Chapter 27 - The Heavenly Talent Enlightens the Way

“There! Right there!”

“Here?”

“Yeah, almost. Almost there. Remember, slowly at first..”

“Like.. Like this?” Leon’s nervous voice rang out.

“No, too much, too fast!” Skyle exclaimed, alarmed.

“I’ve got this!” came the enthusiastic reply.

“Faster now! Faster! Do it!” Skyle cried out excitedly.

“I’m on it, I’m on it!” Leon echoed his partner’s excitement.

“Almost there! I can feel it!” Skyle panted.

“Please, I need this, I want this!” Leon breathed heavily, his chest heaving up and down, and there was a complex mixture of earnest entreaty and consummate obsession in his eyes. It was almost like a hunger consuming him from the inside. “There! There! Finally! Take this!”

Leon gave a great, unintelligible roar as he plunged his spear into the wet, roiling depths.

Skyle couldn’t help but squeeze his eyes shut, as though he couldn’t bear to continue watching.

Still, it was too late and his head hung down limply as he breathed out a long, defeated sigh.

“...”

“You missed it, didn’t you,” Skyle muttered in a disturbingly neutral tone, though his eyes were still squeezed shut.

“...”

“Heavenly talent my stinking butt!” Skyle roared in fury, flailing his arms to his sides as he popped his eyes open and glared at the bigger boy.

Currently, Leon lay wading in the middle of a small pool of water that reached about waist deep for him. In his good hand lay clutched the roughly fashioned spear that the boys had hurriedly crafted from a nearby branch. It was an ugly, though serviceable spear with a slightly blackened tip, as though it had been hardened by fire.

As heroic a figure as Leon usually cut with his long locks of blond hair falling on massive shoulders that should not belong to any thirteen year old youth, he presented a rather sorry figure at the present moment. The fierce fire usually found burning within his scarlet eyes had dimmed down with weariness and defeat, and his arms hung limply by his side as he dejectedly followed the lively movements of his enemy.

The fish in the pool pirouetted in the water with a liveliness that seemed to be openly mocking a Leon who was simply on his last legs from hunger and exhaustion. The silver scaled fish measuring perhaps a foot long moved with startling grace as it spun in dizzying circles around Leon’s legs, before lightly skipping out of the water right under Leon’s despondent gaze for one last flip that sent a few drops of water splashing up towards his face. As Leon spluttered from the unexpected attack, the fish quickly swam its way out of the small pool and with another effortless hop, simply skipped its way out of the tree branch fence Skyle had fashioned at the entrance to the small pool of water in order to trap the fish swimming by the stream.

“...”

“...”

Both boys stood watching dumbly as the fish disappeared in the distance, flashing with a silver glint as it swam upstream with effortless speed.

A long moment later, Skyle finally turned his regard towards his companion.

“You are eminently useless, you know that?”

Leon glanced down at the spear still clutched in his hand, then quietly shook his head.

“It’s not as easy as it looks, you know..” Leon mumbled helplessly.

Skyle pointedly looked towards the shore, where three fish were hanging from a tree, suspended by a tough, narrow vine that had been woven through their gills.

Leon followed his friend’s gaze and gave out another long sigh, before his eyes turned fiery once more. “No, the House of Draxas shall not be defeated by a mere upstart school of fish. One more round! The last one, I say!”

Skyle resolutely shook his head. “We’ve already wasted half an hour with this farce. It was kind of funny in the beginning, but somewhere within the past fifteen minutes the comedy has turned into an all out tragedy. One of epic proportions at that, which would make even the stones under our feet weep from despair.”

Leon scowled at Skyle, but seeing his friend’s impassive face, he turned his eyes to redirect the full power of his baleful glare towards the defenseless trio of fish hanging from the branch.

“C’mon Skyle, just one more time, I promise it will be the last!” Leon cried out, looking with an entreating gaze towards the other boy.

“Fine, the last one. But only because I need your useless arse to light the fire for us,” Skyle finally acquiesced.

Leon instantly held his spear aloft while shouting exultantly. “Yes! I knew it! Prepare for swift vengeance, for the bitter ashes of defeat shall rain despair upon your puny, unsightly selves, you-”

“Tiny little fishies,” Skyle cut in helpfully.

Grinning as Leon spluttered in outrage and easily deflecting his friend’s glare, Skyle set about to scan the river for the approaching silhouettes of the strange silvery fish. They were like streaks of light that flashed about within the depths of the small stream, but Skyle’s vision was such that he could easily follow their movements.

In truth, Skyle reflected that he really couldn’t blame the poor Leon. The fish in this stream were not only incredibly fast, but also unbelievably cunning! In fact, the only reason why Skyle was able to draw them towards their little pool of water on the side was in thanks to the strange little worms Skyle had placed as bait in the middle.

