Chapter 12B: A Past which Plunders the Present

We returned to our ship and set sail to the sea; we set out into the waves and rowed through the steaming water as fiery light set the ocean aflame with color. I pressed the oars with all my strength to guide us toward the nearest island, but Aeliana rested with her back on the floor and stared up at the sky. I couldn’t help but sense a dejection inscribed in her exhaustion, almost like we were wandering wayfarers with a warm welcome where we were once promised eternity but found in the end that it was all a dream borne of wishful thinking. I saw a listless stare in her hazel eyes as she stared up at the sky. She had suffered slashes in her battle with Elijah on shore, but her heart was injured in a way that would not simply heal on its own.

“May I ask what it is that has sullied your soul?” I asked Aeliana as I rowed toward our goal. Strong wind pressed us toward the island with a forceful pull, and just by shifting my feet I kept us under control.

But Aeliana answered as she slowly shook her head, “There were times in this life I thought I was better off dead. I once welcomed the end promised by the cycle that seemed to surround me out in the sands. We are all instruments of death and consumers of life until the day that we ourselves dance upon death’s door. And I know that we as living creatures are meant to defy that cycle and extend our own existence for reasons we don’t entirely understand. It’s a biological imperative that guides us to preserve our own lives and cut short someone else’s cycle. Even you and I now dare to defy the destiny set by death as a desperate daydream or a dreary fantasy. But when I lost my sister in the badlands, for no reason other than that her death facilitated her killer’s dream to defy his own, I wanted nothing more than for my own cycle to sever. I was alive but I had no reason. Not until I felt myself awaken from my emptiness into this dream where I dared to find you. A roaring ocean crossed on a quest I did not understand.”

I asked Aeliana as I stared into her eyes, “I know I have heard you mention your sister many times. She meant everything to you, didn’t she?”

Aeliana steadied her voice and spoke as if to seem strong, “My mother is the one who named me, but she did not stay long. I lost her so long ago that I truly cannot remember if she left by choice or if she were killed by man or monster. I asked Hakula a couple times when we were young, but she always answered that it made no difference. I think that in some ways she like you looked at this world through a tunnel, or at least to some extent. You fixate on a single outcome and dedicate everything to that ambition without any interest in the periphery. But she had no true goal because we lived in a life devoid of hope. We had no brighter future to which we could run. We had no concept of a better life or a better world. She instead sealed the tombs of her own past and hid her history as if it were powerless. I think that was her guiding principle. Don’t ever look down, and don’t ever look back.

“There was a time long ago when we lived in a beautiful canyon lit by the light of fireflies. The shadows in the crags concealed caverns in the canyon where we could finally live with some sense of safety. We had a couple books, we had some tools – practically anything we pilfered from the bodies we found. We had befriended other wanderers who chose to dwell in those same caverns. I traded to them some of my possessions and made Hakula a gift in the form of a stuffed doll which resembled her. I think it was in that cavern I came the closest to seeing her smile. But out in the badlands, nothing good ever truly lasts. If I ever tried to lament that reality, she would simply whisper that it’s the way of the world.

“One day, a ruthless Astrodeus attacked the canyon and struck the caverns. We barely had time to escape with our lives. I begged Hakula to go back so we could somehow save our friends, but she said that they were already gone and nothing could ever change that. They were burned with black fire. I begged her to let me grab the present I made her, but again she said that it was already gone. We ran away from the only home we ever knew, and she would not let me look back. She said there’s nothing back there for us. It wasn’t worth dying over. Don’t look down, and don’t look back. Just run forward and never stop running.”

Our wayward ship drifted upon a current toward the stream of lava, so I set down my oars and wrapped my arms around Aeliana. I could feel her warm skin as her body trembled in my arms. Steam lifted from the splashing waves and swirled all around us, shrouding us from the world which had dealt her this sadness. She smiled at me and gently pressed her lips against mine, but then with a subtle nudge she reassured me that I could continue to steer our stolen ship. She took a moment to gather her thoughts and steady her breaths.

Aeliana continued as if she could think of nothing else, “After I lost her, I tried to rebuild her in myself. My sister lived life like the past would plunder the present but only if you let it. She would not talk about our mother or anyone else we knew and lost. As I say it aloud, I fear it almost paints her in an unfair light, but the truth is that she would hate knowing that I wasted any energy reliving the past even if that is the only way to pretend that her influence did not die with her. She only ever cared about preserving my life at any costs, even to the extent that she resolved to sacrifice herself for me even before we learned that her killer had the same intention. Whenever I tried to ask her why, she insisted that I had some great destiny that transcends the cycle of life and death; she said that my life unlike hers would warp the course of history. But after I lost her, I doubted the existence of this alleged fate. I not only doubted and denied this destiny; I detested and deferred this destiny. I blamed it for taking her from me when I was so certain that I would die in the dirt like anyone else. I hated myself because I missed her so much. She died to defend me when I was worth nothing. She meant everything to me. Everything I had in this world I had because of her.”

I said as the splashing sea surrounded us in steam, “I think that I may know exactly what you mean. We lose a part of ourselves when we lose someone else.”

“I think I nearly let myself starve just to ponder the reasons, but I know in the end that life changes like the seasons. She lived her life like she was already dead, and in that way it was autumn in my head. When I lost her it then turned to winter in my heart – a permanent winter as we are forever apart. But I drove myself to find you and turned winter into spring; it was a rebirth of myself because you are my favorite thing. We stand now on the cusp of summer with hand in bloody hand. We will summon the summer and smash all this world to sand.”

Note: There is still one more part to this chapter!