Navia rushed with August down to the shelter, ignoring most of the wandering Barnacles, as there weren’t many of them left. She had no time to deal with them; there was something more important she had to do. Get out the truth everyone deserved.
August knocked on the door and informed the people inside, “It’s us. We might have found the exit…” He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say, and he had one eye on Navia, who didn’t blow off the steam while killing the barnacles.
As the doors opened, five people were standing by them, curious about what they found out, speaking one over another, wanting to know if there was a way out. Their questions were cut short by Navia’s own question, “Where is the captain?”
It was a simple question, yet everyone was stunned upon hearing it. For some, it was the intent and the way she asked, as if she was going to kill the man, and the others were worried about what they found out that she had to discuss it with the captain first.
Benedict the goldsmith stepped out of the group, “He is sitting by the table like always.” Turning his head toward the room at the end of a small corridor.
Navia noticed that the man wanted to skitter away from the table; instead of running up to him, she shouted, “Everyone! Gather by the table! I have something important to tell you.”
Captain Oswold’s face went pale; he knew what was coming. At first, he looked panicked, but then he accepted what was going to happen; it was unavoidable. He sat down, placed both arms on the table, and kept his head low, already feeling the weight of the upcoming conversation.
All the people gathered in a single room sat at the table. Except for Navia and August, who usually stood beside the captain, but this time, he was in a corner, a few feet away from the captain.
“Captain Oswold… Could you tell us where are we?” Navia began with a question, a sharp one. Making the man feel like he has a knife pressed to his throat.
“Like I told you… We landed in some kind of cavern…” The captain’s answer didn’t feel confident.
“You seem pale and tired… Maybe something you saw prevented you from sleeping. Something only you saw that night. Am I right?” Navia poked the man with her words, provoking him for an answer.
People were confused, unsure of what Navia was trying to do and what news they brought from the top of the ship. “It’s not easy to sleep when we are in a place like this, surrounded by monsters…”
“Stop playing around, old man… Tell them the truth. There is no point in avoiding it and lying. Everyone deserves to know the truth so they can make the right choice.” Navia placed the man between a knife to the throat and a rope that would slowly choke him if he didn’t tell the truth.
The man finally raised his head, and he looked around the people, making sure he got a good look at each face. He opened his mouth, but there were no words coming out as he didn’t know how to properly phrase it. “Let me begin with an apology… I haven’t said much because I didn’t want all of you to panic… To die in fear… I hid a terrible truth from you.”
Oswold took one long breath and continued. “What I previously told you was barely the truth. The ship got sucked into a whirlpool, but it wasn’t a natural one… What I saw as we were being dragged into it were massive and sharp teeth, each one the size of our ship… Thousands of them… I didn’t see it whole, but I knew what had happened… The ship was swallowed whole by a leviathan, and the ship isn’t inside a cavern… We are inside its stomach…” Once he finished, he looked down, not wanting to see the faces of the people. He wanted to remember them before they turned on him for not speaking the truth.
In an instant, everyone went as pale as the captain from the lack of sleep. The truth was much worse than everyone expected when Navia pressed for it. August only stood in the corner, tensed, even though he already knew the truth. The silence was broken by a young girl's cry as she realized that there was no way out, no hope for her. Her mother embraced her, giving so little comfort she could at the moment.
It was hard for everyone; the strength they once had vanished in an instant, leaving them with the feeling of dread they felt the first time they were in the “cavern”.
“The situation may seem hopeless…” August stepped in, building courage to speak as he towered over the table. “But we saw some kind of a tunnel… We can’t be confident it's a way out… Nonetheless… I am willing to try and find out if it leads us out. I would rather die trying than waiting for my death.” He looked at everyone, checking if anyone was willing to join him, but it seemed like everyone was still digesting the truth.
“I know it’s hard… But I am with August. If there is no hope, we’ll find one. If there is no exit, we’ll make one. If we are going to die, I will change that no matter what. I am not dead yet, so I will keep trying!” Navia’s speech seemed to light a spark in some of the people. It wasn’t enough to make them move right now, but it was enough for them not to want to wait for their death.
Even a single spark can turn into a flame, which was the case for August. He saw the truth first hand yet he didn’t hesitate to tell that he would go out there and look for a way out. He got the spirit and wasn’t about to let it fade.
