"Why did your clan make you the Thunder Watcher?" Sorina asks in the middle of a sparring session. Her hands swirl and she pushes forward, parrying my wrists aside and striking me in the stomach. I back up a step and, with a defiant grunt, reset with my wrists, locking them against hers.
"So now we're asking personal questions?"
"What, are we not friends?" she asks dismissively. I try moving forward, but her left hand blocks me in a technique called 'framing'. Her body blades and angles away from me—she makes herself a smaller target. Harder for me to land any clean hit without telegraphing. I shift right to get around her frame.
"We are acquaintances," I mutter, before, out of some frustration, violently batting her hand aside and striking up. It is not the purpose of this exercise, but her framing is getting the better of me. She slips the strike and reciprocates with three blows of her own, each to my solar plex. Thumping pain. I wince before finally parrying the fourth strike with the proper hand-swirling motion. She nods her approval, then sniffs and glares at me.
"What?" I ask, thinking she's about to chide me for my impatience.
"Acquaintances? Is that all you make of us?"
I mean, yes. What do you expect?
"You're just filling out your end of the deal. After trying to kill me, of course," I reiterate.
"Oh it always goes back to the 'you tried killing me' thing. Get over it, that was a millenia ago," she says, pushing forward now. Rather than interlocking wrists, she just starts throwing a litany of vertical punches, forcing me to parry on the backfoot. My back nears the cave wall but I circle out and she relentlessly pursues me.
"It—" I take a breath when she strikes my shoulder, attempting to counter only for her to wave my blow aside and strike again. I slide back, trying to gain some distance. "It was two weeks ago!"
"Same thing really," she says, curling her fingers in a 'your turn to attack' motion. I waddle forward in my square stance, body strong and core tight, arms outstretched. My assault begins slowly, probingly, and she yawns while blocking my blows with one hand. "Besides, what type of 'acquaintances' spend each and every night together, lavishing in each other's company, hmm?"
Her teasing inadvertently increases my attacking pace. I am always told by her to go 60% in sparring while she goes 80%, mostly because of our anatomical differences. Not that I think it matters for her—her technique outweighs mine so greatly that even if I gave it more than my all, I would truly still require my amulets to beat her. Which, after so much training and experience, is gratingly frustrating.
Now I up my percentage to about 80%. She notices, sweat glistening off her brow. I look for any indication of disapproval, however, she merely smiles.
"Fine, I guess we are circumstantial friends," I admit, because when she starts smiling, I can't help but grin like an idiot myself. I am starting to enjoy this Eternal Spring art more now—especially considering how much better I understand it. There's a beauty to the form, a touch-and-go flow. Nothing like the raw brutality of the animals I used to mimic.
"See? I knew you'd come around," she replies. Then, with a series of five counterblows, she strikes my liver and knocks the wind out of me. I take a knee. I hate liver shots, I lament, clutching my side. She pats my shoulder. "You alright?" I usually never stop like this, so I don't blame her concern.
I give Sorina a nod. "Just give me a second."
She shrugs and sits on the center table, knocking over more maps and blades. I am used to the sound of them hitting the floor now.
"You didn't answer my question."
"How about—" I wince and take a stand, breathing heavy. "You answer mine first: what's the deal with your song magicks?"
"Why are you so curious about them, I wonder?"
"Because you used that primarily in our first fight. And because you've been so evasive about them every time I've asked," I point out. She sighs and pats the spot on the table next to her. I take a seat there, rubbing my side still. Before, I might've been hesitant to sit so close to her. But now, we've seen each other sweat and bleed—nothing else really matters.
"It's a bit complicated. And personal," she warns.
"So is your question."
With a shrug, she begins to hug one of her knees, allowing a hefty silence to pass between us. I almost tell her not to worry about it, but then she begins speaking.
"The sound spirits are variations of wind spirits that have great importance to the families of Catolica. My mother contracted two of them and passed on to me that contract through the medium of the lute, which she taught me how to play. She died soon after and then, a year later, I went to Sorayvlad. But I always kept on playing the lute and learning how to work with the spirits," she says, speaking of them fondly. "Their names were Greta and Berteca. And they were my confidants. But… ever since our fight, I haven't heard from them once."
"Oh." Shit. Then that's probably my fault.
She shakes her head. "I always lived with this delusion that even if the lute did break, they'd stick with me. But, I guess the contract only existed through that lute."
I scratch my head. "Can't you… buy another lute or something?"
"It doesn't really work like that. I think. I mean, I know for sure that the type of lute doesn't really matter—objects like that become mediums through the passage of time and by gaining particular importance to people with spiritual affinities," she laments.
There's a twinkle of memory flashing in her eyes. I almost want to look away—I feel like I'm intruding on something very private. But then, she continues on once more.
"Regardless, ever since my lute broke, I've been searching for Greta and Berteca on my own, but I've had no luck in finding them. I thought they might reach out to me in the villages, or even back at Erot's farm, but I've found no trace. It's like… they abandoned me."
"I'm… sorry if that's the case," I say, patting her on the back, mostly because I don't know what else to do. She nods, and I see her eyes welling up. Yet, rather than cry or anything of the sort, she wipes her eyes and sniffs.
"Sorry. I'm sure I'm being over dramatic—I'll find them eventually. I just have to keep looking."
"I'm sure you will."
"Alright, your turn now," she says, punching my arm. I kind of hate how she seems to communicate only through violence. But I understand she needs to put up the front. I've done that many times myself—I could never be weak at that damn tower.
Sorina adopts a warm smile. "Spill your trauma. Why were you the big bad Thunder Watcher of Clan Adachi?"
I sigh. "Do you know what a Thunder Watcher is?"
She ponders my question for a moment before answering: "No. Not actually. I know the general gist of your job but nothing substantial."
