“Yeah, they did, and I didn’t have the will to fight another battle. I was tired of everything. I surrendered finally, and that turned out to be the right decision. But how did you get here?” he asked.
“I'm the new chief on my island now, so I did confiscate a boat from a newcomer, too.”
Laughing, he invited me to his home. I met his wife and his young daughter. I sat with them, sharing a lovely tea with mint. She kept asking me about him, and I didn’t know what truth I should tell her.
I thought that she was a wonderful woman. She was alone for a couple of years here before we arrived. I sensed she had a kind of a shady past, but isn’t that why we are all here, for a new start? Besides that, nothing could beat Dismar’s past.
“Konu, Dismar speaks a lot about you.”
“Did he tell you that one day I baked an apple pie for him?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yeah…, the apple pie.” Dismar looking at me like, Konu, let's cut the bullshit, shall we?
“Dismar told me that you were his boss,” she said, trying to get me to reveal more details.
Dismar was looking at me like if this was a very decisive moment for him. I said, “In the beginning, yes, he worked for me. But then, we became partners, and now we are friends.”
Then I asked Dismar if he wanted more tea. He looked at me very contently and said, “Yes, please,” so I served him. The conversation went on and on, and we remembered some funny moments we had. “…Do you remember the pink shoes?...” “…Yea what a sophisticated taste from a higher being, it blew my mind…” “…You never told me what happened to you at the league, the time when we escaped…” “…I never knew either, I just woke up completely broken…” and laughed a lot.
After a while, his wife asked me if I will stay with them for some time, and I answered that I will have to go back. Dismar asked me to stay the night. He wanted to talk with me.
Dismar’s wife made a nice dinner in the pots he had created. What a nice combination! They seemed to make the food taste even better.
After dinner, I thanked her for having me here. Dismar and I then went outside for a walk as she went to sleep with the baby.
“I brought you a gift. Dismar.”
“Oh, really?”
“A DNA pill, the best of the best.” I gave it to him, and he was in shock.
“How did you get that? Hold on a second, Oina…, is she now with you?”
“She is resting in peace, Dismar.”
He went down on his knees. He couldn't hold back his tears and told me, “She was a good woman, Konu. How did that happen?”
“Naturally, it happened naturally. She reached out to me on her last day. We had some time together, then she passed away.”
We kept walking around, silently. It was like we’d both lost a big part of us. Then, he said, “You know that we never met? Not all the three of us together, I mean, at the same time.”
“Why would we meet all together? So you could hold the candles for us, or what?” he began to laugh, and that was better.
When his laughter subsided, I said, “Dismar, I’m, leaving.”
“Where!? Don’t tell me you are going back to the capital!”
“No, something was revealed to me recently, something about my origins. I am sailing tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about, Konu?”
“I don’t want you to worry.”
“I see, but you think you may uncover the original place of your people?”
“As simple as it may sound, yes, I do.”
“Then, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I even envy you now as you remember your home.”
“And you, you have a real home now, here. Dismar, she is really into you. Don’t mess it up this time. It’s a rare, second chance, and you are still young. It’s a real gift from the gods,” I said.
“Thank you, Konu. I was thinking all this time about what you did. It was incredible!”
“What we did, ‘pretty face.’”
“What?”
“That’s what we called you, me and Oina – ‘pretty face.’”
Laughing, we felt rested, happy, and content for the first time in our lives. It was a rare and cheerful moment with my best friend.
“By the way, you remember you gave me a task a while ago, to look for a person who went into a coma because of some psychedelic cocktail from some startup? And that was the only case – remember that?”
“And!!??”
“Yeah, he is here, on this island.”
“What? That’s a big fat coincidence.”
“Is it, Konu? You talk as if entering the Arc from the main gate, as the most wanted man in the empire, wasn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“I feel like you are too much lucky and coincidences are lined up for you, like to be present in the day and the night simultaneously is normal for you. You remember on the boat that night? You woke up from a coma, weak, wanted, finished. The next day, that situation turned upside down.” He said
“I remember how a rare breed of warrior took on his shoulders a wounded friend, lashed out in an act of revenge in its purest form, through a mastery of war. And I never in my life had seen someone attacking an AI platoon in solo mode. And I still remember when you looked at me and told me. ‘Listen, stay here.
