Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Lanterns & Rope

After Itek rested, we headed off again, even as another storm brewed on the horizon.

He was exhausted. I felt it in the way he took deep breaths every once in a while, and how he'd skim the rough currents of air as much as he could, flapping with great effort that seemed to require his whole body, and as the storm gusts got rougher, he had to work harder. We hadn't had anything to eat in... a while, and he'd been fighting the sky for days.

We skimmed along the shoreline of another island, still heading more or less due south. This one seemed a bit larger than the others, although in the fading light I could still make out the glint of water rimming the shoreline across dunes, grasses, and jutting rocks. This one had impressive rocks, large boulders that stabbed up from the sandy dunes like the thick scales of a huge dragon. Something on the western side drew my attention. One of the rocks seemed taller, more slender, and it rose high above the field of churned up stones. The red light from the setting sun made it seem very black and charred.

Itek was too exhausted to ask him to go investigate a rock spire or whatever it was, so I strained my eyes as much as I could. Maybe some old ruins of an enclave? But it was impossible to tell. It was... maybe twenty, thirty miles away.

Yay, Theia, you noticed an interesting rock. Good for you. Use your eyes to find Korr and Ethat.

I had a Trinket, wasn't I supposed to like... know... if something had happened? Shouldn't our souls have called to each other? That's how it worked, right?

I tried to focus inside (no small feat, given I had no idea what I was doing and I was on Itek holding on for dear life...or whatever my life was worth these days) and like... I don't know, try to catch a scent or something.

I am so, so stupid.

They had to be out here somewhere. They had to be.

I focused on the sensation of my trinket pricking the calloused skin between my breasts with every buffet of wind, breath I took, and flap of Itek's wings. I focused on Itek, what he was beneath me, how his wings felt, how his pelt felt, how his feathers felt, the warm, quivering strength of his sinew and bone as he fought the currents, the sunlight baking both of us as it threw off red, fiery rays as it fought the motion of the stars pressing it downward below the horizon.

A thousand small, intimate touches, details.

And where Korr and Ethat were there was... nothing.

Nothing.

Not nothing, but nothing.

There was no Itek either, except the Itek that was beneath me.

I opened my eyes again.

Nothing.

There just was... nothing.

Even the memory of a dream felt more real.

I loosened my grip on Itek's rough and forced myself to let go with one hand. I looked at my palm, raw, chapped, scraped up and dry.

A gust of wind damn near unseated me.

I plunged my hand back into his feathers and he swerved under me to re-seat me, cawing in surprise, and I shouted, "Sorry!"

The trinket raked across my skin.

No, this was real. Real enough, anyway. And I knew Korr, Ethat, and Itek were real. They had trinkets too. Asund was unfortunately real too.

So why was there just... nothing?

It felt sort of like when I'd fallen asleep on my hand and woken up with it totally numb and so numb and floppy I couldn't move it, even though everything said I was moving it.