"That went about as well as I expected," said Zerrious as we ran out into the wilderness, darkness encroaching from the sky and the din of voices fading quickly behind us.
"That went decidedly worse than I expected." My feet pounded rhythmically as I followed the lithe form of Zerrious holding both of our bags loaded full of rings. They were bonded to Zerrious but he insisted that we would have a chance to rebind them later. Now, if these assurances sounded a bit off, consider that I essentially never spent a moment without the boy for the past year, as such we grew trust for each other, if not necessarily friendship.
"Why would you say that? They lost the most reliable teacher they've seen in their lifetimes. Not to say that your replacement wont be just as good, but people don't know that for sure. They saw power and are afraid of loosing it, is that so bad?" Zerrious ran into the tree line and slowed dramatically, almost causing me to bowl him over like a linebacker.
Pulling up short we looked around. I wasn't sure what for, but did it anyways. Zerrious quickly decided which direction to set off in and started walking. It wasn't long before I started humming and muttering songs from back home, trying to pass the time as Zerrious worked to find a good place to set up camp for the night. Where we finally stopped seemed random to me, but Zerrious clearly knew what he was doing. Plus it was getting rather dark. I knew as much as anyone the dangers of the forest. A quick glance at my walking stick and the scars peeking out from under my clothes was all the reminder I needed to stay safe and follow the expert.
Zerrious set down one of the bags and opened it, the front falling away to reveal rows of rings set into the back, each easily accessible and removable, yet clearly well secured. "I may be Named, but I do have limited resources so I went with quantity over quality," he said as he pulled a set of strange tools from a ring in the other bag. "Prick you finger and I'll get to work on rebinding these."
My stupor was dispelled with those words and I pulled a small blade from my side, a tool that found itself at my side out of convenience for various meals, and pricked my finger on the tip, probably harder than necessary as blood quickly started to flow down the blade. I focused on the pain and looked at the knife for a while, thinking not for the first time that this was normal in here. People would hurt themselves just for convenience, a cut throat mindset created by the gods to drive innovation. History from my own world proved this well, invention happened faster and better during conflict.
By the time I looked up Zerrious was already done setting the rings up for attunement. Walking up and kneeling down I spread the blood on the inscription on each ring one by one and they all flashed just like my first one. As each flashed I good a sense of what was in each one, leather armor, cloaks, and other clothes. Each set of clothing and each cloak was in a different style, likely to fit in with weather and customs.
"I wasn't sure what styles would be acceptable in most of the places we'll go, so I made an array of styles," said Zerrious as he saw my expression. The storage inside the rings was just about two thirds of what my first one was, and that was about the size of a one man tent, hence the multiplicity of rings. Total there were about twenty one rings if you counted my first one, and the pack made them easy to carry as well as providing a sense of adventure, something I found incredibly important, as this was, in fact, an adventure.
"Good thinking, wouldn't want to stand out too much, accents and genetics will do just fine for that." I pulled a collapsed tent out of one of the rings in my bag and attempted to set it up, although my trouble was obvious. Zerrious saw my struggle and set the tent up with a few quick motions, the dome popping to existence nearby, his own tent already set up twenty feet away. "Thank you," I said.
Zerrious soon had a fire started and we were eating some preserved meat we had brought, although we stayed as light as we could on food and water to make it last at least until the next village where we could hopefully resupply. "We should sleep, I don't know how far until the next village, no one has gone that far since this town was founded," Zerrious said suddenly.
Agreeing, I nodded and climbed into my tent, pulling a blanket and pillow from one of my rings and laying down. Videogames, movies, even most books got this wrong. This didn't feel like adventure, it felt like hiking and camping. I was sure something would go wrong and make it feel like an adventure, but that hadn't happened and I just felt like I had thrown away my security. A teacher wasn't my favorite job, but it was calm and it kept alive. I could go back, but was it worth it? No, I was already here, might as well see it through.
Waking the next morning I crawled out of my tent to find Zerrious had already packed all of his things and had a small animal roasting over a fire. I quickly packed up, putting my simple dark leather armor on, putting the tent away far easier than setting it up and joined the young man around the pop of hot colors in the cool greens dominant in the forest. Neither of us talked, although I was screaming inside to say something.
Soon Zerrious removed the rabbit from the fire and carved pieces off, silently offering me pieces as he did. I thanked him and accepted, chewing on the wonderfully seasoned hare and thinking.
