Chapter Fourteen

(This is incomplete... This will update constantly with my progress. 
Also I would like to address the older chapters aren't written as well as my newer ones. When I stopped then came back to this. My writing style has changed. I'm not really sure why. I may eventually go back to fix them, however I don't want to stop the flow of my creativity right now. Soo... yeah, lol. )

After the sun had arise, men laughed and sing, while filling their guts with rum and ale. One especially drunk man with red hair, and an eyepatch over his right eye, began dancing on one of the tables, singing a shanty of wanting to be a pirate, and sail the open seas. Of course he was already a pirate, but that was besides the point. At times, the others would join in to sing, sort of like a back up chorus. During the chorus, a small boy, was pulled away by an older lass, whose possibly as drunk as any other man on this ship. 

From the table you could hear a much older, larger man with a thick black beard. and rough exterior yell out, "She fancies you, lad!" He would then burst out with loud laughter, followed along by some of the others at his table, while the boy, who was probably the more sober of the bunch, had a very nervous look about him, as he began to dance awkwardly. Among this group gathered at the table were also a much taller man with a stern, yet, wise, face. He was only in his thirties, but just by looking in his eyes, one could tell he was wise beyond his years, even now as drunk as he was.

There was also one more at the table, Fenix; who appeared perfectly sober, yet was putting away rum with the best of them. He tried to resist the urge to smack Elizabeth upside the head, while she annoyedly pulled at his arm. 

"Felix!" Elizabeth continuously whines. 

"My name is Fenix kid, not Felix, for the LAST time!" Fenix angrily snapped back. (I can't believe I got stuck babysitting this little rodent.)

"I wanna see the deck! Take me! Take me, me, me!  Please Phoenix, mister smelly, birdy - man!" Elizabeth cried louder. 

"Fine!" Fenix finally gave in, "As long as you clamp that trap of yours shut!" 

---

The captain walked through the hallways of the lower deck of his ship, it was a magnificent thing, this ship. It was as if it had a spirit of its own, that guided him on the path of righteousness. Taking a deep calm breath, his mind began to wander. He had known no other life than the sea. No love, no relationships, not one single friend outside of the crew. 

Sighing, he reached out and touched the hull. "But it was worth it." He said quietly to himself, and continued walking along the massive ship. It's very strong and heavily armed with cannons. It didn't take him long to walk around a corner to the observation deck, at the rear of the ship. From there he paused, only to look over at clouds. Shortly his glance is redirected to a small child, running about the deck, chasing after a wolf, followed by a slow paced man. 

He turned to Fenix to ask, "She's quite the handful, isn't she?" 

"More than you'll ever know." Fenix sighed, right before swallowing down another gulp of rum, from the bottle, which he held tightly in one grasping hand. 

The captain scratched idly at his neatly trimmed beard, "Where's the mother? She on board?" 

Fenix curiously watched a woman stumbled across the deck, on a wooden peg leg. Eventually he gave a response, by saying, "She didn't make it." Then he offers the captain a drink, and he happily accepted. 

---

Rolling over in his bunk bed, Lyrist listened to the seagulls, as they chirped, right outside the round window. Then he peered down, to look at Blazerine, lying in the bunk below his. 

It's been four days already, since they've embarked on a journey, out to sea. During those days, he has yet heard Blazerine's voice, not even once, she has spoken since the rescue. Fenix basically has said, she might as well just be dead to the world. But he never needed to hear her speak verbally, for he could always hear what's going on inside of her mind. If there ever were a bad time to see through someone's eyes, it was now. She, herself felt defeated, broken, and guilt is washing all over her, partially due to Sinner's death. He too, himself, did not know how to break it to Fenix either. Nor could he say anything about the downfall of Kenelem Kingdom, to her. 

Slowly, he lowered himself from his bunk, and landed beside hers. 
It wasn't very visible to the naked eye, but he could see that she's shaking in her gown, which he had managed to swap out from the cargo bay below. Suddenly his head turned to the sound of the door opening.

"Any changes today?" Fenix asked, upon barging in. 

Lyrist was about to answer, until he noticed the girl wasn't with him, "Where's Elizabeth?" He questioned.

Fenix closes the door while saying, "She's playing around with the captain and the mutt." Then he mentions, "I had an interesting conversation with him. He said the queen and a few of em royalty types were on the other ship. It's a possibility, Leo could be too." 

Lyrist's face hardened at the thought. "If that's true..." He said, "Even more humans will be aware of Blazerine's existence."

Fenix dropped himself into the lowest bunk, which is on the opposite side of the wall.  "That could be a problem." He sighed, "Most of the survivors on this ship haven't even spewed a single word about us. I'm betting the queen won't do the same." 

"Do you have the slightest idea where we are heading?" Lyrist asked him. 

Fenix laid back with his arms folded over along the back of his head. Once he's comfortable enough, he replied, "Freyrgard, the queen is paying the crew for the safe arrival of her people."

Lyrist's eyes shift over to him, "I hope you're aware that we're going to have to get off the ship before we reach Freyrgard."

