Standing Steady in the Storms Ch. 46

Alone on the Mountain

Notes:

This chapter is...what it sounds like. Janner being alone is another key thing that comes up mutiple times in WFS, so I included it here^^

*****

The rugged trek began like any other pleasure-walk across the rocks. There were small, jagged rocks as he began, but as he went further up, slowly but surely, they became much larger. There were gray, tan, and white boulders on every side of him, clustering around like a never ending garden of rocks. They stretched on for miles in every direction, and Janner could see nothing but more and more rock.

As he picked his way around a cluster that had chosen to plant itself directly in the middle of the path, Janner couldn't help but remember climbing across the rocks when he was younger.

Children loved to find huge chunks of rock and play on them, skipping across, breaking other rocks on them, laying on them in the sun, on their backs, sitting against them with a good book in one hand and a quill in the other, all while still trying to watch their younger siblings.

Janner smiled, remembering the days when they still lived in Glipwood, when they had no idea who or what the Jewels of Anniera were, when all that mattered was T.H.A.G.S. and watching over each other, when the most dangerous thing around was the forest and the Fangs, but if you never upset the Fangs, they wouldn't mind you.

When life was simple.

Janner looked up ahead and saw a huge boulder standing right in the middle of the path.How was he supposed to get around it? As he drew nearer, the boulder appeared to grow before his eyes. Every step of the way it was larger than it had been the step before.

When Janner stood in front of it, he looked at it in awe, stunned by the sheer enormity of it. He has never tried scaling much of anything, and certainly not something like this. He glanced at the other sides, looking for a way around, but here was none. On both sides of the path was a drop off that led to sharp rocks below, and Janner knew how a fall from this — or any — height would end and tried not to imagine it.

So how should I go about this, he mused as he looked at the rope coil that was tied to his backpack. If Janner anchored the rope to some sort of huge rock and threw it over the other side, that could work, but he would need a huge rock and some way of getting it over.

He took another step towards the boulder, now so close that he could touch it if he wanted to. It almost looked as though there were little shelves worn into the side. Maybe he could hold onto them and manage to climb to the top. 

Janner shrugged off his pack and set it on the ground, stooping to rummage through it. Everything he needed for the journey was in there, but there was one other item that could prove useful now— 

“Aha!” he exclaimed aloud triumphantly as he found his gloves and took them out of the pack. He pulled them on and flexed his fingers. Janner rubbed his hands together and relished the feeling of thick leather against thick leather, trying to ignore the foreign tingling in his right hand that he was not sure he would ever get used to. And of course there was the concern of what would happen when he actually tried to heave himself up the rocks — though he didn’t know if it quite counted as “heaving” yet, considering that his build had not necessarily been impressive before everything and was still nowhere near what it had been then. 

It did not matter though — nothing else really mattered — because he had to save Kal. Anything was worth that.

Janner eyed the cliff face one last time before reaching down to grab his pack. He swung it back onto his shoulders, adjusting the straps so it wouldn’t fall off as he climbed. The last thing Janner wanted to do was get half-way up, only to have his pack fall and have to go after it.  

“Alright, Janner Wingfeather, you’ve done crazier things than this,” he muttered to himself as he began scaling the wall. It was slow going, trying to find the tiny shelves that were sturdy enough to hold him and forcing his feet to blindly find purchase on the jutting shelves that at times couldn’t even be considered shelves. Not only that, but he had to keep his sword from scraping into the rock wall constantly. 

Most of the climb, he was able to reassure himself that this wasn’t the craziest thing he had done, but when he nearly slipped and fell, he went back on those words very quickly. Multiple times he felt his foot or his hand slip – always his right, and he felt panic fluttering in his chest every time — and he would flail for a second. Then Janner would manage to focus his mind back to the task at hand and he would rationally feel for a ledge. 

With the struggle and stress of it all combined, by the time Janner reached the top, his muscles were screaming in protest. Every single part of his body, his legs, arms, back, core, neck, burned with exhaustion, and despite the obvious temperate drop because of the mountain’s height, he was sweating as much as he had been on the island. And that had been in tropical temperatures. 

