A Circumstantial Inadequacy

When the young man entered the coach, he was amazed at the intricate design of the interior. The materials for the seat were leather or at least he thought it was. That was the only thing that he could guess since the rest of the coach was made out of some substance that was alien to him. The young man had never been in a vehicle of the sort before, and it showed so says the other passenger who was inside which he did not notice until she had spoken. There sat the fair maiden who he had played chess and talked with about maps currently smoking a cigarette by the window. This time she was not wearing rags and holding a pitchfork though. The young man just stared at her mouth agape not noticing it was until she placed a finger to his lips telling the young man that it is impolite to stare at people.

The young man could not see anything outside the carriage but from the sound of it he could tell that it was still raining. The rhythmic pattern of the rainfall helped him calm a bit as the fair maiden asked him if he was a spy from another kingdom. His simmering rage had dissipated now that he understood how the coachman and postillion knew about him. The young man’s brows furrowed with her enquiry. He told her that he had no idea what she was talking about and tried to divert the topic by complimenting her lovely dress which was not necessarily an insincere praise since he rarely gives them out to begin with. This might not seem the case since he had also acknowledged the delicious meal she had prepared for dinner before. Those were not just courtesies that he gave but he genuinely meant them. The fair maiden’s cheeks reddened hearing his reply as she looked down at her cigarette by the ashtray she held on her lap. 

The fair maiden coughed for a bit then said she wished she could say the same about the young man’s clothes, but they did need some washing after spending quite a bit of time in a cave. She continued by saying that he will be charged for trespassing unless he came up with a convincing defense at the king’s court. She added that they were heading there right now. The young man’s eyebrows were beginning to default to a furrowed position with every word the fair maiden spoke. He tried to readjust them, calming himself by listening to the sounds of the rain outside again. At that point the young man was not sure how he felt himself, if it was him beginning to worry or getting angry with her ridiculous statements that he deemed but he did not want to show it. The young man gave a quick thought on how to proceed.

The fair maiden seems like she has the authority around here with her having the carriage and deciding where they were going. She may have been lying about their destination but the coachman and postillion outside would also be under her wing from the looks of it and could be swayed to change their course if so dictated. It seems to the young man that he was a prisoner right now and that the reason he was not restrained was because he was being compliant. He considered running away but even if he did try to bolt, where exactly was the young man going to go? She did not look like she was bluffing at least to the young man, so he reluctantly began his story from when he woke up in the meadows staring at the blue skies then seeing all the people just lying together under a tree motionless, maybe even dead in his periphery.

The young man got distracted when the fair maiden tried and failed to light another cigarette in which he decided to help her with it. She offered him one from which he gladly accepted and took from her diamond-studded metal cigarette case. The young man continued that he may have been the first to wake up, but he was not too sure about that. There could have been plenty of others who may have already woken up earlier and left. The reason why he believed that was there was a little girl playing with a kite but then she disappeared when the young man was not looking. His legs were hurt then so he did not try hard to find her and just sat there. The young man waited a while for the unconscious people lying around to get up but none of them did. He was not a doctor which he seems to remind himself often so he could not do much about their condition. 

When the young man got hungry after waiting for so long without a single person to wake up, he forced himself to get up and find food. After that, he went to the woods to pick the fruits of the trees then had a drink from the river. Somehow, his legs got better so he no longer needed the staff that he had made to aid him with his walk. Despite his legs being miraculously cured from injury, the young man decided to keep it just in case they started acting up again. Since he was lost, the young man also made another decision to just follow the river and then after some walking that was when he met the monk who he later followed to the cabin where they met when the monk mysteriously died. The young man swore he did not have a clue what exactly happened to the monk and that all he did in the cabin before they died was reading the books in there.

