Cursed Yoshi

 

Chapter 58 = The final stretch

 

Disclaimer: Although all characters here are of my own invention, the original idea of Yoshies, Birdos, etcetera, are copyright of Nintendo, and I make no money from writing this.

 

The forest surrounding the vast area of land around the castle was almost stereotypical of its owner. There was little light as it was due to the storm clouds that hung above the city, and less still managed to shine through the leaves and dead branches that formed the canopy of the dark forest. There was a dirt track they were following, overgrown with weeds and ready to be reclaimed by the forest at any moment, and deep ruts in the mud showed that horses and carts frequently travelled by. The two Yoshies stuck to the edge of the track, careful neither to stay in the centre of the track or stray from it and get lost in the dark sea of trees.

All that could be heard was the wind howling through the branches, stirring up a slow, steady fall of brown leaves. It was early Eira, the seventh day to be precise, and the autumn season was drawing to a close, in preparation for the cold and occasionally snowy weather that dominated the following months of Jallora and Valsa. As such, the wind was unpleasantly cold, and both Yoshies had wrapped their cloaks tightly about them, holding them closed with their hands.

Before leaving the city they had stopped by a small shop and bought what they thought they might need; plenty of food and a compass. The former to make the journey there and back, and the latter to avoid any magical enchantments that might have been placed upon the forest and all within it…

Currently, it still pointed them northwest, the direction it had indicated when they had left; a good sign for sure. Darkmark put it back in his saddlebags and held his cloak closed again as they trudged onwards, travelling slowly across the murky ground, while the huge stone castle slowly became closer and closer to them…

 

All was silent within Sira’s residence; she was lying still and quiet upon the sofa, her eyes closed, deep in thought. She didn’t know where Tamaroro had gone, but she knew he was in the flat somewhere and would let him be for now. Many of Visali’s things had been donated to the university, but she had kept all of the personal things of his around the place, as well as the various items left behind by Dave and the large brown shield she remembered belonging to Manny, wherever he was…

Her grief had soon turned to rage; anger that someone would take away Visali from her, that someone cold and heartless would kill someone she knew had never hurt anybody. She had a sketchy description from the little orphan, but no leads to her or where she was except the assassin’s guild, and she couldn’t very well find an assassin and ask where to find their anthro leader.

Unless…

The thought had crossed her mind more than once to see if she could locate and join the guild, to get inside and begin planning her retribution against Visali’s murderer. It might take her a while to get far enough up the ladder to meet with that assassin, and longer still to be able to defeat her, but there was nothing else she could do, as the city police did not want to get involved and probably were being paid off by that foul anthro herself…

She clenched her fists and teeth, feeling her hatred rise up again as she thought of the head assassin laughing as she murdered her victims, chuckling to herself as she covered her tracks and made herself invulnerable to anyone who dared to see retribution against her and her kind…

There was a sudden loud crash from behind her, and she looked over to see a bashful Tamaroro standing with his hands behind his back, pressed up against the wall. He appeared to have been hiding under Manny’s shield, and had accidentally knocked it over, and as Sira got up to put it back he cowered under her as though he were expecting to be beaten.

“Tammy? Tammy, are you okay?” She asked, trying to force the anger out of her voice from the thoughts she had just had.

“I’m sorry!” Tammy pleaded, huddling up into a little green-and-white ball. “Don’t hit me… please don’t hit me…”

Sira tried not to swear as she replaced the shield and gently picked up the little baby. It was becoming ever more clear to her what must have been done to this child back when he was in the orphanage, and remembered him telling her how that anthro assassin had killed his parents, too…

Cradling him in her arms, she tried to make him calm down and succeeded in ceasing his cries. He huddled up to her and she held him close, leaning over him and whispering softly.

“Tammy… there’s something I’m going to have to do, and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me…”

He looked up to her with his big, bright eyes. “What’re you doing, mammy?”

She smiled gently, and said, “I’m going to go do what I can to find that person who killed our friends and family… I’m going to go do back to her what she’s done to us… I’m going to find her and-”

“No, mammy, please don’t…” Tammy replied, cutting her off. “Daddy always told me it was bad to hurt someone… even humans…”

Sira paused for a moment. It seemed that Tamaroro came from a devout family that had read him some of the less bloody stories from the Fayen, teaching him the morals therein. She hadn’t gone to church for a long time, but didn’t consider herself an unbeliever… it was just that she didn’t have the time, and didn’t see much point to it either. One of the many things taught but silently despised was the commandment that nobody was to inflict excess pain or suffering on anyone, even a human, even if they deserved it. The reasoning was that the Yoshies considered themselves better than the humans, and if they committed the same cold-blooded acts of violence, they would be sinking down to the level the humans were at. It was that reasoning, mostly, that made the Yoshies obey this law, but it was a common, unspoken understanding that they dearly wished to do otherwise and see the humans scream and writhe as they were paid back for all the pain they had caused…

“I won’t. I’ll kill her swiftly and leave her judgement up to the gods… as is commanded… but what she has done cannot go completely unpunished.”

Tammy was silent for a moment, but meekly replied, “If you think that’s what’s right…”

Sira coddled him again. “I do, Tammy. I do…”

 

It was barely early evening by the time that the forest started to become seriously dark, as light rapidly vanished as the day came to a close. Darkmark and Manny had stopped walking for several minutes as the former tried – and failed – to cast some kind of light enchantment around them. Manny did not know of any magic spells he could try, and when Darkmark pulled out Karlo-Shin’s sword, he found that the pale white glow was not enough to light the way with.

Not entirely sure what he was meant to do, Darkmark was continuously charging psionic energy around his right hand, then attempting to force it into some kind of light source in his palm, but every time he tried the energy would spark off and dissipate back into the ether. It was extremely unnerving for Manny, standing in pitch blackness, to keep watching jolts of what looked like purple electricity appear and disappear, particularly when Darkmark got annoyed and discharged the lot as a psionic bolt, providing only minor light as the flash lit up his body for a moment.

“Try something else, maybe?” Manny suggested helpfully, but he was met with an icy silence and continued to wait in the darkness, the cold wind whipping at him and billowing his cloak out behind him.

Darkmark put his hands together, arching his fingers as if to encase something between his palms. Psionic energy sparked between both hands as he charged it, and as the sparks became more frequent, it started to steadily stream between his palms.

Okay… I have a good charge, but now, how do I make it into light? If only I had seen a magic spell that cast light, I could probably do this…

What was light, anyway? The psionic energy was giving off purple light, just not enough to illuminate the path ahead. How, then, to do so? Charging enough of the energy to provide that kind of luminescence was more than Darkmark thought he could do. Was light another kind of energy, perhaps? If he could convert ether to psionic energy, and then psionic energy to fire, ice, or whatever else, surely he could convert it to light…

The first time he failed spectacularly; the energy discharged in his hands and provided only a bright flash, nothing more. He held his arm out the second time, finger curved upwards, and when he tried again, a red pentagram of light appeared just at his fingertips as the enchantment took place, and the purple energy about his hands sparked up above his hand, forming into a ball of white light, but the surprise of it all caught Darkmark off guard and his concentration faltered, as did the energy.

Always expect it to work, Darkmark thought, recalling the episode earlier that day with the shield. Always expect it to work, and when it does, you won’t be surprised…

Finally, he pulled it off; the energy quickly shot up his arm and into the air just above his hand, manifesting itself into a white ball which began to shine light from it, showing clearly the path ahead for about five or six feet. It hovered just above his hand and followed it when he moved, even when he turned his hand over. Satisfied, he moved on, hearing Manny’s footsteps behind him as they delved ever deeper into the forest…

 

To be continued…