Sahlie Bikan's Story

Another person ignored much of the theatrics as well, as he rushed into the bar. He quickly latched onto the nearest person, in this case, Lord Narkaloxan, and shook the man(?) with frenzied panic while blabbering rapidly.

"Shit, man. Did you bring the money? Did you bring it? If you didn't bring it then they're gonna hafta send Tony. Do you understand me? Fucking. *Tony*. No one likes Tony paying us a visit. Bad things happen when he comes to check up on us, ya dig what I'm saying? Did you bring the goddamn money?"

The man, his 'job' done, simply kicked his legs up onto the table. His head turned towards the wall, and he pitched his voice so the location and tone would be difficult to determine. He said three simple words. "No one cares!" The sound echoed around the wood of the bar for a few seconds before dissipating.

The only shaking Sahlie did was from containing laughter and trying to keep his voice stable. Undeterred, he continued with his response. "Laaaaaaame! If you're done, then get out!" Again, the sound of the voice lingered for a few seconds before fading away.

Only then did he turn forward again and pretend that nothing had happened. His hands lazily reached behind his head to serve as a pillow, he closed his eyes.

"Well, that was no fun at all," drawled the man as the shockwave rumbled through the bar. "Damn bastard couldn't even play along."

With a sigh, he opened his eyes and glanced around. Seeing a distinct lack of people to bother caused the man to make up his mind. His legs flipped off the table and carried him out the door at an easy pace.

Sahlie Bikan makes mistakes sometimes.

"Man, think about the people watching one in a while, you unthoughtful bastards," Sahlie told the men, very, very quietly. He quickly fumbled out of the booth, ducking towards the window. It slammed open, and he proceeded to the panda, wide-eyed. "I don't think you understand, how can you be singing right now? We didn't have the money! Now, fucking Vladmir and his crew are here to get us. We're all gonna dieeeeee," he wailed.

"Oh, shit. Peter? You must be new. I told Vlad I would have the package by today, but that was really no reason to just come in and kill everyone else. I mean, I know you're after me and shit, so spare them," he quipped back while carefully opening the door. Sahlie took in a few lungfuls of the gas, but it didn't burn as much as he expected.

In fact, the slow-yet-sped-up healing he had seemed to be negating most of the negative effects, leaving him only a bit itchy. Nothing a bit of baby lotion wouldn't fix later. Otherwise, he peered through the green fog, trying to figure out what was happening. Not as much fun when you couldn't see what was happening.

The side door of the bar creaked open, and before it clicked closed again, a man quickly slid inside, dusting himself off. He subtly made his way to a booth while giving an appraising glance to all the current patrons. As the man made himself invisible as possible, he pondered what he would be doing today, seeming deep in thought. When a robot bartender found its way to him, he waved it off, simply asking for a glass of water.

"Because that makes you so much better than everyone else," commented Sangrei from a few seats down, "Plenty of us are here to enjoy a drink, but certainly your threat isn't helping."

He sighed. "Probably because the other plenty would take you up on your offer and deflect the bullets into other patrons using some kind of magical or technological shield."

The crackling of a fire greeted Cináed as his eyes flickered open. The first thing he noticed was the lack of snowfall, the constant whiteness that had plagued his vision for almost a week. Then he began to become more aware of where he actually was. He wasn't curled up in some cave with a pitiful campfire for light. He was in a bed - a soft, comfortable bed - and a roof and walls were around him. The wooden construction of a log cabin of some sort, just the type you might expect to find in the mountains.

With a groan, he pushed himself upwards, vision swimming slightly as he sat up.

"Hey!" a voice called, "Don't be so hasty! Lie back down, for pity's sake!"

Cináed blinked blearily, trying to regain focus as he looked towards the source of the voice. When he was able to see clearly, his eyes settled on the figure of a dark-haired woman, sat on a stool across the room from the bed where he lay. She looked to be in her mid to late thirties, her face holding a maturity to it without an excess of signs of ageing. She was finely featured in an elegant way, not traditionally beautiful, but nor was she homely. Her eyes were hazel, and her brow was furrowed in concern. "Heavens, child, it's hardly been a day since a hunting party found you in the snow. You're in no state to be sitting up so suddenly."

