" aut viam inveniam aut faciam "
- I will either find a way or I will make one.
The Southern-Northern Sea ,Ardeneon.
April 11
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
It was like a command, He had no control over it, somehow, it was like his eyes weren't his anymore.
They belonged to her.
Dexter didn't know why he kept staring at her. 'She's asleep, you're being creepy.' He kept trying to remind himself but still he couldn't fathom the reason why his eyes kept going back to her, he couldn't understand why she's all he can think about these days.
'She's like a sister to me, that's why. Right?' he keeps trying to convince himself, he keeps telling himself that he's just being caring, he's just being a good friend watching over her.
he tries to look straight ahead at the stacked boxes to avoid constantly looking over at her. But just when he thought he had escaped it their memories flooded his mind.
The times she would support his ideas and listen carefully to everything he would say no matter how irrelevant it was, every time she'd turn to him for help, or lean on him for support, or just be happy when he's happy, because he's happy.
He runs his hand through his hair letting out a heavy sigh.
"You good?" Elijah whispers to him.
"Yeah" Dexter responds with a thin smile. "Great."
'I'm probably deeping it, Skai is a great friend.' He thinks 'That's why I'm thinking about all of this.'
His eyes fell on her again. And he curses internally knowing then and there that he needed to snap out of it and quick.
"Do you have water?" He asks Elijah hoping the water would wash away the heaviness in his chest.
"I should have a little left in my bag" he carefully moves Emilly's head to his legs and searches his backpack for the bottle of water.
He finds it and passes it to Dexter—to which Dexter gulps the remaining water down, does it help? Not really.
"You should sleep" he tells Elijah. "The sun should rise in about a little over an hour"
"Should I wake Emily or Skai to join you?" he asks.
"Nah I'll be fine" Dexter assures him
"If anything happens just wake me up, okay?" He adds and Dexter hums in response before Elijah adjusts his position, so he and Emily could both lay down and sleep.
....
According to Dexter's calculations the sun would be rising in 10 minutes, he decides to start waking them up one by one
He walks over to Skai and River first.
"River, Skai" He whisper yells shaking them both gently.
River gets up almost immediately.
"The sun should be rising soon" he informs River as River runs his fingers through his hair turning to face his sister.
"You should wake Emily and Elijah" he yawns "I'll wake Skai"
Dexter follows his instructions and makes his way over to the two lovebirds. Emily was wrapped in Elijah's arms, ruining the moment almost felt illegal to Dexter. But hey! It's Dexter Bardo, he never claimed to be afraid of committing any crimes.
"Wake up kids" Dexter shakes them awake aggressively causing Emily to rain profanities at him.
About 5 minutes later, everyone is wide awake.
"So, we just wait till the ship leaves?" Skai asks no one in particular.
"I guess so" River shrugs then he turns to Elijah "Starling, you're sure this is going to Maver Island?"
"hundred percent, Maver Island is north, there was a sign board at the front of the ship" Elijah assures him.
"Let's just wait till the ship moves" Emily yawns.
"Can I go back to sleep when it does" Skai asks.
"You both literally got the most sleep here" Dexter chuckles.
"It's not my fault you guys didn't wake me up" Skai shrugs innocently, laying back on the floor.
"Why didn't you guys wake us anyways?" Emily asks, "That's a little discriminatory don't you think?"
"You're thinking too much, we didn't set a timetable for the lookout" Dexter tells her.
"Yeah, stop getting silly ideas" River adds.
"Alright, Alright" Emily shrugs.
In about 40 minutes the ship began to move. The journey from Thairo Docks to Maver island is about 7 hours and 25 minutes on a good day.
It also happens to be one of the most boring trips the five had been on in ever and they hadn't been on a lot of trips.
About halfway through the trip, Skai stands up and walks to the center of the room.
Dexter's eyes don't leave her for one second. Over the past couple weeks Dexter had noticed more things about Skai than he had in their entire life, he noticed the way she walks; it oozes confidence, certainty and freedom. He found It mesmerizing to watch, found her mesmerizing to watch. The way she talks; she was always sure of herself never for one second doubting what she was going to say, even if it made no sense. And most of all the way she didn't talk; the way she rubs her nose briefly when she's anxious or nervous, how she'd sometimes tug on her hair when she didn't know what to say, when she wanted to lean on someone but she didn't know how to say how so she would slowly move closer to the person. He couldn't miss anything about her, but he couldn't understand why.
"Let's play a game!" she jumps.
"Shut up, we'll get caught" River pulls her down.
"But this place is boring Riv" She groans.
"And we could get into serious trouble if we get caught" He whispers covering her mouth. "So, Shut. Up."
"B-" Dexter gets cut off before he could even start.
"Better you don't talk, you're just going to support her Bardo, both of you need to be placed on leashes" River sends him a death glare
"Jeez" he mutters.
"Guys, remember Ferit?" Skai was able to pull River's hand away.
"She's still talking" River mutters groaning.
"What about him?" Emily was the one to ask.
"He would have made a neat boyfriend" She sighs in false despair.
"Better than that Jaden dude" Dexter mutters and like a whirlwind it seemed to be coming back to him. His eyes widen.
"Guys!" He whisper yells and they all hush him nearly immediately as they hear footsteps from outside the door.
"Hide" Elijah whisper yells to them.
"Why can't you guys just be quiet" River groans.
They grab their bags and hide behind the different stacks of boxes.
"No one's supposed to be in here" They hear someone say whilst opening the door.
"And certainly not younglins" Another voice booms and footsteps move closer to where Dexter was hiding.
