A Promise of Death

• 9 •

Desa didn't get much sleep for the rest of the night. Between being scared of seeing the flame engulfed nightmares again and the mind boggling elven named Aksel, it was mostly tossing and turning until the first light of the day entered the room. She huffed and looked at the ceiling. This really was becoming frustrating.

She couldn't kill Aksel.

She couldn't kill herself.

She couldn't tell anyone why she was forced to do this.

And most importantly, she couldn't go outside and go to a tavern to drink her problems away.

Okay maybe that wasn't the most important thing right now but it would really help.

Desa got up and tested how creaky the floorboards were. Slightly giving it her weight, she was pleasantly surprised to see that it didn't make much noise. That meant she could explore the house without waking up Aksel. It wasn't like she was going to run away or thrash his place, she was just bored of looking at a blank wall for hours on end.

Desa threw the blanket away from her lap and stood up from the couch. Tentatively taking quiet steps towards a cabinet on the other side of the living room, she brushed the surface of the worn out wooden furniture. She opened the first drawer to reveal cutlery. Best not to be around sharp silver objects for the time being. Closing the first drawer she opened the second one to find blankets, big wool ones that seemed cozy enough to cuddle up in.

She closed the second drawer and opened the third, to reveal old worn looking books thrown haphazardly around with notebooks and pens littering around them. Desa picked one of the books up and read the title, 'Seas of the World'. Another read, 'A Stargazer's Guide to Seafare', 'Surviving in the Open Sea' and a couple more. It made sense that most of Aksel's books were about sea, since his whole business was run on a ship. With his water bending in mind, it was a whole 'twenty thousand leagues under the sea' theme here. Which, when looked closer was tucked in the back of the drawer. Figures. There were also a couple of fiction books, most of them she had read and loved dearly.

Picking up one of the notebooks, Desa flitted through its pages. It was mostly numbers and calculations that looked either for sea travel or merchant business. It was hard to understand but the elegant script was neat in it's handwriting. The letter 'f's were in a fancy twirly loops that she hadn't seen commonly. When she gently glided her fingertips over the neat writing she could imagine different scenarios for when they were written. Was Aksel in his house, sitting by a table, or in his office? Or on a far away island? Maybe on one of his travelling ship's main decks while staring up at a night sky shining without a light polluted village to hinder it.

Instinctively she brought the notebook to her face and breathed the pages in. It smelled faintly of salty ocean water, bringing a tiny smile to her lips. Her guess was correct, this had indeed been on a ship, probably been a companion on countless sea travels. She closed the leather-bound notebook and gently caressed its spine. It was a weird feeling to envy a piece of object but at this moment what she wouldn't have given to have been where this journal had been. The freedom of going to different places and not being chained to a land mass for an eternity. Keeping memories in its pages until it was overflowing and out of space.