Young Writers Society

Evaline let out a small smile hearing his story.

"I do," she said after a pause. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have left.

She turned to look back at Yoen. "You know, when I first met you, I assumed you were a farmer. Guess I wasn't all that off."

James huffed through his nose. "What made you think I was a farmer?"

Evaline looked him up and down, repressing a smirk. "Oh, you know," she teased. "Just a hunch."

"No. Really. What about me screams 'farmer' to you?" James gestured at himself with a wave of his arm. "Is it the clothes?"

"Perhaps," Evaline said. She glanced at Elliot. "And you seemed to know a lot about horses."

Which, if Yoen was telling the truth about how common they were, may very well be everyone except Evaline.

"Plus..." Her eyes darted at the scar on his face and bandages peeking out from his shirt's neckline. "I figured an animal attacked you."

James took in a quick breath, and then sighed.

"An animal..." he trailed off, shaking his head as he looked back out into the storm.

"Farming has more to do with crops, than anything. Animals are involved, but, it's more about the fields. Plowing. Harvesting. It's kind of hard to do that without land."

Evaline didn't know whether he was reminiscing or correcting her because she had once again misunderstood a concept that was common knowledge in this world. She hoped it was the former.

"Do you think you'll ever go back to living on a farm?" she asked.

James was quiet for a moment as he considered. He couldn't see his life changing for him any time soon, and he was pretty sure how it would end. The end was inevitable. It was just a matter of how, and when.

"No," he said quietly. "But it's a nice thought."

Evaline stared at the flickering fire in front of them. The radiated heat felt nice on her skin.

"Why not?" she asked. "You don't see yourself getting old on a farm and growing potatoes?"

James couldn't help but smile at that, but it was a sad smile.

He watched as the rain formed a puddle outside the cave, pooling in a divet in the ground.

"I just don't see myself getting old altogether," he said, half-wishing he hadn't said it out loud. But it was honest. He shifted his shoulders, trying to ignore the itching and the aching of his still-healing wounds.

"I'm not exactly... safe," he said, trying to figure out how much he wanted to say, if he wanted to explain it at all.

The risk of telling her seemed less than before. She didn't seem to know anything about the world. Would she even know about the Moonlight Kingdom? Would she even care?

"I can't see my future going much further, I guess," he said. "Is what I mean."

Evaline's slight smile faded as she listened to Yoen. She looked up, facing him. Shadows danced around his face from the flickering fire, and she saw a deep sadness in his eyes that she hadn't noticed before.

"Don't say that," she said, trying to sound as gentle as possible, which was more difficult than she had imagined. "You have plenty of time. There's so much of your life you haven't lived through yet."

She knew he was running away from someone, and it just occurred to her that perhaps this wasn't an isolated single event he was running from right now. Perhaps he was always running away because he had multiple enemies.

But still...

"You can't run away forever, you know," she said softly.

“I know,” he said softly. “And I can’t fight forever, either. This isn’t something I can just... win.”

He paused, and looked over to Eve, briefly meeting her eyes.

“I just try to enjoy the small things in the present. For now.”

Evaline looked back at the flickering fire. She wondered what Yoen had possibly done to feel like he has to run away without an end in sight, but it wasn't in her place to ask.

Yoen kept reminding her of an old friend. There was a question she had always wanted to ask him, and she wondered if hearing Yoen's response would help her gain insight.

"More than anything in the world," she began, "what do you want in life?"

More than anything in the world.

That was a big question. James didn't want many things, but most of the things he wanted were impossible to attain.

He wanted to see his family, but it had been almost ten years. He'd almost made plans to reach out again, but then... well, he became a wanted criminal. Now, seeing his family again would only put them in danger. They were safe, and unless he went to them in person, no one would draw a connection. He couldn't take that chance.

And well, he'd wanted to make a difference. He'd wanted to change things in the kingdom for the better, but he was discovered before he could ever do much of anything, rendering all his efforts a waste.

He kind of felt like his life was already over, in a lot of ways.

Almost any town he went to, there were posters with his face and name on them. In the last year, word had spread quickly, and law enforcement throughout the kingdoms knew who he was and the hefty price on his head. There was no going back to normal, and reintegrating into society would never happen, unless his wanted status changed, which it never would.

The only thing that could change was being wanted dead instead of alive. That's really all he was waiting for. When the kingdom decided they didn't really want him anymore.

But if he could forget all of that? Well, he'd want to make a difference. He'd want to help people. He'd want mages to be free to live again. He'd want magic re-integrated into everyday life. He'd want innocent people to stop dying because the ones in power were afraid.

It was easy to dream big when you didn't have to think through the consequences or figure out how to accomplish any of them. But all of his dreams required power, influence, resources, and people. And he had none of that.

He sighed, his eyes still fixated on the rain. Scanning the area periodically. Just in case.

"I just want to do what's right," he said quietly. "Whatever that looks like in whatever context I end up in." That's what he'd settled for.

"I'm still trying to figure out what that means, sometimes... but, yeah."

Lightning struck, brightly illuminating the both of them in the room before the rumbling thunder followed. Lightning, thunder, torrential rain—they were all destructive events of nature. But despite its catastrophic tendencies, they were still essential forces of nature that drive the cycle of life.

One only appreciates the sun shining after a storm because of the storm itself.

Evaline could tell Yoen was tiptoeing around the answer, and although it was none of her business or concern, she really did want to understand what drives people like him.

Because to her, people like him held no drive. They were complacent, satisfied with the status quo, not fueled by what was right or what was wrong.

"Everyone wants to do what's right," she said softly. "What does that mean to you right now?"