ODE TO THE END: A BALLAD OF BROTHERS

CHAPTER 9

ACHIM

By venturing through the woods and vaulting across rooftops, Achim made it to the heart for which the realm was named: The Shining City of York. The buildings here stood so tall they touched the clouds, their surfaces so mirror smooth that the reflections in them glowed. As the dark boy scaled the glass spires, he recalled the few times he had been so high. Only sheer cliffs offered such staggering verticality, but rock faces did not glimmer in the sun like the city by the eastern sea.

For the wild-wandering youth, the sudden flash of reflective light often blinded him at the worst of times. He staggered amid those suffocating heights and slipped from one well-polished surface to the next. When Achim just barely stuck the landing of an easy 40 foot vault, he spat over the edge. He looked down as the spittle disappeared into the deep drop, then he looked out.

There were so many tall towers, each no doubt filled to the brim with ten times the population of the average village. It was cramped, suffocating, and completely overwhelming. Achim never thought himself to be claustrophobic, but for the wayward wanderer to be in the midst of such clutter and to be tasked with searching through it? Achim sighed. "Maybe having help wasn't such a bad idea after all," Achim thought aloud.

He thought of that girl. Why had she been so incessant? Achim gleaned his own reasons but none were particularly flattering. On one hand he considered her some bored bimbo, too rich to realize the reality of what she was asking and far too wealthy to care. Achim also considered that she might be some fledgling pervert.

Odd preferences towards certain physical proclivities were not uncommon in The Wilds, at least not in the dangerous circles Achim often walked. The Sire came to mind; he and his harem of girls far too young to be there of their own accord. Fetishes aside, Achim saw nothing in himself that the girl might have liked. The only exception might have been his eyes. In fact, it was always the eyes.

Either way, no matter what reasons the girl had, Achim presumed them all short-sighted and faulty. They had to be. The moon-eyed boy simply could not create a rationale within his own mind that said otherwise. When he thought of her, he thought of a fool, and what hope could a fool offer him?

Achim did not need help. He only needed his roughened hands, his hardened feet, and that desperate drive that pushed them beyond their limits. It did not matter how daunting the task before him. The labor of looking for one he himself had lost was not meant to be easy, and it wasn't.

In truth, Achim looked upon the clustering spires with tired eyes. His will was devoid of hope, but the difficulty of his search hardly mattered now. Only the toil was truly important, and Achim needed no one for that. Certainly not Naomi Saint Caitlyn.

After a moment of thought, Achim settled on how he would  search for his brother. He soon slid down the concrete-canopy and spun toward the pedestrian stream below. As he moved, Achim was a blur in motion. A flash of darkness in a city that basked under the summer shine. Not even those who spotted him could claim they did so without questioning their senses. Skidding along the walls, the boy leaped between alley ways until he found a perfect vantage. From there he spied from his shadowy nook and watched the people of the inner city in order to learn their norms. He repeated this process every so often, vaulting, skulking, and watching until his assessments had been satisfied. Hours were dedicated to his covert vigilance, but, by the end, Achim found himself groaning. The people of this realm were not to his liking.

The pedestrian seas in which he peered were full of self-important faces and self-indulgent sauntering. Moreover, his dark skin, dark hair, and dingy attire would have quickly rendered him a blemish, for a large portion of the inner cities denizens bore a complexion far fairer than his. It was not an utterly damning observation, at least not in isolation. The Wilds were full of enclaves that remained closely-knit under the pretense of many factors; skin tone included. That said, the presence of the wall to which this city seemed to rely told tales of an unwelcoming population. Alas, he was not the only one with his dark features.