turns his attention to her.

     “What do you know about me? Never mind! Walles, why don’t you take some time to think about your people? Just like in your speech, these people have lost family to this threat.” Travis pleads with Walles.

     “Travis, prince of the Kingdom of Hearth. One of the five Kingdoms in the Cauldron Empire. Yet, here he is fleeing from his responsibilities to encourage others in acts of cowardice.” the older woman states partially talking over Travis’s previous statement.

     “We know about you from a tribe member who returned after you killed your uncle for the throne.” the woman reveals looking the young man over. “All that effort to take it for yourself and as soon as you have it—Flee, flee, run away; it’s all too much responsibility!” she taunts him in a small whiny voice.

     Travis ignores her and continues talking to Walles. “I am here to talk or listen, if you change your mind. You are their leader. Their lives are in your hands, but don’t be afraid to ask for help.” he conveys one last time before turning away to leave.

     “Well, look at that? The coward prince is fleeing from our sight just like he is renowned for! Can’t even stand up to a woman...” Angela barks as Walles stares at Travis’s back with growing concern. The boy’s mother notices the hesitation. She aggressively grips onto his shoulders and looks into his eyes.

     “I know that look. Wipe it out of your eyes! You are a VeChrome—Chief of the VeChrome! Your father would not worry or fear when he went into battle. Why should you? You are his successor! Make him proud! Make me proud!” the woman ends her provoking speech after shaking him a bit.

     “I will, I won’t flee. I will finish the fight. I am a VeChrome warrior just like Dad…” the boy chants to himself as he thinks back to the image of splatter that was left behind by his father’s remains.

Surveying the area before the deadline…

 

     Travis walks past crowds of people, bumping into them along the way. The people move about unphased by the announcement. Men sharpen their weapons as the women fix the garments from the previous battle. The young man looks around him.

     Vivian and Damen approach him as Damen hands him a skewer. “It’s amazing how these people can so confidently make food on a stick like this. I hear many of their warriors ended up just like these vegetables…” he describes while spinning the food around by the stick.

     “That’s really dark, Damen. But, I can’t say I disagree. These people are throwing the men in their families to certain death and haven’t so much as flinched. As much as I want to be amused by it. It’s actually really depressing…” Vivian adds while rubbing her arm.

     Travis continues walking, refusing to eat the skewer. “We have a deadline to beat. I need to see what is going on in the place where the gray shadows are spawning from, before Walles gets more of these people killed.” he exclaims before he jumps up and takes flight with his wings out.

     The young man travels a short distance with the help of his wings sprouting out of the robe. As they shortly disappear, he stumbles to the ground below with skids of mud. Vivian and Damen look at one another as they eat the skewers. The young woman runs off as the sprint causes a vertical rip along the length of her dress. Damen looks at her and Travis in the distance.

     “Nothing to do with these two, but keep up or get left behind.” he expresses with a sigh before he casually walks off to catch up. Travis kicks off of the ground with greater force and gains air. “Stay out…! Stay out, dammit!” he shouts as the wings grow wider. The larger wings flap with strong wing beats.

     The greater wings cut through the winds that push against him. For his next move, he tries to turn with the wings; making motion for an evasive maneuver. Travis then pulls up quickly and dives down with a quick dip.

     From high up above, he can see the varying differences of the land. The encampment of the tribe was a dark brown—similar to mud, the lands farther out; lifeless and dried out. The cracks in the ground are visible to him even at the height he flies. The perishing landscape before him had no definable metric shape to describe the way it stretched out.

     A thought soon pops into Travis’s head to visit the outer distances of the area of warning. He looks down at the lands to get an idea of where to swoop in. With a kick back against the air, Travis readies himself to take off.

     Two stones fly up to where he is and strikes the tip of his right foot and right wing. Travis looks right below himself and notices the hue of purple from Vivian’s dress. He looks down at her and tries to descend smoothly by folding his wings back.

     The drop pulls him down faster than he expects as he widens the wings to slow it; flapping them to decrease the descend. When he finally reaches the surface below, he is met by Vivian’s scowling face.

     “You were just about to fly off to those shadows weren’t you?” she asks him with her arms folded. Travis disengages his wings and places his feet on the ground. “Yeah…but, I was only planning on—” he speaks, quickly cutting himself off mid-speech. “Hold on! Did you throw those rocks at me with your bare hands?!” he inquires of her.

     “What? No?! I nabbed one of their slings to fling them.” she says showing him the thick braided vines. “Just how strong do you think I am?” Travis changes the subject. “I need to test out the powers of Zae in actual combat against these things. You heard his speech! He is planning to go back out there and risk his death in two days!”

     Vivian claps her hands to the syllables she speaks in front of his face. “So! What?! Does that mean you should go to risk yours out there to see how dangerous it is?! Think for a second!” the young woman shouts while pointing her finger at him.

     The young man tilts his head back at the shorter woman’s finger pointed at his nose. “You’re telling me not to do it on my own, right?” he says with drifting eyes between her face and finger. Vivian smiles and sighs softly. “Of course I am, don’t go doing anything stupid.”

     The two smile at each other as she lowers her finger. Travis turns and walks away from her for a moment. The young man quickly snaps back around and charges at her. Vivian raises her fist and lands a solid punch at his nose. Travis pushes right through the pain and wraps both of his arms around her waist, taking off into the skies.

     Vivian yells loudly as they reach greater heights. She takes a moment to look at Travis and the damage to his face. “Sorry! It’s a really instinctive habit I have—that I don’t plan to break…!”