It had been a whole day? It had felt like barely five minutes had passed since he fell. Cináed ran a hand through his hair, the motion causing his bedclothes to slip down. This in turn caused him to realise that aside from undergarments, his clothes were missing. "I- where am I?" he managed to stammer out, reddening slightly.

The woman sighed in exasperation, "If you insist on sitting up, let me get you something to drink and to eat. You look practically wasted away. You're in Windcrest, a city nestled in the icy peaks. My name is Anaiya Thorn, I am a doctor, and this is my home."

Cináed breathed out slowly, leaning back against the wall. His stomach sounded its approval of the idea of something to eat, making him painfully aware of the dull ache down there from lack of food. "Thank you... for saving me." he said after a pause during which Anaiya bustled about preparing food and drink.

"It's not me you have to thank, child," she replied, turning to look at him. "The hunters who spotted you on the trail are the ones you owe your life to. If they hadn't passed by when they had..." the woman paused. "Well, I was about to say you'd likely have been buried by the snow and they'd have had not a chance of finding you, but you're a special case there. They say when they found you, you were surrounded by a ring of clear ground. And since you've been here, you've been giving off almost as much heat as my fire."

Cináed nodded bashfully, "Yeah, fire and heat is... my thing." he said lamely, "I was using the heat to stay alive out there."

"A good thing, too!" Anaiya stated as she turned to bring a tray of bread and soup over, complete with a glass of water and mug of tea. "Without that, you might even already have been buried, and no doubt long dead. Now, eat up. Heavens know you need the strength, how long had you been out there? And what's your name, child?"

Taking the food gratefully, Cináed took a long drink of the water before he spoke. "I've been travelling for almost a month now." he said, shaking his head, "I'm from Wing City. I... misjudged the distance, and didn't pack enough supplies. My name is Cináed. Just Cináed, I don't have a last name."

Anaiya fixed Cináed with a disbelieving stare. "Wing City?" she repeated, "What on Terra is a child doing travelling all the way from there to here alone? Especially one who is quite clearly a fool with no concept of how dangerous travelling out here unprepared is."

Cináed reddened slightly with embarrassment. "I'm uhm... I ... this is going to sound ridiculous, but I dreamed that I ought to come here. To a temple."

That seemed to inspire some sort of recognition in Anaiya, because her lips pursed irritably. "I see. The temple." The woman turned and made her way over to a cabinet, grumbling under her breath. "If we start finding clueless children dying out in the blizzard because of some light cursed visions, I am going to have words with them. It's nothing short of irresponsible!"

Blinking, Cináed watched Anaiya as she pulled some vials from the cupboard, chewing on a soup-coated hunk of bread. "Them?" he asked after swallowing.

Anaiya turned back towards him, crossing over to pour a few drops of a liquid into his tea. "Them-" she repeated, interrupting herself to add "Drink that. The Patronus. They're the ones who live in the temple you speak of. It's under a day's journey up the mountain from here. I have no doubt they're responsible for those dreams in some manner. You'd think they'd be smarter than to send dreams of adventure to clueless children and then expect them not to endanger their lives out here."

Cináed continued to flush embarrassedly at the woman's exasperation with his admittedly incredibly stupid mistake. He ate his meal in silence whilst she bustled around the small open-plan cabin. Finally, Anaiya seemed to realise his shame, and sat down on her stool again with a sigh. "Cináed. Don't let my ranting make you feel bad. How old are you?"

"Seventeen." he replied softly, sighing.

Anaiya chuckled to herself. "When I was seventeen, I tried to prove to my father that I was just as capable as him as a hunter. He kept forbidding me to hunt because I was a woman. It just so happened that there was a giant boar roaming the woods near our village that none of the hunters had been able to bring down. So, naturally, you know what prey I went after to make my point."

