Unintended

Chapter Four: Unintended Path

"And you haven't seen him in a week?" Regulus watched with a sinking stomach as the small crowd around the table of the outdoor café shook their heads in unison. He was trying his damnedest to track down Monty, but the demon's shack was empty and apparently had been for a while. Now this. He'd even let his eyes slip a little into the yellow slitted look, but all that had got him were even more fearful expressions. "All right, thanks anyway."

He walked off, more than a little frustrated. He supposed though that he shouldn't have been all that surprised by the delay. Demons held their own schedules and scarcely wavered--especially for the likes of some young punk such as him. He still hadn't figured out where to classify the creep from the grocery store.

Regulus decided he would take a walk, a leisurely stroll around the wreck of a place. He didn't feel like heading back to the flat just yet anyway. Samantha was in one of her moods. There was no mistake, she was feeling far better than she had at the time of the incident, but she still got strange spells now and then. When he'd left her earlier that day she was looking out the window, eyes unfocused, and mumbling something about red and blue plastic pieces on a board.

Feeling rather silly, Regulus shut his eyes, spun around on one foot until he was too dizzy to tell up from down, and started walking in whatever direction he faced. He opened his eyes after he crashed into the side of a building with his second step.

As he walked the city gave way to smaller houses, reminding him in some way of Hagrid's hut back on the old Hogwarts grounds: small and squat, with faded and stained white porches. Part of him thought they were kind of cute. He found it very strange ('Don't kid yourself, Regulus, everything is strange here') that the houses on the road were abandoned. Doors swung wide in the breeze. They'd be inviting if it weren't for the wind that grew and tugged at him harder with every step down the straight road. The wind only got stronger as the cracked pavement ended and he stepped forward onto rocky soil, packed hard by the perpetual breeze.

"Can't stop now," Regulus muttered. He felt a bit...disconnected, really. His brain had become focused on following the path he was on, time and distance irrelevant. There was something he had to see at the end of it, something that would be the key to all things as long as he had the right decoder.

The wind shifted just a smidge, bringing a sudden smell with it, clear and sharp and salty. "The sea," he mumbled dazedly. He'd only experienced that scent once before in his life, the day he died. It had been a moonlight night over a roiling sea, and he stood there on the shore knowing it was a journey he probably wasn't going to return from. He didn't stop walking until the toes of his boots just began to brush up against grey waves.

Regulus exhaled deeply, feeling the salt water spray against his face. His hair was blown straight back and his eyes squinted against the onslaught. This sea was different than the last one he saw. The other one had that thin, dark line in the distance that spoke of something else being out there. This sea was like outer space, an infinite mass stretching out in all directions, with no visible signs of life.

But there was that little voice in his brain saying that just beyond the ocean...

He blinked and shook his head slightly as the voice gave a final whimper and faded back into the empty sea. "Strange," he whispered. No one back in the city talked about this place ever. By his best estimation they'd been there for over twenty years, probably closer to twenty-five at that point (despite the fact that it often felt like only a few months had passed since they'd arrived-time didn't seem to flow normally in this place), and not one word had been breathed about this ocean. "Hronrāde," he muttered to himself, using a barely-remembered term for the sea heard in his childhood. The whale-road.

A glance to his left revealed another part to the mystery. The land curved around the water like the hook on an umbrella, and it was covered in willow trees. The trees were old and massive, sending tendrils like grey sweeping veils to dance along the ground and dangle in the water. This time it was a phrase from a Divination class that came to mind. "Lift it back and reveal the secrets."

Regulus turned to walk into the woods, wanting to keep going. If he quit now, he wouldn't learn. Without warning, a strong wave pushed up against his legs, soaking his jeans straight through and almost sending him into the water. "Great," he muttered, moving a few steps back to avoid any more rogue waves.

The next wave came on fast, larger than the last and knocking him down. Before he could even scream the water slammed over his head, picked him up, and tossed him about, bumping and dragging his body along the rocky sea bottom. He gasped for breath, and felt the water flood into his mouth. His lungs burned, and what little he could see through the grey was starting to get even spottier. Finally, when he thought that it was really almost over, he slammed into something hard and smooth and the water retreated, leaving him a sodden mess.

He turned over and coughed harshly, bracing his forehead on his arm. When the fit passed Regulus looked up and found that he had washed up on the stoop of his apartment building. 'What the fuck?' he thought, his throat too sore to even speak.

* * *

"Okay, flip your piece."

Samantha, playing the red pieces, turned her piece around as the young man flipped his blue one. "Dammit," she swore, picking up her man and tossing it to the side of the board.

"General trumps Lieutenant," he grinned.

"Yeah, but you're still not any closer to getting my flag," Samantha shot back.

"Strategy takes time," he shrugged. "Sometimes, you learn the most in the process to get to the end rather than getting everything from the final product."

"And you're not talking about the game anymore, are you?" These dreams never were just about the surface meanings, she was coming to learn.

"Oh, I don't know. Every move we make on this board we store in our heads so that we can use all of them to capture the flag." He glanced up at her, eyes sparking just a tiny bit. "Of course, it's the same in life too."

"Ha! What did I just say?" Samantha pulled a pine needle out of her hair and twirled it around her fingers. "So what am I supposed to learn from my current ordeal?"

"Come on, if I told you that you'd never learn anything."

"Gee, thanks Mom."

He moved a piece along to a blank square. "You know what I mean. Every experience you're having right now, whether it be good or bad, you'll get something from. It may not make any sense to you now, but someday it'll come in handy. Besides, I'm going to need your services as a guide soon, so you'll definitely need everything you've got."

Samantha was so engrossed in her next move that she missed the insinuation in the young man's last sentence. "Whaa? What the hell does that mean?" she mumbled, slowly pushing her Marshal into position.

"Shit!" the young man cried, looking up at her with disbelief.

Samantha grinned. "Got your flag."

The door slamming pulled her out of her reverie. She turned around to see Regulus walking in, leaving puddles in his wake. "What happened to you?" she asked, watching as he went to the sink and started to shed his clothes in there.

"Don't ask."

* * *