by Oxford, Rain
Inside was dark, previously a family room, cluttered with broken furniture and decorative objects. The wailing led me right to the only table left standing, where three little children and a baby were hiding. The oldest child, a girl about ten years of age, snuggled the baby closer and tried to push her small brother behind her.
“I will not hurt you,” I said in Lilat. I hoped she understood my intention even if she couldn’t understand the language. Before she could say anything, I saw that the blanket the baby was covered in had blood on it. “Give him here.” I held out my arms but she clutched the bundle tighter. The baby’s wail became even louder. “I need to check if he is hurt!” I barked. The girl jumped a little, but held him out.
Supporting the head, I gently unwrapped the blanket. The baby couldn’t have been more than a few months old. There was a small scratch on his left cheek and a large cut down his belly, but it wasn’t fatal by any means. I pulled the jar of healing cream out of my bag and dug out a little. When I rubbed the cream on his cut, he stopped crying and watched me. Just to make sure I did not miss any real damage, I pushed my energy into him in search of anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. Like eco-location, I could see that there were no broken bones or internal bleeding. I handed him back to his sister.
“Are any of you hurt?” I asked.
After a short hesitation, she pushed the other little girl towards me. She looked up at me with deep copper eyes, then held out her arm. Her hand was at an odd angle and her wrist was swollen and bruised. Hovering my hands around her wrist, I pulled my energy gently down my hands to trickle into her wrist. The bone was cracked, but reparable. I cooled my energy to create a numbing effect and got to work. Mostly, I used my energy to increase her own body’s ability to heal. She squirmed as it warmed and itched, but otherwise did not move. It only took a few minutes before the bone was healed. I had healed many bones before, but not often in a child.
When I realized the room was starting to smell like smoke, I saw that a fire had been started from a broken lamp. It was not large at the moment, but within a few minutes, the room with an unusually low ceiling and only one escape route would be full of smoke.
I sat back, a little tired; I no longer had my book’s support. Before I could stand back up, the little girl launched herself on me and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. Then the older girl and the little boy joined in. I pried the little boy off and the older girl let go, but the little girl refused to be removed, so I carried her back out through the doorway. Putting out a hand to hold the little boy back from the water while carrying another child with my other hand, it was more difficult to form an ice bridge.
I looked at the older girl. “Hold him back, I will take her across and come back for you,” I said. She pushed the baby into my other arm and grabbed her little brother around the waist. I carefully crossed the ice-bridge and someone in the building across the way took the children. I froze more of the water before crossing back to the remaining children. I grabbed the boy and carried him to the other side. When I turned back, the older girl was trying to cross the bridge on her own. Unfortunately, she was barefoot and there was water on the bridge.
She slipped. I reached her before she went over, but my sudden weight caused the bridge to break and we were instantly dragged off into the rushing water.
I tried to protect her body as we were swept into the canal walls, though it was difficult enough keeping her face above water while she thrashed. I used my shoulders to bear the brunt of the hard, wet stone of the canal walls. People reached out to us, but we were moving too fast, and every time I nearly got a grip, I would end up busting my arm on the stone instead.
After a few minutes, the little girl stopped thrashing.
I saw the boat, but could do nothing to avoid it, so I held up my damaged are in order to prevent as much damage to my head as possible. Even when the shearing pain tore up my back, my hand caught the firm edge of the boat. After a few seconds, I realized I had a true grip. People jumped in the small boat and pulled first the little girl, then me out of the water.
They shouted directions around me but I wasn’t listening. My energy swirled soothingly inside me, so I settled down in the boat, closed my eyes, and I let it speed up my natural healing. Energy could only go so far, unfortunately; I sat up slowly, angled myself carefully, and slammed my shoulder into the wooden seat to fix my dislocated shoulder.
Then I turned over and coughed up as much water as I could by pushing my chest into my knees. Sago had strong lungs and actual death from downing was extremely rare. Assured I would survive just fine, I let myself drift and my energy heal my torn flesh and muscles.