The woman shook her head, "I was almost gored to death. It broke my bow and sent me fleeing up a tree. If my friend hadn't fetched the other villagers to chase it away, it would have knocked me loose before long and I wouldn't be here today. So on the matter of being a fool of a child, you can safely say that you're doing better than I am. You made an error of judgement. I was just an idiot. We're all fools who think ourselves invincible in our teens." She rolled her eyes.

Cináed smiled at the story. "Thanks. I guess so." he sighed, "It didn't dawn on me that I might actually die until I'd gone too far to turn back."

Anaiya gave the teen a sympathetic smile, "You made it, though. Even if you covered the last few miles in an unconventional manner. Your gear is hanging out to dry just across the room. I automatically removed your clothes since they were soaking - this was before I'd quite cottoned onto the heat aura you have going for you. Still, you needn't worry about your decency. I am a doctor after all, I see more than that on a daily basis."

Cináed leaned back with a sigh, nodding. "I hope I haven't caused too much inconvenience."

"None at all. I have a separate bed for patients who I have to observe overnight, I regularly have 'guests' of this nature." Anaiya rose to her feet, moving back to her medicines and settling down to work on grinding some herbs. She glanced back over her shoulder then, "And I won't have you leaving that bed for another few days. You need to eat well and recover your strength!"

And there Cináed had been about to pull himself fully out of the bed. He supposed that Anaiya was right though. He hadn't eaten that poorly ... well, ever, and he was definitely feeling it. The temple could wait a few more days, after all.

"I'm following a flaming road to a frozen mountain because my fucking subconscious told me to. I think there's something wrong with me, wouldn't you say?" the trickster inquired to his reflection in a window as he exited the length of Sol Avenue.

"Yeah, you must be pretty damn crazy. But you know what they say, follow your dreams, right?" came the reply. Of course, his reflection wasn't talking. Or perhaps it was, but only through the mimicry that reflections tended to do.

"So I'm talking to myself, is how crazy I am, is that it?" he asked, entwining his fingers behind his head and continuing his stroll lazily. "You're only crazy if you're answering yourself, too."

"But you are. Damn, well that makes me feel better about doing this." The lone man sighed, and continued towards the great wilderness. But not really, because there were still buildings up ahead.

"Yes, the sketchiest part of town. Now this is my kinda place. Wonder if the strip clubs are open in the day? Hmm. Oh, wait. I'm broke. Yeah, never mind, right?" Well, when he didn't have anyone to talk to, a great companion was himself, right?

From the darkness of an alleyway, there were some moans - or perhaps sounds of pain - echoing among the bleak walls. Sahlie rolled his eyes, peering in from the edge of the sidewalk. He didn't want to be any closer than necessary to perhaps scar his mind.

"Hey, doing it outside in an alley in the morning isn't really a romantic thing, you know?" The figure hunched over in the alleyway, which seemed to have its face pressed against another figure's neck, looked up with glowing eyes, snarling. "None of your business."

Well, that was either going to be a really big mark in the morning for the other, or it was a vampire feeding. In this part of town, it was really hard to say. The man nodded cheerfully, flipping the bird towards the narrow crevice between buildings and quipping, "Fuck you too, buddy. Hope your girlfriend kicks you in the balls!"

Yeah, take that, vampires or exhibitionists! Both! Hopefully, at least.

A loud growl got him running down the street, but the lack of footsteps meant that he would get away. Away, away towards the gate. Freedom. Fire. And ice. And mountains.

This was going to be a long walk.

The gate cast a huge shadow over Sahlie, sun overhead at this time. Otherwise, he was making good time through the city. "With any luck, I'll be where I'm going in a few years," he lamented to himself. "It's not like I know exactly where I'm going and how long it's going to take. I probably should've brought some more food."

The backpack he had with him had some basic camping supplies, along with enough to survive for a week, maybe. Hopefully that would be enough.

Well under the towering structure, he paused for a short break. It wasn't as though the magical dream-that-was-probably-his-subconscious had told him a specific time to get there. "I'm sure I have time for a break, right, brain?"

Not a long one, though. The trickster was off again, shoes thumping quietly on the solidness of the road.

