And though she smiled, it killed her a little more each time he ignored, whether on purpose or by accident, the deprived, soft coal of her slow burning, resentful heart toward him.
Down in the swaying wheat fields, Noemi had plenty of time to think. Her face flushed, rosy red from the sun, she sauntered along, tending to the animals, while gathering a bouquet of aroma-filled flowers into her wicker basket. She plucked red clovers. An eruption of orange, black, and white spotted butterflies hovered circles around her. Their tiny, delicate wings fluttered up and down with gradual majesty. The butterflies slowly dispersed, their soft wings tickling her skin as they did. Yet one rested on Noemi’s index finger. She carefully brought her finger to eye level, smiling while examining its fragile wings. The butterfly soon flew off into the vast, blue sky along with the others. Her smile straightened. Her eyes dimmed. She looked at her surroundings and sighed.
Noemi knew something was wrong, she just did not understand why Vincent refused to admit it. Not only was her heart exposed, it was breaking. She felt as if her soul were eroding, that a void widened an empty space in her chest, which filtered into regret. There were mitigating factors. She was still young, and Vincent was younger than she was by two years still. Noemi had been so many things in her young life already. She was a warrior, an immortal, a force for good, a tool for evil, but she was a woman, and most of all, a teen trying to play house.
She had been engaged to Vincent’s older brother no less, but she tried to forget that tragic romance. Noemi felt treasured in Vincent’s arms, though her own desire turned hostile, with a lessening of passion in recent weeks. She missed her parents, she missed her life, and she missed the world. She was isolated from her friends. She felt drained by her relationship with Vincent, and she wondered if he knew that everything she had sacrificed was for him.
At a considerable distance up on the hill, behind the cabin, Vincent looked back over each shoulder. His cut frame had a polished shine in the noonday sun. He wiped some sweat from his brow with his forearm. Discerning that Noemi was not around, he dropped the axe and placed the next block of wood on the stump.
Vincent recalled and repeated words lowly to himself over again. “Practice to reflex. Practice to reflex. Practice to reflex.” He trained his breaths and closed his eyes. He fixated on the power within and summoned a knight’s weapon, a sword of metaphysical valor.
A translucent sword, with a bluish hue of sheer energy, materialized. Rizzz. The striker droned as he cut through the free air. Vincent laughed, smiling at his restored ability. He watched the blade. It had changed in color from the last time he summoned a weapon. He wielded the striker at his command. It felt good. It was easy again. He moved, and the sword displayed its power. Though the sun was high and straight overhead, even its beams could not tarnish his striker’s radiating protons of luminous bands encircling the blade. Swoosh! Flap! He delivered a quick blow down at the block of wood. Voomp! He sliced with a lone swipe from top to bottom.
The wood block remained intact.
Vincent sighed, shaking his head with a frown. Then the wood block split in two clean pieces, each gradually falling away from the other. Even the massive stump, used for splitting wood, cracked in half. Vincent grinned, bobbing his head. “I’ve still got it,” he reassured in a whisper. With ease, he divided through the six-foot pile of wood, one block after another with little effort until the pile of single wood blocks were all split into pieces.
Through repetition, his diminishing skills had returned, but they had returned only because of weeks of meditation and from practice to reflex whenever Noemi was not around. He had honed his skills once again. He began to adhere to the ways of the immortal knighthood. He now wielded the greatest symbol of a knight, the striker, and he felt more empowered than ever. Yet, in the process, he had kept all of it from Noemi, including his recent, nightly escapades.
She had come up the hill early to the cabin from collecting flowers. Noemi heard a familiar, faint hum from behind the cabin where the woodpile was located. Her pretty face had hoped to surprise him with beckoning gestures of ecstasy. She twiddled her fingers along the ends of her white, floral, shapely sundress.
Noemi adjusted her twisted spaghetti straps back in place. She was covered in pollen from the freshly picked pink and green posies, which she planned to arrange center stage on the supper table. A deep breath and she decidedly avoided him. Instead, she took the flowers into the cabin for water and mixed up a drink for their thirst. There were no windows looking into the backyard woodpile, so Noemi quietly walked outside and toward Vincent with an icy glass of lemonade on such a scorching, sundrenched day.
Her waist was thin, her hips hugged the sundress with every move, and her legs were long and shapely as she strolled near. She put on her best smile, mostly for Vincent, but it thawed when she caught a preview of him from behind. She knew he was up to something, but he swore, he swore to her numerous times that he would never summon his powers again. Though here he was, stunningly agile in all majesty, yet holding the weapon he swore to her that he would never wield again. His abilities, it seemed, had grown in might. Vincent, never before, had the power to materialize a dual-sided, double-edged sword. He was able to cut a block of wood one way, twirl his striker like a baton, and then cut the same block of wood the other way. Before the block even had time to split from the first slice, all four pieces fell instantly apart at once.
Noemi hastily ducked behind the side of the cabin and wiped her moist lashes with the back of her wrist. She took a deep, nasal-filled breath, cleared her throat, and called out to him before turning the corner completely.
“Vincent,” she said before circling the cabin again. “I brought you something cold to drink.”