"Yah, yah I know." Fenix yawned quietly, "Maybe we'll meet up with Sinner then." 

Blazerine suddenly sat up fast, after he finished his statement. 

"Blazerine!" Lyrist gasped. 

Fenix looked on over and laughed, "Boy she shot up straight, like a bat outta hell." 

Blazerine felt a tremor of fear as she summoned a enough courage to blurt out, "Sinner, he's, he's dead. They, they killed him.... I couldn't, I tried, I tried to save him, but I couldn't! I'm sorry!"  Even though she said this, Fenix didn't look the least bit upset. His usual goofy smile was still plastered across his face. 

"So that's why you haven't been moving a muscle." Fenix laughed once again, "You're taking this a lot harder than Leon and I ever would."

"Fenix..." Blazerine began to shed a few tears now. 

Shortly Fenix climbed out of the bunk and headed to the door, but he stopped only to say,  "I don't like seeing you this way Blaze. So return back to your old manly self soon, okay?" 

As soon as Fenix was about to let himself out, he felt a pair of arms latched around his waistline, from behind. His long black hair, cascaded down onto his shoulders, despite the messy ponytail, which created some restraint to its actual length. Awkwardly he looked back, only to see Blazerine holding onto him. He didn't really know how to react to the situation. The most he did, was pat one of her arms and said, "There, there," 

"I never knew what it was like to have friends until I met you guys." Blazerine weeped against his back, "Up until now, people have always just existed in my life, but I never have been in theirs."  

Lyrist smiled, while he watched the two of them. However all that did was make Fenix feel even more embarrassed than before. 

"She fancies you, lad!" Elizabeth giggled from outside the crack of the door. 

Lyrist tilted his head slightly at Fenix, "Now where did she learn that from? You took her down below, didn't you?" He asked. 

Fenix angrily squirms out of Blazerine's grasp, bellowing, "That little rat! She promised she wouldn't snitch! I guess a woman can't be trusted, no matter the age!" Then he threw the door open and chased after her. 

Blazerine stood there, confused by what had just taken place. For a second she thought of asking Lyrist, but changed her mind. She eventually said, "I don't think I even wanna know." 

Lyrist took Blazerine's hand and turned the palm faced up, before placing down her sunglasses. "We've all got secrets, we want to hide from everyone, from ourselves, but there's always a shadow of truth. Denying it... is like denying ourselves.” There was a small pause as he thought about the next choice of words. "I don't care if you think that what we did was stupid and reckless. We know you didn't ask to be saved, but we wanted to. And if you honestly think, we should have left you to die in that place, that it would be doing us all a favor, you're wrong. I don't want to hear you think that way ever again, understand?" 

"Lyrist..." She began to say. 

He placed a hand upon her shoulder, "Anybody who has gone through so much pain, torment and anguish as you. It takes a lot of strength to carry on, and in fact, maybe even more strength than you've got right now, or ever will have. But none of that matters, because you have what a human needs the most." He patted her chest, right above her heart. "We'll always be here to lend a shoulder. You just need to learn to accept it."

A sigh escaped from her lips, "I'll try." She said. 

"No you won't try, you WILL, and so will he." He argued. 

She looked around momentarily, before asking,"By the way where is Leon anyway?" 

He took a seat, in front of the bunk bed and said, "Now there's a discussion I wasn't planning on having today." 

"Don't tell me... he's-" She swallowed rather hard.

"Dead or alive... we do not know." He replied.

"What do you mean, you don't know!? Why wasn't he with you?" She asked. 

Lifting his head, he looked her directly in the eyes to say, "Leon had to decide between his own ambition, to serve the church or you." 

Frowning, she said, "I don't understand, he just abandoned us?" 

"Blazerine... he cannot fully commit his service to his god, and love you at the sametime." He tried to explained.

"Love me?" She quietly repeated the words. 

"Never the less, there's a bigger matter, we've yet spoken of. I don't know if you recall much of the events, which have taken place, back in the castle. The men who tortured you, had been drinking your blood. All but one of them died, and turned into something, I have never seen the likes of before." When she was about to say something, he cut her off. "I don't know much about your world, wherever you come from, but I need to know the truth. Are you the reason behind all the deaths caused by the black mark of death?" 

"What I have isn't this plague you speak of, it's some kind of extraterrestrial virus, but I must admit, the symptoms are very similar. And I don't know why." She shrugged. 

"They're not connected?" He curiously asked.

"Not that I know of..." She shrugged again, then continued,  "My illness was caused by a microscopic parasite, which gains entry through the respiratory system. It feeds off the host by accessing the bloodstream, eventually budding offspring to attack the nervous system."

"This, thing, this parasite is living inside of you?" He questioned her. 

"Yeah, I can even show you." She adjusted her sunglasses to capture organic matter from indifferent materials, which are nonliving. Then she handed her sunglasses over to him, "Give it a go, it'll automatic scan my body. And what I mean by scan is, it'll examine my internal bodily structure. Err.. it just will let you see the inside of my body, okay?" 

As soon as the LCD imagine appeared within the lenses, he said, "Fascinating..." 

