“You are not joining us.”
“What? Why?” I ask in shock.
“I’ve already held my end of the deal with Finn, even though you blindsided me with your lack of purity. I have no more obligation to help you.” Gavin grouches.
“Okay.” I try to appease him, “but how can I get to Serron from here?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ve already helped far too much for my taste. You don’t realise how much we have risked with you here.”
This is not how I want this day to start. I had hoped yesterday’s issue would stay in yesterday. Well, Bianca said Serron is only a week away, I can just follow the caravan from a distance.
“And if I catch you following us, I’ll make sure the guards aren’t merciful with what they do to you.” With his last threat given, Gavin stomps off back to his caravan.
I gulp. Okay, maybe I won’t follow them.
For the next few minutes, I watch as they make their way down the street, once again knocking down stalls blocking their way. When they are out of sight, I grab a plank of wood from a torn down stall and take it down a tight, crooked alley looking for a place devoid of eyes. I have to go rather far, walking through the alleys until I find the streets have fewer prying eyes. Eventually, I find a tight hole in the side of a building, which I only barely crawl my way through.
A dark room of some abandoned workshop greets me, the light shining through the hole behind me only barely illuminates the trash covering the floor. Rotten remains of a rodent similar to a jerboa lay on a worn, old work bench; its decaying corpse fills the air with a vile stench. This place is disgusting, the floor littered with rodent waste and random bits of trash, but I am alone.
My stomach grumbles and inner flame churns, impatient to consume the plank. I should have eaten something in the fort's barracks, but I’d been too worried they would take issue with how much I ate, that I ended up having nothing. I lit a small flame on my hand, giving the room another once over to make sure no one hides amongst the mess. Finding the room empty, I push my inner flame to devour the timber in my arms, relishing in the burst of energy it gives me.
Looking around the room once again, I realise there is plenty here I can consume while I still have the chance. The bookshelf on one wall looks like it will taste great, not to mention the floorboards below me. Timber has always been a luxury we couldn’t indulge in back in the wasteland, but they have it in excess here. The place is already abandoned, I’m sure nobody will mind.
First, I sent my flame to the work-desk, consuming the small rodent in a matter of moments. Idly, I note it burns much quicker than a jerboa. Really, the creatures that make their home outside the wasteland really need to get better at resisting fire. I’d be seriously worried for all life in the area had Auntie ever made it here.
The sombre thought breaks through my good mood, but not as much as the screech of something heavy dragging across the floor. I turn to the sound and see the bookcase slowly turning towards me. Only then do I hear the voices.
“Fire! hurry and put it out,” a feminine voice calls.
“Shut your trap, I’m goin’ already. Get the others safe.” Another voice — masculine this time — comes from a silhouette as they push their way out from behind the bookshelf.
“Why would someone light a fire here? Do they know we’re here?” This time the speaker’s voice is far too soft to tell their gender. I can barely hear their voice, muffled as it is from behind where the silhouette has finally squeezed himself out into the room with me.
I realise I’m still eating my way through the desk, so I hurry to extinguish the flame.
“What the…” the silhouette exclaims, startling as the room returns to the dim it was before. Only a small trickle of light from outside shines through the hole in the wall.
I crept slowly away from both the light and the boy I can now see. He looks older than me but is obviously not yet an adult. Are they hiding here? There is a space behind the bookshelf that I can no longer hear the voices from, but it’s too well hidden not to be intentional.
The boy approaches the now charred desk with confusion marring his face. He hasn’t seen me yet, crouching in the corner off to his right. I may not have thought this through carefully, as he is now between me and the exit. As he moves further into the light, his hair sticks out. It is a dirty grey, sitting almost right in the middle between black and white.
I hold my breath, keeping as still as possible as the boy cast his gaze around the room. His eyes linger on my hiding position so long that I am sure he spots me before he continues on his search.
A few long moments he just stands there looking around, before he moves to the hole in the wall I crawled through. With practised ease, he lifts himself up and through the hole that even I, with my smaller size, had trouble getting through.
In the corner of the dark room, I sit, listening for the others. I know there were at least three other voices, but now I can’t hear anything. That boy has gone, but the others are still in that hidden room. I need to get out while I can.
Slowly, as to not make a sound, I crept my way to the room’s exit. I poke my head out the hole, looking both ways for the grey-haired boy. With the way clear, I clamber through the wall, landing on my arms and face on the other side.