He immediately withdrew his striker, awkwardly averting his eyes away from hers. “Noemi, you didn’t have to do that.” He reached for the glass and tipped it up to his mouth. The condensation from the upturned glass rolled down his chin as he chugged the ice-cold lemonade. “I’m all done.” He fumbled, “I mean…um…I was…uh…just about to come in. See, I’m done with the woodpile. That axe works better than I thought.” Vincent had trouble looking her straight in the eyes, yet she made efforts for uncomfortable contact with his. “What?” He raised his palms upward with an irritated inflection.
“No, nothing.” Noemi turned her neck and narrowed her eyes. “You finally shaved. I forgot how young you look.”
Vincent rubbed his smooth chin and cheeks. “Well, it’s gotta be more than that?”
“No,” she replied, her tone hinted of agitation, her face long with bother. “Not like you’d care anyway.” She crossed her arms.
“Whatever.” He sulked and handed her the empty glass. “I don’t have time for this stuff.”
“Stuff?” Noemi squinted, tightened her lips, and shook her head. “What? I’m just stuff now?”
“No, you know what I mean.”
“Do I? Because it seems like all we ever do is fight.” She put her hands on her hips. “We didn’t…at least we hadn’t for a long time before…”
“Yo, I don’t know what to tell ya.” He shrugged his shoulders and left her there, walking away toward the direction of the cabin while the sun fell midway down the sky.
Noemi just stood and watched him pass right by her. She jetted her chin out. With arms crossed, looking to the side, she marched in after him.
Vincent walked into the cabin, slamming the door. She flung the door open and followed closely, grabbing his wrist and turning him toward her.
“Hey,” she said with a soft intention. “I want you to know that I…I really love you. You know.” Noemi always loved peering deep into Vincent’s icy, blue eyes, and into his warm soul.
“I know,” Vincent halfheartedly replied. “I know you love me.”
“And I want you to know that you can tell me anything…anything.”
“Wh
at’s to tell?” Vincent shrugged.
Her dismay turned indignant.
He turned away from her again.
“Why won’t you look at me when I’m talking to you,” Noemi’s soft voice became jarring.
Vincent said nothing.
The cabin was stuffy from the leftover, midday heat. Noemi stomped, her shoes clunked past him as she opened the windows. The draperies carried in an easterly wind, flapping the cloths about, folding the curtains over onto each other before straightening, only to take an erratic flight upon the next cool gust.
Without a word, Vincent left the stuffy cabin and sat on the front porch instead. He took a swig from the large container of lemonade. It was warm like everything else, so he spit it to the ground.
Noemi, though crying inside the cabin, wiped her tears and stomped out for a seat next to him on the edge of the porch. She placed her hand on his knee. He glanced down suspiciously, yet kept drinking the warm lemonade, tipping the large glass container up in the air as he guzzled the last drop.
“Hey,” Vincent casually said, still refusing to look her in the eyes, “this lemonade tastes like crap.”
“Well…it’s been sitting in the sun. Besides, I’m not here to talk about lemonade.” Noemi regarded his handsome side profile. “We’ve been through a lot over the past year.”
“Yep.” He looked straight ahead.
Feeling awkward, not wishing to say more, she did. “We survived the other immortals. We left our home forever to come here. We almost died. And you kil—” She abruptly ceased.
He flashed an evil, hateful glare. “What did you just say?” His tone bottomed out with an irate drop.
“Um…you lost your brother.” Noemi winced. “We both lost Jak I mean.”
Vincent shot upward and threw the glass container to the ground. It exploded into large spikes and tiny slivers everywhere in front of them. “That wasn’t what you were gonna say!” he yelled.
A fiery urge kindled inside Noemi at the sight of his outburst turning violent against her only large glass container. She shot upward and stood face-to-face with him. She stared into his eyes, her thinly contoured brows crinkled together and down. “I know what you’re up to.” She blurted out. “I’ve seen you training. I know you go out each night when you think I’m asleep.”
“So!” he shouted.
“So, I’m not stupid.” She shouted back. “Ever since that day I saw you talking to someone down in the field, you’ve been different toward me. You’ve been lying to me, and you promised me, dammit!” She wiped the trickles at the outer corners of her eyes.
“Not this again.” Vincent groaned.
“Don’t you love me anymore?” Noemi placed her hand on his bare chest. With her other hand, she took and grabbed his hand, placing it over her own heart. “I don’t want to be with someone that doesn’t love me. Just say it if it’s so.”
He hemmed and hawed, frowned and pouted. “I still…I always…” He stopped short of saying the words she needed. “I just feel so trapped sometimes!” He ripped his hand from off her heart.
Noemi stepped backward. “Trapped?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Yeah, trapped,” he said evenly.
Tears filled the lids near her bottom ducts, giving them an unintended, lovely, glossy finish. “By me?”
“Yeah.” His face shared no emotion.
She held the middle of her chest. “ARAAH!” she screamed with pitiful anguish. She bawled and cried. Noemi removed her hands to cover her face. She started to smack her own head, rapidly and with heavy blows. He took her wrists and held them back, preventing her from hurting herself more.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god! You don’t love me anymore!” The words melded in a single, almost inaudible weep. “Don’t touch me!” She reeled back and away from him with a thumping cry.
