Skyborne Raider

The voice in the room and the presence of the deity is once again gone, just like a while before when he was checking up with his brothers. We are alone.

I turn around with my head bowed.

“Markus?” Astrid gives me the look.

They don’t even have to investigate yet, I believe my eyes are screaming guilty.

“What was the godling talking about?” she asks.

Mike is grinning.

“What pet cat were you talking to?” She asks now, a bit confused.

“Was it Pocco?”

“Yes,” I answer after a pause.

“When? The one minute he has, he is always in my presence.” She shakes her head.

“Boy Mark. What are you hiding from us?” Harald joins in.

Mike stays quiet.

“Pocco knows how to talk. And he spoke to me twice. But I swear! I swear I thought I was having a vivid dream, nothing else,” I’m trying to explain.

“But when? How did he even appear?”

*Snap*

She snaps her fingers, but nothing happens, as she already summoned him this day to scout the area for the volves and bugs.

I look into her eyes sadly.

Dropping my new hammer on the ground with a *thud*, I raise my right hand at eye level.

“No, this can’t be...” she mutters.

Mike opens his one eye, wide open.

*Snap* I snap my fingers in front of my face.

*Poof*

Pocco appears in the white cloud dust, exactly as he does with Astrid. He scurries around the cave walls and stops for Astrid.

She pets him right away and he proceeds to scurry and then sits on her shoulder, meowing.

*Meow*

She almost sneezes as the white dust settles around her.

“I... I have no words.”

“For how long do you even know this?” she asks.

“Not even a whole day,” I answer, and she raises her eyebrows, doubting.

“Eh, I mean the summoning by snap thing,” I add.

“I wanted to tell it to you, but I didn’t believe the first time he appeared it was real.”

“Pocco. Were you speaking to Markus here? Do you know how to speak?” She turns her head, looking at him. He wobbles his tail over her back as she asks him.

“Meow.”

“Pocco! Tell me the truth.”

“Meow.”

He acts like a regular cat. He seems a bit more intelligent and present, but he keeps meowing and purring.

"What is he telling now?" She looks at me.

"Nothing, he meows." I answer.

“What did he even tell you bofore, Mark?” She looks at me, with doubt.

“He told me to die the first time, and then he mentioned the statue yesterday. And he knows well I died gruesomely by the statue’s hand. I thought he was kind of a jerk. So I ignored all this.”

“Mark!” She raises her voice.

Mike almost rushes in, but Harald blocks him with his hand.

“Why do you not believe me?! Even the godling said so!” I turn on the spot, gesticulating, showing at the horned statue of a blacksmith.

“Pocco! Speak to me again!”

“Meow.”

“Come on, cat! You wanted something before, but now you ignore me?!”

“Meow.”

“Oh come on, the time is almost up! Don’t be a jerk!”

“Mark, stop it!” Astrid yells at me.

“Boy, are you alright? Aren’t you making this up?” Harald steps in. Mike is grinning, happy.

“You seriously don’t believe me? Just after we spoke to the damn statue here and I summoned the jerk tomcat with a snap?! You are the ones that lost their minds!”

“Calm down, Markus!” Harald orders, while Mike and Astrid are both frowning and looking at me angrily.

“What the fuck!” I mutter.

I should’ve left them at night as I planned! I start to lose it. Closing my fists, my Focus is auto-activated as anger slowly emerges.

My arms are starting to bloat. Now it seems, indeed, that I’m the one losing it.

Mike rests his hand on his sabre. He proceeds to slowly unsheathe it.

“Is this a fucking joke?!” I look at Mike, right into his only eye.

My arms are bruised and covered in stretch marks, and using Focus is not helping them at all.

I imagine what I would do if they started to attack me. If Mike slashed at me, I’d definitely bash him with my hammer. Since it’s enchanted, I’d lift it with ease. My hands might detonate, but if the enchantment works as planned, I’d smash him to pieces in one hit. But he might use his skill to dodge me easily. Then, I’d waste all my power on that one strike, and without focus, in my current condition, the hammer would feel as light as a rubber toy. Harald would probably shoot me right away. Cold sweat starts to pour down the back of my neck as I stress myself with my imagination.

“Boys! Calm down! Both of you!” Harald steps right in between us, raising his voice a lot.

*Whoosh*

Pocco leaves Astrid’s shoulder and scurries around, as his seconds are numbered. He stops in front of me, floating in the air.