Wanting to get away as fast as possible, I run down along the alley I came from, only to immediately run into the grey-haired boy. He jumps around a corner ahead of me and I find myself knocked to the ground. Not a moment later, he’s on top of me, squashing me into the gravel. In a panic, my flame lashes out in all directions around me before something cold against my neck makes me freeze.
“Stop it now, or you won’t live to see the next sunrise.” I can’t see what he holds against my neck, but a quick flicker of flame across it shows me it is a short blade, a third the size of my hunting knife.
Unfortunately, the boy sees my flame passing over his knife. In retaliation, he presses it in harder, cutting into my form.
“Last chance!” he yells right into my ear.
Realising my situation, I force myself to calm down. Breathing deeply, I pull the flames back into myself, extinguishing all fires I had started in the area. I let out a sigh of relief when he takes off some of the pressure on the knife at my throat.
The sound of hurried footsteps makes me look up as a small group of teenagers run up from the other side of the alley, passing the hole to the building and stopping in front of me.
“Ash! You’re hurt!” a girl exclaims as she runs up to him.
“I’m fine. It’s just a little burn.” He says to her before pressing down on me once again. “Now what’s one of the albicant doing down in this part of…” he trails off as he pulls off my hood. “Fuck me.”
“Sacred Belobog shit! Guess you ain’t Chernobog’s chosen any longer, hey, Ashley.” A girl laughs as she crouches in front of my face.
The boy still holding me down, Ash, groans, “Leslie! Will you stop calling me that?”
Not looking up from me, the now named Leslie asks, “Cherno’s chosen or Ashley?”
“Both!”
With Ash still holding the knife to my neck, Leslie puts her finger under my chin, lifting my face to look her in the eye. I notice both her and the two boys behind her have grey hair, though not as dark as Ash’s. The two boys look like mirror images of one another, they have the same eyes, hair and height. The only thing different between the two is the clothing.
“How do ya think someone with such low purity ever became a mage?” she asks Ash, while still forcing eye contact with me. “Oh, wait. Do ya think she got cursed with hair like that? Maybe she was doin’ some illegal magic and got smite for it?”
“I think the better question is why she was trying to burn down our hideout.”
Ash grabs a hold of my shoulders and flips me onto my back where I can see him and the girl fussing over his burns. I had just sent out flames in a panic with no true intent to harm, but much of his arms are blistering red and his shirt has large holes I burnt right through. Sure, he jumped me, but is that enough for me to kill him? The thought that I had almost given Gloria’s fate to someone who didn’t deserve it stabs me with guilt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I feel guilt for the damage I have already caused, but I’m not about to leave my safety up to the discretion of strangers. I look around to make sure I know where each of them is.
“Why did you try to burn down our home?” Ash demands, holding his knife tight to my neck.
“I didn’t, I was just looking for a quiet place to eat.” I say truthfully.
“What horseshit! We all saw the fire you started,” Leslie says.
“Um, I started it for light.” I say, unconvincing even to my own ears.
“Oh, don’t lie, you little fuckin’ Pyro!” she steps forward, getting in Ash’s way and distracting him.
Not missing the opportunity, I push away Ash’s arm and roll away from them. The blade digs into my neck before I am free and on my feet. I’m too slow to run though, they have already cornered me against the wall. My body ignites in flame. I’d seen they did about as well with fire as with most things outside the wasteland, so I hope it will be enough to stop them from attacking or scare them off. I don’t want to hurt anyone.
The sight of my body engulfed in flames sends them staggering back more than I expect. They pass glances between each other, which I don’t like the look of. It’s far too much like the coordination my elders sometimes showed. They would glance at each other right before attacking the enemy, almost as if they can talk with just eye contact. I need to calm them down quickly.
“Really, I’m sorry I started a fire in your home, but I didn’t know anyone was there. I stopped when I heard your voices.”
Ash takes a step forward but remains a couple of body lengths away. “Okay, I’ll assume that’s true for now, but there is still something that I need to know. What is a mage doing here? Isn’t Kelton way below your pay-grade?”
I consider what to tell him. Shall I go along with his assumption and claim to be a mage, or do I be truthful? Now that he doesn’t have me in his grasp, I believe I can run away easily enough if push comes to shove, so I can probably use this as an opportunity. They are already in hiding, so I can assume it won’t be easy for them to spread knowledge about me, even if they want to. Plus, all of their hair is darker than any of those from the caravan I’d been a part of, so it is likely they’d be treated the same as I if they approach another group like that.
So, I decide to be truthful with them. “I’m not a mage.”
