Tales Of A Shifter (B6) - The Child Of Sun & Moon

Chapter 13 - Disagreements (1)

Chapter 13

Six more miles of marching was a slog of misery for Brandon because even with his mind concentrated his was still suffocating in a body full of never ending pains. He caught himself drowning in the sensation at moments when his mind got to relaxed and he would instantly regret the slip...and get even more tired.

And even though Ann didn’t complain she did slow down significantly alerting him to just how exhausted he had become, after carrying him up the mountains path, getting attacked and having to nearly create a Portal to scare him out of his panic attack.

Suddenly Ann stopped, turned to him, and then she gestured to the space around them.

“This will do for a few hours...?“she softly questioned, a bead of sweat dancing over her temple as she looked him in the eye.

It was a very dark part of the lands that they had come too, but moon light did grant some slight illumination allowing Brandon to see that they had managed to come to a sheer face of pale grey stone, the veered off far into the heavens, a shelf that had developed atop the one they were already traversing.

To the far left and right of them there was moss and vegetation growing from the mountain, and at angled drop offs in the north, west, and south, the mountain led back down to the long planes that they had been walking on for the last week. Brandon had no real way to know how much further he had to go, , but he had a keen sense pulling him east wards....and Brandon could see that they way would lead them around this gaggle of mountainous terrain, and deep up into the eastern side of the wilderness to the far north of the Leopards Lands, and bordering the Lands of the Central Continent boarded to the far north by the Atlantic Sea.

Next to this continent was the South Gulf, India West and Victorian North Continents each large and environmentally different space of land was divided up by Horse, Bird and Wolf Shifters, Mortal and their Clans/city’s as well as three large bodies of water, two fresh water Lakes and a massive river, made up these areas.

While the African and Baltic Continents where the Lion Prides, Whale Clan and Boar Clan far across the Salt Mire Ocean resided and so didn’t require his consideration.

AS things stood by geography and by the things that Ann had taught him concerning the topography of their path it seemed that Brandons memories was pulling him towards lands located in the far forgotten Eastern side of the world, a place that no Mortals owned, no Alchemists had built Bases on and no Shifter Clans had been given control over.

The Lands to the far east of the Central Continent was without name, and without any masters....it was also believed to be exceptionally forbidden ground and a place guarded by an thick brambling forest that nothing ever left, and at the center of the dense and dark woods it was said that there existed an iron blockade of mountains so white they gleamed like pure ivory.

Brandon knew that Ann’s knowledge of the outside world was very lacking as was his own, but he knew that his senses and memories were pulling him to the east, no matter what really waited for him there.

“This should be fine...” Brandon fought to take in a deep calming breath, stood tall, opened his senses and he reached out with his Druid senses. He tried to feel if there were any predators around them or wild game, but all he was able to feel was the pulse of trees and insects. “Ill lay out the mats if you will do a small fire?”

Ann nodded at him, then she gave him a critical once over. “Your sure you don’t want to just take a seat by that log and let me do this...?

“No...” Brandon forced through his teeth, tired of getting treated like useless baggage even though he did feel incredibly sick all over. “I will help...” Then the Druid waved her off.

Eventually the small space was illuminated as Ann gathered some dried broken twigs and branches together, and using the edge of Brandons own pocket blade she struck a thick piece of flint and started a small blaze. Brandon kept the blade Ezkeiel had gifted to him their last night together at the lake in the back of his pants, using the blade to skin kills and start fires if needed.

Ann made sure to hand the blade back to him as they both settled down by the fire onto their separate bed rolls. “It’s a strong and beautiful piece...” She commented as she passed the sheathe into him hands over the flames. “I wonder who crafted such a fine blade in that village...?”

“I don’t know...I told you it was Ezekiel who gave it to me....” Brandon smiled as he gripped the blade, the comforting black handle etched with the symbol of the Leopards Clan, dual leopards gleamed as he put the blade away.

Ann didn’t respond and poked at the fires between them with a thick stick. Embers scattered from the crackling of wood on the stones face, the soft sizzle of popping dry twigs

Brandon let her work as he put a hand to his neck and massaged tight pained muscles that were spasming as lashes of hot discomfort rained down his spine into his toes. Brandon leaned onto his lap and a soft whining groan escaped him as he rolled his neck and the pain only increased by a dozen notches making his belly roll.