The people moved away from the table one by one. Many found their corner, sitting alone. Lost in thinking, as many would. It’s not easy to accept the truth, and it's even harder to make a choice at the moment.
The captain was the only one who remained by the table, ashamed he couldn’t bear to look at anyone, and he didn’t want to be looked at either, so he decided not to move at all.
Since she wasn’t injured, Navia thought that some physical training would be a good idea to pass the time. Before her resurrection, she was rather small and thin for a warrior, relying on her gate, which made her faster. She took most of her upper clothes off, leaving only the white shirt. Her arms were well built, not as gentle as they used to be, showing signs of recent training, but still remaining a bit fitting for a lady.
Dropping to the floor, she began doing push-ups, doing it as slow as possible to strain her muscles and let them grow. “I might have a lot of strength to face off those massive barnacles like back on Brimwon, but it's still not enough to fight Godan…” She then lay on her back and began doing crunches. “It’s still not enough to face that… Creature…” Each move reminded her of the hole she once had after a harpoon pierced her.
As she recalled the memories of the monster, she froze, slowly moving one of her hands to her face and the other to her chest, where she was wounded. She screamed inside and was about to let that emotion out, if not for the guest in her room.
“Could you teach me to meditate?” August asked, leaning against the doorframe and surprising Navia. He looked at her, seeing that she was training, “Oh… Didn’t want to stop you from exercising.”
The man turned around and was about to leave, if not for Navia’s sudden shout. “No!” He turned, a bit shocked. She screamed, but he listened to her. Navia breathed heavily, not from training but from the state of panic she was in a moment ago. “You’re not… You can stay. Sit in front of me, and I will try to teach you what I know…”
She did invite the man into the room, but the training was just a distraction from her thoughts. She would begin to panic once again if she were left alone. August being in the same room gave her a bit of comfort.
August sat in front of her, cross-legged like her, and waited for Navia’s instruction while she tried to calm herself before answering. His presence helped her as she didn’t feel alone. Looking forward, she didn’t see the monster from her nightmare; she saw a fellow human.
“First, we need to find the most comfortable position for you, where nothing bothers you. For me, it's sitting with legs crossed, there is nothing bothering me, and I am not scared of falling as my legs root me to the ground.” Navia lightly wiggled to the sides, showing how her body wasn’t about to fall.
August awkwardly sighed as he thought about how he would feel comfortable. “Well… Crossed-legged doesn’t work for me… I don’t like how my ankles are pressed to the floor…”
“Then try a different position. It doesn’t need to be a sitting one, but it's the most common. The monk who gave me a lesson about meditation used to meditate while standing on one leg with the other leg crossed against it, like a crane.” When Navia explained, August sat on his legs, then tried to sit with his legs wide spread. Standing back up, he tried to find the right posture, but something was off to him no matter what.
He then looked back toward the wall and asked, “Can I lie my body against a wall or anything like that?”
“I don’t think it should be a problem… Although I never saw anyone meditating like that…” Given a green light from Navia, he sat and leaned his back against the wall, left leg bent and the other entirely lying on the floor. It almost felt right, but there was one thing missing. He placed his right hand on his left knee and leaned his head on it.
He sat like that for a moment without moving. Navia knew he had found the right position, one that he felt the most comfortable with. “Now, with this pose, close your eyes and… try to look inside you. This is the hardest part, as it's nearly impossible to explain this feeling. It's almost like you are going to sleep, except you are the one who enters the world of dreams, not your body forcing you. This may take a while, but if you do it often, you will eventually enter your inner world.”
“You said that you feel most comfortable while crossed-legged, that you don’t feel scared of falling. Rooted to the floor just like a tree. Maybe that’s why your inner world was like a forest.” Whispered August, trying not to entirely break his focus, but he felt like he had to point it out.
“Interesting theory, but there might be even more to it than we realize…” She whispered back with a light smile on her face, interested in August's theory. “If the position matters, I wonder what his world could look like…”
Seeing August try his best to enter the inner world, Navia chose to do the same and work on her Blood Gate. Each time she entered the barren wasteland inside her, she had a saddened expression thanks to her new student. “There used to be a green forest… I’m like the last root, all that’s left of the forest. Even if it's barren… I don’t want to leave it yet.”