"You aren't a teacher. You're a story teller. It's obvious in how you describe things, how you keep mementos of your exploits, how you get so exited when someone asks about your walking stick," Zerrious said suddenly, staring into the fire and putting another piece of rabbit in his mouth.
"What about it?" I wondered aloud. What caused this line of thinking? Was he regretting letting me come along?
"Do you have any stories I haven't heard? I'm just used to learning something all the time, I'm not used to turning my brain off," he said. Oh, he wanted a story! Simple enough. . . until I can't think of a story.
I wracked my brain in silence for a moment, before falling on a classic. I couldn't recall the details of Lord of the Rings, but I could give some of the broad strokes. It would make a wonderful story either way. "Once there was a hobbit-"
"What's a hobbit?"
"A short man, not more than four feet tall. No more questions, you'll understand as I go on," I told him. He laughed although he clearly added "hobbit" to his internal dictionary. "Once there was a hobbit. He was an unadventurous hobbit, and had lived in a hole in the ground in Hobbiton all his life. This was no ordinary hole in the ground, because the hobbits build their homes in these holes, and they ate seven meals a day, happy as can be doing nothing all their lives."
The two of us silently put out the fire and started walking as I continued with my story. It wasn't long before we paused for lunch. After eating preserved meats we walked on as I described everything I could remember about the famous Tolkien story and making up what I couldn't.
When we sat down at the end of the day I set up my tent, figuring it out without Zerrious' help this time. Zerrious had gone for a long time when I finished setting up my sleeping arrangements, and I did get worried, but instead of dwelling I set up a ring of stones for the fire and changed out of my armor, getting more comfortable for the night time.
Zerrious came back with an armful of firewood, and soon he had a fire going. I started my story but Zerrious pulled a large chunk of tree out of one of his rings and I paused, surprised. "Why did you stop?" Zerrious asked.
"Why did you pull out a log?" I responded.
"I figured you'd like an instrument. Music isn't something you can learn, but I have a feeling you'll be good at it," he said as a knife found it's way into his hands and he started carving something. I figured I could figure out how to play it given what I knew of music theory. Continuing my story, writing down it down as I did, I spun the tale of Frodo and his trusty friend Sam, who I had always liked more anyways. The one ring seemed to scare Zerrious, even though it was a story. It must have been far more likely that an evil ring crafted by an evil warlord could happen here, while in my world it was an interesting idea that could never see reality.
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This continued for another few days, until I finally finished what I remembered of the Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam going back to Rivendell victorious against evil, and Zerrious was almost done carving what looked like the pieces of a guitar that needed attached to one another and strings added. I was exited, because I could kind of play some acoustic guitar, at least, it would be easier to remember how to play something I already learned at one point.
"That was quite the story. I noticed you were writing it down as we talked. That's good, it's the kind of story people would pay good money to hear," said Zerrious as I finally fell silent after a few days of constant babble.
"It was back home. One of the greatest stories of all time. An instant classic."
"Got any more?"
"I'm sure I do, I'll need some time to recover though, my voice is growing strained. It lasted longer than I expected it would though," I told him as my mind raced for more stories from home to tell. "I'm sure that adding music will make my shorter stories much better."
"I look forward to it then," said Zerrious as we fell into silence on our journey. We walked for a while, not talking but thinking all the while.
Zerrious took turns at seemingly random moments but we never ran into giant man eating spiders, so I assumed the man was just that good at navigating the wilds. Even the bugs seemed less persistent during our travels then when I was doing this solo, although I don't think I was in a good enough place to appreciate that enough to remember fully.
Walking through the wilderness took half a month, during which I finished the stories of Enders Game, something that took far too long considering it happened in the future from my world and I had to explain a number of concepts, and Vicious, a more obscure book but with a brutal story I found enthralling, and even only half understanding Zerrious was hanging onto every word. Part way through the story Zerrious finished the guitar, and I worked on tuning it as the story slowly crawled to a close. Trying to tune the instrument as the story continued I tried to remember what each string was supposed to sound like. I was good at this in high school, but it had been long enough that it took a while to get it right, taking some time after the story was completed to work out the notes.
A few days of me plucking random notes and strumming pointless cords until I remembered enough to do something, though I didn't remember any songs by heart.
