22.Purpose

Dear diary,
 
I am not sure how I am feeling, in any case I probably shouldn’t feel like this. I don’t know. I’ll explain.
 
After the day Drenizek wanted to leave, I decided to call in another one of our together training session. After seeing just how much everybody enjoys them, I might just make them more common. Hehe. I wasn’t feeling particularly well that morning, but I wanted to hold a session as I thought it was fitting now. I asked everybody to tell us how they feel going on in this journey, now with Drenizek and all, and before we reach Enneth. Nixie was actually feeling a bit better and hopeful with the whole situation. I was happy for her, she had a tough time recently with Drenizek. I am not sure is she loves him. Romantically I mean. I don’t know if Nixie does that, frankly enough. Yeah it sounds awful, I know. But she is always so.. calculated and even cold in decision making sometimes. I feel like we, humans and elves alike, we make decisions based on our feelings and emotions towards something. And that makes us special. I don’t know… Maybe I am a bit harsh. I might have grown a habit… Eve tried and successfully evaded todays training, I bet she thinks we skipped her by accident. I noticed that. I don’t like it when people don’t take my trainings seriously. I know she feels weird or maybe she doesn’t want to talk, but we need to communicate in order to fix our problems, right? Right?.. I mean people don’t really think too highly of those together trainings I can feel it. I mean, Heron barely talks, Nixie outright despises them and feels constrained by them and our stupid feelings and Eve just tries to avoid them and, maybe she is not even telling us the truth. Not fully at least… Verfy seems to like them, but I have the feel it’s only because she can’t get Nixie to tell her stuff. Coming back to the together training, after Verfy told us about her and how she felt, she quickly picked up on my, maybe not so usual stye of response or my face I don’t know, and asked me how I feel. I am usually last or first in those trainings. So yeah. I told them I felt… tired. Very tired. Recently I started thinking a lot about the stuff we’ve seen at the Sapphire Fountain and about us and how we see the world. Each one of us. “Is anybody or everybody made to save the world?” was a question that sticked with me. I don’t know, I just felt bad. The trainings too… I didn’t tell them what went through my mind though. They suggested I take this day off. It sounded nice, taking a break from everything. Eve volunteered to stay with me and cuddle. I felt a bit bad at first and wanted to refuse, for keeping her away for a day from everybody else. But I realised I was just dumb for thinking that. She really wanted to be there for me so why push her away. So she took me away to our room and gave me a wonderful massage. I even fell asleep at some point. I know we were talking about something, but it felt so good that I blacked out of happiness. I still felt my ears being bitten by her. My sneaky little poppy thought I won’t feel it, hehe. I didn’t mention it. I gave her that victory. Later that day while we were both reading, in bed, she asked me if she can play with my hair and make some small braids. I couldn’t say no. It was a perfect, relaxing evening.
 
I think it helped.
 
Next morning, very early in the morning, Nixie came rushing to our door and banged violently until we opened, looking all panicked and a bit pale. I thought something happened, I could feel the adrenaline rushing in my veins as if I were to fight something. She told us Drenizek had a dream. And in this dream there was Marcel. The demon with no mouth and crossed eyes. He showed him he was going to come after Nixie. We started by calming Nixie down. As far as we know, that’s what Marcel wants. Desperation, because it clouds your judgement and makes you an easy target for the mistake monster. That’s from an old tale my mom used to tell me when I was little. She always told me when she was angry that she would let my get eaten by this monster and I would only make mistakes for the rest of my life and so I won’t be happy. Now that I think about it. That’s like, really awful and childish. Anyway we decided to ignore that dream of Drenizek and focus on what we can do to help him survive the consumption. Bringing even more weight on his shoulders with a demon talk would only bring him more suffering. Poor man only wants to protect us from seeing him suffer, that’s why he always tries to look strong and healthy. We continued with our usual routine, streamlining towards Enneth.
 
Drenizek’s condition was worsening fast, so we decided to sail through the night as well and not stop. We were getting tired but we couldn’t go to sleep. At some point a cold and weird wind blew us away from course. It was somehow coarse and menacing. We looked closer and suddenly a hand fell from the crows nest. And then more pieces of Gerky started to fell. I cannot describe it. It was awful… It was a nighthaunt’s attack. We quickly rushed inside and barged the door, just when a bunch of claws went right through it. I didn’t get to see one of them as Talion purged them with a wave of arcanic fire from inside, but not after stumbling on the floor for some reason, nut I am sure they are terrifying. Being the aspect of fear itself I am sure they are no joke. The ship was clear now. We checked it thoroughly. There were only a few of them, but Gerky was the most exposed… We buried him and paid our respects and we continued towards Enneth. The winds calmed down now. Nobody could sleep after that.
 
In the morning we finally reached Enneth. It looked so pristinely green and lively. Even though it was bordering one of the most cursed forests the man had discovered. The city appeared as a shiny golden glimmer of hope in the middle of darkness in the morning sun. It was a beautiful and inspiring sight. We were met by a few ships of elves that came to meet and greet us. We introduced ourselves and told them about Drenizek. They, very unusually cold and distant, accepted to help us and shelter us for as much as we needed. We were glad, but I couldn’t help but notice something about the elves in this city. They are not just completely disconnected from civilization, but from life itself it seemed. They were once the epitome of faith, but since we the humans learned about the Almighty through the miracle from Marion they felt they lost their purpose in the world. That’s what I feel. It’s.. sad… I wonder if we lost our purpose too…
 
Enneth has this huge monument of stone, shaped like a leaf with plants actually growing from it. Right through the stone. It makes me think back towards The place where it all began. It has this ring to it, Enneth. Of that little perfect world. It’s not the same, but for everybody else, this probably feels like perfection. We went to sleep in some little elvish houses arranged for us. We even had fresh clothes for us. Eve looks even nicer in elvish attire. But I miss that look she had when we first left towards Alomir. Her riding pants in particular. Hmm. Not the time for a trip down memory lane!
 
