Standing Steady in the Storms: Ch. 14

I meant to post this a few days ago and didn't...but it's here now :)

Crying in the Forest

The creature never charged. Janner opened his eyes hesitantly and started. Right in front of his eyes lay a speckled beige creature that he recognized from Pembrick’s Creaturepedia. It was a Softish Squeeblin. A dead one, he noted, when he saw the wooden spike embedded in its side. Janner narrowed his eyes. He recognized that spike. It wasn’t a ‘spike’ at all. It was one of Kal’s arrows that he had whittled painstakingly with Janner’s sword. “Kal,” Janner asked as he stood up, a warning on the edge of his voice. He reached for his sword that had fallen to the ground and slid it back into its sheath. “Kalmar Wingfeather, show yourself this instant!”

Janner heard grunts as someone fell into a bush behind him and turned around, knowing that it was Kal. 

A few seconds later, his brother emerged with twigs sticking out of his hair. He was holding his bow and sporting a sheepish expression on his face.

“Kal, where did you —” Janner began, but Kalmar interrupted him.

“Wait, just wait,” he said as he held both of his hands out in front of him as if his arms could stop Janner’s thoughts. “Let’s just remember that I saved you from that thing and kept you from dying."

Janner shook his head irritably. “Kal, if you had collected wood and brought it to me like I told you to, you wouldn’t have had to rescue me from the squeeblin. I don’t even understand why you came out here. Didn’t you want to eat lunch?” At that moment, Janner realized that neither he nor his brother had eaten anything that day. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

“Well, I found some berries, if you want any,” Kal offered, pulling some dark pink berries from his pocket. They were slightly mushed, and Janner looked at them suspiciously. 

“And how do you know those aren’t poisonous?” he asked, still fuming about the fact that Kal had run off into the woods without telling him. 

“Well, Sara,” Kal swallowed and Janner thought he saw a flicker of nervousness and fear pass over his brother’s face. “Sara, um, told me that they weren’t. A-A while ago. She showed me different kinds of wild fruit that was safe to eat. S-she’s the only reason why I know,” Kal’s voice became soft, and he looked at the ground as if in shame. 

Janner stared at him. Why would Kal’s guilt about going off on his own catch up to him while talking about Sara and berries? “Kalmar, I just need you to tell me why. Why did you go off on your own? Why didn’t you just ask me to come with you? I left both of the blats behind because I thought you had managed to get yourself into trouble.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Kal whispered. 

Janner looked at him, planning to scold his brother like he was eleven again. He stopped when he saw Kalmar’s face. His little brother was crying. “Kal, what’s wrong?” he asked, his expression softening in an instant. What had happened to fill Kalmar with such remorse? He had never apologized for anything like this — not since the Maker had sent Janner back years before.

Kal shook his head in response to Janner’s question, but he wasn’t about to take silence and refusal for an answer. Janner stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his brother, holding him tightly. “Kal, it’s alright. I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s alright. You’re going to be okay.”

Kalmar shook his head again and didn’t return Janner’s embrace. “N-no. It’s not o-okay. A-and it’s never going to be okay again. Ever.”

Janner furrowed his brow in confusion. “Kal, what’s wrong? I don’t understand. I can’t understand. What happened?"

Kalmar whimpered and rested his head on Janner’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you if we e-ever get off this island,” he whispered. “Not before.”

Janner closed his eyes, desperately wanting to know what was troubling his little brother so much that he started crying in the middle of the forest, but he chose not to pry. He chose to wait. “Alright. You can tell me then,” Janner answered him. “Whatever it is, whatever you’ve done or you think you’ve done, I promise, I’ll stay beside you. I’ve never left you, have I?”

“‘Cept when you died,” Kal said, his voice muffled in the cloth of Janner’s shirt.

Janner laughed. “Well, that’s the exception. And I did it to keep you from dying, so I don’t think that counts.”

Kalmar smiled and pulled away from the hug, wiping tears from his face. He bent down to pick up the dead squeeblin.

"Seriously?" Janner asked him, raising his eyebrow.

"Food is food," Kalmar responded. "I killed it. Consider it replacement for the blats."

As they began walking back the direction they had both come — Janner had guessed Kal’s route correctly, and he filed the information away for further use. His brother would run where he could, and if he couldn’t go straight, he would turn right — Janner punched Kal lightly in the shoulder. Kal flashed a devilish grin at him and punched him back, much harder than Janner had. 