They all stare at me and the flames still circling my body.
“You couldn’t think of a better lie?” Leslie says while everyone else stays quiet in bafflement.
“I’m not lying.” I pull up the sleeves of my jacket. “See, I don’t have any markings.”
“But you’re still using spells. So, tell us exactly how you are not a mage?” Ash asks slowly, treating me like an idiot.
“I’m not a mage, I’m an áed.”
“A what?” Ash asks in confusion.
“An áed,” I repeat, thinking he may have misheard me.
“Ash, look at the wound on her neck,” the girl who tried to treat Ash’s burns says.
I touch at the cut on my neck. What is strange about it? A small flicker of flame spurts out. The cut will take a while before I’ll be able to force it back into my normal physical form. The section of my form will grow black soon and in a day or two, it will heal and return to normal. But for now, I cannot hide the flame of my body within the cut.
“What are you?” Ash asks with apprehension.
Is he dumb? “I’ve already told you, I’m an áed.” To help him out a bit, I let my body return to its natural fiery state. “Convinced?”
Now is the moment of truth. Will they act with hostility? Or can the albanic be friendly?
“Are you one of the northern races?”
“Northern? No. I’m from the wasteland west of here.”
“The wasteland? How did you get over the mountains?”
“Ah, no, I came through New Vetus.”
“Hardly relevant, Ashley.” Leslie whacks his shoulder with the back of her hand and took a step towards me. “Did you know we were there when you started burning things down?”
“No, I didn’t.” I shake my head in denial. “I was trying to hide where nobody could see. Fire isn’t exactly discrete, you know.”
“There, see? It’s all just a stupid misunderstanding. Now what do you want to do, Ashley?” Leslie waves her hand as if dismissing me.
With everyone having calmed down and tensions not as high as before, I stop my threatening display of fire and bring my body back under control.
“So, an áed, huh? Why don’t you join us in our hideout, get away from prying eyes?”
The alley is still clear of wandering parties, but with how much noise we made, that might not last long. I nod and follow his lead back to the hole. Leslie and the twins follow behind me with a decent amount of space. Huh, revealing my race had actually deescalated the situation. Maybe I won’t have to hide like I thought. It’ll beat how they treat their own race.
“You are not joining us.”
“What? Why?” I ask in shock.
“I’ve already held my end of the deal with Finn, even though you blindsided me with your lack of purity. I have no more obligation to help you.” Gavin grouches.
“Okay.” I try to appease him, “but how can I get to Serron from here?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ve already helped far too much for my taste. You don’t realise how much we have risked with you here.”
This is not how I want this day to start. I had hoped yesterday’s issue would stay in yesterday. Well, Bianca said Serron is only a week away, I can just follow the caravan from a distance.
“And if I catch you following us, I’ll make sure the guards aren’t merciful with what they do to you.” With his last threat given, Gavin stomps off back to his caravan.
I gulp. Okay, maybe I won’t follow them.
For the next few minutes, I watch as they make their way down the street, once again knocking down stalls blocking their way. When they are out of sight, I grab a plank of wood from a torn down stall and take it down a tight, crooked alley looking for a place devoid of eyes. I have to go rather far, walking through the alleys until I find the streets have fewer prying eyes. Eventually, I find a tight hole in the side of a building, which I only barely crawl my way through.
A dark room of some abandoned workshop greets me, the light shining through the hole behind me only barely illuminates the trash covering the floor. Rotten remains of a rodent similar to a jerboa lay on a worn, old work bench; its decaying corpse fills the air with a vile stench. This place is disgusting, the floor littered with rodent waste and random bits of trash, but I am alone.
My stomach grumbles and inner flame churns, impatient to consume the plank. I should have eaten something in the fort's barracks, but I’d been too worried they would take issue with how much I ate, that I ended up having nothing. I lit a small flame on my hand, giving the room another once over to make sure no one hides amongst the mess. Finding the room empty, I push my inner flame to devour the timber in my arms, relishing in the burst of energy it gives me.
Looking around the room once again, I realise there is plenty here I can consume while I still have the chance. The bookshelf on one wall looks like it will taste great, not to mention the floorboards below me. Timber has always been a luxury we couldn’t indulge in back in the wasteland, but they have it in excess here. The place is already abandoned, I’m sure nobody will mind.
First, I sent my flame to the work-desk, consuming the small rodent in a matter of moments. Idly, I note it burns much quicker than a jerboa. Really, the creatures that make their home outside the wasteland really need to get better at resisting fire. I’d be seriously worried for all life in the area had Auntie ever made it here.
