Burning Out

[Rayse Valentino]

“What?!” Rayse practically exploded, shrugging the woman off. “They just tried to kill us!” Karuka looked sadly upon the two men Rayse had killed, and he calmed down. “Fine. Have it your way.” He walked over to his knife, still deep in one of the raider’s spines, and pulled it out. Thick globs of blood dripped from the blade, and he wiped it off on the fallen man’s robes.

“Water out here is far more precious than anything else. I couldn’t tell them clearly that we would be gone by sunset and didn’t want to keep the oasis.” She sighed and pulled off her head covering, wiping the sweat from her face and revealing a livid purple bruise on her forehead. “None of this was necessary.” She wobbled a little, then shook her head. “I need to cool off.”

Taking a deep breath, Karuka headed towards the water, beginning to disrobe as if Rayse wasn’t even there. While normally he would be all over such an action, he decided not to stick around.

He grabbed his traveling bag and reached into it, pulling out a fresh cigarette. Almost instinctively, he conjured a flame on his thumb to light it, but instead walked over to the fire pit and lit it off one of the burning embers. He walked around some bushes, giving her some privacy to bathe. Thoughts about how she fought pervaded his mind, how she spared their enemies’ lives. He sat down with his back against a tree, and took a drag off the cigarette while fishing in his bag for a canteen he filled with a special liquid.

Turning the lid, he opened the container and let the smell of imported Salvaran whiskey assault his senses. He let the aroma waft into his sinuses, and then took a deep swig, some of it dripping along the edge of his lips. He wiped his mouth, the raiders’ bodies still in view of him, their blood pooling into the sands.

“I have booze,” he said. “Want some?”

“Yes,” Karuka said without hesitation. Rayse calculated her position in his head, closed up the lid, and told her to catch it. He tossed the canteen into the air, expecting it to land on her.

A small trail of smoke rose from his lips, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from the cigarette or his power going out of control again. He tried to ignore the feeling by talking.

“When I was little, I was sent away as well. I wasn’t technically on my own, but I might as well have been.” He started fishing in his shirt for something. “I was really young when I took my first life, and it wasn’t about self-defense. Someone took something that was mine, and I wanted it back. That was all.” He pulled out the locket that was hidden under his shirt. “I figured after that, there was no going back. That was who I am now.” He didn’t open the locket, instead putting it back into its place. “Those men were probably on their way to rob some village, or attack a rival tribe. What value are their lives to you? When someone attacks you with intent to kill, they should accept the consequences.”

“This is their watering hole. One of their tribeswomen made it to give them a stable source of water. Water is life, Rayse. Life for us, for the men who attacked us, for their livestock, for their mothers and wives and children. We are unknown to them, and taking something that was theirs. Of course they wanted it back. They may’ve even seen it as self defense.” Karuka unscrewed the canteen’s lid, drinking deeply of the burning, heady liquid, then closed it up and tossed it back to shore. “What good did killing them do, anyway?”

“How would you know what their intent was? Their history?”

“I know. The same way I knew they were coming. The same way way I know which way to walk. My sight works a bit differently than yours does. I can see into the future, if that future is strong enough.”

Rayse paused for a moment. “Is that why you said I would have been consumed by flames anyway, back at the shop?”

“Aye.”

“So then, do I get cured?”

“Clairvoyance doesn’t work like that. The future is not one set path, but a road woven out of choices. Just like if you take a northern road from Knife’s Edge, you’ll get to Berevar eventually, and if you take a southern road, you’ll get to Alerar. Small choices can have big impacts on the future, larger choices may not change much.” She joined him under his tree, hair dripping and clothes damp. “You killed once and thought that defined you. It doesn’t have to. Man or monster, it’s your choice. It’s not an easy choice to change, but I’ve seen it done before. Giving up and dying or pushing for a cure, that’s your choice as well.” She took another drink from his canteen, then handed it back. “C’mon and help me get the bodies out of camp. We’ll lay them out nicely for their clansmen to deal with.”

Karuka put a hand on Rayse’s cheek when the bodies were respectfully placed where their relatives could find them, compassion and concern vying for prominence in her eyes. “You should go cool off too, then get what sleep you can.” As high-stress as this environment was and as little time as they had, would they be able to save him?

As the sky turned to red, Rayse thought about what she said.

For all her talk about chance and choice, she's just as alone as I am. Is that truly a way to be happy, or is she deluding herself?