His left-hand fingers finally found the top of the rock and Janner clung to it as if it were the only thing holding him upright. And, of course, by the time he was pulling his whole body up to the top using only his arms, it was the only thing between him and a nasty drop onto the rocks below that would likely end in broken bones at the best, death at the worst. 

Though, I suppose paralysis would be worse than death, Janner thought breathlessly as he struggled up heave himself over the edge. Then, I’d be stuck down there with no way of even moving to rescue Kal. I would die like that. Yeah, that would be worse than death. 

“But not today,” he said through gritted teeth and furrowed brow as he let out a final gasp and wriggled onto the top of the rock very unimpressively. It was most likely the worst example of gracefully scaling rocks in the history of Aerwiar and beyond, but Janner didn’t care. 

As he lay there panting on his left side — laying on his back would be hard with the pack and his sheath was strapped to the right side of his hip — Janner relished the air that flowed willingly into his lungs. Breathing was such an amazing feeling, funny how easy it was to forget it when one was exerting oneself past one’s limits. 

After about five minutes of resting, Janner forced himself to sit up. He couldn’t just lay on the rock all day, though that would have been very restful and relaxing. And with his journal— 

No, you nut, he chastised himself.  You’re here to rescue Kal, not waste the day enjoying yourself on the mountain. Now get a move on!

Janner pushed himself up from the rock and readjusted his pack so it would be more comfortable for normal hiking and prepared to set out. That was until the view took his breath away. 

He was standing atop a rocky, barren crag. Everything around him was dead and made of song, but he could see miles in every beautiful direction. The lush greenery of the Blackwood glowed in the distance and made Janner long for Sara amidst his thankfulness that she was safe. To his right, the land of Dang stretched on and on and on, miles upon miles of foreboding nothingness. It was empty and dead, like the mountain. Yet the barrenness of the mountain was a forsaken kind of rejection, almost as if everything simply refused to grow there. It had been many hours since the start of his journey and Janner had walked many miles but seen few plants. There was the occasional brave, scraggly one that managed to poke its way through the cracks in the rocks, but other than that there was nothing. No plants, no animals, not even any insects. 

And in that moment, Janner felt very alone indeed. He had no way of knowing what was happening to Sara and the twins. If the Maker willed it, Leeli’s music could give him an idea of whether or not everything was alright, but who knew when that would happen. Janner could not call for help if he was in trouble and he had managed to hurt himself climbing; the only person to help him was himself. 

“I’m alone again,” he said aloud, frustration and self-pity threatening to clamber into his heart.

But isn’t Kalmar? a soft Voice that knew how to judge and love, scold and comfort, lecture and forgive spoke inside his head. In Janner’s heart, he felt the Maker doing every one of those things at the same time. Kalmar is alone too. Perhaps he is cared for, but he feels and has felt separated from you for so long.

“Over two months,” Janner whispered as the realization washed over him. “Kal has felt alone for more than two months.” 

As he began walking again, he began thinking at the same time. His little brother had lived with the belief that he had inadvertently killed Sara, their children, and Galya all on the same day. And he had kept it to himself. His guilt was finally alleviated when he learned that no one was dead but now…now he had been captured by Amrah.

“Now he’s suffering from the consequences of my actions,” Janner muttered. He kicked a pebble furiously and watched as it ricocheted from rock to rock, bouncing everywhere. It landed far away from where he had initially kicked it into the rock, and Janner’s heart sank as he thought about how well it fit the circumstances. He had done one drastic thing out of anger and it had caused a whole slew of problems in the process. 

Even on the mountain, the thunder could still find him and he heard rain pouring down in the distance. The voices were indistinguishable, but Janner heard them whispering. 

Do not dwell on the past, My son. Focus on what lies ahead. Focus on rescuing your brother. I know you grieved the wrong. And I am One who remembers the right that My children do and forgets the wrong. 

And remember, Janner: you are not alone, for I am with you.

Janner smiled as the storm fled and craned his neck backward so he could look up at the blue sky that would soon turn the colors of dusk like fall leaves. “Thank you,” he whispered.

*****

Notes:

Two chapters this evening :DD