Ann soon paused and turned her cool black eyes on his face. “Brandon can I ask you something...?”

Brandon dropped his hand from his neck, groaning to himself as he cracked open his eyes and caught her brown globes over the flames watching him. “Sure Ann. What is it?”

Ann slowly took the thick branch into her left hand and she began to grip and clench its length in her hand as she looked at him, her expression was cool but intense and slightly puzzled. “I must confess to you that I am very confused by what you are trying to do....What will you do when you get to the top of this mountain exactly? I mean what do you think will be there for us to find?”

Brandon frowned at her, for two reason.

Firstly he wasn’t happy that she was starting to question and debate him so much the further they went and the more he became overtaken by the Acris and his Druids Blood. He had no energy but what he could give to travel and having to argue with Ann about his dwindling strength was not getting any easier.

Secondly....the Druid didn’t like her questioning him because as always he operated in a space of survival and need. To ensure the survival of Ezekiel and rest of the Leopards Brandon was convinced that he needed to leave and figure out more about his past, he also needed to find Ishtar because he had remembered it from Brandons dreams, but the why and how of it all was still lost to him.

He sensed the importance of what Brandon was doing and he knew he had to go to this White Mountain, but as to the way this journey would play out or what he hoped would happen Brandon had no concrete answers.

Slowly crossing his legs to buy himself some time Brandon put the palms of his hands on his kneecaps, took a few breaths and he said. “The long and short of what Im hoping to find is answers...”

Ann sat up and just prompted him to continue. “Answers...that’s all?” she sounded even more puzzled or was that disappointment he heard?

Brandon could only smile at her sadly as he nodded and spoke. “Ann I know that’s not exactly going to change anything, but that’s the truth. Im just looking...for a simple answer. An answer to why and how all of this conflict and pain began.” Brandon touched his temple and he squinted his eyes down at the flames.

Ever since he had had the dream about Ishtar his mind felt like a cracked egg, bits of voices and feelings leaking out of his soul, scrambled and confused. Insane wailing inside of him clawing to get free....

There was a harmony of screams, a crying hiss in his mind, Brandon even saw flashes of faces he didn’t know, and felt a melody of things that he just didn’t understand entirely...

His mind was a milkshake of a sloppy jigsaw puzzle and he struggled to know where he began and it all ended anymore. Truthfully Brandon feared he was too far gone for him to ever come back, too broken and messed up, but he didn’t want to believe that. Didn’t want to except the fact that he was just to broken to ever return to Ezkeiel...he needed to think the opposite just to keep from lying down in despair.

Taking a pained second to push his mind to work Brandon said softly. ” In my memories I see disjointed flashes of the past, my past and I see how different I was and I wonder how I became who I am now? Why...How did I end up in the base with Hovel? How did I come to lose myself and why don’t I remember anything I need to now?” Brandon dropped his hand. “I need the answers that will tell me what happened...”

Ann tilted her head and a frown o confusion creased her face. “What will knowing these answers solve for you Brandon? What will knowing anything about the past help to change your present?” Ann shook her head. “You are out here chasing after more pain and anguish and just because you want to know more pain and anguish?”

Brandon clenched his jaw. “Stop being so negative! Stop making me doubt what Im trying to do, it wont work!”

Ann laughed short and harsh. “Why does it matter so much to you!? Whatever happened has happened Brandon! Can you simply not deal with the present!? I don’t know what happened in your past, it was long before my time in the Brotherhood...” Ann told him sharply. “All I know is that you act like you think knowing will help you, but in the end I can sense and see how terrified you truly are to go on!”

Ann tilted her head. “Brandon if confronting your past has you so messed up and off balance what if you need to leave it alone!?”

Brandon didn’t need the swath of suffocating anxiety and guilt to rise over him to remind him of just how right Ann may have been.

Yes....he was terrified and he did want to go back, to return home. To return to the only person in the world that actually made him want to keep living through all the pain he endured, but Brandon refused to run and he had decided that he had to confront this all head on no matter how much it hurt. No matter how much it flayed his mind and soul at ever step.