The sombre thought breaks through my good mood, but not as much as the screech of something heavy dragging across the floor. I turn to the sound and see the bookcase slowly turning towards me. Only then do I hear the voices.
“Fire! hurry and put it out,” a feminine voice calls.
“Shut your trap, I’m goin’ already. Get the others safe.” Another voice — masculine this time — comes from a silhouette as they push their way out from behind the bookshelf.
“Why would someone light a fire here? Do they know we’re here?” This time the speaker’s voice is far too soft to tell their gender. I can barely hear their voice, muffled as it is from behind where the silhouette has finally squeezed himself out into the room with me.
I realise I’m still eating my way through the desk, so I hurry to extinguish the flame.
“What the…” the silhouette exclaims, startling as the room returns to the dim it was before. Only a small trickle of light from outside shines through the hole in the wall.
I crept slowly away from both the light and the boy I can now see. He looks older than me but is obviously not yet an adult. Are they hiding here? There is a space behind the bookshelf that I can no longer hear the voices from, but it’s too well hidden not to be intentional.
The boy approaches the now charred desk with confusion marring his face. He hasn’t seen me yet, crouching in the corner off to his right. I may not have thought this through carefully, as he is now between me and the exit. As he moves further into the light, his hair sticks out. It is a dirty grey, sitting almost right in the middle between black and white.
I hold my breath, keeping as still as possible as the boy cast his gaze around the room. His eyes linger on my hiding position so long that I am sure he spots me before he continues on his search.
A few long moments he just stands there looking around, before he moves to the hole in the wall I crawled through. With practised ease, he lifts himself up and through the hole that even I, with my smaller size, had trouble getting through.
In the corner of the dark room, I sit, listening for the others. I know there were at least three other voices, but now I can’t hear anything. That boy has gone, but the others are still in that hidden room. I need to get out while I can.
Slowly, as to not make a sound, I crept my way to the room’s exit. I poke my head out the hole, looking both ways for the grey-haired boy. With the way clear, I clamber through the wall, landing on my arms and face on the other side.
Wanting to get away as fast as possible, I run down along the alley I came from, only to immediately run into the grey-haired boy. He jumps around a corner ahead of me and I find myself knocked to the ground. Not a moment later, he’s on top of me, squashing me into the gravel. In a panic, my flame lashes out in all directions around me before something cold against my neck makes me freeze.
“Stop it now, or you won’t live to see the next sunrise.” I can’t see what he holds against my neck, but a quick flicker of flame across it shows me it is a short blade, a third the size of my hunting knife.
Unfortunately, the boy sees my flame passing over his knife. In retaliation, he presses it in harder, cutting into my form.
“Last chance!” he yells right into my ear.
Realising my situation, I force myself to calm down. Breathing deeply, I pull the flames back into myself, extinguishing all fires I had started in the area. I let out a sigh of relief when he takes off some of the pressure on the knife at my throat.
The sound of hurried footsteps makes me look up as a small group of teenagers run up from the other side of the alley, passing the hole to the building and stopping in front of me.
“Ash! You’re hurt!” a girl exclaims as she runs up to him.
“I’m fine. It’s just a little burn.” He says to her before pressing down on me once again. “Now what’s one of the albicant doing down in this part of…” he trails off as he pulls off my hood. “Fuck me.”
“Sacred Belobog shit! Guess you ain’t Chernobog’s chosen any longer, hey, Ashley.” A girl laughs as she crouches in front of my face.
The boy still holding me down, Ash, groans, “Leslie! Will you stop calling me that?”
Not looking up from me, the now named Leslie asks, “Cherno’s chosen or Ashley?”
“Both!”
With Ash still holding the knife to my neck, Leslie puts her finger under my chin, lifting my face to look her in the eye. I notice both her and the two boys behind her have grey hair, though not as dark as Ash’s. The two boys look like mirror images of one another, they have the same eyes, hair and height. The only thing different between the two is the clothing.
“How do ya think someone with such low purity ever became a mage?” she asks Ash, while still forcing eye contact with me. “Oh, wait. Do ya think she got cursed with hair like that? Maybe she was doin’ some illegal magic and got smite for it?”
“I think the better question is why she was trying to burn down our hideout.”
