7 Renouncing melancholy

The two of them followed the older woman into another one of those tunnels. Like Olean had said, everything looked the same there. Tristan had no idea a place like this was so near to where they lived. But then again, until recently he also didn't know that the temple he basically grew up in extended so far deep underground.

He looked at the girl who was walking along with him. Quiet, with her head down in shame and defeat. He understood her a little; he wouldn't want to disappoint his teacher either. He looked at her again, and in a new light, like the first time he had seen her, he felt she was different. Ignoring her strange green hair and the eyes that burned every now and then like starlight, there was an air about her that felt strange and alien. Strength he felt in her that he didn't feel in anyone before.

"Thank you." He muttered softly so that only she heard it.

She looked up, eyebrows raised and blinked. "For killing it." he whispered again.

"Oh, it was just a job." Her answer was quick, a practiced response. Her eyes fell on her mentor and she got back into her defeated posture. But Tristan saw her trying to hide her smile regardless.

They walked in silence after that. Tristan decided to concentrate on the sloshing sound the two of them were making. The girl at least seemed as unused to walking there as he was. The black water they had been walking on now rose to their knees. Thick like mud, his steps were getting progressively difficult. The woman had recast her lights again. They were now in a large open cavern, surrounded by darkness just like the one they were in. but it was not the same one. He felt it and saw it too- a silhouette of a giant lump in the center with numerous spikes protruding from its furry skin. A sudden fear washed over him and he almost fell to his knees. Olean caught him by his arm and helped him steady. In a moment of weakness Tristan put his whole weight on the girls' grip and her hand hardly moved. He might as well have weighed nothing to her. Olean's grip stayed steady like a mountain.

"I am okay." He said in between his panting, and she let go.

Ava had preceded without them and with her light. The dark mound came visible slowly. He saw the dirty white teeth, uncountable, one over another, like a human's but giant and crooked. They grew out of its head surrounding its mouth, covering it. There were no visible eyes but he remembered the fading the red light on its head. Behind it, there was a large hump, entirely covered by long boney spikes. They were dark in the shadows and crooked like the teeth. Those he he had seen that night from distance, against the moonlight. There was a large broken spike going through its head, pinning it to the ground.

Tristan looked at the girl and remembered her words. "I broke one of his spines and stabbed him with it." She had said.

He understood Ava's dumbfounded expression now. The spike was longer than he was, thicker than his legs at the base. To have survived and killed it and that too by breaking its own spike and then stab the monster with it, wasn't a tale to be believed without visual proof.

That was not all, now that he paid close attention there were numerous wounds on the beast, broken teeth and spikes, here and there. Its rotten tar like skin flayed in places to expose dirty white bones full of dents and holes. Made by her fists, he guessed.

"Here!" Ava's shout came as sharp, cutting through his thoughts as she threw something shiny toward Olean. She caught it with both hands and held it to her chest. She opened her palms tenderly and looked at it. Her eyes glinted like green fire. A faint blue light came from the small disk and dimly lit her teary face.

Tristan leaned to his side to take a glimpse of the thing. A winged woman holding a long sword through her chest, an intricate sculpture carved onto a shiny piece of metal. The faint blue light coming from it gave off a divine feeling.

"Is that your badge?" He asked, not able to hide the wonder from his voice.

"Yes." She whispered softly like trying not to wake a sleeping baby in her arms and then went ahead to pin it on her waist.

He turned to see Ava leaning near the monster's head. Her back was toward them so he couldn't see what she was doing. He started to walk toward her but Olean's hand stopped him.

"There's poison around it." Her sudden but calm warning stopped him.

"But she-"

"Lady Ava knows what she is doing." Olean instructed, forcefully. A hint of anger visible on her face and for a moment he saw a dangerous bright green glint in her eyes.

Sneakingly, he stood near her and watched. Ava had squatted near the beast and fiddled with her waist pouch. Then she got up and headed toward the other side of it and did the same. She did it again and again, going around it, filling her bottles with things. She even got up on its head once making Tristan choke on his own spit.

"What is she doing?" Tristan asked finally, suppressing his coughs.

"Samples." Olean answered as she lifted her brows and turned toward him with a slight curl of her lips. "She needs it for her … enchantments."

"Enchantments?" He asked automatically. He knew the word, but wasn't quite sure what it meant.

Olean frowned and pursed her lips, the index finger of her free hand pressed her chin as she hummed and her eyes searched up. His question it seemed required a lot of thinking on the girl's part. Tristan looked at her, amused at her antics. His younger sister's face would twist too whenever she thought too hard, he recalled bitterly.

"It's like … ah- it's like a medicine, but… magical?"

Olean leaned her head to the side as her big round eyes bored at him; a pair of large green gems, pure and innocent, with a mischievous twinkle in them. He smiled and his hand reached her head and ruffled her hair without even thinking. She smiled and shrugged looking embarrassed. Startled, he pulled back his hand when he realized what he was doing. He didn't know where it came from but that little action of his made his heart skip several beats. Thankfully for him Olean didn't seem to mind at all.

But her words 'Magical medicine' stayed in his mind. Another hope brewed in his heart, 'maybe we could be cured after all.'

Lady Ava returned, her hands fastening the straps on her pouch. "Let's go." She said and walked ahead and the two followed without questions.