After we woke up and ate, an elf came to tell us we will be speaking with the council some time later in the evening. So we started preparing some sort of speech and talked about what to tell them. They didn’t speak the common tongue so we relied on Eve, Heron, Nixie and Talion to relay our messages. So we started talking. I got a bit annoyed. Okay a bit more. A lot more, fine. Shut up. We a lot of discussions already regarding our purpose of fighting to protect life and.. I don’t know how we somehow drifted away from that, I am not sure. I get the feeling Nixie just wants to defeat Xantinya and kill her, Verfy is confused and tries her best to understand what we are telling her, Heron just seems way to aggressive in his approach, to the point of shaming people and defeating the purpose itself by forcing people to be of help. Talion just spews bullshit and irrelevant stuff. I think Eve and I think alike. I mean, we are supposed to tell people that the world is going to change. Things bad might happen. No, demons are not coming to kill us all. No Xantinya won’t come and destroy everything by herself. And no there is no apocalypse coming. This is not the end. The world is not ending. Not until the last soul gave up fighting. That’s how I see things. If we want help, we should convince them to join us by encouraging them, strengthening their hope, mind and soul. Not by carefully presenting them a list of pre-apocalypse signs and tell them, hey come help you’ll die. We were supposed to fight disbelief. Or so I thought… That’s how we protect life, by fighting whatever comes, but first we have to fight for ourselves with our demons. That’s what demons do, corrupt you. Fool you. And once you are weak enough they finish you off. They don’t attack you with a sword or plot against you with your neighbour. Wars are not started by demons, but by humans.
Why is nobody listening to me?..
 
We then went to the council. To put it simply it was a total failure. We even quarrelled between us. I tried to tell Nixie what to say as I saw she was having a hard time, until one of the elders asked that only one of us would talk. So I sat in my corner quite from then. Pullius too was very keen on interrupting any of the elders from talking with his “BLESSED PEOPLE” remarks and comments. I felt horrible. Nixie kept on insisting about Xantinya, and signs of apocalypse while the elves were telling us: “okey, and why should we come, it seems like a human’s pronlem.” They requested to see us and talk with us separately after that. I figured they saw how we fought and were curious on our individual views or something. I, for one don’t know how to speak elvish, so I though I’d try something to relay my message. I tried to reach their souls with my voice, trying to imitate how old elvish works, but for any other language. I failed miserably, of course. I could see the elders visibly relieved I was done. So I just sat down and decided to talk my heart out. I told them how I feel we are losing our purpose, and how I don’t want that to happen and how I believe.. and so much more. I talked a lot, but, well, in the end they couldn’t hear what I had to say, so I don’t know how much they understood. And if they understood something it would only be my frustration. I guess that counts too. They thanked me (I think) and bowed very deeply before me. I am not sure if they appreciated me for my passionate stupidness or for my honesty.
 
I believe I was the last one and when I came out everybody asked me how it went and what happened. I told them I tried to sing to them and maybe failed. So I just told them it went good. In the night we went to some sort of barge, floating near the city where there were tables set up for dinner. It was very nice. The small waves would sometimes lift up the barge slightly. It was very cute. Also it was Eve and I’s 1 month anniversary. It’s funny just how I counted the days, every single day, hoping the next will come and we would still be together, so I wouldn’t miss our anniversary just to almost forget and also bring her nothing for our first. I took her on that barge to look at the sea, and told her. She got very red and apologised for forgetting and actually not even realising that only 1 month had passed. Honestly I was surprised too. It’s only been one month. One month since we first held hands under everybody’s eyes. One month since our first kiss. One month filled with so much more than just a month’s worth of love. I calmed her down and hold her it’s nothing. And I just asked her if she wants to just sit there and watch the sea together. She agreed so I warmly hugged her and hold her there for a while.
 
At some point we saw our ship moving. At first I panicked and looked towards the others but I saw Verfy and Xebec missing and Dillen and Nixie laughing about that. So I figured everything was okay. It was funny to see the ship sailing in circles in the moonlight.
 
Next day Eve and I went to the church here in Enneth to pray and just have a walk around. When we came back an elf was just coming to tell us we’ve been summoned to the council. There they told us the big news. They would decline our request of joining us against evil. But also they would join us if we gave up Xi’Xi. There was no way we would accept that, so we, saddened, declined. That’s when they revealed the ambush they set us, only to tell us that they would indeed join us. It was quite a scare for all of us. We were glad they accepted. They also told us Drenizek is healed and is now awake, recovering slowly. Everybody was ecstatic. I was relieved to hear Drenizek survived. The Semane really do miracles. As for the council’s decision I… was happy, I guess… I don’t know. I just felt like I was either a fool, doing nothing to convince them, maybe even helped them decline more easily, or I was a deciding factor, the hero of the day. I am not sure which one is worse.
 
We had a group hug after that. We are to stay here some more days to prepare for the journey.
 
May the Almighty guide us and strengthen us.