32nd of Saun, Arc 720
It was just a little too bright out for Cierne’s liking but that wasn’t going to stop her from spending quality time with Diaval
They had agreed to explore the damages left in the wake of the earthquake that occurred on the thirtieth. That being said, Cierne was waiting just outside her tent for her friend, knapsack slung over her shoulder and filled with things she figured she might need on their adventure.
She had her water skin, a couple rations in case they got hungry and didn’t have enough money to buy a snack, some rope, an extra set of clothes, her camping knife (you never know who or what you might run into) and a journal with its associated writing utensil (to document her experience if she found it worthy of doing so).
She had been waiting approximately ten minutes before Diaval showed up, out of breath and bearing his own bag full of unknown items.
“What took you so long?” Cierne inquired, narrowing her eyes at her companion. While she hadn’t been waiting long, she was not known for her patience.
“Impatient much?” Diaval countered with a smirk. He brushed his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. A few strands remained stuck with sweat near his temples.
“What, did you run here?”
Diaval sucked in a deep breath of air. “Maybe,” he said with a short bark of a laugh. “My parents requested I help them move some furniture. While they have fixed most of the damages to their house, my mom found it was the perfect time to move things around.”
Cierne grunted. She had little if any furniture to move around, earthquake or not, so she couldn’t relate to Diaval’s mother and her obsessive compulsions to clean and redecorate.
“Well, now that you’re here we can get on with this,” Cierne said, playfully nudging the Biqaj in his side.
She turned and started walking into Gleam, her friend following behind her closely. Once he came up to her side and began matching her stride, she asked him what he had packed in his bag.
He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Just some essentials. And definitely some water. It’s hot today,” he replied.
Cierne could agree to that. She tucked her hair behind her ears and flapped the back of her hair away from her neck in order to ventilate the area. A thin sheen of sweat had started to form on her back and she didn’t like the sticky feeling it gave her.
Once they had arrived in Gleam, Cierne stopped at a ramshackle building. It’s roofing had caved in and one of its windows had been shattered behind repair.
“Look,” Cierne pointed out, coming closer to the building to investigate further.
She observed the damages, paying closer attention to how the window wasn’t just shattered, but how it’s framing had been dislodged from its position on the building’s exterior.
“Damn,” Diaval commented, taking a swig from his waterskin that he had suddenly pulled out from his knapsack.
“Thirsty already?” Cierne remarked with a chuckle.
“Hey, I just ran to your tent! Give me some slack.”
The Naer held up her hands in surrender. “Truce,” she announced before walking to the front of the building.
“Isn’t it weird that the earth can do this?”
Diaval cocked his head to the side and joined Cierne at the front of the building. “What, cause destruction?”
Cierne nodded her head, seemingly lost in thought. “Yea, like, rumble so violently and basically uproot everything that rests on it. Like this building.” She pointed again to the collapsed roof.
“Why is it weird though? I mean, you can manipulate the earth so I’d think you’d know a lot about it.”
Cierne bit her lip and shied away. She had told Diaval about how she had helped a man with a broken leg trapped between a broken building and its collapsed wall, and she had also told him that the result of her use of magic had taken an extreme toll on her.
“Yea, but you remember what happened after I moved the earth,” she said, reminding him of her overstepping.
Diaval became silent, but put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “How are you feeling after that?” He finally asked, a look of concern crossing his flawless face. His eyes were a deep golden and reflected the rays of the sun at perfect angles.
Cierne shrugged and in turn removed Diaval’s hand from her shoulder. “I’m still super exhausted and sad about the whole thing, but don’t you dare tell anyone I told you that.”
Diaval smiled slightly. “Cierne the tough,” he muttered, making Cierne smile as well.
The Biqaj suddenly took off, leaving Cierne with no other choice but to follow.
“Check this out,” came her friend’s voice from behind a cluster of trash barrels.
The Naer walked cautiously over to where Diaval sat crouched down next to what appeared to be a broken painting of a sunset. He carefully extracted the painting from its hold within the glass framing, narrowly missing cutting himself on the sharp shards.
“It’s pretty,” Cierne commented.
“Here, take it,” Diaval said, handing her the painting.
“What, why?”
“I’m offering you a gift for going on this adventure with me,” he replied, rolling the painting up and gently stuffing it inside her bag.
Cierne giggled wildly at his gesture and ruffled up his hair with her hand. “Why, thank you,” she purred.