Swallowing a knot in his throat Bandon whispered back a reply. “Im...Im honestly not sure what Im doing Ann. I mean I can lie to you and say I have some grand idea of what will happen the moment I reach the top of Ishtar, but the truth is Im just going off instinct here.” Brandon shrugged and rubbed at his arms, then he put his hand back on his knees.

“You know when the Bane came to me, I felt like the only way to understand what I did and what happened and why all of this has come to be was for me to do this. The understanding lies with the knowing, isn’t that what they say?” He chuckled weakly at Ann and then got quiet.

” Ann I am struggling but when I go back to the beginning and put together the clues of my past I can only hope that there will be....” Brandon paused and twisted his lips. He mulled over what he wanted and he breathed out gently.

“I hope there well finally be clarity about what I need to do next.”

Ann let him wind to a finish and she tapped the stick in her hands on the hard earth as she looked at him.

“Clarity huh?....Yeah. I think clarity in life is important to understand who we are and who we want to become....” She readily agreed. Then she told him sternly. “But...Brandon what if....what if the clarity you find only destroys you, dont you think that can happen?” she asked him. Her words made a cold chill go down his spin and Brandon locked eyes with her.

“I don’t understand...?” he said and gestured for her to go on.

Ann just sighed fast at him and she put a hand to her chin as she looked to the flames and she gently spoke.

“Look this is just a theory, but I kinda think that these memories and your feelings about them are important, specifically that they terrify you so much. Its...” Ann sighed and dropped her hand. “Brandon maybe it’s a warning not to keep going. Im...Im wondering if maybe you forgot because of reason. A bad reason. A reason that should remain in the past...”

Brandon felt his skin prickle, and all f the guilt and pain in his soul thrum like a cord being plucked and he smiled. Don’t ask him why he smiled, but in a twisted way feeling his own body reacting so harshly only alerted him to how serious this conversation was, and how close Ann was to understanding something even he didn’t understand about himself yet.

“A reason...?” he murmured. “Like what? What can you think of...?”

Ann gave him a confounded flustered look as he smiled at her and she shrugged and glared up away from him and at the moon. “You know even better then I do Brandon that there are some things that are just...too horrible to be recalled, some things best left forgotten to time.”

At the reminder of his past torture Brandon clenched his fists.

“I suppose I do...” he agreed with her, then he licked his lips and nodded. “Still if the truth waiting for me was better left forgotten its too late for me to turn back now. I need to know...even if doing this puts me in danger, or it kills me....” Brandon expressed, and then he felt a different pang inside full of painful regret, and all he could think about was Ezekiel.

Almost as if she were reading the sorrow on his face Ann suddenly asked him. “And what of your Leopard love, Ezekiel? You would die and leave him behind in pursuit of things that time wanted to forsake; things that happened to long ago to truly even matter now? Things that may have been pushed aside for a REASON...”

Brandon glowered at the other Mana User and sighed at her niggling questions.

“Look, If you’re asking me if I would die for him, then the answer is yes Ann. Yes a million times over.” Brandon proclaimed proudly and sharply and without any hesitation. Ann cast him a look of angry denial that he didn’t understand, but he just tapped his chest and kept talking.

" I cant make you understand this, but I am only doing this for him. I don’t want answers for just me anymore. I want them because to be with Ezekiel and to save him from the wrath of my enemies I have to know what my past holds. And if my past is the blade that ends my life then I happily march towards the edge and I will plunge it into my own chest and yes I will leave Ezekiel behind...if it means he gets to live!”

Ann looked away and shook her head. “You would die for the Reaver that is clear, but that’s not what is asked of you. No one needs your death...Well it seems that if we reach this summit and whatever lies at the top does kill you?” Ann tightened her hands before her and she whispered raggedly. “...Then my own life will be forfeit as well...and I will deserve it for helping you be a fool.”

“What? Why!” Brandon shot her a look of alarmed confusion for her dark statements.

But Ann just gave him a blank stare then she leaned in and she tapped her temple. “Brandon consider exactly what I have done. I have as good as kidnapped you.”

Brandon sighed in frustration and dropped his head back. “Jeez! No! No you didn’t kidnap me! I asked you to help me escape!”