“Meow,” he meows.

Harald interrupts. “See? Even Pocco himself is disappointed in what you two are doing.”

“Just admit you’re a liar! And apologize to him for calling him a jerk,” Astrid yells at me while Pocco is floating in front of my face.

“Tomorrow.”

“Jerk.”

*Poof*

Only the white cloud is what’s left.

“Bwhahahahahaha!” Mike bursts into laughter, dropping his sabre immediately on the ground. It clunks over the rocky floor of the cave. He almost falls down and has to grab Harald to maintain his balance.

“Pfffffffttt! Cough, cough.” Harald tries to hold back his laugh, but he blows fully in a second.

“Bwahahaha!” He laughs uncontrollably, revealing his perfect set of teeth again and Astrid is standing there with her eyes and mouth wide open.

“Now do you believe me?” I ask, trying to maintain a poker face. But watching a flying cat say “Tomorrow, jerk” in his tiny voice and vocabulary was undeniably funny.

“I’m sorry, Markus. Deeply sorry.”

Mike and Harald are still laughing, turned away from me.

“So, now that this is finally out, I can speak freely.”

“The first time he spoke to me, he told me, ‘When dead, die,’ or something like that. I was asleep and got a bit angry by that.”

She nods, trying to understand.

“Then yesterday it was, ‘Statue. Find.’ I asked him why I can call him too if you’re the owner.”

“He just repeated, ‘Owner.’ I tried to pull out of him if it was you or me, but he kept saying, ‘Owner.’”

“I don’t know what to do now.” I look at her, shaking my head after all this nonsense.

Harald stops laughing and turns to us.

“You can still call him every day and pull more info out of him.” He calms the situation with a simple solution.

“Just as he said, ‘Tomorrow.’” He adds.

“Jerk,” Mike turns around and looks at me, about to burst into laughter again, finishing Harald’s sentence.

Oh please, I wish they wouldn’t call me names from now on. ‘Tomorrow Jerk’. What a lovely nickname, I say to myself.

“Listen, kids. It’s getting dark outside, and we need to get a good sleep. The closest cave marker seems to be more than a few hours away.” He lectures us while struggling to keep the rolling scroll straight, looking at the maps.

“How do you know?” Mike interrupts him.

“I started in the desert, and it should be this area.” He points his finger at the poorly traced map.

“Mark this cave with a symbol of a statue or something. We might return here one day,” Astrid suggests.

Harald opens the velcro-covered pocket on his chest and pulls out a pen. He hovers his hand over the map, searching for the estimated place to put the marker in. Astrid suggests, and he draws a simple marker of a statue with one stroke.

Harald pulls out his sleeping bag and Astrid does the same. I look around a bit stressed about where I should lay down. Should I go outside and gather something soft, maybe some branches and leaves?

Harald unzips one part of his sleeping bag and offers it to me right after noticing.

“Take that. It’s warm enough here, and these candles might warm it even more over time. Look how huge and wide they are,” he points at one.

Astrid does the same and shares her half of the sleeping bag with Mike.

“Tomorrow we deal with the bugs, if they arrive again. Then we can visit that cave from the map. And lastly, we’ll go to the desert. I have some business there to take care of,” Harald plans our day for tomorrow.

“Thanks.” I take the unzipped half from the old man and go to find my cozy corner with the flattest surface I can find.

“You can stay up, but I’ll be gone. Look at my arms,” I announce and show him my bruised right forearm.

“Good, focus on healing these. We’ll probably need your strength tomorrow, cracking some hard shells.”

“Tomorrow we speak to Pocco again!” Astrid cheers as Mike has to drag her to bed.

Everyone has their farthest corner of the cave. I chew on some cooked fox cubes from earlier and flush them with a sip of cold water.

Before lying down on the thin mat and bonking my skull on the rocky surface, I blow out some of the closest candles to dim my space.

"Sigh." Could’ve been worse.

Before finally falling asleep, I exhaust my body with another wave of testing my Focus. I warm my feet and try to control the power more naturally. It sometimes seems like it’s automatically activated when I push my muscles over their limit.

My right hand is so strained that even slightly closing my fist already requires support from the skill.

I’ll test my hammer more tomorrow. My attacks should be brutal!

I say to myself while falling asleep with a smile on my face.