Diaval rolled his eyes and continued with his search. They strolled away from the many barrels of trash and into the street, casually looking at all the damaged buildings.
Cierne side stepped past an overturned barrel of trash and found herself walking down a narrow alleyway. She didn’t know what she was looking for, if she was indeed looking for anything at all, but she caught something out of the corner of her eye and roughly pulled her companion to join her in inspecting whatever it was.
A small crevice had formed in the earth beside a wagon that was probably used to export goods to the building it was stationed beside. The crack in the earth was approximately a foot in diameter but not more than a few inches wide; it was still interesting to the Naer all the same.
“What if there’s some sinister beast that lives under us and that earthquake was its attempt at breaking the surface?” She suggested, crouching down to begin prodding at the crack in the ground.
Diaval scrunched up his face. “That’s not creepy at all,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.
“Consider me darkly creative,” Cierne retorted with a malicious, yet playful laugh.
“I wonder how far down it goes…” Diaval said, ignoring the Naer’s strangeness.
“That is something I have no interest in finding out.”
Diaval puckered his lips and narrowed his eyes while raising one eyebrow- one of his many looks of suspicion and confusion muddle into one. “And why’s that?” He asked, crouching down next to the girl.
She looked at him and widened her eyes. “Because we might discover a beast.”
Diaval backpeddled, literally, and held up his hands in surrender. “Oookay, say no more.”
Cierne got up and began to continue her path through the alleyway, her friend in tow. She was smiling to herself at Diaval’s theatrical response.
She then heard him rummaging around inside his bag. She also heard him make a lip smacking sound followed by a noisy exhalation of gratitude. Assuming he had taken another drink from his water skin, she felt it would be a good time to do so herself. She extracted her own waterskin and took a generous gulp.
“Anything terrible happen to your place?” The Biqaj asked, coming up beside her.
Cierne shrugged. “Not too much. It’s a tent. When it’s not sturdy, it’s relatively easy to repair,” she explained, dodging a heap of trash that hindered their path.
“I’m glad. Otherwise I might have been obliged to offer you a stay at my parents, that is if Everton didn’t offer first. Speaking of…”
Cierne cut him off. Not because she didn’t want to continue the conversation per se, but because it bored her when there was nothing much to discuss.
“Everyone is fine at Everton’s.”
Diaval smiled, showing perfectly straight, albeit slightly yellowed teeth. “Another thing to be glad about.”
“You’re awfully chipper today,” Cierne pointed out, poking him in the chest gently.
“What’s there not to be happy about? Everyone is safe, no one is injured that we know of, and repairs to the city are going pretty much without a hitch!”
Cierne pushed out her bottom lip and nodded her head in agreeance. “I suppose you’re right.”
The Naer hadn’t been paying much attention to her surroundings as her focus had been on Diaval and his continuous questioning, so when she found herself lost, she wasn’t surprised.
“Hey, Dee,” she said, looking around and feeling a slight jolt of anxiety rack through her body. “Where are we?”
“Hmm?” Diaval mirrored his friend’s actions by surveying his surroundings. “I have no idea where we are, but I’m sure if we just retrace our steps we’ll eventually come across something familiar.”
Diaval took Cierne’s hand and redirected her back the way they had come. Nothing about their environment changed for the longest time. It was all alleyway, trash barrel, alleyway for several minutes, until the wagon with the crack in the ground beside it came into view.
“Oh, what a life saver you are!” Exclaimed Cierne with mock relief. She even placed her hand over her chest to boot.
“Har har. You know I could have easily just taken off and found my own way. I didn’t have to bring you with me.”
Cierne eyed him. “But you did,” she taunted with a smirk. “Admit it, I bring so much to this friendship, you’d be at a loss without me!”
Diaval rolled his eyes. “And you’d be lost without me.”
“Touché.”
“Touché.”
The two ambled back to the decrepit building with the collapsed roof and shattered window where they dejectedly said their goodbyes. Diaval had to return to his parents for more cleaning and Cierne probably had an angry ghost to deal with back at her tent.
“I’m glad everyone is okay,” Diaval said with sincerity, giving Cierne a quick hug.
“Me too. We should hang out again soon!” Cierne loved hanging out with Diaval. He was the only true friend she had ever known.
The Biqaj smiled. “Definitely.”
And so they went their separate ways… for now.
x
