Donare Donum: The Gift Giver's Chronicle

Isaiah

Silence has never been a problem for me. It’s not as though I hate speaking, but, when few words will get the job done, I will use few words. The rest of the time, pensive silence is the way to go. Even in the gloomy dark of this glorified tomb that we called a mine, I had no real issue that the silence that most would call oppressive.

What did vex me, however, is that I did want to say something. I thought about the silver eyed girl who followed close behind me, her soft breathing the only other sound besides our echoing footsteps, and I wanted to make some kind of conversation. But I wasn’t sure what to say, exactly.

Ann was always straightforward to a fault, and I had fought enough practice matches with her that I knew her fighting style like the back of my hand. But I had little idea as to what she was like as a person, beyond her various tomboyish antics. What kind of man did she like? What was her favorite activity beyond training? How many kids would she want, assuming she was willing to marry at all?

You would think that I would have at least a few answers to these questions, given that I had known her for years, but I really hadn’t seen her in this light until recently. Sometimes, these things just hit you out of the blue. I was so unaccustomed to starting these types of conversations that I could hardly bring myself to ask. Especially with Ann, who probably fantasized more about battles in the wilderness than starting a family.

Even so, after around 30 minutes of walking, I mustered my courage and slightly turned my head to look at her.

“Ann, I was wondering-“

“Look!”, she exclaimed, interrupting me, and pointing at something further down in the tunnel.

I woodenly turned my head back to look forward again. Further down the tunnel glinted a smooth and reflective black rock. When we moved closer to it, I saw that it was actually a deep dark blue and there seemed to be a cluster of a few of these rocks inlaid within the wall of the cave.

“It’s a small vein, but…”

This was Glasrock, just as Steve had described it. We had found it and, if it really could do what Victor said, this was a historic discovery.

Eagerly, I set down my pack and lantern, tied my axe to my hip, and drew our pickaxe from the pack. It wasn’t unusual to bring pickaxes on the Hunt, to mine for Gwyniron, grey iron, and other useful precious metals from the caves and mines that populated the southern and western regions. I hadn’t planned to bring one along, but Steve had, obviously, and so had Ann. She, in turn, had given it to me, for reasons that should be obvious.

Soon, I was hammering away at the wall of the cave, chipping at the rock surrounding each of the precious blue gemstones and extracting each one carefully. Dust fell from the ceiling as I diligently took as many of the stones as I could, biting through the cave wall as I dug further and further.

“Did you hear that?” Ann piped up from behind me, interrupting my working reverie. I couldn’t hear anything at first but as I stood there, listening, I started to hear a faint crrraaackk of strained rock splintering just above our heads.

Purely on instinct, I threw myself further into the cave, just as the ceiling above our heads poured down on top of us in a massive cascade of rocks and dirt with a deafening rumble. I rolled away blindly from the falling debris, pelted by the stones and detritus that were kicked up by the falling hazard.

Luckily, the rumbling stopped as quickly as it came. I was half buried but alive, coughing and squinting as I pulled myself up and out of the dirt mound that had nearly suffocated me. Groping blindly, I was mercifully handed a wet cloth that I used to dry my eyes, only to stare into the mesmerizing and curious gaze of a slightly dirty but otherwise unmolested Ann. I started a bit as she looked at me with concern.

“You ok, big man? You look like you just lost 10 dirt wrestling matches in a row.” She gave me a lopsided grin and triumphantly hoisted the lantern into the air, “Managed to grab this before things went sideways. I held onto the pretty jewels you mined as well. Your pack got lost in the shuffle, though. Sorry.”

My stomach sank. My shield and most of our food was in that pack. I grabbed at my hip and was relieved that my axe was still tied there. I sighed in relief and shook my head:

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You saved our lives and managed to grab the lantern.”

Fortunately, most of our water had been in Ann’s pack, alongside our duo’s share of the team’s remaining berries, 14 in comparison to their 21. I had also managed to hold onto the pickaxe amidst all the confusion. Small blessings.

I wiped at my eyes a bit more and was overcome with another coughing fit, which earned me more concerned looks from Ann and an offered waterskin, which I took and drank gratefully from.

“We should rest.” She suggested, “Then maybe we can try to dig back to where Steve and the others are.”

I was already shaking my head at that:

“Too risky. We can’t chance another cave in. Let’s move further in and then rest for now.” I rumbled, the hoarseness in my voice mercifully mostly gone by now.

We did as I suggested and moved further into the cave, me shaking my limbs while walking, trying to get the dust off, before finally sitting down and taking stock of our situation. I noticed that I had several cuts and bruises from my live burial but none of them were serious. As soon as I decided that I looked up to see Ann holding a berry out to me. I open my mouth to argue but only get a raised eyebrow before I even get to speak. Her expression is clear:

“We need you in top shape to handle anything we may have to deal with, big man.”

I swallow my desire to tough out my injuries again at the insistent look in her eyes. It seems like a lavish use of resources, but the logic is mostly sound, especially in this case.

As I chew on the berry, I also chew on our current situation. Ann is looking at me expectantly, so eventually I swallow and pause for a bit, before speaking:

“We can’t safely go back the way we came. Our best option is to keep moving forward. This tunnel might loop back towards the entrance. If it doesn’t, then we’ll take our chances. I would rather keep that as a last resort, though.”

Ann was nodding calmly as I spoke:

“Sounds good. Whenever you’re feeling up to it, we can keep walking.”

“I’ll be fine” I said, standing up. I was mostly honest. The berry had closed my cuts and helped with the bruising. I was starting to get very tired, though, and the sitting hadn’t helped.

We walked for some time down the tunnel after that, with me leading the way again. I don’t really remember for how long, as the exhaustion was messing with my sense of time. All I know is that we followed the winding tunnel down further into the depths as I prayed and hoped that we would eventually see the path move to the right. Since we took the far-left path from the clearing, any connection to the other tunnels would most likely be in that direction.

For a while, we were out of luck, and the path actually seemed to curve to the left, but eventually my prayers were answered. We came across a wide-open area with two branching paths, one straight ahead and one directly to the right.

“This way,” I indicated the right path with my weapon hand, pickaxe in my left. I was duel wielding these weapons as a cautionary measure, leaving Ann to hold the lantern. I elaborated:

“Our best bet for a connector tunnel is rightward.”

As I started to walk, Ann tugged on my shirt. I looked back to see her shaking her head.

“You look like death warmed over. We’ve been through a lot today and it must be nighttime right now. Let’s get some sleep.”

Sleeping with only two of us was very unfortunate, as one of us always needed to be on watch. That meant that we would get less sleep within the same period of time, as there were fewer people to share the burden of being on watch, but we had no choice.

Ann offered me her sleeping mat, since mine had been lost with my pack. I took her up on after a good amount of blushing that I prayed she couldn’t see in our dim lamplight. I could have sworn that her mat was comfier than my own.

“Losing my pack had some unexpected benefits.” I thought idly as I drifted off to sleep.