On the Hills of Eden

Soleiman rolled over, shuffling his thin quilt blanket over him for the umpteenth time that night.

“Rumi?” he called out softly, lifting his head up and turning to try and see if the girls were still awake.

He heard a soft hum, barely loud enough for him to pick up on.

“I can’t stop thinking about breakfast, you know?”

“Ehehe,” she giggled quietly. “Told you I could cook.”

“Mmm,” he hummed in response. “I’m glad we brought you along.”

Though, she didn’t respond.

“Me too,” Pallas added.

Soleiman sat up fully, turning to the right to see Rumi somehow fast asleep, her two hands wrapped about one of Qingxi’s, who slept to her left.

“She fell asleep?” He asked, craning his neck forward to try and get a better look in the dim lantern light.

“Mhm. Responded to you and then dozed right off.”

“Wow,” Soleiman huffed, impressed. “Fair play, honestly.”

He lay back down, feeling as the thin cloth mattress they’d laid down on a series of wooden planks to elevate him off the floor pressed up unforgivingly against his back. Unglamorous as it was, though, that was his bed. And it wasn’t too much different from the conditions of the girls’ ‘beds’, too.

He heard the creaks of the planks of the bench Pallas’ bed had been laid upon, and then the planks of his. Before he knew it, she’d already crawled her way under his quilt, popping back up to rest her head on his pillow.

“Don’t mind me,” she whispered, hoisting the quilt up to cover everything up to her chin.

“I told you those evening naps weren’t a good idea,” he said.

“I can’t help it! I’ve just been getting so tired ever since we left,” she quietly retorted.

“And now?”

“And now I pay the price.”

The two of them lay in silence for a while, Pallas reaching over to set Soleiman’s left hand on her heart.

“You okay, Pallas?”

“Mmm,” she hummed.

“If it’s about the Janub, I think you did a great job improvising.”

“No,” she said, squeezing Soleiman’s only feeling hand against her chest. Letting the rhythmic thumping of her heart pulse into his arm. “It’s about my power.”

“...What about it?” he asked, turning to look at her.

“Back then, when I shot the horses,” she said, memories of that irrepressible surge of blood fighting to erupt from her finger surfacing again in her mind. “I only just managed to aim it before it went off. If I had been only a few moments slower…”

She turned to face Soleiman, her eyes meeting with his; those black voids a familiar, comforting sight.

“I might’ve hit you.”

Soleiman hummed, turning back away to face the amber-lit cloth ceiling.

“But you didn’t, right?”

“I know, I know,” she said. “But what if something like that happens again, and I don’t get so lucky?”

“Hmm.”

“The same goes for my bloodburst fist, actually,” she said, turning to face the ceiling too as she raised a loosely clenched fist up above them. “I can’t fire it on command. It all just depends on whether or not my body… feels it or not.”

“We could ask Qingxi to help you,” he suggested.

She let her hand drop.

“How would she know what to do, though? It’s not exactly like the Blessing’s powers work like Techniques and mana do.”

“She made it work with Rumi and her blade, right? Even though Rumi can’t use even a drop of mana?”

Pallas hummed, still on the fence.

“It’s all about intent, I reckon,” he said, recalling Rumi’s drilling sessions back in the Minervan forest while Pallas was still in her coma. “Mom trained your heart, I train your brain, and… she can train your mind.”

“Mm,” she sighed. “Alright then, I’ll ask her.”

“When do you want to get started?”

The two siblings jolted in their bed, both sitting up to see as Qingxi had pushed her quilt down and taken to staring them down.

“You were awake, Qingxi?” Pallas asked.

“I woke up when you said my name,” she said. “Sorry for eavesdropping.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Pallas reassured her. “But you can train me?”

“I could certainly try.”

Pallas hummed in acknowledgement, Soleiman flopping back onto the mattress behind her.

“Tomorrow morning, then? Just after breakfast.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Time passed. Probably. Soleiman wasn’t sure anymore, given the fact that Pallas had returned to her bed and had fallen asleep sometime ago. Qingxi too fell silent almost immediately after settling the matter of training with his sister, leaving him alone with the quiet whistling of the outside wind.

A whistling that sounded as though he were being called. Like they were beckoning him, cheering him on.

In celebration.

He pushed those thoughts past, turning over once again. Ever since he had that nightmare of an experience that was his first encounter with an ataphoi, his mind did him no favours when it came to falling asleep. Somehow or rather, he always felt he was just one curious look away from being face to face with another one of those inhuman ceramic facades, fading into and out of the darkness; the dim light of their dying lantern lapping over them like shallow waves over an abyssal shore.

He ignored those thoughts. He had to. And he wasn’t going to let himself wake Pallas up again just to pat him to sleep, either. Though he did consider, on at least a few occasions. It just felt too good to give up without putting at least some consideration into it.