Ann cast him a sad smirk, and behind her eyes Brandon saw a raw flash of serious guilt he just didn’t understand. “Druid you think that Reaver will just forgive me for helping you so easily? Im not a fool. I know how he feels about you and how serious Ezekiel is about your safety. I watched him unleash a nightmare upon the Brotherhood just to take you back from them. So that Leopard will hunt me to the day I die if any harm comes to you while you are in my care. In fact considering how mad he is about you I never should have helped you in the first place and expected to be left alone. That beast is likely to cut me to ribbons the next time we meet face to face, weather you get damaged or not actually.”

Brandon tsked and tried to smile off her words, even though a chill of unease did touch his heart at the idea of Ezekiel’s anger being directed at Ann because of something he asked the other Mana User to do.

“Don’t worry Ann. If we get to the Ishtar mountains and then go back to the Leopards in one piece I promise I won’t let Ezekiel hurt you....” Brandon swallowed as his throat suddenly got tight and his eyes started to sting slightly. ” Besides if anything hell be too angry at me to even pay you any mind. I know I hurt him by leaving and there is no doubt in my mind that Ill have to seriously fight to get him to forgive me...”

“No doubt...but this is all a mote point if we do get to the top of this mountain.” Ann quipped.

Brandon nodded. “Its not like I have a choice! So stop trying to make me hesitate...”

Ann cut him off with a slight glare. “You don’t give yourself much choice because you actually don’t think you have one!” Ann spat tapping a fist into her left knee. “You’re convinced that your salvation is in this mysterious place of your dreams, but...what if whatever lies at the top is your destruction Brandon? What then? How does that help anyone!?”

Brandon scoffed and he frowned at his teacher. With some aggravation he began to refute her point. “Ann why are you so dramatic and pessimistic all of a sudden? I’m telling you that nothing that happens matters to me, because I will face it, and none of this will end in my regret because I’m doing it for Ezekiel.”

“Stupid...you don’t think that you may regret the things you’re doing now just because you’re doing them in love?” Ann rolled her eyes. “Well I can only warn you that regret cuts deepest when it is because of love.”

Brandon scoffed condescending and cold. “Ah yes and you would know my oh so wise and traveled teacher.” Brandon dropped his head, scratched at his face in annoyance and continued. “Come on Ann, you spent you entire life in the Brotherhood, in the BASE. What do you know of regret beside your regrets towards following the Brotherhood, HUH!?”

“You don’t get what Im saying to you. You cant regret this choice because you don’t understand what you are willingly to sacrificing! You don’t! You don’t even know what you mean to that Reaver....” Anns face crumbled into a mask of furious disgust. Her voice came out pained and furious “You have no idea!”

Brandons heckles rose and he snapped back. “What the f***s that supposed to mean!?”

Anger and shame rolled across his heart as Brandon saw the flinty dagger of blame and censure in Ann’s eyes, as if she were blaming him for a terrible wrong. He understood what she was saying, and yet the a part of him felt like he was being denounced for a sin he didn’t really understand. He knew leaving Ezekiel behind was wrong but....it was as though Ann were reproaching him for more.

“I don’t want to hurt him or leave him! I also don’t want to die, but I left because Ezekiel isn’t safe beside me. Im TOO WEAK to protect him from the BANE or the Brotherhood! How can you say I dont understand what I’m sacrificing when all I think about is him!?”

Brandon touched his chest, his hands hovering over the hollow ache inside that had only been growing like a hollow cavern in his body ever since he had left Ezekiel’s arms. He rubbed at the ghostly agony, but just thinking of the Guardian made him feel broken.

I need to see him, touch him, hear his voice so bad its like...but you act like I don’t know that me leaving him would destroy Ezekiel!? You think I don’t understand that I’m just like everyone else and I left him alone. He told me Im the only thing in the world that he feels truly connected to and...I abandoned my Reaver and that is on my mind every second and minute that passes.

Brandons own thought flayed him to the bone and his heart ached at the fact that what he was feeling was true, but there was also the undeniable fact that he knew he couldn’t have done things any other way.

So instead of speaking his guilt and shame to his teacher he just clenched his teeth and he scoffed at her. “You’re not as wise as you think you are! You have no right to lecture me on my choices or about Ezekiel! You have no idea about anything I’m going through!”