DUSKLIGHT ODYSSEY

Chapter 4

Ion heard the girl wake. He kept his eyes closed. She sat up and stretched her arms. A yawn escaped her lungs. There was pure silence for a time before Ion heard the girl stand up and hurriedly leave.

Ion waited a while before his eyes opened too. Only the soft amber rays of sunset streaming through the door illuminated his surroundings—a long-rotten lobby filled with nothing but dust and debris. It was a miracle this building still stood.

Ion got up, readjusted his heavy cloak, and swung his antlered pack over his left shoulder. He imagined the girl intended to return to the edge of that pool of clear water. Ion aimed to do the same, to demand back his leather waterskin and quench his thirst—and perhaps to discover more about this mysterious girl.

Ion was cautious as he crept toward the pool. The sun's fleeting light played upon the water in the most pleasing way. There, in just the same place as she knelt before, the girl repeatedly filled a waterskin—Ion's waterskin—and poured its contents beside her. She was watering something. Ion didn't have a plan of approach. She was liable to run away if he called out to her, but her reaction would hardly be less fearful if she somehow discerned his secret gaze.

Pretend you don't see her.

Ion tried to act casually unaware of his surroundings as he walked to the edge of the pool a little ways from the girl. He knelt down and brought up some water in cupped hands from which he drank. This he did several times. He splashed some on his dirty face and scrubbed a bit, then cleared his throat. There was no way she didn't know he was there. Ion wanted so badly to glance in her direction to see her reaction, just for a moment. He gave in to that temptation and looked her way.

She looked like some frightened animal frozen in its tracks, clutching an object close to her chest. Her eyes stared widely at Ion, and widened even further as his eyes met hers. She flinched as he held up a hand which sought to steady her.

"Hey now," he said. Ion held his palms in the air.

She sat as still as she could, as if she was trying to fade into the background. An unsure voice passed through her lips: "What do you want from me?"

"Me? Nothing. I don't want anything from you. Except maybe that waterskin you're using."

The girl glanced at the vessel on the ground to her right; her arms tightened around the object she held close to her heart.

"It is mine, after all," said Ion.

"Why'd you kidnap me?" she called.

"Kidnap? Really?" Ion's face broke into an incredulous smile. "Do you realize how close you were to dying?"

She remained silent.

"You're lucky to be alive, you really are. So am I, for that matter."

She sat as still as a stone.

"Listen... thanks for patching me up last night." Ion flexed his bandaged right hand for emphasis. "I'd be dead if it weren't for you."

The girl mumbled something Ion couldn't hear.

"What was that?" Ion questioned.

"You're not mad at me...?" she meekly said. There was a pause. "For taking your stuff?"

Ion didn't quite know what to say. He admitted to himself that he would be a lot less agitated had he a full belly and a waterskin in-hand, though something about the girl's wide eyes made forgiveness come easy. "I'm not," he said, "what's your name?"