The discovery of the worms had been a rather happy accident, discovered when Leon had begun to groan constantly from his hunger, and had at last relented from his resolute fast from the strange fruits found in this forest.

As for what ensued next..

***

It took Skyle a few tries before finally finding another plant that bore an edible fruit, as per the aura that it displayed under the True Sight. In truth, all Skyle had to do was stick with warm, mellow auras that gave him a feeling of comfort or nourishment, but those were surprisingly far in between within this forest. Not only that, but most of the fruits which looked most appetizing from the outside bore grim auras that both shocked and repelled Skyle in equal measures.

In the end, they settled for a peculiar looking vegetable that looked like a short, fatter version of a cucumber. Skyle saw a warm, healthy green aura exuding from the vegetable, though he could also see streaks running throughout its length that pulsed with a strange, but also nourishing brown color.

Leon could hardly wait for the go ahead from Skyle before promptly tearing one in half with his teeth, vigorously chewing with all the appetite of a famished lion. One that was being forced to eat a handful of fat, overgrown cucumbers, that is.

Skyle raised an apprehensive hand towards Leon, wanting to comment on the strange brown auras he had detected in the vegetable. After all, though they shouldn’t be harmful, they did seem very strange. However, at that point he really didn’t need to. At least, not any longer, for it was already too late.

Far too late.

Leon closed his eyes in pleasure as he savoured his first bite for the whole day, but then paused briefly as his eyebrows scrunched up towards the middle. Shaking his head from side to side, Leon slowly resumed his chewing motion before pausing yet again, this time with a more serious frown on his face.

Watching Leon closely, Skyle put his hands to his mouth, struggling mightily as he teetered on the edge of horrified disgust and absolute hysteria.

Leon slowly moved his tongue inside his mouth with a puzzled expression, slowly shifting the contents of his mouth. Then suddenly, his left cheek bulged with motion that evidently had not been his.

Both of Leon’s eyes flew open and met Skyle’s gaze, swiftly taking in his friend’s reddened face, full of barely contained laughter mixed with deep revulsion, then followed the other’s gaze towards the other half of the vegetable still held in his own hand. A long, dark green object seemed to be poking out from the open end of the vegetable.

And then it moved, and that pretty much did it.

Leon watched with growing horror as a green worm almost as fat as his pinkie finger began to squirm its body wildly, swiftly burrowing back into the vegetable. In the cross section of the vegetable itself, several holes could be seen, within which the now familiar green surface of several other worms glittered under the daylight.

Watching his friend’s reaction as his face swiftly transformed from an expression of blissful satisfaction to abject horror, Skyle couldn’t hold himself back anymore, and burst out laughing with a loud, raucous roar.

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This, he immediately came to regret, as Leon reflexively sought to divest himself of all foreign matters contained within his mouth in as quick and efficient a manner as possible.

In the end, half of Skyle’s face was splattered with a disgusting mixture of green vegetable mush and even greener worm puree, some of it even entering his mouth as he had been laughing heartily at his friend’s hilarious mishap.

“What the hell is this god awful reeking pile of a goat’s mangy shit!” Leon howled, spewing the last of the dreary mix onto the ground.

Skyle spat out in disgust as well, using a hand to wipe off most of the greenish sludge covering his face. “Take it you didn’t like the menu, m’lord?”

Leon’s face turned to a sickly green, almost as though he were trying to match the worms’ coloration.

Feeling rather bad for the unfortunate incident, Skyle managed to locate a small pool not too far away. It was just a small inlet where some of the stream’s water would be collected and lie relatively dormant.

Luckily, Leon seemed to have experience crafting rough spears from tree branches, likely as part of his training in the army. Using the small hatchet he had recovered from the camp, he made quick work of it. Skyle had also managed to retrieve a few decent branches he intended to use as an improvised gate, closing off the small pool after corralling in any fish which inadvertently made it into their little trap.

Then, with Moonshadow in hand, Skyle quietly stood by in the side of the pool while Leon stood by the improvised tree branch net, ready to close off the pool.

Here is where the fish first surprised them. They moved with incredible swiftness, and even Skyle blinked a few times as the fish seemed to almost sense that they were under attack even before the small boy had even begun to draw back his bowstring.

Still, even before Moonshadow, Skyle could shoot a moving target at 100 meters with a fairly high chance of striking it dead center. Now that he had been able to train in the “Infinite Eye”, Skyle’s vision had no problem at all following the movements of the fish, as swift as they were. Adding to that, his True Vision also added a huge edge, since he could use the aura of the fish in order to roughly determine the direction in which it intended to move.

