The Sum of Dreams-Part 4-(Adam/Yaeko)

[black_hat]

Still, at age twenty-four, he relived his old stint of crude manual labor. Adam walked out to the field with a spade in hand and with dread in his heart. His hands were already becoming too callous from touching the damn thing. “You actually kept your word. I’m surprised to see you, Kensei,” a silken voice observed dryly. “I’m wounded, Yaeko. Well, maybe not. You know, though, I’m doing a special favor for you. This a pay-back for all the drinks. For anyone else, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be…elsewhere,” he said, looking at the field in terror. “Somewhere far, far away.” She was silent for a moment, and he turned to look at her. At night, she was a different woman. Her softness was alluring, her independence was nearly spiritual among the quietness of the night. He could see the outline of the body around the light of the lamp, curved with more human, warm touches than any art. He looked away. “All right then. Let’s do this.” Yaeko sat down on the grass lightly and beamed up at him. “This shouldn’t be so bad.” “Really? How do you figure?” “I couldn’t help but overhear that you were attacked by a demon at sea. Surely, that’s a bit more challenging.” “Oh, that,” Adam said, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, that was a bit of a trifle, there. I was almost worried.” “Hmm, tell me. However did you survive?” “You want to hear my tale? As in actually listen?” “As in actually listen.” Adam was stunned. This was amazing, unprecedented. His best audience yet. At the same time, his voice caught in his throat, his heart a close second, and his arms felt very heavy for some reason. Yaeko was looking up at him with dark, deep eyes, with her head at a tilt, her beautiful hair falling down the side giving the encompassing feeling of softness. “Well, I didn’t…um, I need to get myself into the mind-set of reliving such a terrifying experience. It’s not for a woman’s ears.” “But for a child, it is fine. I see. Your opinion on woman, Kensei, is lacking.” “Um, for you, though. Why not, an exception. You’re out here anyway…Why are you out here?” “You requested my presence. Remember?” “Right. I did at that. Um. Well, sure. Where to start? There’s layers, you see, in visceral effects. I mean, some bloke had his arm ripped clean off. Perhaps I’ll just keep it simple.” Yaeko merely smiled and waited. “All right. Okay. There I was,” Adam said, getting into character. “Minding my own business, tending to the other men. They were a bit wayward, and they looked up to me, you see. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was raining. The wind, though, was perfection. Suddenly— --His manner changed, and he grew tense, his eyes wide and his hands in the shape of claws. Yaeko continued to calmly observe him, all the while. “—Parting the sea like the hand of God, the…horror emerged from the sea. It had seven heads, each with a mouth filled with fangs the size of swords. The tentacles followed and gripped the hulls in a deathly hug. I felt the wood groan and the whole thing, whole bloody boat, was about to collapse, sending us all down to the bottom, forever. The men, ah, they just fell to pieces. Can’t blame them. But I…I had a sword.” He gripped the imaginary blade tightly. “And I kept my wits about me. There was an oil there, on the deck, and I rushed!!” Adam ran across the way, Yaeko following his motions with her eyes. “And I was almost crushed by a stray tentacle. The horror, oh, the horror of that limb. It had collections of gold and embedded skulls still latched on in their last, desperate hour.” “…The people bit the monster?” “Wait, what?” “The skulls, latched on?” “…People do the maddest things in the face of atrocities. Anyway, there I was, blocked from the only hope of me, my men, everyone. I jumped!! Into the air, and made it. I made it past the limb and dipped my sword into the oil. Then I set it on fire!” “In the rain, there? That's quite an unusual fire. I've never heard of a thing like that." “…It wasn’t raining…much. More like a drizzle. Anyway, sword’s on fire. I stabbed at the limb, cutting through the darkness with the light. I slice and slice and slice. I was out of myself, I admit. It was all quite upsetting. But then the beast submerged itself again. To wait another day…” Yaeko looked down. “I see. That is dreadful.” “Hmm, yes,” Adam said, still nervous. “But enough about me. What about you?” “I don’t imagine I’d be interesting to a traveler such as yourself.” “Oh…” he said, at a loss. “Well, that’s not quite right. I’m…” She looked up again, her eyes alert and watchful and sharp. Like a severely angry cat. “I’m appropriately interested. In a very appropriate manner.” “I’d like to hear something boring about you.” His breath caught. “Hmmm? Uh, I don’t understand.” “Something…completely normal. Just a piece of the person who lives the normal part of your life. I mean, you weren’t slaying monsters every moment of every day. I’m interested in your home. What was it like?” “…I never really had a home, technically. I was born wanting to get out of it. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Honest. It was like every other place. People would go around, manage their own lives, and avoid being troubled.” “And that disappoints you?” “I just want the poetry reading, you know. People wax on about…weeds. They wax on about weeds, about the beauty of said weeds. I don’t see it. I see a bloody weed. So I want the poetry. That’s what I’m looking for. You do know what poetry is?” “Though I go to you ceaselessly along dream paths, the sum of those trysts is less than a single glimpse granted in the waking world,” she recited, with a slight half-moon smile. The words were like pearls from her lips. He stared. He stared some more. He…stared, feeling naked, stripped away by a lone picture of gentleness, of evermore. Dreams forever. Life in a blink of an eye. “You…thought that up right now? Like. Now?” In regards to me. In regards to you. He couldn’t ask. “I heard it. It is not mine. Not my words. Not my experience. But just to say, that—yes—I do know what poetry is.” “But damn. That was bloody amazing!” She nodded. “It was, at that.” “Then I guess you could understand. Have you ever wanted to leave, Yaeko?” “I’m