"Hey, I can see my house from here!" Sahlie commented excitedly, looking left to his friend. Oh, wait. There wasn't any friend. "That's not your house. But, those are the mountains you're looking for, stupid," he replied to himself.

Miming writing in a journal, he proclaimed, "Entry 40. Sun will be setting soon. I'm still talking to myself, in hopes that somehow an attractive woman will fall out of the sky to accompany on my quest. No luck yet. Mountains are in sight, though I could really do with the flaming path now. Better get to somewhere safe before the wolves jump on me and loot my body. Also, probably breaking out the coat now."

A deep breath exited his lips. The coat found its way prematurely out of his backpack and onto him. Winter was coming, so to speak.

"It's fucking cold. I wish I had another jacket. Well, at least I'm alive...for now."

Onward. Sahlie continued his long trek up the road up the mountains. A lot of up and not enough down, to be honest.

"A walking merchant? I didn't know those existed anymore," Sahlie mumbled to himself. Of course, not that he wasn't thankful. Otherwise, he would've run out of food in a few more days. Luckily, there had been a friendly man also making a trek up the trail. He had to wonder why the salesman didn't just drive, but that would be jinxing his luck.

For now, fire, decent food, and sleep. It was going to get colder, but at least he had bought another coat. Or two, rather.

"Entry 63. I had to eat a couple snakes which I caught with my bare hands. It's still goddamn cold. Talking to myself has not yet bourne any fruit. Speaking of fruit, I had my last apple today. It was fucking delicious. Did I mention it's still cold? Oh, and that nice man I met today told me there's a river up ahead. You know what that means, imaginary journal? It's gonna get fucking colder. End entry."

It had been a long few days, but it wasn't as though the new one was going to be any better.

"Oh thank fucking Loki and anyone else who responds to my non-existant prayers, there is a bridge!" The trickster made way for the wonderful safety of the used and potentially dangerous bridge.

It was still better than fording the river.

The fast-moving water was now easily audible, signifying impeding doom if a fall were to happen. Sahlie slowly pressed a foot onto the wood, checking the strength. Assured it was decent enough, he began walking across, avoiding the sketchiest parts of the bridge. At the middle, he paused and scowled down at the water. "Fuck you, cold, cold, death. Not today."

"Entry 79. Remember to find out if civil services come out here for maintanance. Note that depending on the answer, violence may be necessary. End entry."

"Entry 91. The dream keeps happening, and the flames don't exactly appear when I'm awake. In other words, I'm fucking lost and hungry. Supplies are low, I'm wearing all three coats and it's still cold and talking to myself is stil fruitless. No actual fruit either, which is a shame. But, as long as I keep walking forward, there will be an end. Reminder to myself that I'm insane for deciding to do this based on something my brain told me while I was sleeping. I'd like to hope there's gold at the end of the rainbow. Maybe it's just death. May have to start hunting for real soon. Good thing my knife's still sharp.

Hope those wolves that I made fun of earlier don't catch me in my sleep. End entry."

In order to preserve supplies, Sahlie had begun hunting a few days ago, having little luck and wasting precious energy. On the third day, catching a rabbit sucessfully had actually brought him towards a clearing in the trees. He was dirty, cold and hungry, but at least he was out of the forest. Instead, what faced him was a path, looking rather precarious.

It was worth stalling out a night to tackle it on a fully-rested body. The survival knife was in his hand during the climb, in case he slipped, and the trickster proceeded forward very slowly. Just because there was nothing special about him did not mean he had no fortitude. A narrow fall nearly brought him off the edge, but he didn't slide a whole lot and thankfully had stabbed the blade into the weakened stone, saving his life.

There were no more problems after that, except the adrenaline that brought him to the end of the path. Sahlie refused to go any further that day, digging a small hole into some snow and spending the night there.

"Entry 108. Have some bread and rabbit left. Maybe another day or two if I stretch it. Luckily, shit doesn't spoil up here, except my good mood and sanity. I will feast like a king tonight, if kings had to climb mountains and eat nothing. It's still fucking cold, but that's nothing new. Knife is a bit duller now, but I'm alive. Barely. If I'm insane, at least I'll see it to the end."