Voyage and Land

Chapter 10

Part 1 - Voyage
The boat is patched up from the pieces we could find around. I don’t know if it looks better or worse, but it floats. Dima got the hang of how to use the sail. It came naturally for him. I could see the joy on his face as he caught wind. I taught him some knots that I have engraved in my body from my past life.We had to camp out on the beach for two nights, picking fruits and eating the sea creatures that Elda caught. She has truly become a skillful hunter, extremely fluent in how she sneaks up on prey. Her throw with the spear is almost completely silent, barely making a sound as it splits through the water. In contrast to when she jumps in after the fish.

On the third day, we are ready. Elda uses the paddle to push us out from the shallow.

“Now Iris!” Dima tells me.

I let the rope free, releasing the sail. Wind fills it, while Dima controls the mast. The boat picks up speed and we are on our way.

“Woo!” Dima screams in joy.

Elda smiles.

I watch as the water splits the ocean in front.

The giant trees of the jungle shrink in the distance. Our home, disappearing. I turn around, looking across the ocean stretching as far as I can see. Elda running around Dima who is trying to concentrate. I wonder what’s on the other side.



Since we have no idea how long the trip will take, we have saved all the food we got from Rayon. It’s around two days worth of dried meat and vegetables. Now out on the open ocean, Dima secures the mast. We lay out all our food on a fiber cloth, including the water sacks that we each have one of.

“I think we should split it up for three days, at least until we see or smell land,” I tell them.

“Yes, I agree,” Dima answers.

Elda’s stomach growls. We both look at her with a side-eye.

“Hehe,” she chuckles.

“We can always try to catch those water creatures, like I did on the beach,” Elda says with a confident look.

“How are you gonna do that? Swim after them?” Dima asks her.

“You can tie a rope to me while I go spear them,” she says with confidence, like it’s not completely crazy.

“Elda, I think that’s not really gonna work,” I try to convince her.

“Fine, whatever,” she sulks.

“It’s fine, if the slavers cross over the ocean, we can too,” Dima encourages us…



The sun is burning hot. The salty air is turning our skin into shrivels. Completely out of food, only half a sack of water left. Three days have passed. Not a single trace of land. All exhausted, Dima and I sit down, looking at the crumbs left on our fiber cloth.Elda clears her throat, we turn and look at her. With dark bags under her eyes, she is holding a rope.
Dima and I sigh.

Raising the sail. Tying the rope around Elda's stomach. Dima and I hold on as she jumps into the water with her spear.
Each time she comes up gasping for air and says:
“Again!”

She comes back up.

“One more time,” she says, spitting out water, and dives.

Back up.

“Almost…” she says, dives.

It keeps going for a couple hours. Our hands burned from pulling her up each time. Elda doesn’t even make sense as she speaks anymore.

“Yus on mur tim…” she says, slowly sinking.

Finally, she explodes out of the surface.

“I got one!” she screams.

“Ah!” Dima and I shout in shock, half asleep.

We pull her up, with her holding on to the bulky fin.

Up comes a furious looking creature. Hard scales and long jaw riddled with teeth. Almost 2 meters long with a yellow sail along its back. One eye on top of its head…Elda lays on her back coughing up water.“Elda!” we scream in joy.

She giggles.

Its flesh is white, almost see-through. We smell, it actually smells nice. Rayon taught us how to use our senses for this sort of thing, like smelling after the sweet smell of something poisonous. He told us that if the Danar can do it, Avi definitely can. Starting with small bites of the raw meat, it quickly turns to big chunks. We feast in relief through the night.

I squint my eyes, I think I’m seeing things. Something dark sticking out from the blue.“I see it…” I whisper.

“What?” Dima yells.

“I see it!” I shout, waking Elda up.

“What, see what?” Elda asks, confused.

I’m sure it’s not a hallucination.

“I see land!” I shout and laugh.

Part 2 - Land

On the fifth day, our boat scrapes into the rocky beach. I drag myself on land, hugging the solid ground. The siblings do the same.

“We gotta… find… water,” I struggle to tell the others with my dry throat.

“Can’t we just stay like this for a while?” Dima pleads, desperately holding on to the ground.

“Even if we wanted to, that thing is in the way,” Elda sits up and points.

A huge cliff along the entire coastline. I look around, but see no easy way up.I sigh and push myself off the ground.

“We better start climbing then,” I tell them.

After forcing Dima to let go of the ground and come with us, we climb. Our hands are dry and sore, it hurts with each pull. I bite down, I can’t let it end in this pathetic way. I’m on top first. I help the others up the last bit.

