“Thank you, Brother,” said Lune as she took the handmade rod made by Blanc for her.
“Remember, Lune,” said Blanc to her, “If you feel you are being pulled in, better let go of the rod, okay?”
“Okay,” she nodded before she turned on her heels.
The rod was made from a flexible branch taken from the rainforest, some string that Blanc attached to it, and a piece of bone used as a hook.
Lune and Kael’s rods were different than Blanc’s, Celine’s, and Miyanna’s.
Lune and Kael were fishing for eels, while the married couple were fishing for caimans with rods that had a thicker string as well as a larger hook, while also looking for giant otters, which they planned to kill with arrows.
“Okay, now everybody has a rod,” Blanc spoke out loud, “If somebody pulls a beast of Raw Vita, make sure to let everyone know. We decide who gets to kill it in that moment.”
Blanc then pulled the jaguar that had attempted to kill Kael and placed it between them.
“We use this one’s meat for bait, don’t put more than what your hook can handle,” Blanc instructed clearly.
“And what if we catch fish, Brother?” Lune wondered.
“Well, at least we will have fish for dinner,” Blanc replied, “Either way, who knows how long we’ll be staying here as well, so better get to fishing.”
And with that, after placing bait into their hooks, they threw the fresh meat into the river, allowing silence to fall over them.
Who could judge the silence after all that had happened earlier?
They all considered that the others remained silent because they were focused on their hooks, so they stood silent as well.
While the truth was that no one was really focused on the fishing part.
All replayed the fight against the jaguars, the mistakes made by Celine and Miyanna, as well as Blanc saving Kael over and over again, hoping that they would learn something from it.
Kael was petrified still, and who could blame him?
His body resigned to this life, while his mind and his soul clung to life.
If before he wanted strength for himself to not be a liability to his older brother, he now wanted to live, to not feel this danger, this primal fear ever again.
He asked for a turtle not for its durability, but for the lifespan it gives one.
Two decades added to his own lifespan, over and over until the Turtle Mark turned black.
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Some could live for centuries because of turtles. And he prayed he could too.
Not for his brother, his twin sisters, parents, or any other, for that matter, but for himself.
As selfish as it was, that was what he prayed for, for his life not to end too soon.
Lune, however, in her silence, attempted to understand the pressure she felt in her heart.
She and her twin brother received yet again the same marks, but this time it wasn’t even mentioned.
She could ask about it, but she held her tongue since she understood that, at this moment, this silence was what Blanc needed most.
She turned her eyes towards her older brother’s wives, and though pressure was building in her chest while looking at the two, she wasn’t really mad at them.
In the past, when Blanc jumped in front of a sword for Celine and got wounded, she grew to hate this new sister of hers, for the simple reason that a person she loved was wounded because of them.
But this time, she understood.
She fought, killed, and understood the sacrifices that could and most likely would have to be made in order for them to survive as they were now.
She understood why Blanc jumped in front of that sword for Celine and why he now jumped between Kael and that jaguar.
Because there was nobody else to, and because he loved them.
So, perhaps, this pressure in her heart was yet another reason blooming for why she loved her brother or the grief that, in that fateful moment, all she could do was watch.
But a child’s mind would not find an answer to such a dilemma.
It was impressive enough that she understood that much, young as she was.
Miyanna stared at the string as she cut through the flowing water of the river.
But she wasn’t seeing either the string or the river.
Though calmer than before, all she could see were different scenarios.
Different scenarios in which that mistake of hers had a different ending.
One in which Blanc was not in time, and the jaguar killed Kael in front of Blanc’s eyes.
She imagined Blanc hating her, his screams in the night, his will to live gone.
She shook her head, trying to remove such dark thoughts from her mind.
But her brain showed her another one.
It showed a scenario in which the jaguar was faster than Blanc, but instead of killing Kael, it went for Blanc’s neck, and how in that single moment, the beast’s fangs dug deep into Blanc, snuffing the light out of his eyes.
She could not even imagine what that future would look like. Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on novel·fiɾe·net
The hollowness that she felt in her heart and stomach was unimaginable, too painful to even imagine.
So, she let go, over and over, her brain somehow showing her how that one single mistake of hers would have altered this new life of hers that she so much cherished.
While Miyanna allowed her emotions to show her horrors, Celine blocked any of that and focused on what she could do now and in the future.
She replayed the mistake and took note of every single breath she took, every muscle she moved, that led to all of what happened.
And was critical of everything, cursing her overconfidence in such a moment.
But she placed every thought deep in her brain, never to forget it, never to repeat it.
In this silence, she allowed herself to be the daughter of Blood Maroux one last time, in order to be a better wife for Blood Denegis.
She took the mistake and, in her mind, polymorphed it into a lesson so valuable that, between the guilt, she was grateful that it happened, for she knew that it would not happen again.
Blanc felt a small tug at the rod in his hand as he, too, was lost in his thoughts.
The small tug came again.
Something was interested in this bait of his.
And then followed a pull so strong that Blanc was, in less than a second, pulled to his feet.
“Prepare yourselves,” Blanc yelled to the four, trying to rein in whatever was on the other side of the hook.