Chapter 7: The Calm Before the Storm
“Sir! Slow down, sir!” A knight page runs through the crowd of soldiers, struggling with a sack.
“Reginald! Catch up boy! Or else you won’t be able to join on in the attack against those monsters.” A gruff knight shouts back, not bothering to look behind him.
“But sir! Your chest piece is too heavy to carry!” Reginald complains.
The knight slows down to a standstill. He sighs.
“Reginald, why are you here? For what training?” He questions the young lad.
“I’m here to become an unparalleled force on the battlefield. To become a knight.” Confidence can be heard in his tone.
“Well does a knight complain about the weight of his armor? Hmm?” The knight questions him, Reginald stops in his place.
“Reginald… LISTEN to me very carefully. Your parents chose ME. Ivan the Skull-breaker as your guide to knighthood. Your father asked me personally if I could take you in.” Ivan stares down Reginald as he continues his lecture.
“So I did. took you in. Taught you the basics. Tolerated your complaints but what do I get in return? A knight that can’t carry the weight of his armor. That piece of metal you’re holding right now is what’s going to be between your flesh, and a blade, and you’re supposed to fight while wearing it for hours.”
“Sorry sir. I stepped out of my bounds” Reginald dejectedly answers.
“It’s fine, as long as you understand where and what you went wrong with. You’re still young and naïve.” Ivan cheerfully ruffles Reginald’s hair.
“Now hurry up, we have a caravan to catch.” Reginald lights up at this.
“Yes sir!”
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“Myr! Slow down!” Hasegawa panics through the radio.
“No!” The elf woman floors the gas pedal as the tanks goes downhill. Myr masterfully dodges the obstacles in front of her.
‘I still don’t how she hasn’t managed to detract i-it!’
The entire joyride finally ends when Myr stops at the training fields. The commander’s cupola swings open and out comes a carsick-no tanksick Hasegawa, his body hanging over the metal ridge of the cupola as he empties what he had before on the tank’s side armor.
“Are you all right?” Myr asks him, while exiting from the driver’s hatch. Climbing on top of the tank to walk over to him.
“No! I’m not!” He shouted as another round of stomach content exits from his body.
“Hehe sorry.” She pats his head.
“Be careful next time.” He wipes his mouth “You might break the tank.”
“Uhm hey will you come with me to the village?” She asks him, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt with a pleading face.
“O-Okay. What for?” Hasegawa slowly stands up from his position, his legs a little wobbly.
“There’s a place I need to go to.”
“Really? where?”
“It’s my mother’s wedding anniversary.”
“All right.”
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The two walk towards a small clearing at the center of the forbidden forest. As Myr and Hasegawa approach the grave of Myr’s mother, two figures can clearly be seen already there.
“Hello Myr and... You.”
“Hello to you too Strynhld.” Hasegawa said to the recovered man.
“Tch. When greet someone with a greater rank and class than you, you greet them with respect.”
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“No. Wanna fight again?”
“Now now. Please don’t get too heated up.” Myr breaks up the possible confrontation.
“Myr’s right, stop acting childish brother.” Gaspar joins in.
“Fine.”
The four approach a single tombstone covered in vines, the stone itself cracked and dilapidated. Still, the place is serene, it’s as if nothing ever disturbed the area for centuries.
“Hello mother.” “Hello dear.” Both Strynhld and Myr kneel at the foot of the tombstone. Gaspar and Hasegawa decided to stay behind at the bottom of the hill.
“She was really precious to all of you, wasn’t she?” Hasegawa solemnly started a conversation.
“Yes, she was.” Gaspar stated “She was the light of the village, always cheerful and she was taken away from us by your kind.” Aggression flows out from his words.
“What did you say Gaspar?” Hasegawa asked, incredulous at the sudden ill intent.
“You heard me. I’ll never forget the violence and loss that your kind has brought upon us.”
“What is up with you? Blaming me for a crime that I didn’t commit?” Hasegawa confronts Gaspar.
“We elves have a saying “Forget nothing.” In our lifespans of centuries, we cannot forget what aggression you humans have transpired against us elves.”
“I also have a saying from where I come from too. The saying goes like this Fuck off! What do you know about me?! Huhh?” He argues back.
“Enough to know that your time around Myr is influencing her for the worse.” Gaspar looms over Hasegawa.