Ash grabs a hold of my shoulders and flips me onto my back where I can see him and the girl fussing over his burns. I had just sent out flames in a panic with no true intent to harm, but much of his arms are blistering red and his shirt has large holes I burnt right through. Sure, he jumped me, but is that enough for me to kill him? The thought that I had almost given Gloria’s fate to someone who didn’t deserve it stabs me with guilt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I feel guilt for the damage I have already caused, but I’m not about to leave my safety up to the discretion of strangers. I look around to make sure I know where each of them is.
“Why did you try to burn down our home?” Ash demands, holding his knife tight to my neck.
“I didn’t, I was just looking for a quiet place to eat.” I say truthfully.
“What horseshit! We all saw the fire you started,” Leslie says.
“Um, I started it for light.” I say, unconvincing even to my own ears.
“Oh, don’t lie, you little fuckin’ Pyro!” she steps forward, getting in Ash’s way and distracting him.
Not missing the opportunity, I push away Ash’s arm and roll away from them. The blade digs into my neck before I am free and on my feet. I’m too slow to run though, they have already cornered me against the wall. My body ignites in flame. I’d seen they did about as well with fire as with most things outside the wasteland, so I hope it will be enough to stop them from attacking or scare them off. I don’t want to hurt anyone.
The sight of my body engulfed in flames sends them staggering back more than I expect. They pass glances between each other, which I don’t like the look of. It’s far too much like the coordination my elders sometimes showed. They would glance at each other right before attacking the enemy, almost as if they can talk with just eye contact. I need to calm them down quickly.
“Really, I’m sorry I started a fire in your home, but I didn’t know anyone was there. I stopped when I heard your voices.”
Ash takes a step forward but remains a couple of body lengths away. “Okay, I’ll assume that’s true for now, but there is still something that I need to know. What is a mage doing here? Isn’t Kelton way below your pay-grade?”
I consider what to tell him. Shall I go along with his assumption and claim to be a mage, or do I be truthful? Now that he doesn’t have me in his grasp, I believe I can run away easily enough if push comes to shove, so I can probably use this as an opportunity. They are already in hiding, so I can assume it won’t be easy for them to spread knowledge about me, even if they want to. Plus, all of their hair is darker than any of those from the caravan I’d been a part of, so it is likely they’d be treated the same as I if they approach another group like that.
So, I decide to be truthful with them. “I’m not a mage.”
They all stare at me and the flames still circling my body.
“You couldn’t think of a better lie?” Leslie says while everyone else stays quiet in bafflement.
“I’m not lying.” I pull up the sleeves of my jacket. “See, I don’t have any markings.”
“But you’re still using spells. So, tell us exactly how you are not a mage?” Ash asks slowly, treating me like an idiot.
“I’m not a mage, I’m an áed.”
“A what?” Ash asks in confusion.
“An áed,” I repeat, thinking he may have misheard me.
“Ash, look at the wound on her neck,” the girl who tried to treat Ash’s burns says.
I touch at the cut on my neck. What is strange about it? A small flicker of flame spurts out. The cut will take a while before I’ll be able to force it back into my normal physical form. The section of my form will grow black soon and in a day or two, it will heal and return to normal. But for now, I cannot hide the flame of my body within the cut.
“What are you?” Ash asks with apprehension.
Is he dumb? “I’ve already told you, I’m an áed.” To help him out a bit, I let my body return to its natural fiery state. “Convinced?”
Now is the moment of truth. Will they act with hostility? Or can the albanic be friendly?
“Are you one of the northern races?”
“Northern? No. I’m from the wasteland west of here.”
“The wasteland? How did you get over the mountains?”
“Ah, no, I came through New Vetus.”
“Hardly relevant, Ashley.” Leslie whacks his shoulder with the back of her hand and took a step towards me. “Did you know we were there when you started burning things down?”
“No, I didn’t.” I shake my head in denial. “I was trying to hide where nobody could see. Fire isn’t exactly discrete, you know.”
“There, see? It’s all just a stupid misunderstanding. Now what do you want to do, Ashley?” Leslie waves her hand as if dismissing me.
With everyone having calmed down and tensions not as high as before, I stop my threatening display of fire and bring my body back under control.
“So, an áed, huh? Why don’t you join us in our hideout, get away from prying eyes?”
The alley is still clear of wandering parties, but with how much noise we made, that might not last long. I nod and follow his lead back to the hole. Leslie and the twins follow behind me with a decent amount of space. Huh, revealing my race had actually deescalated the situation. Maybe I won’t have to hide like I thought. It’ll beat how they treat their own race.
