There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

27- Water, Ships And Tea

TRACK 27

So I sent her to a place in the middle of nowhere

With a big black horse and a cherry tree

Now it won't come back 'cause it's oh-so-happy

And now I've got a hole for the world to see

(Black horse and the cherry tree - Kt Tunstall)

********

"Let's stop now," suddenly spoke Mr. Magic Man with something peremptory and distant.

Finally!

At last, after what had seemed centuries and centuries, so long and unbearable that he had almost begged for mercy from boredom -since more than advancing it had seemed to him to stand still as everything continued to be flippin' identical, empty and desolate. The only thing that testified to the contrary stood in the fact that his entire body felt like it was in pieces from the effort and... that the holes in the path always had strange shapes. The last one he had seen had looked like a moon, the second-to-last one had been like a rabbit, the one before had reminded him of Aja, etcetera- he had permission to stop moving forward.

Steve let himself fall back to the ground almost instantly, a grimace printed on his face. Or more to the point, his legs gave up on him altogether at the exact moment he bent to sit, causing him to crash painfully to the ground. And at that, to the sharp aggressive impact that echoed in his being, he could not hold back an expression between indignant and slightly contrite.

He barely perceived Douxie's Master scarcely moving away and then turning back to sit down, but he could perfectly hear him begin to fumble with the bag, enough to raise his head, if only slightly.

He almost received an apple on it. He managed to avoid it by a whisker, his arms reaching out to grab it and avoid a possible bruise.

When the fruit landed in the center of his palm, the pout printed on his face earlier even seemed to widen. Before he could protest in any more detail than a simple "Hey!", though, the man started to speak as if nothing had happened.

"I'll take the first watch, you eat and sleep. I'll wake you up later to switch," he said. His tone seemed not to want any kind of response or rebuttal, but Steve dramatically ignored that fact.

"Okay, fine, but then how do I know when to wake you up?" He found himself retorting in fact, sounding mostly quite offended, although it was always due to the apple throwing more than anything else. He then gestured around with his hands, pointing at what they had around and starting to speak fast. "Do you see some type of alarm clock? Or a rooster? I don't! And I mean it, man! There isn't even the sun! Do I have to count sheep?"

Mr. Magic Man made a face, furrowing his brow at a few points of his speech, then huffed. "I'll wake up myself," he quipped dryly as if he was stating the most obvious thing in the world. "Unless some emergency arises, you are highly discouraged from attempting to do anything by any means."

Man, Mr. Magic Man was worse than Mr. Eraser in his mighty pole-in-the-butt way of talking.

"Not even..."

"No. Not even that."

"But I didn't even finish talking!"

"Doesn't matter. Anything means anything. Now, silence. There is no need for any more blabbering."

"All right, all right. Jeez." He asserted, even more irritated, but too tired to say anything else or even attempt debating, setting himself down in a decent position, though struggling mightily. He immediately took a bite of the apple, chewing noisily.