Strong arms pull him from behind the stacks of boxes and he's faced with two seemingly middle-aged sprites.
One by one each of them was brought out of their hiding places.
"Shouldn't you younglins be at scire?" One of the men asks. No one answers.
"He's talking to you lot" the second one yells.
Dexter decides to speak up since he believed he was the one that put them in the mess.
"We're looking for our parents" He plays the pity card. "They abandoned us"
"I can see why, y'all must be so much work chasing them when they clearly don't want you" The first guy laughs in his face.
Regardless of the clear jab at his heart, he doesn't lose the façade, instead he looks down at his feet feigning disdain.
It didn't work in his favor, at all. Rather, they were all being forced out of their little hideout their bags being thrown at them as they were brought to an open space on the ship.
"Look, you rats" he spits at them "As sad as it is that you lot are orphans, I couldn't care less, pay me my shiflings!"
"But we don't have any" Skai trembles.
"We're doomed" Elijah mutters under his breath.
"I'm going to kill you Bardo" River whispers
"I'm right behind you" Emily whispers to River.
"Hey, enough chit chatting and more shifling talking." One of the men warns
"What if we can't pay?" Elijah asks.
"You either give me some currency or you jump ship" the other dude sneers "The choice is yours."
"But we're just kids" Elijah tells the guy a bit irritated because the man was being unreasonable, he didn't think all that yelling really wasn't necessary.
"I don't care what you are, your actions have consequences" The man that made the statement shrugs.
"This is not how I imagined my teenage years to be" Skai groans "I'm too pretty to die"
One more push, and the others were convinced Skai was going to throw a tantrum. But tantrum or no tantrum the sprites were being dead serious, they pay or they drowned, the island was still an hour away, there was no way they could possibly swim, River could no doubt, Dexter could possibly make it too but the rest of them would be fish food.
"Push them off" The ship supervisor came out of nowhere ordering the two men.
"You'll regret this" Skai warns the guy in a squeaky voice.
There weren't any present passengers on the ship, that's why it was so easy to hear them. The older sprites had too much time on their hands. Something that the younglins don't have—because they're about to be devoured by whatever lurks in the Southern-Northern waters.
Elijah had read that the chorlings live in the east of the waters, he was completely aware that if you go near them, you're dead and that freaked him out a little. Although he's moved to believe it's just a myth.
"I'll push you off if you don't jump yourself" he yells.
"Killing children is barbaric!" Skai yells at him, and he laughs.
"Look, I don't get paid enough for this" he steps closer to her and River instinctively stands in front of her while Dexter pulls her back. "So, Get. Off. The. Ship" He growls in their faces.
"Fine" River steps closer to him easily towering over the dude. "we're getting off"
"Dang, we're really about to do this." Elijah picks at his fingernails then he grabs Emily's hand as they all walk towards the edge of the ship facing west.
"On three" River sucks in a breath.
"Three" Dexter starts the countdown
"Two" Emily squeezed Dexter's hand
"One" River took an audibly deep breath.
"If this is our last moment together, I want you to know that I accidentally used your toothbrush last week River" Skai squeals as they were falling into the water "And it fell in the toilet, I'm sorry!"
They waited to be fully immersed in the water, all holding their breath and squeezing each other's hands tight as their feet hit the water.
But that was it just their feet, they heard the waves hit each other and all felt like they were drowning, just not in the water, then one by one their feet hit the floor.
"No flipping way" Skai gasps as she opens her eyes causing everyone else to open their eyes one by one.
"Woah" Emily mutters next to Elijah.
They were protected by some sort of bubble. The water didn't touch them. "Woah" River breathes out softly "I did that"
"That's crazy dude" Dexter pats his back.
"Dexter Bardo, the moment we get to Maver island, I'll personally stomp on you" River sends daggers to Dexter with his eyes.
"It's not my fault they have good ears." Dexter shrugs and Elijah hits the back of his head lightly.
"You should be working up an apology, not riling him up more" he whispers in Dexter's ears causing Dexter to sigh ruffling his hair.
Skai and River were busy arguing about Skai using his toothbrush when Elijah interrupts "Let's just get to Maver Island, we don't know how long River can hold this"
"River focus" Elijah tells him as water begins to drip through the bubble. River curses taking the map out of his bag and handing it to Dexter absent mindedly.
Elijah assists Dexter in reading the map of course, not wanting to risk Dexter leading them to the Chorlings, although there wasn't really much reading needed to be done because it was a straightforward journey up north.
'wow' 'woah'
Emily and Skai were the most ecstatic out of the five, casually pointing at the sea creatures. The creatures never swam towards them, Rivers little bubble was unintentionally pulling the currents away from them.
"Are we close?" River asks, "I'm starting to have a serious migraine."
"I honestly don't know" Elijah mumbles not sure how to tell River that, knowing he can sometimes be hotheaded.
River's eyes almost pop out of their sockets figuratively as he heard Elijah's response.
"What do you mean you don't know?" he asks faintly.
"Well, we're underwater, we can't see much of the surroundings, so map reading is quite useless" Elijah scratches the nape of his neck.
"We just have to keep going forward, we'll get there" Dexter adds and Emily and Skai nod in agreement.
"You Bardo, you don't say a word, you got us in here in the first place" River seethes through his teeth.
Soon, it starts to feel like they are climbing a hill, it continued like that for about 10 to 15 minutes before their heads begin to surface Maver island.
When they were all out of the water River falls down and the bubble drops water splashing on them
Skai immediately rushes to her brother.
"Help me lift him" Skai urges worriedly and looks at Dexter then at Elijah.