An Animist's Humanity

With Eil and Cautious sluggish on the journey to the institution, their pace slowed drastically down. As far as Sami was concerned, they’d make it just about; however, she didn’t account for Bite-Sized collapsing mid-journey.

“You’re not going to make it,” Sami told her.

Silent was the only one doing the bare minimum to help her, and that mostly involved getting her water and a cold wet cloth on her forehead.

“We can’t afford to wait,” Cautious managed to say.

Eil and him had become quite amicable. It helped that Silent was giving them a steady dosage of her soup, and neither felt very inclined to say no.

“We gotta’ get her to a doctor,” Eil said.

“We don’t have time for a doctor.”

“We’re not letting someone else die. Besides, you’re responsible for her too. You abandoned her. Nearly killed her.”

Sami cleared her throat. “I’m only here to direct you to the institution, if you want to find someone to help her, you’re on your own. I’ll wait here to guide you again until the time is up, but I guarantee it will run out.”

“Come on animist, you let fifty kids die because some jerks told you not to get involved. That isn’t right.” Eil wouldn't have spoken if not for the soup, but he'd long lost the filters that once allowed him to carefully curate his words.

“An animist’s purpose isn’t to do what’s right, it’s to be able to do your job, whatever job that is, without a question asked or a doubt raised. I’m grateful your former prefect did not kill me in your village; I won’t tempt fate again.”

“You really think it’s more honorable to stop the cheater from cheating the broken system than it is to be the cheater that cheats the broken system?”

“You haven’t sacrificed enough to know what you’re talking about.”

“But what did you sacrifice for? What are you going back to after all this is done?”

Sami glared at him. “If we get her looked at, you shouldn’t count on making it back in time. Are you all fine with that?”

“I am,” Silent said, surprisingly unhesitant.

“We’re so close,” Cautious drawled.

“This is your fault,” Eil said, lightly shoving Cautious.

Cautious fell over and had a hard time sitting back up. “Fine,” he said when he finally sat up.

Sami didn’t seem happy with the consensus, but her sympathy won over her need for self-preservation and she agreed to alter the course of their journey. She wondered if they might be so selfless without Silent’s special broth.

Instead of arriving at the door steps to the institution, they arrived at the doorsteps to a village that none of the students had ever heard of. They were out of their prefecture, farther than any of them had ever been, and should have expected to have ever been in their lives; especially Bite-Sized and Silent.

A random villager spotted them first, but Sami promptly requested to speak with the village leader. The alternative: knocking at every door until they found someone who knew enough about medicine to help them out, didn’t seem to be all that bright. Having someone even half-qualified to talk about medicine was a difficult challenge in any village, their best bet was to ask the village chief straight away if there was any here. The village chief was gracious enough to bring them over to a small house. Cautious and Eil were particularly grateful for an opportunity to lay around and not have to think too hard once again.

“We’re only supposed to get one animist down here a year,” the village chief said. He was much older than Tacus. He looked weary and tired, particularly with an animist before him.

“I know. The children under my charge were badly hurt, we just need something to help stave off the pain until we can reach the institution.”

“I would strongly advise that you went on ahead animist,” he said. “Leave the child here.”

“I can’t." Sami's voice was unwavering, dutiful to her new cause. "She’s gotten this close. She’s suffered enough, she deserves to make it. Please."

“You speak of the institution as if it’s a reward, but you know better than that.”

“You’re wrong. It is a reward. Power; there’s no reward like it.”

He took a deep breath, and nodded towards a younger woman who resembled him. She left with two children who had been playing with badly sculpted toys. Once they left, the village chief leaned over and whispered so low Sami had to ask him to repeat himself more than once.

“Animist, you’re not the first one to find her heart during this pilgrimage. Neither this prefecture, nor this village, are far from the institution. I can’t count the amount of animist who’ve come here seeking to alleviate their conscious with an act of kindness for those in their care, and it rarely works out well for the animist. I know enough to know that you cannot guarantee these children’s lives. I understand the weight that must be on your shoulders, the countless lives full of potential you’ve seen snuffed in the past few days, but you know as well as I do that the chance they even survive the institution are against them, so why risk your own life?”

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Having finally understood his question, she smiled faintly. “I’ve heard it said that it becomes easier to be heartless as you grow older, especially as you grow into the life of an animist, but I must be broken, it’s gotten harder with time. I’ll die an animist, but I prefer the luxury of dying for something right.”

The village chief felt her pain in that moment, and his next words would’ve been an indication of the one person in the village who might be able to help them, but the curtains promptly opened and another villager appeared. The village chief looked disappointed.

“Animist,” the new villager said.

Sami was confused, she looked between the village chief and the villager. The village chief seemed to defer sadly to the villager, and the villager paid him no mind.

“Yes?”

“The prefect has received word of your arrival and demands your presence at once.”

“How could he possibly-”

“It’s like I said, animist,” the village chief began, “this prefecture and this village has seen your sorts come about all too often. Our prefect enjoys taken advantage of these opportunities for his own benefit. He has eyes and ears across the prefecture, and never does he have more eyes and ears than this time of the year.”