A short laugh escaped from the fair maiden when the young man finished. She had not interrupted him once except for that cigarette kerfuffle as he told his story but when he ended it, she commented that it was rather silly. The fair maiden asked the young man how he could possibly expect her to believe him. She stands by with her accusation of him being a spy. Initially, the suspicion arose from his interests in the maps of the area he apparently spawned in right now but after listening to that ludicrous made-up tale she decided that they did not need to go to king’s court, and they will proceed to the dungeons where they will lock him up before his execution. The fair maiden added that the young man was too suspicious to be kept alive for long, but he could prove his innocence through trial by combat before he was brought to the gallows.

The young man slumped on his seat not believing a word that he just heard. He sat there and told her that he just wanted to go back home if that was all right with her. The young man was not a spy for any mythical kingdom and was actually a sales executive for a biotechnology company. The fair maiden simply nodded and asked him where he was from so she could drop him off there instead to the young man’s surprise. When he told her where it was, she shook her and said that the place he mentioned has not existed in a long time. The young man may have slept in the meadows for too long. The fair maiden was not going to judge his sleeping habits, instead offering him a job which would pay double what he was getting at his current position where he was working.

The young man seems to be thinking about the career prospect more than the home no longer existing part but before he was able to answer the fair maiden burst out laughing when she saw his eyes brighten then apologized. She was just messing around but if he really wanted to go back home then she promised that if the young man would help her with her quest, then he would be able to return to his desk job again. He was not amused with this offer and showed it by yawning as loud as he could. He was no longer bothered by her anymore and has actually gotten to like her sense of humor. The fair maiden added that his reaction was a new one. She was surprised that the young man had not hit her yet since at this point a lot of the other people before him who she did this to do much worse.

The young man asked the fair maiden if she went through all those elaborate pranks just to get him to beat her up in which she just shook her head while telling him that she was not at liberty to say and was not going to answer that question like most of his other queries unsurprisingly. The young man took that as an invitation for a retaliation in which he gave a light strike to her knee which jolted her. She guessed that she deserved that and gave a few claps which coincided with the rain stopping quite abruptly. It went from a heavy downpour to an immediate shiny sky. The young man thought nothing of it. The fair maiden orders the carriage to a halt then walks out. The young man followed her lead though he had no clue as to why. He could have stayed and talked with the coachman and postillion first, but he had a feeling that they would just tell him to see where she was going.

They were now at a coastline. He had so many questions to ask her, but it was only her that was getting all the answers. The fair maiden started another dubious line of questioning with why the young man thought he was here. He had been thinking about it, but he did not want to articulate it before. Regardless, even despite the fair maiden never answering his questions, the young man told her about his conscience theory. They could not handle the guilt of some things they have done back where they were originally from even if they never got caught and yet could always admit it. Maybe this place is a form of punishment for them for the things that they have done. In their minds, there is no denying that what they did was wrong. He knew that was a terrible explanation but gave up on adding anything else.

The young man had been looking at the waves as he answered her and when he finished this time, she was just quiet. She had a concerned look on her face, something which she did not have when the monk died. If the young man’s reason for being here was that then does she think she was here for the same reasons as well? Of course, his questions are ignored again, and she continues her interrogation of him with why he was distrustful of her? If she had not gotten someone to throw him into a cave maybe, he could trust her a bit more. She was perplexed with his answer and asked whether he seriously believed that she had done so. Without waiting for an answer, she explained her view of where the young man had gone in there of my own volition to find the camera that he was holding.

The young man did not want to argue with her about that. He just wanted some answers. The fair maiden says that she thinks that the young man was feeling unwell from having too many boring days at his office then proceeds with another question. Does he know how to swim? The young man was not sure if that is what she really asked but before he could ask her to repeat the question, she pushed him off the edge and into the waters. She was probably not expecting it, but the young man managed to grab onto her leg thus dragging her down with him as they plunged to a probable impending doom. It was not really his intention to make her fall with him. He had just wanted to grab on hold to something to prevent the leap. In those moments, no words were exchanged. There were no grunts or shouts but a silent descent.