Aralim was sunburnt, sweaty, and exhausted, when at last a rainy day forced them to put in to shore, and hide the ship amongst the cliffs of the Great Isle. Captain Angal was in a foul mood and told Aralim he should sleep the whole day so they could all of the next day. This seemed ridiculous to Aralim, and a little unkind. How could the Captain blame him for the weather, when such things were clearly under the control of someone much further along the Path?
He went to find Miresh, and was surprised to find her out in the warm rain, with her feet hanging off the deck.
“What are you doing, young’un?” Aralim asked, sitting down next to her with his legs crossed.
She smiled, though her dirty beige tunic was soaking. “I like the rain,” she said.
“If you make it far on the Path, perhaps you’ll be able to create it yourself,” Aralim said. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
Miresh smiled. “I’d like to make food, too,” she said. “For my friends.”
“As you continue down the Path, though,” Aralim told her, “There is so much more significant than friends. Besides, we must all find our own way to survive on the Path, and learn from it.”
Miresh nodded. “Sometimes I wish the Path was gentler,” she confessed. “Do you miss your parents?”
Aralim paused, caught off guard by the question. “I used to miss my family, but the longer I walk the Path, the more I realized I probably shouldn’t.” The rain was quiet, as the eye of the storm approached, though Aralim’s own dark grey robes were beginning to dampen. They had an almost metallic gleam to them, which kept the water off rather well.
Miresh was trembling, and it took Aralim a moment to realize she was crying. Aralim put his arm around her and they quietly watched the rain on the water. “I never really knew my parents,” she said. “But I don’t know what’s ahead either. What if I never move along the Path?”
“Have you ever noticed that your feet only face forward?” He paused. “It’s because we’re not meant to turn back once we’re walking ahead.”
She sighed, and said no more.
A couple hours later, they turned in for the evening. Drenched, and in possession of only the clothes on their back, they stripped down to their smallclothes and hid beneath blankets, Aralim on the bottom bunk and Miresh on the top. Aralim couldn’t fall asleep with the tossing of the boat in the storm, but after a while, he could hear Miresh making sleepy sounds, so he didn’t start up any conversation. He couldn’t even read because of the storm.
At one point, when a wave caught the ship in a strong twist, Aralim’s staff clattered the ground with a bang. He leapt out of bed to stop it from rolling around, but was surprised when Miresh didn’t react at all. She was still sound asleep.
At some point during the middle of the night, Aralim was awoken by a voice. It took him a moment to realize that Miresh was talking, though the words were half-mumbled. They also didn’t seem to make any sense. Though she spoke as one phrase, she said, “Four, sunset, crowns, blood…” Those were all the words that Aralim could make out, though she continued fretting in her sleep.
Then, suddenly, she called out, and Aralim finally jumped out of bed. “Are you alright?” he asked.
“What?” Miresh asked. She was sitting up in the top bunk, gripped the sides against the swaying of the boat. She seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.
“You yelled, and were talking in your sleep before that.” Maybe it was just the storm and her emotional thoughts before.
“I had a dream,” she said. “It was very odd.”
“Really?” he asked. “Do you remember anything? You said a few words.”
“I don’t remember any of that. What did I say?” she asked. He repeated it to her, and she shrugged. “Doesn’t mean anything to me. All that I remember is the face of a dark-haired lady with a thin knife strapped to her leg. And I saw some islands, on the horizon. And some bodies laying by a river.”
“Quick, before it fades. Let’s write it down,” he said. He began writing what she had said on a scrap of parchment from his bag. He handed her a piece as well, along with a chunk of charcoal. “Think you draw the woman you saw?”
“I can try,” Miresh said. “Sometimes, in Lantern Town, we’d draw things on the buildings.”
Graffiti? At her age? She was small, even for an eleven year old. But she was scribbling away, so he didn’t say anything. “Something like this,” she said, a minute later and showed him. It was good drawing, something an adult might draw, so he nodded, happily.
“Do you think we’re supposed find her?” Miresh asked.
Aralim considered it. “It might just be a dream,” he said. “But if it’s not, maybe we should. It’s unlikely someone further along the Path would try finding us.”
“How do know she’s further along the Path though?”
“Well, she’s not dreaming of us,” Aralim said.
Miresh nodded. “I wonder if it was just a dream…” she muttered. “I don’t usually remember my dreams.”
“Well, if you dream something like this again, try to remember it,” he told her.
The storm picked up again, and they had to put away their papers. Aralim climbed back into bed and Miresh laid back down. For a while they just listened to one another’s breathing, until she said, “Everything in my life always seems to involve death… now I’m seeing bodies in my dreams and saying things like ‘blood’ in my sleep…”
“Think about this though,” Aralim said. “You’re following the Path in truth now. I once had a lord invite me to stay in his castle, just because I was a Walker of the Path.”
They fell asleep to the sound of the rain.