"Well... you see it?" She asked. 

He looked her body up and down, but didn't see anything moving about, by itself. "No, I do not."

Aimsley she looked around, while saying, "Is there a mirror anywhere I can use? I don't think you're using it right,  or well, maybe you don't even know what to look for." 

Lyrist ended up telling her to wait for him, until he returned. Blazerine sat around, waiting quite awhile. Then eventually he came back with a handheld mirror. 

"Alright hold it up for me. Make sure it's aligned with my chest." She instructed. 

Lyrist did as he was told, but she kept making him to readjust the position, over and over. 

"This can't be... This has to be wrong." Blazerine wearily manages to get out.

"Blaze?" Lyrist was growing concern now.

"It's not there, it's gone! What does this mean? How am I still alive? Oh god..." She frantically begins searching through the archive of login records. 

"Blaze what is it?" He pressed on. 

She began to rambled to herself, saying, "It's acting like... no, no, no...  There's two different dates of my arrival to this century, but there's a gap..." Then suddenly she screamed, " A THOUSAND YEARS?!" 

"What does that mean exactly?" He frowned.

"It means the parasite arrived a thousand years before I did. I mean, I guess, its possible that our molecules could have gotten separated during the transport. But that itself makes no sense, because the parasite cannot live without a host, unless... unless some of my molecules went with it." 

"What are you saying?" Lyrist cried, now gripping both of her shoulders, desperately wanting to understand. It's the first time he had ever raised his voice towards her. 

"What I am saying is that you're right. I am the reason why the plague exists! It's my fault for coming to this world. If this parasite somehow developed a life of its own. Out there, out there somewhere, could be another me, walking around, infecting everybody, while trying to find a new suitable host!" She angrily explained. 

Lyrist tried to comfort her by saying, "Could be... we don't know for sure." 

She buried her head into her hands and sighed, "We already do know. This whole plague thing, is its way of trying to prolong its life. " 

"What will happen when it finds a suitable host?" Lyrist asked.

Slowly she dropped her hands, then quietly whispered, "That's the scary thing, I don't know." 

"We'll just have to kill it before it does." Fenix declared, while walking through the doorway, carrying Elizabeth;  she had worn herself out by playing with him and the captain all day. 

"You've been listening this entire time?" Blazerine grumbled.

"I heard enough." Fenix chuckled, before placing Elizabeth upon a bunk, so she can finish resting. 

"You're easily influenced." Lyrist pointed out, since he copied what Elizabeth had done earlier to him. 

"Either way, I don't think it'll be able to find anybody compatible enough." Blazerine mentioned,  "Let's say even if it did...  You guys' immune systems aren't strong as mine. Most people in your century die from things we considered as minor illnesses, such as a cold." 

"Which means this thing is eventually going to come after you." Fenix said.

"What do you remember?" Lyrist asked suddenly, after he saw Blazerine rubbing cluelessly at some scars, on one of her arms. 

"Honestly I can't remember anything past the point of Sinner's death. There's just only little bits and pieces, but I can't really make much out of them." 

"It's probably for the best, but believe me when I say this. It'll come back, only to bite you on the ass, at the worst possible moment, it always does..." Fenix bases this off his own experience. Further on he mentions, "We still have may have this parasite to kill, Fauna to find, Leon...who knows, and now that queen."

"What do you suppose we should do about her?" Lyrist asked him.

"If it were left up to me. I say we kill her, it's going to be either her or us in the end, you know?" Fenix knew he had made a great argument.

"We just can't kill her in cold blood." Blazerine argued. 

"Wait a second... I got an idea!" Fenix exclaimed, "We could nabbed the queen and use the cloak to pose as her, to our advantage. Well that is, once we figured out first, whose she's gonna go crying to, over her fallen kingdom. Then our queen can explain what had happened, but leave Blazerine out of it completely." 

"What about the real queen? Don't you think she'll contradict everything once we release her?" Lyrist asked.

"Nope, Leo and I heard about this exchanger guy; who can swap bodies with anybody. They even hired a hunter to go after him. All we have to do is say that the real queen is the imposter, before we let her go." Fenix couldn't help but smile about how clever he's being right now. 

"That actually sounds like a good idea." Blazerine is pretty suprised, considering its the first time, he had ever come up with anything useful; strategy wise. 

"There will still be two issues. If the king is alive, or anyone who is very close to the queen, will most likely suspect something is wrong, and be killed, or the real queen will be killed if this plan is successful " Lyrist explained.

"Better her than us." Fenix protested. 

"She'll be given a choice. Whatever she decides, will be her own doing." Blazerine commented. 

"Who's gonna be our queen then?" Fenix asked out of curiosity. 

"I think Lyrist would be the only one who could pull this off." Blazerine said.

"Me..? Why?" Lyrist gave them quite a puzzling look. 

"You're a frickin' prince, even if its of cats. You're the closest thing to royalty we got here." Blazerine pointed out. 

Fenix laughs," Yah she's right. Hell Blazerine doesn't even know how to act like a woman, let alone a queen." 

Blazerine was quick to say, "Shut the hell up boy!"