"The role of the Thunder Watcher in our clan is storied and old. It is inexorably tied to the Thunder Tower—an ancient, eldritch thing that stood before our clan's time," I say, remembering the place that I used to call home. It is so sad in my memories now, thanks to the liveliness that Erot's farm replaces it with. Really, that orange pillar remains only in the darkest depths of my nightmares—an orange rod against the monsters of my youth.
"The Adachi clan initially assigned someone to the tower as the Thunder Watcher to do as the title says: watch for great storms. But, one day, the past clan Elders were blessed with angel dust by the guardians of Heaven's Gate, or so it is said. However, when they tried the dust themselves, they were adversely affected by its use: most of them died after shooting off a single bolt of lightning.
"So, in their great genius," I spit, "the Elders started experimenting with the angel dust. First, they cursed the Thunder Watcher with an Adachi binding of immortality—a wicked sort of immortality that completely prevents death at the cost of degrading the user's mental state thanks to some aspect of the curse that I am… honestly not too sure about yet. I only know about that because I watched the old Thunder Watcher kill himself and—"
"Wait wait wait, you just said the Thunder Watcher is immortal. How did your previous one kill himself?" Sorina asks.
"Right… I suppose the title 'immortal' can be misleading. It is not true immortality—it is merely infinite longevity and near infinite regeneration. Our previous Thunder Watcher killed himself by jumping into Mt. Vordrax. Nothing of his body survived and therefore, no part of him could be regenerated."
"So even you can be killed?" she asked.
I nod. "It probably won't need to be something as extreme as what Watcher Sadai did; if I get injured far too many times in battle, my regeneration slows down enough to the point of which I could actually just die. I've nearly reached that threshold a few times."
"That… is still immensely powerful," she says, scratching her head. "But I assume you dislike it because of the pain?"
"Humans… people are meant to die after a certain threshold of pain. Anything beyond that is… maddening." Plus, I don't want to experience whatever mental degradation happened to poor Sadai. One day he's chatting to me just fine and the next he starts rambling like a madman mid-conversation, pushing me away, screaming at me. It is hard to remember my only other friend in the clan, for I pushed him out of my head for so long—his was the very first death I witnessed. It was after that when I met Hui Long. She pulled me from a deep depression incited by his passing.
"Hmm. Makes sense I suppose," Sorina responds, snapping me out of my reminiscence.
"Regardless, I digress. The Elders forced the Thunder Watcher to use the angel dust and so, the use of angel dust has been passed and refined by three generations of Watchers. The Elders want us to refine our methods to such a point where they can use angel dust freely," I shake my head, chuckling. "At the end of the day, I'm just a cursed monkey experiment, now only marginally freer than I previously was because I killed one of the Elders. However, the other four apparently retain some control over my curse, so to be fully free, I must kill every last one of them."
"And they are in the Boar Ranges now I take it."
"Exactly."
"Ah. Your situation is a complicated one. But, how did you become Thunder Watcher in the first place? You still haven't answered that question for me."
Something drips from the cave ceiling.
My mouth makes a thin line before I take a deep breath in.
She told you her story. You might as well tell her yours.
So, I do. In full. I don't know why. But, I just do.
I tell her of my childhood, the hate the Clan held for my bastardized lineage. The hate they held for my mother. I tell her of Hui Long, of her heroism against the war monkeys, of our misadventures. I tell her of our final escapade, of how I sacrificed myself to grant her a getaway steed. It is like a flood breaking through a dam; I can't stop myself from talking. This is the first time it's all come out to someone.
Sorina listens quietly for the most part. I tell her about the judgement rink—of how they kill my mother before my eyes. I tell her about some of my years in the Tower. How Kai and his soldiers would deliver the amulets from a distance, staying just outside the domain to keep me isolated. I don't tell her of those years where Kai took me under his wing—that wound hurts my pride too much.
But I do tell her of how I would only interact with visiting travelers, peddlers, clan processions, and strangers. I speak of the eldritch wolves, half-giants, the stone boars, the bloody ravens, the djinn, the duelist, and all the other beasts that attacked me, ripped at my guts.
I tell her of my reunion and fight with Hui Long. I leave out my jealousy and envy for her partner.
I tell her how I took Hikaru's hands.
After that, I tell her again of how my mother died.
And again.
And again.
I can't stop myself from describing it.
The details get more visceral each time.
My chest heaves.
My voice cracks.
I mean, they just… killed her. In front of me. Like animals. Like fucking animals.
And I would lay awake at night and promise myself, like a mantra, that I would kill all of them for it. Those animals. And I would nearly weep but I'd hold back those traitorous tears and bite my tongue, draw some blood, and clutch my hands into fists until the nails bit so deep into my palms that they too bled.
But now, I don't clutch my palms. I don't suck back the tears.
Instead, in that damp little basement, like a child, I weep.
I turn away from Sorina, hugging myself, surprised at my stupidity. I try wiping away the tears with my clothes.
Gently, Sorina tugs my shoulder with her hand, turning me around. She makes cooing sounds, like a mother.
And suddenly I stop trying to resist.
I hug her and cry into her shoulder.
"It's alright Raiten. It will all be… right," she says, running her hand along my nape slowly. Comfortingly. Like my mother.
I don't feel like a man anymore.
What men do this? What men weep like this?
You shouldn't be here. You are wasting your time. This does nothing for you.
You must kill every last one of them.
Yet at the end of the day, I am here.
I am wasting my time.
And I don't know why.
The only thing I do know is that it feels good to let it all out. It feels good to let Sorina wrap her arms around me and pat my head. She sings a song that I don't remember, but it sounds like a lullaby.
We stay like that for what seems eons.
Eventually, at some point in time, I fall asleep in her lap.
And, for the first time in a long while, I do not dream.