One day, as we walked, random notes started pouring from the guitar, each one flowing into the next in both a lyrical way, and in a sort off-putting twang that didn't quite line up with how the human mind wanted the notes to flow, some quick and some slow in a way that made for a haunting song yet fast enough that didn't quite feel haunting. In a way, a story without words.
My voice soon joined, hesitantly raising the wordless notes in the same lyrical way as the guitar, my voice providing a chilling contrast to the percussive sound the instrument made. The guitar soon took on a more repetitive set of notes and I turned from singing to speaking, words spilling out with little thought.
"In London streets,
painful beats,
back in 2005,
a lady born in Paddington,
fights just to make her health prevail,
Violet weeps,
her heart may fail,
to set the scene we must rewind,
the hands of time,
for Violets tale,
Violet was a silent girl,
grew up with troubled past,
her mother never loved her and her father was a problem,
every night he closed the door but never left the room,
I hate to say the things he did,
nobody even cared,
Violet was a silent girl,
moved out before sixteen,
she got a job at Costco,
stacking jars so she could eat,
she met a boy named David and he was a little prick,
Violet was a silent girl and Violet she loved quick,
David was a problem but he sure knew she would love him,
every night he'd close the door but never leave the room,
history repeats itself,
she wakes up black and blue,
to die,
she never stood a chance,
to dance this evil dance,
Violet was always too quite,
he says at the bedroom door,
and he's angry,
drinking and smoking keeps him up late,
he stands in the doorframe,
she shakes,
but she doesn't wake up,
you fucking slut get your ass up,
and he pinches her eyelids and pulls them back,
Violet,
why you always too silent,
Violet,
she's too quiet,
things get violent,
that's the sound of his fists as they fall like a crashing pilot,
burn like brimstone,
one to the collarbone,
full force skin torn,
blood splat bone crack,
tries to pull back,
one to the jaw and the tooth splits detached,
a quick deflect to redirect the blow,
but nonetheless his punches met her throat,
Violet,
why you always so quiet Violet,
do you think I wanna do this Violet,
in character she stays silent,
say something Violet,
silence,
fucking say something Violet,
not one word she stays silent,
in London streets,
painful beats,
back in 2005,
Violet's rushed to Paddington,
she's fighting but might not survive,
the doctor's in a state of shock,
see's something here so very wrong,
poor Violet,
she was pregnant,
and Violet,
she was due next week,
turning to the doctor Violet breaks the silence and she cries,
if I'm to die right here tonight,
my baby will survive all day,
the doctor soon regains composure,
calls the nurses to come in,
as Violets world fades to black,
the painful beats flutter and fail,
in London streets,
no more beats,
back in 2005,
a lady down in Paddington,
has lost the fight to stay alive,
a tragedy,
and miracle,
it happened on an empty street,
two twins,
alive,
side by side,
a girl named Jenny,
and a boy named James."
I let the notes fall off, bringing the story to a close. Zerrious was staring at me, shock smeared across his face. "That was terrible and amazing and. . . I don't even know. The sounds followed the story and brought it here, the terrible, terrible story. Violet died, but her children lived, but we don't know what happened to David. . . It was wonderful and terrible in the best of ways."
"So it was. I don't know where it came from, but if I can sing like that, then maybe I'm a bit better than I anticipated." Walking became far less tedious, the stories helped but it wasn't until I started singing that it became almost fun. The next songs weren't nearly as sad as the first, falling back on classic rock, rap, and even some pop music that I figured I could pull off, making the trip fly by, weeks passing in moments.
I wrote my music down in my book, and when Zerrious asked what it meant I told him. "You can learn music?" he asked.
"Of course, why do you think I can do it? I had to learn just like anybody else," I responded as a staff scratched itself into being. As notes found their way on the staff, I felt a burning as a new Name found itself on my body, a blanket Name that covered all of sound, marking me as the leading expert on this planet, and from that day on, Zerrious started to learn.
Zerrious was clumsy on the strings, his fingers unused to moving without specific formulas for what was being made, instead learning to embrace the chaos of music. He learned quick, but it wasn't natural for him and he clearly didn't enjoy it. Nevertheless, he earned the same names I had, getting him closer to eternity.
I was singing "Here Comes the Sun", a classic Beatles tune, when we finally made it to civilization.
Tall stone walls surrounded a massive iron gate that stood open, traders coming and going from a road that wrapped around the forest, and by extension, Zerrious' village. We stepped out of the tree line and onto the dirt road, making our way into the first city of our journey, hopefully a long and wonderous journey.