One thing that really bothered him, though, more than the visions of the many masks, was the strange dream he had just before the final encounter with the ataphoi. Where he was transported into the body of a Hashashin, and presumably sent back anywhere from two to four decades in time, back when the Merkezi soldiers still wore the white turbans symbolic of their short-lived republican system.

Back to the 4th Minervan War, the Bloodrain War.

He understood the masks and the hallucinations, both auditory and visual, sure. But somehow slipping into a dream staged within one of the bloodiest Minervan conflicts in the past century? That was something else entirely.

…

Perhaps it was the Edenberry.

He recalled, though faintly, that he had eaten an Edenberry partway into the standoff with the ataphoi. And that not long after, he fell into that strange dream.

Perhaps, then, he could try and replicate those conditions, possibly allowing him a second glimpse back into the past.

It was certainly worth a try. For even if an actual ataphoi turned up to make quick work of him, the horses would kick up enough of a fuss to rouse the others in time.

And so, he rolled up the edge of his mattress, setting a plank aside so that he could access their limited stash of Edenberries to sneak a singular one out. Carefully, he popped it into his mouth, hopping out of the wagon via the driver’s end and shuffling his feet along to sit himself atop the dew-kissed grasses just by the nearby river.

Now alone, surrounded only by the calls of the wind and the soft gurgling of the everflowing Haaran river, he straightened his back. Breathing in, and out. Fighting to keep himself awake even as boredom and tiredness relentlessly tugged away at his consciousness. Funny things, those were; especially considering they hadn’t even so much as bothered to show up when he was actually trying to fall asleep.

Slowly, the winds began to pick up. Slowly at first, but then quicker and quicker, racing atop the river’s currents and through the grasses’ waves with ever growing speed. And before he knew it, a light had emerged; shining on from behind him, the sound of footsteps squelching atop the grass following suit.

A pair of footsteps he recognised.

“Qingxi?” He asked, turning around to look at the Chitite- lantern held in her hand. “You’re still awake?”

“I should be asking you that question, Soleiman,” she said, sitting herself down next to him and placing the lantern in between them.

“Ah, well,” he started. “I just wanted to experiment a little bit. See if I can try to recreate what happened when Rumi and I first met an ataphoi.”

“Mm,” Qingxi hummed. “And what would you have done if an actual ataphoi came along?”

“Scream and call for you and Pallas, probably.”

She huffed slightly, a slight smile forming on her face.

“At least you’re honest about it.”

They sat in silence for a while more, neither of them really feeling that much of a rush to head back inside. It was a pleasant night, after all.

“Soleiman,” Qingxi said.

“Hm?”

“You’re a smart guy, you know that right?”

“Eh? Oh, thanks,” he replied, admittedly caught off guard by the sudden unprovoked compliment.

“So would you mind if I asked you a question?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “Ask away.”

Qingxi paused for a moment, letting the winds talk for them.

“Where do you think you’d be now if you weren’t smart?”

The waters of the river splashed onto the shore, carried upwards by the northerly winds before seeping back into the porous sand below.

“Do you still think Miss Rei would have chosen you?”

“I…” he started, though failing to find any words. “I think so. I’d like to think so, at least.”

…

“But,” he continued, knowing he wasn’t done. “Deep down, there was a reason why she chose me. And that was probably because I was smart. She could’ve picked any other kid at the orphanage and... there’s not much to me other than my slightly above average brains.”

Qingxi let the answer stew in silence for a moment, the rushing of the cold winds against her bandaged face just slightly calmer than the storm that ravaged the landscape of her mind.

“But I also don’t think it makes sense to think of it if I wasn’t smart,” he said. “Because I am, to an extent. I am me. And I got chosen, you know? Not much point worrying over hypotheticals.”

“Mmm,” Qingxi hummed, the storm in her mind calming down a bit. “You make a good point.”

Soleiman didn’t want to think of a scenario where he wasn’t smart. Because that was all he had. That was all he could give to Pallas. Without that, he would be little more than baggage, weighing her down. Maybe doing good to boost her morale and help put her to sleep, sure. But still baggage at the end of the day, with no real purpose in battle, strategy-making or diplomacy.

So he didn’t. At least, he tried not to. And he hoped Qingxi tried not to worry too. That she didn’t torment herself over the same hypotheticals that made him question his worth.

“Hey, Qingxi.”

“Yeah?”

“Could you maybe… teach me some of your Techniques, when you’re not busy?” he asked. “I’d like to get to know you better.”

And indeed she worried herself not. That was that, and this was this. And even though they both could very well be nothing but baggage at the end of the day, they at least knew that they had each other and the rest of the party.

That they were allies.

“Of course, Soleiman.”