Chap 4: Breakthrough
1982 Words
At that time, Frank was still a newborn Faerin…
Frank woke up as he was having a long slumber. The first thing that caught in his eyes was the ruin of the scenery around. Usually, the memory of all Fearins would be connected together, even to their later generation of Fearin, but Frank didn’t understand the reality wasn’t like how his ancestors told him.
Where are all the trees… Where are all the usual greeneries that always existed in his memory? Replace by all the beauty was only the ugliness of the black of the burnt trees and the desert…?
Frank was scared, his body trembled while confusion filled in his head. What just happened during his sleep… Where is every one of his family and only him being left here alone?
Frank wandered among the ruined forest while keeping the hope that he could find a Faerin around. The longer he flies, the fear more covered his heart. There was no one here… Only him, being abandoned in this such lifeless place which used to be his home.
“Everyone, where are you all…?”
Frank lost all of his hope as he found no one. He sat on a dead branch of the tree and cried like a child.
However, something caught his attention by his sparkling light. By curiosity, Frank flapped his tiny wings and came forward to check out. When Frank opened the bush, the thing in front of him was like a source of the light, suffered to shine bright among the darkness of the night sky.
It was just an ordinary herb, yet very small with two tiny leaves and only had the size of a human’s hand. But it was spreading a ray of light as golden as sunlight. Not only that, Frank stayed close to it. It was so warm as if he was being embraced by Goddess Galadriel in the memory of his ancestors.
By instinct, Frank felt very comfortable when staying close to this mysterious herb. The ground around that herb was very fresh as well that surrounding grass growing around. Unlike other species, Faerin didn’t need to eat. Their food resource was from the aura energy in the ground supplied by the trees of Frelanna Forest. Staying near that herb, it had an amazing aura resource that his belly was almost full, since its aura energy was completely similar to Frelanna Forest.
Frank decided to live near that herb and protected it at any cost. Of course, he felt so lonely too, but the thing he could do now was staying here, until he could find any other Faerins around to find him and rescue him.
Frank couldn’t remember how long he had been living thanks to that mysterious herb. The scenery still hadn’t changed and there wasn’t any Fearin lurking around this place…
The most fearful situation where Frank was worried the most eventually came, it was winter. In this such cold and dry weather like this season, all plants, trees and grass would hibernate and didn’t provide food for him anymore. Frank was suffering gathering dry tree branches and made a shelter for him and his food resource, so he could survive through the winter.
One day, when Frank was sleeping, his kitten ears shook as he heard an unfamiliar noise from outside the shelter. He took a look to check out. It was a group of humans. This was his first time seeing humans so he kept staring at them. Such a dedicated creature, Frank thought when he noticed the leader of that human group was a young woman. She had beautiful platinum hair being tied up elegantly. Her emerald eyes looked at the sky, while touching a surrounding dead tree showed her undescribed beauty being mixed with the white color of the snow.
The woman was being escorted by a group of armored men, Frank guessed she might have a high rank in human society. Thinking about that, Frank was scared and pushed himself backward, hid in the shelter carefully to not being noticed. However, his tiny body touched on the herb and caused a small sound, caught the notice of the woman.
“Something hiding here?”
As the woman opened the shelter, she had flinched when seeing Frank.
By natural instinct, Frank rose his caution and growled. But he was a newborn Faerin, so his threatening behavior was totally ineffective to the woman.
“Is that a pure Faerin? I thought they all went extinct after the apocalypse…” By curiosity, the woman showed her fragile and smooth hand to Frank “Don’t worry, come here, I won’t harm you.”
Frank was hesitating at first. The woman patiently showed her hand without moving which calmed Frank down. His nose sniffing on her hand, it had a good scent that comfy him. Frank eventually trusted that woman and licked her hand as his response.
“I think this is the last pure Faerin still alive here, we need to keep him to prevent him being killed by Dark Faerins.”
The woman gently carried Frank up. But suddenly, Frank jumped from her hands and covered himself around the mysterious herb. The woman was curious, she hadn’t ever seen this herb anymore. Maybe that was a super rare herb that Frank had been cared about? So many questions appeared in her head. She decided to bring that herb to the Palace as well, in order to serve for research.
Then, the woman went “ah!” when she remembered how Faerin usually ate in her books. She asked Frank.
“Please come with me, little one. I can keep you both safe and live with me.”
Frank didn’t understand how the woman was going to do that. But he remembered… that time, he followed the woman, along with the mysterious herb.
At that moment, he didn’t notice that woman was also hiding something else under her noble coat as well.
