Chapter 6: Momentary tranquility

Samira sticking to the path that she and her husband planned rushed through the woods, like a blur, she pushed herself to her normal limit. They were so close so she absolutely could not mess this escape up now. In just a minute the forest floor change from dirt and mud to water as the forest became filled with mangroves. Still running along the roots she eventually reached the final trees and without hesitation jumped straight into the water.

They had a small boat hidden at the very edge of the forest and if it was before they would have gotten on together. However because of the actions of Avantus slowing Samira down, Lucious had to head into the water before her in case he had to leave with just the two of them. So Samira followed their plan B in this case which led her to dive into the water and swim for what felt like 2 miles. Once she was around the position they agreed upon before she held one blade with both hands, filled it with a large amount of her strength and swung down with everything she had.

The explosion in the water rose high and wide becoming easily visible even on this dark stormy night. Samira tried her best not to be caught up in the turbulent water, she managed to struggle through the worst of it and waited in the center of where the explosion came from for Lucious to come pick her up. In just a few minutes she saw a slim, low and flat pitch black boat. It was almost impossible to make out the boat on it's own and it had to be spotted by the absences of light wherever it past by. 

Lucious saw a tremendous pillar of water rise into the sky and let out a small sigh of relief. He was extremely worried for the past few minutes, no matter how much he trusted Samira's strength and believed in her it still wouldn't ease his worries about who she was facing and the difficulty of the fight she was having. Quickly making their way over he went to the source of the pillar of water and found Samira floating there. Arriving right next to her he leaned over to quickly help her up. Now on the boat she finally finished her part for the next while, Lucious fully intended to let her get a few hours of peace while he still had a chance. 

For a minute they didn't say anything, Lucious immediately went back to driving the boat, steering it towards their exit path in the water. While he was doing that Samira went to her baby, now bundled up in a special little pod that would protect her from the environment outside. It must of been too stressful for the little baby as she was now sound asleep. Her unusually active instincts have been blaring constantly from the moment she was born until when her mom got on the boat. Luckily the pod is advanced and with all of the special systems needed to supply her with everything she needs for the next little while.

After settling in and letting the little moment of tranquility set in, Lucious finally spoke in a hushed tone "How did the fight go? How are you feeling now?" even if he tried to make himself sound confident he couldn't hide his unease and concern threatening to spill out. Samira looked up at him for a moment before chuckling "You're always like this it's just so cute, trying to act all confident and steady just for your obvious worry to show on your face, well I guess not this time but you get what I mean. But anyway everything was fine, outside of some scraps and one solid kick to my side I didn't get hurt at all" Lucious turned to her with shock being obvious in his body language. Whether it was from being called out or from how apparently easy the fight was Samira didn't know. She lightly chuckled again and continued "Yeah it was surprisingly easy, he was acting strange. Even if he was overconfident he still has hundreds of years of combat experience so for him to make such rookie mistakes was odd. Plus the thing that ended everything nice and neat was death energy being a strong counter to his source energy. I had a feeling that rot was a sub branch of death or life but it was proved tonight. He couldn't sense it at all so I just had to throw one of my blades when he went for a big strike and boom it was over just like that."

A second silence washed over them as they both thought about the implications of this. "It's wild that just the excess energy in my body lets me fight people so much stronger than me. Can you imagine just how strong she'll be if she can control all that energy sealed in her. Just looking at the seals on her body gives me a sudden overwhelming dread like I'm looking into secrets of something beyond anything I can understand. No wonder those bastards are so obsessed with cursed children." She grit her teeth just thinking about what would have happened to her baby if they didn't escape. 

While she was thinking along those lines Lucious thought down another direction. "Yeah but wasn't the boost to other mothers of cursed children much less potent than yours? I know that our baby girls curse is stronger than others but I thought it was only relative before. Now though I think that she's a lot farther beyond what they the others." Samira smiled under the mask when she heard this, to her it would be great if her daughter could grow up to be strong enough to protect herself. But could tell that her husband was still stressed about something "What's wrong isn't it a good thing if she can be strong?" 

He didn't turn his head to look at her, still staring at the ocean ahead lost in thought "No that's not what I'm worried about, I'm worried that we underestimated the reaction of the council when they get news of our escape and Avantus's death. Before they played along with our wishes because we never once showed an ounce of disloyalty so they had nothing to suspect. Also there's a decent chance Avantus didn't bother telling them that we escaped, probably hoping to capture us and make up some fake story to gain some credit from the council. So now that the most important cursed child in history as far a we can tell and her mother proving strong enough to quickly kill someone at the 11th rank position is on the escape, I think they're about to have a very extreme reaction. We know they've become obsessed with cursed children as a way to hide from 'Him' " pausing momentarily he turned to stare at his wife "I think we need to assume only plan B. I don't think we can do anything but assume the worst now" 

Samira took a second to process what she heard before responding in the only way she could think of right now and mumbled lowly "Fuck". In a third round of silence but this time there was no relief or peace in the air just a tense and somber atmosphere, they made their way into the perpetual storm surrounding their nation. It has allowed them to stay hidden from the world, controlling certain things from the background for tens of thousands of years. However it is a barrier that works both ways, making it difficult to escape without special tools or methods that are strictly controlled by the empire. 

This is where the boat and Lucious's specialty comes in as he can engrave runes into objects and infuse them with energy, this lets object perform specific functions. This path is one that relies heavily on knowledge and time, if you are in a place with no understanding of runes then you can't even do anything rudimentary but the empire was not such a place, plus he went with Samira to explore many hidden sights from the different eras. This allowed his rune knowledge to slowly build up to be one of the most expansive in the world. Using this and the time during Samira's pregnancy he spent everyday creating runes just for this escape, from the ones in their suits that make it more difficult to track them, to all of the explosions when they left. Now he showed his worth again with this boat covered head to tail in ruins made specifically to traverse the storm belt surrounding their nation. It was filled to the brim with his energy every single day and now is overflowing with it.

Now it was Samira's turn to place her trust in her husband, and she did just that as she always had. Even if he was never that confident in himself, he's never once in the whole time she's known him failed whenever her or someone else's safety was on the line so she absolutely knew they would make it through now. "Just stay calm, I trust you Lucious. You're runes and plans haven't failed before and that wont change now so just take a deep breath and do whatever it is that you need to" He looked at her again then their child, the air of anxiety just melted away the next moment. He stood a little straighter, gave Samira a small nod and a thank you before going back to steering the ship but this time much calmer and more confident.

With that they entered the belt, a 20 mile stretch of ocean covered in perpetual storms and carnage.