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27 – Martial Arts

Early August 4031. Hirie town. Lyth territory.

Klytea exited first and Elle followed her out. As I was going out of the hut Esmeralda’s voice echoed “Do not forget difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations”. Insinctively I turned back but there was no presence of life within the hut. Esmeralda had disappeared.

We rode our horses back to port of Hirie town. Ralf was eagerly waiting for Klytea’s return. Nevertheless if anything bad had happened to Klytea, Ralf should commit suicide because Klytea’s family won’t kill him that easily.

During the trip in Sea Serpents all our meals either were sea food or had some kind of sea ingredients in it so we decided to eat something different before boarding Sea Serpents. There was not much of a time as Sea Serpents was going to leave in less than half an hour so we bought meal from a pushcart rather than restaurant.

We were served in minutes and I reckon this meal should be classified as a fast food. The soup was hot. It had meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, noodles, tofu and some other ingredients that I didn’t have any idea about. I used chopsticks to grab piece of tofu to check the taste. The meal had unusually gentle spicing mixture. “Outstanding”, I said out loud and everyone laughed.

Same night, I was laying on my bed while going through Esmeralda’s prophecy. I can not explain the reason but her words were stuck in my brain. I stood up and blew out the fire in the lamp. I went out of my room directly to the deck of the ship.

Except steersman no soul was around. “Night is for sleeping!”, he shouted. “Aye, I know.. I just wanted fresh air”, I replied. He nodded in confirmation. “Ain’t it lonely?”, I asked him. “He is lonely”, he said and raised his right arm in mast’s direction.

A faint light could be seen on top of the mast. Looking closely, there was a scout with a binocular checking surroundings. “Lonely”, I whispered to myself.

I roamed around the deck and ended up in one of the sides watching the sky. A gentle breeze was patting my body, giving a refreshing feeling. Unlimited numbers of stars were brightly shining upon the dark sky. Once in a while a white cloud passed by, which astounded me. Both moons were gleaming and were illuminated on waters of the sea.

“Beautiful”, I said and closed my eyes to listen to sounds of waves. “It really is”, Klytea’s voice gently disturbed the silence. I turned to see her besides me. Lights of moons were reflected on her white skin, making her look like an ice princess.

“She is a spoiled rich KID”, passed my mind. “You keep impressing me”, she said softly. “How come?”, I was puzzled. “You seem different”, she answered. “A romantic”, she added. “Nah, I just couldn’t sleep”, I said and smiled.

She made few steps forward to reach me. “Why are you being so selfish?”, I asked her without thinking at all. “What you made think so?”, she replied instantly. “It’s a long journey to Astoria and not counting yourself, you are putting Ralf in danger.”, I said involuntarily. “You still impress me, Kain”, she said confidently. I had a puzzled look so she kept on “Ralf is a martial artist. A master. Yours truly, is almost a master level martial artist too”.

“Martial arts?”, I was at a loss. “Yes. My grandfather is the head of Moon Bao Sect. ”. “Come again”, I was clueless. “Moon Bao Sect… Don’t tell me you do not know about Moon Bao Sect!”, she was angry and kind of cute. “No”, my answer was pretty simple.

“Kain, you are hopeless!”, she had a look as if a lightening had struck her. “I was raised in Cohen manor, what or who do you think I am? An encyclopedia?”, I got back at her. “Ask Elle, I am not going to waste time with you!”, she said and turned her face towards the moons.

“Almost master, why are you running away then?”, I asked with an ironic tone. “I-I-I”, she mumbled. “I want to be queen of my fate. I want to decide for myself what I am going to be, who I am going to marry…”, she had despair in her voice.

“Prince on the white horse”, I said. “You sound like them!”, she said tears flowing from her eyes. “It is not about who he will be. Craftsman, steersman, lumberjack or whatever… I don’t want my future husband to see me as an asset because my father is a Silverstar and my mom is the daughter of Moon Bao Sect’s head.”, she said.

“But those are parts of your life that you can not deny”, I said. “I’m not denying, I just want to be free off those prejudices. Good or bad, I want to be acknowledged because of my personal traits”, she told me looking directly at my eyes.

My right hand reached her face and using my index finger I cleared the tears from her face. “Up until now, I thought you are just a spoiled rich kid. But now, I respect you for who you are Klytea… and I wish you good luck!”, I said diligently. Thinking over I was acting like a macho. Her face blush and she ran away. “I need a cigarette!”, I whispered.

Next day, I woke up and went up to deck half-sleepily. My eyes were searching for Elle, Klytea or Ralf. All of them were absent, so I went back inside to kitchen. I had butter and cheese for breakfast.

Later on I went back to my room to do physical training. I was doing callisthenic exercises, which were improving my body’s balance, agility and coordination. Exercises using body weight were excellent for warm up. As soon as finishing those, I went back to deck to practice with sword and aikido/judo stances and movements.

Time passed by in the blink of an eye. By the second day of September, Sea Serpents docked on Astoria’s port. In the last month Klytea was putting distance between her and me. Nevertheless I saw her side which she hadn’t even shown to Elle.

2nd , September, 4031. Astoria.

Our group had departed Sea Serpents. “Well, where are you going?”, Elle asked me. I took of the paper where an address was written. “This is place where I need to go”, I answered. “Do you need our help?”, she asked with a different tone than usual. “I’ll manage”, I said and continued “this is where our paths part away.”. “I’ll see you in enrollment test”, I told to Klytea and smiled. “Goodbye”, she said and blushed. Elle had mischievous look on her face as she observed Klytea and Ralf coughed for few times.

They left off leaving me behind. Even though I hadn’t entered city itself, I could imagine how big Astoria is just by looking at amount of people roaming around in port. Cargo were unloaded and loaded from ships manually.

Merchants and traders were shouting names and prices of their commodities. People who looked like government officials were checking out boxes for their contents. Everything was happening simultaneously, which seemed chaotic. Observing for a few moments more, I could see the system in this anarchy. “City Life”, I whispered.

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