Rock fields, some patches of skinny trees and dry grass, some with only sand. Not a single cloud in the blue sky, just the blazing sun. It’s hot and dry, making the air vibrate. It’s nothing like the environment we are used to.

In the distance I see tall mountains with cut tops, obstructing the view. They dip into what looks like valleys. Not so far away toward the mountains, I also see a larger cluster of trees.

“Let’s head there, it has to have some water around,” I say, pointing in its direction.

It takes us an hour or so of walking, Elda is using her spear like a walking stick. Things do not look great, we are exhausted and dried up. Taking one step at a time. With the sun in the middle of the sky, we finally get to hide under the big yellow leaves of the trees. The breeze is nice here, much drier than in the jungle. It would be easy to just rest, but we can’t. We keep moving.

A clear little oasis in the shade, surrounded by greenery and trees.Dipping our heads in the fresh water, we can finally relax. Floating around, it cools down our bodies and brings us back to life.

“Still alive?” Dima asks us.

“Yeah,” we both answer, and we all laugh.

Night comes. After spending the rest of the day relaxing, we’re revived. Dima is drawing in the sand with the noise of crackling fire in the background. Elda and I watch.

“If this is the coast of the Danar territory, and this the coast of the Baiins, it means we could be anywhere around here,” Dima shows us, and continues:
“I only know that Haoul is here, in the middle.”

We had decided, that’s our goal. There, we will most likely find other enslaved Avi.

“So, if we head inland from here, at least we will get closer to it, right?” I ask him.

“Technically yes, but if we don’t find any other people that we can ask directions from, it will be basically impossible to find. The Baiin territory is massive, way bigger than the Danar jungles,” he answers.

“Most of it is just mountains and plains, wild wasteland. Many bandits roam around and slavers are out on the hunt, or so my mother told me and Elda when we were growing up,” Dima says, with a troubled look.

“I doubt any bandit would be a problem for us after fighting Rayon every day,” Elda says with confidence.

“I hope so,” Dima answers.

“She’s right, Dima. As long as we stick together, no one can beat us,” I smile, truly believing it.

I hear chittering noises in my sleep. My mind turns the sound into tiny people running around me, inspecting my body. What a strange dream. I grunt and roll around, it only makes the noise screech louder. Opening my eyes slowly, I fall out of sleep. Two tiny hairy creatures with long limbs and tails are holding my backpack, looking at me like they’ve been caught. For a second, I’m convinced that I’m still dreaming. Their black faces and white eyes don't seem real.

“What are you doing?” I ask them.

They screech and start running away with my backpack. I snap awake and yell after them:
“Hey!”

I jump, catching them by their necks. The commotion wakes the siblings up in distress.

“Wha… What’s happening?” Dima asks, confused.

“These bastards tried to steal my backpack!” I tell them, dangling the creatures by their necks.

Elda and Dima look at the defeated expressions on the creature's faces.

“Think they taste good?” Elda asks.

The creatures screech and struggle in my hands.

“What? No way, they are too… you know, cute,” Dima says.

“Who cares?” Elda says.

I hold them up and look at their faces, their eyes seem so sad.

“It seems like they care, sorry Elda, I'm with Dima on this one,” I say as I let them go.

“What? What a waste…” Elda sulks. While the creatures wobble away.

With our cloth sacks filled and our bodies rested, we are ready to go.

Coming out of the trees, the plains once again come into view. With the mountain in the distance, we start walking toward it.

“We need to find a village. The Baiin usually live around mountain areas, so I think that’s a good place to start,” Dima says as he looks forward.

“Before that we will need to find food. Because you guys are apparently softies,” Elda says, looking at us both with disappointment.

A flying creature circles around our heads, it catches my eye with its black feathers and long beak. I watch it glide away into the blinding light of the sun. Squinting my eyes, I try to see where it went. When it finally comes into view again, I see something more.

“Hey guys. Is that, smoke?” I ask the others.

A small cloud is pushing up from the ground in the distance, I wonder what it is.
Dima covers his eyes from the sun and glare.

“I think you’re right… Come on, let’s hurry. Someone might be there,” He says, picking up the pace.

As the fading cloud of smoke gets closer, we hear something, or rather someone. We all instinctively pick up the pace even more, but something is giving me a bad feeling. In between boulders and the rocky terrain, we hide and look down on the people in the small dip. Three scary-looking Baiin with scars and patchy clothes. They are surrounding one young, Baiin man, curled up on the ground.

“Bandits,” Elda whispers.

I am unsure of what I’m feeling. The same kind of people who I saw selling slaves as merchandise, are now treating each other with such malice.

“What were you trying to do, you little shit!” One of the men yells and kicks the face of the young man.

Seeing his bloody, agonizing face fly up, I move.