“Ow!” he said, laughing and rubbed his left shoulder. 

“What happened to your hand?” Kal asked, pointing.

Janner looked at his right hand and saw a trickle of dried blood wrapped around a few of his fingers. He traced the lines back to the glove and sighed. “It must’ve happened when that squeeblin charged me. I’ll take care of it when we get back to camp.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Janner finally asked: “What were you doing up in that tree?”

“Well, when I was running, I saw this cave,” he began. “It was pretty close to where you found me. Or, I found you. Either way, that’s where it was.” Kal looked at him. 

“Go on,” Janner urged. “You haven’t actually gotten to the tree part yet. I'm curious as to why you actually climbed the tree."

Kalmar rolled his eyes. "My natural curiousness, obviously. Anyway, I was looking at the cave and I could tell it wasn’t very big, at least not on the outside, and I really, really wanted to explore. So I —”

Janner shot a warning glance at him. “Kal, if you say you went into that cave alone, I will be extremely annoyed with you.”

“No! I didn’t. This is what I was trying to tell you before, well,” Kal looked at the ground in embarrassment. When he lifted his face again, his cheeks were burning with color. “Um, so, I decided that you wouldn’t want me in the cave. I saw the tree, figured it would make a good distraction, found the berries at the base, climbed it, and you know the rest. In one foul swoop, I killed your would-be murderer. Aha!” Kal jumped into the air and landed in a way that Janner assumed he thought heroic. 

He laughed and continued walking. “Kal, you sound like the Florid Sword. The main difference is that you can’t strike a pose that seems remotely impressive.”

Kalmar trotted to catch up to him. “Oh, come on, Janner. It wasn’t that bad.”

Janner titled his head, considering. “Let me put it this way: you can strike a dangerous and threatening pose. Just not that one. Leave the Florid-Swording to the Florid Sword.”

“And Shadowblade,” Kal added as they turned and began pushing their way back through the narrow trees. It was easier this time, and Janner guessed that was because both he and Kal had plowed through them that day. It had to loosen the trunks a little. 

“And Shadowblade,” Janner repeated. “Though, she’s a bit of a different sort than Gammon.”

“‘Different sort,’?” Kal raised his eyebrows. “Janner, that’s one way of putting it. Another way is to say that she’s wild and crazy.”

“You think you're not? You had a crush on her back then,” Janner teased. Kalmar scowled at him and he laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Galya that you had feelings for anybody other than her.”

In an instant, the merriment was gone from Kal’s eyes and his mouth became a hard line. “Let’s just go,” he said, setting off at a faster pace and taking the lead. 

Janner looked at him, utterly bewildered. “Wait, Kal! What did I do?” he asked when he had caught up to his brother. Kalmar didn’t answer and ignored him completely, not even bothering to glance in his direction.

“Kal, what is going on with you?” Janner demanded this time. The stream he had crossed was directly ahead of them, and when Kalmar reached it, he splashed straight through, not even bothering to use the stepping stones and avoid getting his boots wet. Janner hopped onto the first one, balancing carefully so he could step to the next. “First you start crying when there’s no need for it, and then you turn me off after I say —” Janner felt his foot slip and he flailed. His arms and hands found nothing to grab onto — until Janner felt Kal grip his right hand securely. 

Janner looked up at his brother, intended to thank him, but paused when he saw Kalmar’s eyes. They were brittle and angry. Janner felt Kal’s grip on his hand tightening, and Janner held his breath to keep from crying out in pain. 

“It’s not important. Don't ask,” Kal said slowly, his teeth gritted. He clenched Janner’s hand tighter as he pulled him up onto the riverbank.

When he was on solid ground again, he gasped and cradled his right hand in the crook of his shoulder. Janner squeezed his eyes shut to keep back tears of pain and felt frustration flooding over him when warm liquid coated his hand. Blood. Again.

Janner opened his eyes again and saw Kalmar still staring at him, as if waiting for an answer. He didn’t know what else to do, so he nodded, hoping that would suffice. It did, and Kalmar began walking again, Janner following close behind, more confused than he had ever been.

Notes: Poor Kal. To Janner he's just being weirdly remorseful and upset and irritated, but he's really just acting out of guilt that he shouldn't even be feeling! 😭🥺