“Like what?”
“Making her control that awful metal beast. Why did you choose her in the first place?”
“Her driving the tank?! Is that why you’re taking this out on me?”
“Humans have ripped our family apart before; under my watch I won’t let it happen ever again.” The veteran elf warrior sighs as he steps back down. “I will not fight in her mother’s presence.” He looks over to Myr and Strynhld still praying.
“Choose your actions wisely Hasegawa.”
“Oh, I already have. You don’t need to treat Myr as a kid, she’s more grown up than guys are.”
“Let’s see if what you’re saying is true. I’ll see you later, seeing them like this just rubs me the wrong way” Gaspar treks up the hill and joins in on the prayer.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not the only elf that I rub the wrong way.” ‘Asshole’
A few minutes later the elf family walked back down the hill to rejoin Hasegawa. Gaspar walked past him giving him a menacing look which he also gave in return.
Later Strynhld walks past him but not before putting a hand on his shoulder and whispering something to him.
“Meet me at the bar on the left side of the village. We have important matters to discuss.”
Finally, Myr walks side by side with him. “What did father ask you?”
“Frankly I don’t know either.”
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The bar was lively with singers and musical instruments playing in the background, special biofluorescent flowers with varying colors were planted in and around the establishment.
As Hasegawa entered the bar he was immediately directed by the bartender to an isolated room at the end of the bar. There he was, the chief of the elves sitting down on a bar stool surrounded by glasses of various types of alcohol.
“So, you actually came. I thought you would run away.” Strynhld taunted Hasegawa as he sipped on a glass of wine.
“Heh. I do seem to remember you pleading for your life once. At my own feet nonetheless.
“Really? I don’t remember.”
“Yeah. Did that bullet wound injure your brain too? Also running away is not in my vocabulary, rather it’s called tactical retreat.” He sits down on the stool right next to Strynhld.
Picking up a glass he slowly sips one, suddenly spitting the contents out.
“Plegh! What in the fuck was that?” Wiping his mouth for the second time today
“Death-berry wine, extracted from an extremely poisonous berry that can kill an elf in an instant. It takes roughly a thousand years for the potency of the poison to degrade. It’s an elven tradition and courtesy.”
“You elves are fucking crazy. Anyways stop with the pleasantries, why did you ask me to come here.”
“I have a request to make.”
“How many drinks have you had?”
“Too much.”
“So, the big bad elf boss is asking for a favor what could it be?” Hasegawa mockingly replied. The chief picks up another glass of wine.
“After the human raid on our village, if we win or not, after everything, I want you to leave and take everything with you.”
“Yeah I was already planning to do that. I’ll pack up my stuff and just go with the tank.”
“No. I meant everything.”
“Sorry I don’t understand, is this another elf thing?”
“I suppose you can say that,” Strynhld looks at Hasegawa seriously “by everything I meant everything. Your human ideas and everything else. It poses a problem to me.” He points at him.
“What? Because it deviates from tradition?”
“Wha-How?!” Strynhld is startled at this.
“The traditions that are unjust to those who aren’t elf kind. The traditions that have kept you elves relatively primitive to us humans.”
“Your kind isn’t high and mighty. Not to me at least.”
“I don’t need to be a psychic to know that. It’s plastered all over your face. All your anxieties and worries.” A grin is forming on Hasegawa.
“I’ll make sure everything is taken care for, it’s all going to be fine Strynhld. You don’t need to worry about chiefly duties anymore.” He picks up another glass of Death-berry wine
“If you really think that way, then there’s probably no use in changing that view.”
and he pours it on the floor.
“Your traditions are a poison.”
“I am the cure.” He smugly antagonizes Strynhld.
Strynhld stands up, enraged at the human who decided to insult his culture.
“If you talk so big, how about you and me go man to elf.” He raises his fists, the alcohol clouding his judgement. Laughter comes out from his opponent.
“Oh, this is all so easy. I don’t need to fight you to prove that I’m right.”
Just as a fight was about to break out, a messenger busts through the door shouting the news.
“The humans have been spotted at the northern mountains! It’s only a day till they arrive at the outskirts of our village!” She panicked. The music stops and the people start exiting the bar with haste.
“Looks like we’ll have to end this talk here Strynhld. I look forward to seeing you again after the battle.”