It was not a foolproof method by any means, as the complex auras kept swirling around in a dizzying pattern that was simply too fast for his eye to follow. However, Skyle was pleasantly surprised to find that right before any major movements or decisions, even animals seemed to display a marked concentration of elemental aura towards their intended direction.

As such, armed with the combination of his archery skills, Moonshadow’s power and swiftness, his “Infinite Eye”, and the “True Sight”, Skyle felt very confident in his chances of success, even against these unbelievably swift prey. He knew the water would slow down his arrows and might even swerve some of the weaker ones off target, but Moonshadow’s weight in his hand infused him with a calm confidence.

Slowly studying the fish as it quickly flashed about within the small pool, as though playing with Skyle and daring him to try to capture it, Skyle collected a deep breath as he usually did before a shot. Expelling this one breath slowly, he had narrowed in eyes in concentration as he selected his target.

It was the biggest of a handful fish they had managed to herd into the pool, with a healthy silver sheen as it vigorously swam about the clear waters.

Once he selected his target, he smoothly pulled back on his bow, skillfully tracking his target as it wove in and out of the water in dizzyingly sinuous patterns. After only a second’s pause, during which he used both the “Infinite Eye” and the “True Sight”, Skyle selected a spot two inches ahead of his target and loosed in a swift, decisive motion.

The arrow flashed in the light as it plunged into the waters, but Skyle had underestimated Moonshadow’s power. The arrow flew true, but far too swiftly, as it pierced the space directly ahead of the surprised fish, barely nipping its mouth before plunging into the ground below until the fletchings almost disappeared into the sand.

Skyle blinked several times, clearly taken aback by the unexpected power of the shot, but Leon failed to notice this and simply laughed good naturedly at the near miss.

“Don’t worry Skyle, this isn’t as easy as it looks. At least you bled it. Now, don’t give in to despair yet and watch closely, for this young master here is a heavenly talent who has been trained in the martial arts by the Great General Marcius Poncius himself!”

Skyle just raised an eyebrow at Leon, holding his gaze while wordlessly drawing back on the bowstring in his hands once again.

“Eh, what are you-” Leon began to ask, but stopped when Skyle turned Moonshadow in his direction.

“Hey, wait.”

Skyle let out another slow breath, then abruptly dipped the bow down, aiming in the direction of Leon’s legs.

“Wait, wait a second!” Leon protested in alarm, holding one hand out in an appeasing gesture while the other dipped below the water to cover his manhood in a flustered move. “Not here, there’s more fish-”

The last of his protest ended in a gasp as the bowstring thrummed but once, and a flash of steel streaked towards the water, shooting straight into the area just below Leon’s crotch. The fletchings slapped against Leon’s leg as the arrow hit its target and quivered on impact, before sweeping past and plunging into the muddy soil beneath.

“He, hey! What’s the big idea, you damn country buffoon?” Leon exclaimed hoarsely.

Skyle shrugged, nodding towards Leon’s back.

Leon swiftly turned around and gaped at the sight of the small column of blood slowly leaking upward from the puncture wound on the fat silver fish’s head, where the fletchings of an arrow still seemed to be quivering from the power of the impact. The rest of the arrow had disappeared, driven deep into the ground below.

“That, that was too close, farm-” Leon began heatedly, turning around with an angry glare, but was interrupted by another loud, thrumming sound.

Leon barely managed to turn around in time to see the bowstring slapping loudly against Skyle’s wrist as another arrow soared forth, plunging into the water with a dazzling spray of water. “Now you’re just pushing it. First one was a great shot. A bit lucky, but I’ll give it to you. However, you need to take your time with such things, be patient. Take it as this heavenly talent enlightening you on the way. You need to let it come to you, instead of-”

The rest of his words were stuck in his mouth as he gaped at the sight of another column of blood slowly rising to the surface. As Leon drew closer with a disbelieving look in his eyes, he saw that this fish had also been shot cleanly through the head, with only the fletchings getting caught in the end and preventing it from cleanly piercing through to the other side.

Loud splashing sounds abruptly shook Leon out of his stunned reverie. When he instinctively turned around towards their source, his mouth hung open in dumb stupefaction once more.

There had been as many as nine or ten fish in their small pool, but now the fish seemed to have realized they were being hunted down, and that they were in fact powerless to resist the formidable might of this hunter. Now, they moved in a flurry of explosive motion in order to escape.

Several streaks of silver could be seen swiftly weaving through the water in the direction of the stream. Apparently not minding the obstruction of the branches at all, the panicked fish didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping.