*** Back to the present…
Galen felt like he was floating in the middle of the cold atmosphere. He wanted to move, but his body couldn’t respond to his command and kept pushing him lower and lower, as if he was being drowned into the bottomless ocean.
Suddenly, he could hear the screaming voice of Frank…
“Galen! Galen!!! Please wake up, kid!! Don’t die!!!”
Galen opened his eyes. A ray of light shined into his eyes that made him dazzled. Just when his consciousness came back, Galen coughed intensively. Water from his mouth and nose splatted on the ground.
He then slowly realized that he had been lying beside the river. Frank had been beside him and saved his life.
“Thanks God you are still alive!!” Frank showed his smile and hugged Galen “Stupid Galen, do you know you worried me so much?! It was so lucky that you fall into the groundwater under the cliff so I can keep your life while dragging you outside Balony Capital through the river route!!”
However, opposite from what Frank expected, Galen was sitting still. His eyes looked down to the ground and sighed. He still remembered very well what happened before he lost consciousness and fell to the cliff. He saw by his own eyes, his father was controlling the horse and tried to kill him…
“Hey, Galen?” Frank patted Galen when seeing him immobilized “Are you okay?”
Galen couldn’t control his emotion. All of his endurance from being hatred by not only Tredia civilians, but also his closest belonging father who was trying to finish his life. For a 15 years old teenager like him, he couldn’t handle all of these years under mental pressure anymore. That shock eventually urged him to drop his tears.
“Frank… Is it ok if… I can cry for a moment?
I just can’t believe… after everything I have tried my best… my father… Why did he do that to me…”
Frank stayed silent for a while, he then inhaled and yelled.
“GALEN!! Listen to me!!” Frank shouted “This is not the time to give up yet!! Instead of sitting here crying, this is our time to think of the solution!!
Like you, I even don’t understand why King Anderton wanted to kill you. But think Galen! Think! Now, you should be happy that you are now free from a person like him, am I right?! At Tredia Kingdom, I bet everyone will claim that their prince has died and you can freely live a new life.”
“A new life…?” Galen asked.
“Yes, remember Galen. Once you aren’t the prince anymore, you can travel around the world, help everyone by your healing skill right?” Frank said with a confident smile “Don’t worry, whenever you go, I’ll be here as your companion through your journey. And if you still don’t understand what I said yet, do you need me to slap you to awake your brain?”
Galen then thought what Frank told him earlier completely made sense. If his father already disliked him and wanted to remove him from the start, instead of dying, he could now be free and rebegin a new life. Not as a warrior prince anymore, from now on, he could live by himself by using his strong point: Become a healer…
Galen didn’t understand why… he began smiling. From just a giggle, he looked at the red-colored sky of the sunset and laughed in tears like a man who found freedom.
“Huh?” Frank was surprised and startled by Galen’s sudden laugh “Galen, you are pretending to be crazy or you are currently being?”
“You just open for me a new mind, Frank. Really thank you very much!”
Galen grabbed Frank’s tiny body from the air and hugged him.
“I understand now. This is my new chance to find where my true place is within this world!”
“OUCH OUCH OUCH!! Ok, I’m happy if you got it! Now… please… release me!! I can’t breathe!!!!!!!!”
Frank suffered from Galen’s tight hug. If anyone was seeing Frank right now, they would feel bad while finding him hilarious at the same time.
After releasing Frank, it took him few seconds to take back his breath. Behind him, Galen had to say sorry non-stop.
“So Galen…” Frank asked “Do you have any idea where to start?”
“First, let’s have some preparation…”
Galen took off his steel armor and his royal cape, revealing a boy with thin body shape covered by just a set of silky simple costumes. Around him, there were some corpses being dragged by the flow of groundwater to this place too. He investigated, checked out if they had any usable weapon so he could use it or not.
“Found one.” Galen smiled as if he just caught a piece of gold – a sword from a dead soldier. Even the waist bell attaching with the word was still good to use as well so he would take it too.
Galen took out the sword from his right hand, while the left hand holding his hair. Very eventually, he cut it his back hair just by one single s***h.
“Oh, Galen.” Frank gave him a thumbs-up “You look so far better with short hair!”
“Thank you, Frank.”
Galen looked at his crown the last time. Seeing the jewel reflexing his new look, he smiled with satisfaction.
“Goodbye Prince Galen, now I have become Galen The Adventurer!”
Galen threw his crown into the river. Then, he with his companion Frank began the journey around the world, with the wish that he had always been dreaming about: To become the best healer of humanity…
- Writer
