Naph wasn't ever mistaken at things he had experienced once. He was here, the exact same place as his last year's longest bounty trail that ended right here.
The caestre he was hunting back then was spread across several territories, and he just didn't want to retrace his steps over and over like all the rest. And so he had started from Sevenren, ran along several of its other neighbours until he ended up right on this beach.
The true source of the caestre swarm of roaches. Hunting every single one down was a headache that people preferred wanting to die to its poison over going around and killing everything that may be connected to it.
And the source? Couple of seasick victims left to die.
"Uh, huh. Not here. No, anywhere but here!" He slammed his hands on his forehead.
If his passenger had a jolt to say of the landing, she didn't deliver one to the mechanical ride.
His vomit was getting washed by the incoming low tide. His right was blue all over. From the sky to the ocean.
'Not ocean, strait.' He thought to himself.
"And not a normal kind too. Did you know that Bulwark the jolter?" The boy was back to quipping his only dead audience.
"Just look at that, on the right we have a strait. A large strait, one that is also called a channel. And on the right again we have an island we can't see even from the tallest spot!" He began speaking like a tourist guide.
Naph wanted to get his mind out of the gripping sensation. But his body caught up to him.
And he coughed.
Coughed again.
And again.
He took in quite a few mouthfuls of breaths, some that he believed would make Bulwark jealous. He laughed through one of his breaths.
But the boy's loneliness on the beach did not waver. He had committed to humour, resorted to being a guide, and now attempted to focus on the damage that his body had sustained.
Yet a lingering loneliness slipped in for he knew, people had died here. Without someone ever finding them.
Not until he discovered their skeletons. He did not know which century they were from as caestre were known to be able to keep their sustenance last longer. And humans were included in that list of possible sustenance sources.
The low tide came in harder. It rocked his ride and shook it a little.
As it retreated, the markings Anaphol had made to mark the graves of the seasick victims were revealed in the ebbing current.
The graves were marked with large white stones cut roughly. There were dozens of them, each a victim that may have suffered being eaten alive by a small roach-castre.
The ebbing tide revealed as many as he remembered. Naph rammed his head into the steering wheel.
"No, no, no! Not this. No not this!" He didn't want to see a graveyard he handmade. Not one he hated among the most.
A thought he remembered, "hey, Bulwark! Didn't Extea say treat the ocean as a caestre? So we just rammed through and over one just?"
He turned back, hoping that looking at his passenger dead will bring some other emotion out.
It did not help, but he continued, "How about it? You up for blasting through that ocean? To find a continent. Come on there has to be one in the western direction!"
His heart cried to his dying quips. It knew.
A sigh escaped from him. No response from her even as a jolt. 'Was the last jolt even hers?'
Maybe it wasn't. He jumped out to check around the ride and see if there is any damage.
As he did jump out, and land, the effects of the mad ride from Sevenren to the beach climbed on from his toes all the way to his skull. Every part of his felt as a thousand needles touched and ghosted him.
This was the body's reaction to the sudden stop from fast paced ride.
He flattened down on the sand. Exhaustion washed him. The returning tide grabbed his feet but didn't go higher.
An hour later, in a beach side open restaurant, a boy in a neon jacket with a slight tanned fair skin and light grey hair walked in. He held onto a duffle bag on his hips.
The restaurant owner did not recognize the boy for he had last been here a year ago. He didn't shoo him away, but the boy asked of an item that told him the boy had been to Rentilaco.
The city that bordered Sevenren on the westward direction for only half of its western border.
The owner handed him one, as the boy asked for change as he gave him a Tarna note of a thousand. He hadn't taken the note out of the bag, but his upper pocket. He well knew how easy it was to become a target practice.
The owner asked, "boy, how much change?"
He answered, "enough to buy me and my ride a ticket across the strait. And then some. Keep a hundred as a tip."
He gave a light smile. The boy knew he had been marked. This was based on his new instincts he had learnt.
The owner asked, "Alright, I'll get the ticket, what should be the name?"
The boy didn't hesitate, he expected a reaction, "Anaphol."
Restaurant's air didn't stop, nor did the clattering noise died, but a few voices showed hesitation. It was exact. And covered again swiftly.
His new instincts were sharper than his calculated deductions. Or were they based upon that? He wondered.
The owner handed him the change of seven notes of hundred tarna, two notes of fifty tarna and a couple of coins. Nodding, he took the readied dish of fish meat and sliced potatoes all laden in a light sauce.
His ticket of the ferry across in the front pocket, which one wasn't clear enough he had fumbled a little with keeping his change in separate pockets.
The tray it was on as well as the eating utensils, they were made for use and throw. He had asked for them specifically.
Naph's exit was silent and simple. No drama followed right after.
But he didn't expect someone to specifically come from that restaurant. He just knew where they were who had marked him.
An hour ago when he was lying next to the mechanical ride of his, he was gazed by several different birds. Some elicited an instinctive reaction the others didn't. He honed in on that for that hour, lying on the sand.
Now was the time to implement that small lesson.
A dagger aimed at his neck missed him by few metres. Then a dart landed right behind him.
He had walked into the crowd of Rentilaco after exiting the restaurant. But the crowd had only just lessened. His ferry was in two hours, and he needed a bit more practice.
These hunting pursuers weren't amateurs, but they weren't also polished. He could have avoided them before learning of this simple trick he picked up.
He wasn't just foolhardy enough to say 'cata' again. He didn't want to. Not until he had learned what that word meant.
A runner sliced up in a sleight of hand right in front of Naph, except the runner miscalculated. His hand went up way earlier before Naph was in range.
He let the runner run away. No one in Rentilaco wanted to approach to attack or kill him directly. Probably because they would have heard of his hunt of Bulwark by now.
He wasn't sure how did the message spread so fast from one city to another. But Shrik's speed today and his own ride's faster than usual trek across Sevenren, prompted him to rethink what may or may not be being used to deliver messages.
Knives had missed him, darts had missed, trained animals were next on the list.
A dog barking locked onto Naph. He came running but Naph avoided its bite because he felt it way before about which places the dog had considered. He flung his duffle bag a bit too close to the dog's ears.
It wasn't injured, but the speed of the bag rattled it inside. 'Subtle evasion using cata,' Naph thought to himself.
He noted that he was near close to being pulled to that kaleidoscopic space just for voicing that word inside himself. He looked around.
Several of the other animals whose gaze he had felt, were shaken. Their gazes told him and those animals masters the boy was dangerous.
'Huh, so by thinking of cata I could rattle', another time he felt that near pull of that particular space and more of the beings around him felt unease. He continued, 'everybody around me.'
Even a few humans showed reluctance to get closer to the boy, they avoided him. None could place the why.
His skillset to bluff his way out increased. One was knowing where he was gazed at, and the other thought spoken cata.
He didn't look as obnoxious and non-prepared as ever before.