“You’re saying I’ve already lost, more or less.” She snorted.

“I’m saying let's hope whatever the animist has need of you for, does not outweigh the moral heft of letting that girl die.”

“Get her help, please. And if I’m not back by sun up, then they aren’t making it back to the institution. Don’t leave them to die. They’re smart, the four of them. They’ll be useful.”

“You’ve done enough worrying about these kids, animist, more than most would or should. I’ll look after them. If you really want to do right by them though, I suggest you find a way to make it back here alive, preferably before sun up.”

Sami nodded and got to her feet, following the villager outside.

The village chief lingered briefly on each student, and stopped on Bite-Sized who wasn’t even conscious. “You kids really don’t look too good, let’s get you looked after.”

They met Hasa, the village medic, soon after. Hasa was about as good as you can get in the prefectures. She lived close to the institution so even after exam season, she still met enough animist to refine her methods and knowledge. Hasa was eager to talk about all her young little teachers fresh out of the institution, and insisted that they owed her a visit once they made it out of the institution themselves.

“Hasa, I assure you, if I make it out of the institution, I will owe you more than whatever I’ve learned about grass,” Eil said.

“I figured you’d learned something about overpromising,” Cautious chipped in.

“He’s right, you don't need to go that far,” Hasa said. “I’ll be happy just to get a chance to pick your brain.”

"You deserve more than that,” he objected.

“You know what’s the hard part about saying goodbye to kids like you?”

“Our imminent demise? I keep hearing that’s an inevitable outcome of all this,” Cautious said.

“It could be,” she said sadly. “You see, I don’t know whether the children whom I never see again don’t come back because they’ve forgotten about me or because they’ve died.” She gazed at Bite-Sized whose face had eased from the pain. “The institution will try to bring you down. It already has. The horrors you’ve already seen, I’ll be grateful if I die never seeing them for myself. Whatever you do, no matter what the institution tries to drill into you, you should look after each other. There won’t be anyone else there who will.” Cautious and Eil exchanged glares, while Silent sipped quietly on a cup of lightly flavored water. Hasa stood up and dusted herself off. “You should all get some rest. Whether or not the animist makes it back is out of your hands. There’s no sense in worrying about something you can’t control.”

She moved to turn off the torch.

“Would you mind holding off on that?” Eil asked.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark,” she chuckled.

“I know you said we should look out for each other, but I don’t quite trust this one,” he weakly pointed in Cautious’s direction.

She looked disappointed. “Sure, I’ll leave it on.”

Cautious and Eil stared at each for far longer than what would be deemed reasonable. Silent did her best not to entertain their quiet grudge. Bite-Sized stayed comfortably asleep.

“I have to admit something, Cautious,” Eil said.

“What’s that?”

“I never figured out how you did it. How did you disappear when we were ambushed? How did you survive our attack on the bandits?”

Cautious chuckled. “You weren’t taught much. How to harvest earth stones, that’s about it?”

“You’re right, most things I had to learn on my own.”

“My aunt took care of me. She did not want me to simply qualify for the institution and die, the way you nearly did, many times over. She wanted me to survive, so she taught me to survive. First, she showed me how to disappear.” He raised the palm of his right hand and unveiled a symbol not unlike the one Eil drew to summon a spear. He did not hold his hand open for too long, perhaps conscious that they might try to memorize the symbol. “So long as I am careful, I never have to worry about dying. Unfortunately for you, I’m very careful. Secondly, she showed me how to properly kill in a single strike. With just those two tools, I could handle most things on the journey to the institution.”

“You could’ve helped her,” Eil whispered.

“And risked giving myself away to them, or to you? Already I regret that I conceded to this whole affair; we should have left BIte-Sized here and gone to the institution on our own. What are you doing?”

Silent had stood up, placed her empty cup aside, and moved towards the door. She glanced at Cautious with a face that gave away nothing, opened the door, and left.

“What’s she doing?” Cautious asked again.

“Maybe she’s decided you’re right, and she’s gone to the institution on her own.”

“She wouldn’t make it to the institution on her own! I should join her.”

“You think she trusts you after everything you’ve done. Besides, look at us. At this point, she’d have better odds on her own.”

“If we don’t make it to the institution, I promise I’ll kill you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. The moment you look somewhere else, I'll put a knife right through your heart.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t speak carelessly.”

“I think that was you speaking carelessly.”

“I promise it wasn’t.”

“So, you’re saying as soon as we have news that there is no chance for us to reach the institution in time that you’ll take great care to notice the moment that I take my eyes off of you so you can kill me.”

“Precisely.”

“I’ll just make sure not to take my eyes off of you until you give up on that ambition.”

He chuckled. “Is that right?”

“No. I’m just kidding. If I ever feel the need to take my eyes off you, I’ll take great care to kill you first.”

Neither Cautious nor Eil found themselves invested enough in each other’s threats to utter another word or to resist succumbing to their fatigue.