An overcasting guilt shuffled between anger and frustration, so Vincent tempered his immediate feelings for her sake. “I swear, it’s not you, I’m just having a tough time right now.”
She wiped her eyes and sniveled. “Oh, yeah, then tell me, what’s going on?”
A long silent period, with unwavering glances replaced words, mellowing spaces between incited tensions. Vincent shrugged his shoulders. He knew how he felt, but he could not give her what she needed to hear, at least not at that moment. “This thing we have.” He waved his hands between them. “It can’t last. It won’t last, unless…” Vincent abandoned his sentence.
“You don’t care about me!” Noemi yelled.
His face softened. His frustrated appearance shifted to concern. “I do. No, no, I do!”
“Then tell me what’s going on.” Her voice sank to a lenient, yet bitterly crammed request.
“I told you…nothing’s going on. I’m just tired of everything.”
Noemi glared at him as he walked inside the cabin and lay sideways on the couch, his back facing her. She knew he had been sneaking out in the middle of the night, every night for the past few weeks. She had seen him using his immortal abilities again. The same abilities both of them swore they would never practice after they miraculously woke up on the beach together, both of them still alive, after their fight with Malum all those months ago. They had promised to live as mortals until time, as they knew it, ended.
She felt exposed by confronting him for love’s sake. “I don’t know what’s going on, but with all the mistakes we’ve made, all the things we’ve overcome, we’re here now, and we don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”
Vincent sat up and stewed an unwavering guise of displeasure. “I want to be your star. I want to be everything for you, always, but I have to see this to the finish, and then I’ll quit, forever this time.”
“You can’t change anything, no one can,” she pleaded, on knees in front of him, reaching for his hand. “What’s really going on?”
“Really, nothing you need to know about.”
For as boats are tossed about a stormy sea, and as water engulfs a vessel until it can no longer stay afloat, her love was drifting into a tempest. Noemi desperately wanted to ride out the storm, but she was tiring, and ready to abandon the sinking ship this time.
“Vincent, why won’t you talk to me?”
“Just leave me alone!” he yelled.
“But I love…”
He stopped her words with a shout. “Go away! Leave me alone before I get pissed!”
She wept terribly, which was only hushed by her slamming the bedroom door. Moreover, unlike before whenever she was sad, this time, he did not go and check in on her, or hold her like he used to whenever she was scared or felt alone. Rather, he lay back down on the couch like a rock, fuming, justifying, and planning. He had to keep her safe from what was coming, but he would not share what he feared most with her. Instead, he listened to her muffled cries from the couch, refusing to comfort her until he had something tangible to offer in exchange.
Things could be settled and explained later. He figured she would forgive and love him as she had done after Jak died, but he needed to do what he had already set in motion. He could not deviate now, and would not make the same mistake of getting her involved as he did before.
Then an epiphany landed in amidst Vincent’s racing thoughts. This was why the knighthood forbade marriage between two knights. If a loved one were in peril, a knight might very well neglect their duty for the greater loyalty to save the one, and let thousands die in their place. He shook his irate head. He almost got her killed the last time danger surrounded him, and he could not doubt himself now, for he would kill Malum before he had a chance to find either of them, and the future would be much safer for Noemi, he reasoned.
Noemi locked the bedroom door and fell onto the bed, her face sullen, the pillow wet with salty brine. She drifted off into a semi-sleep, a disturbed sleep, a nightmarish, riddled sleep. Liquid sadness drenched t
he pillow. Her face felt sore from the teary, saturated fabric. Since they had been living in among the wheat fields, she only had sweet dreams. She never worried much while in Vincent’s arms. She never had reason to worry about his intentions or honesty. But doubt stuck its dirty little fingers into the cracks of her heart, and crept through fractures, filling her with suspicions and concerns, and most damaging of all, she now wondered if he had ever loved her to begin with.
Vincent pretended sleep. He watched the clock on the wall and listened for the squeaky mattress coils of Noemi tossing back and forth in the other room. At about two o’clock in the morning, Vincent quietly got up, dressed, left the cabin, and headed into town.
Unbeknownst to Vincent, one town over, at the same time he walked the dark, wooded trails to the nearest town, three Dwellers hunted in the night.
The creatures raced in the shadows, spying victims who had recently left a tavern. A man and woman exited, walking hand in hand. The man was handsome, with brown eyes, and appeared to be in his mid-twenties. The woman, also in her twenties, was pretty, slender, and blonde.
The couple walked as lovers down the empty, silent streets. Few lights lit their way, but it mattered not, for this was a safe area, with low crime and fewer worries. They caressed. She stopped, put her arms around his neck, and gave him a lingering kiss.
From out of the darkness, a startling voice threatened, “Give me your money.” A grizzled, unshaven, top-heavy, nasty thug eyed the lovers and demanded with a polished knife that reflected its metallic, sharp edge.
The blonde woman anxiously handed her purse, and the handsome man, his wallet over to the grizzled thug. Nevertheless, the grizzled thug appeared to want more. He introduced a wily leer at the blonde woman, while raising his knife toward the handsome man.