Leon began to furrow his brown in confusion. Were they planning on ramming their way through the branches, hoping to break their way through and risk getting stuck in the process? Then the lines of his face slacked into an expression of complete surprise.

These fish didn’t need to ram their way through. No, they wouldn’t be as brutish and unrefined as that.

Instead, they jumped.

In long silvery arcs that glittered in the light, they effortlessly skipped over the barrier and straight into the river, swiftly swimming away into the stream beyond.

“They, they can jump!” Leon stammered, before giving a hoarse cry and rushing forward with his spear lifted high into the air. Nearly all their prey were gone now, with only one last fish still streaking towards the stream.

It would be nearly impossible, Leon thought to himself as he urgently waded towards the barrier, but perhaps he could slap that last fish out of the air as it soared out of the water.

Just as he was nearly there, he heard a cool, collected voice from behind his back.

“Stop.”

Leon was not truly not used to listening to others’ commands. He had been born into one of the highest positions of power in the northern hemisphere, and even at an age as tender as five, he had already had dozens of servants and guards at his every beck and call.

Still, the horrors of the past day had deeply ingrained within him an almost reflexive obedience to Skyle’s instructions, as that act of obedience had surely saved his life more times than he cared to count. Thus, when he heard the lone word from behind his back, Leon instantly froze in the spot.

As well that he did so, for no sooner had he stopped, than he once again heard that deep thrumming sound from behind his back, and almost at the same instant he felt a rush of wind sweeping past his left ear.

Leon didn’t even have time to react before he saw an explosion of red right in front of him, as the last of the fish braved the jump and paid the ultimate price for it. The arrow struck with a spray of red, then both the projectile and the fish were gone.

A mere instant later, Leon heard a deep THUNK reverberating through the air, clearly audible in spite of the sounds of rushing water from the stream. Leon’s gaze automatically followed the sound, and his eyes finally found the fish that had tried to escape.

It was a gorgeous catch, just over a feet long with that sleek, silvery gleam to it as it flopped uselessly in the air.

Yes, in the air.

Leon’s eyes were enraptured, not by the fish hanging three feet off the ground, but rather by the still quivering arrow driven straight through the fish, and into the tree behind. The shaft still lay quivering from the incredible impact, and Leon couldn’t help but gawk at the magnificent shot it had been. The arrow had exploded in a straight line from Skyle’s Moonshadow, cleaving into the fish midair as it soared in its swift arc towards the river beyond, then slammed into a tree on the other side of the river. There, it managed to bury itself almost halfway through the trunk, leaving the helpless fish flopping wildly in its dying moments.

If anything, even the fish seemed to somehow mirror Leon’s own astonishment.

After a very long and very quiet moment during which the only sounds were those of the waters rushing down the river, Leon woodenly turned around to face Skyle, who stood in place with a satisfied smirk on his face.

“Ah, not bad. Not bad at all, farmboy. Now, let me show you how us real men do it,” Leon had blustered, hefting his spear in a rather sad looking motion.

Still, Skyle hadn’t said a word in protest. Instead, he simply shrugged carelessly, and began to gather the fish as well as the arrows.

And that had been the beginning of a truly unfortunate debacle.

***

“Har har, this will be the one, I can feel it!”

The aristocratic youth had seemed to view it as something of a personal challenge, and in truth seemed to harbour somewhat of a grudge against Skyle for the previous worm-infested vegetable incident, let alone the whole heavenly talent proclamation, after which Leon had splashed about in mad desperation and managed to catch a grand total of zero fish.

Thus, he had not let up and in the end Skyle had no choice but to consent once more, attracting several more fish into their little aquatic corral.

“There! Over there!” Skyle shouted, pointing with his finger as he tracked the fish with the “Infinite Eye”.

“Over here?”

“Look at where I’m pointing, you fool!”

“I’m trying, dammit. Not my fault you point like a sissy!”

“Just shut up and kill one flaming fish so we can start eating already,” Skyle growled, and his stomach echoed him loudly.

“You think I don’t want to eat? I could stuff half a horse down my gullet and it still wouldn’t be enough,” Leon yelled back. “Now settle down and do your job properly. Point!”

Skyle rolled his eyes, then quietly did as ordered. Inside, he silently prayed to all the gods that they would deign to bless the tip of that ugly freaking spear so that it could finally find rest in the guts of these flaming fish.

Alas, it was no use and they still swam circles around the slightly befuddled, enraged bull that was Leon.

“Not there, you idiot!”

“Then where, you flaming buffoon?”

“It’s right there. THERE! Oh god, flaming talent my arse..”

“I AM there, you stumpy little brat!”

As both voices began to rise in a heated crescendo once more, the only other voices were those of the fish silently laughing at the hilarity of it all.