happy with my home. It makes me sad that you were unhappy with yours.” “Not…I never said unhappy. I said…well, I don’t know what I said. Sometimes I don’t think well, or before, or something, especially around…people in general.” “You seemed to be doing well this morning. And the morning before. And the one before that. I have the sense that people like you but they would like you more if you were honest with them. It’s a sign of respect, to be honest with others.” “Because you are so fond of me, right.” “I would like to be.” Oh. God. What in the hell? His heart did not exist anymore. It had gone somewhere else. Her eyes—rare sight, rare—were kind, warm. “I like that you’d like to be…uh, fond,” Adam said, looking at the sky. In general. “That would be…well, surprising, but wonderful.” “So there’s nothing about your home that’s interesting?” “Actually! There is one thing. Get up.” She frowned, the warmth sucked backwards into stone. “Don’t be scared, uh. I’m just going to show you. It needs to be demonstrated.” That didn’t seem to be encouraging. He held out his hand, trying to be respectful. Yes, respect. That was all that she really wanted. Or not. Or something. Um, respect is a good place to start. She took his hand. He was suddenly irrationally, just irrationally, afraid he would do something wrong. Just immediately, when she touched him, things would fall apart. She’d know things about him that were below her, and she’d be repulsed. He had nothing to offer her. He maintained his hold, however, and calmed himself. She seemed to relax her guard slightly, thoughtfully. “This is a rich, traditional…tradition called dancing.” His voice, where was the bloody thing? It was in his chest. What the hell was it doing there? It was similar to a chicken fleeing back to the coop. “…I know what dancing is, Kensei. In fact, many here would.” “Right, I was just...talking. You see. And you can call me Adam. I don’t mind. Kensei is my fighting name. Adam is my dancing one. Ahah.” He was going to mess up. He knew it. “I see. How do we dance, then, in your country?” “Well, you just…uh, first you have to—(let me lead, he thought, then envisioned the destruction that would be sure to follow. Oh, scratch that.)—put your hand on my shoulder.” He gently, carefully led her hand to his shoulder. “Um, not a death grip of death, please. A man’s neck is his weakness, you see.” “That’s not what I heard.” Oh. Dear. God. This was the most frightening experience of his life. Steady there, Adam. Steady. “All right. Another weakness, one of many. Just relax. It’s like swimming. Just go with the flow.” “Oh, it’s like drowning, right.” “Not when I’m here.” He pulled her closer. “Yeah, you have to be a bit closer, you see, otherwise we might as well be half way around the world.” He thought she’d be a cold woman. Turns out she was warm, just subdued. Exactly like that light she had carried when she had found him. Bawling. “Yes, yes. And I put my hand here.” With his life in his hands, literally, he placed on hand on the small of her waist. Were his hands too callous, too sweaty, too cold, too everything but the good things…he maintained. Must maintain. “And basically, we go in a circle.” “You don’t go anywhere…well.” “No, no, it’s fun. You have to get circling.” In actuality, Adam had never been to a dance. He’d, in fact, never been anywhere near a dance; not in a ten-mile radius. Ever. He hoped he wouldn’t be too bad at it. “Here we go.” He stepped forward, and instinctively she stepped back. This dance, obviously, was made for them. It made him a bit sick that he thought of it. They danced better than most at any dance would. They were dancing to another kind of music. One of deep despair, resentment in open notes, one with deep desire and struggles in the undercurrent. It was stressful to say the least. Yaeko handled it better than Adam. She smiled brightly, and he felt her hair tickled the knuckles of her hand. Her body fit against him, and for once she wasn’t fighting him. She was warm, and in his arms, and trusting, her body just allowing him to led her. So, in typical Adam fashion, he lost the plot and made a mess. His hand, perhaps due to gravity, moved a little too low. She slapped him hard, her eyes flashing with what looked like hurt. He couldn’t tell, as his head was rather spinning. She rushed off, leaving him alone, sitting in the dirt, wondering at where he went wrong. No. Knowing what he did wrong. That was so much worse. *** At age twenty-five, when he heard about Whitebeard for the first time by a small boy, he said: “Can I handle him?” Adam repeated, feeling that faint rage he had become acquainted with on the ship. “I, handle him? It’s more of a case of can he handle me. I won’t go easy on a man called Whitebeard, for god’s sake.” He got a response back. His first thought was ‘Oh. Bugger’. *** Also, at age twenty-five, he addressed his first group of followers: “So we are going to do this,” he told his men. His men. Yaeko had been kind enough to offer her astonishment that someone had actually been man enough to stand up to Whitebeard. He owed her one. They stared at him and he stared back, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world. One of them raised their hands. “Yes, you. The bloke in the nice fanged helmet.” “What is your plan…Kensei?” Ah, they doubted him. A man who had survived the seas alone, come all this way; that should have given him some standing. It seems that wherever he went, he was a mess. A problem. This time, he truly didn’t want to appear like a liar to a woman. So he continued. “To make a name for myself first. Allow me to elaborate. What is more intimidating to a man who thinks he owns the world?” “Simple. That the world owns him.” Kensei blinked. “Yes, sure. Good…answer. But at the same time, that his enemy is un-killable. In a word, men, we are going to wage a bit of a mind game.” The plan was the Kensei would be one of many. A literal everyman. He’d be a decoy who would lead the army to fight. And when he died, then, it would be considered an unholy miracle when he was right back at their throats the next day. Pretty brilliant. Only. Only the village boys—they were boys, not men—used Yaeko’s father’s swords. Whitebeard made the connection throughout the year.