* * *
“Kiro. Wake up!”
It was very grueling to be woken by an irritated woman’s voice. It was almost as if nothing good could possibly happen all day if a woman was irritated at the start.
I opened my eyes to see Vivan looking at me worriedly. I was still lying in the boat and the little girl was curled up beside me. When I reached over and gently shook her, her eyes popped open and I sighed with relief.
Even as the townspeople were trying to talk me out of the boat, the two other children were crawling into it to create a puppy pile around me. Vivian pulled at my arm until I stood up, taking the younger girl with me as she put her arms around my neck again. The little boy planted his arms firmly around my leg and the older girl wrapped her arms around my waist.
Luckily, the boat was parked right outside another door, which led to an undamaged room. The room was a library if the wall-to-wall bookshelves were anything to go by, with a large sofa sitting by a window. I settled the children on the sofa and turned to listen to the townspeople for the first time.
Most of them rattled on about thanking me and how it would have taken days for them to get the children out, how the fire got out of control… I was really too tired to listen. One woman in a drab, cream-colored shift tried to dry me off with a towel. If she felt a little too much, I wasn’t going to berate her. Really, I was tired, not blind, and her clothes did her no justice. Her cream-colored hair was a gorgeous combination with her light blue eyes. Her skin was soft and her features were womanly enough without being abrasive. I found myself staring at her as she tried to ring out my shirt, out of tiredness more than anything. Still, she smiled shyly when she saw me looking.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, my paternal instincts dominated baser needs. I took the other towel she had and focused on drying the little girl. The younger girl used that as an excuse to clamp her arms around mine. Her deep copper eyes, ginger hair, and clinginess reminded me of my daughter, Saren. She was two-hundred-eighty-four now, but I remembered changing her nappies, which was very difficult because she would grab one of my hands and hold on for dear life. Saren had her own children and was married. I hadn’t seen her in fifty years. Even as the years had done her good and she was a powerful witch, she was not immortal, and I might have seen her for the last time.
I came out of my memories to the startled eyes of the older girl, except her eyes weren’t copper like they had been before, they were the exact same color as mine. As soon as I realized the color was familiar, the color bled out to be replaced by their original copper. When tears started falling from her eyes, I stepped back.
She was a natural empath; she had a very powerful and distinct ability to read the emotions of others, and she had just felt mine. Everyone else in the room was confused as she cried, but I was afraid to comfort her when I did not know what she would read next.
* * *
After the children had calmed down, they all fell asleep quickly. A short conversation with a friendly townswoman informed me that the children were orphans and belonged to everyone. They even voted and held meetings over parental decisions. I translated for Vivian and she argued that that was the wrong way to raise children, but I shut her up with a glare. It was not our place to question another’s culture, and they were obviously healthy children.
&nb
sp; When we asked about the damage to the town, she said there were conflicting stories. What she saw was a huge winged beast that had bird-like features but also four legs and a tail. It was the griffin. However, at the same time, she heard noise from another creature. The people on the other side of the city told that they were attacked by a huge black beast, also flying, but otherwise had no bird features and was as black as night. One person told her that its roar burst windows.
Vivian, the sleeping children, and I were left in the library alone.
“How did you know they were in there?” Vivian broke the silence. I frowned at her. “You went through the door without hesitating. How did you know there were children in that random building?” she asked.
“You couldn’t hear the baby crying?”
She shook her head. “Over the alarms and the other terrified people, no way.”
“Well, Guardians have good hearing,” I said as I settled down on the couch and the little boy cozied into my side. The baby sniffed and squirmed a little, but didn’t wake.
“You’d make a good father,” Vivian said.
“Are you kidding? Any father can comfort a child in distress. Actually raising the children is much harder. There is nothing that requires more responsibility than raising a person.”
“You are a father?” Vivian asked.
I looked at her. “Did Dylan tell you how old I am?”
“No, but I know Nano is much older than he looks, and I know you are probably around his age.”
“I’m about five hundred years older than him. I am over two thousand years old.
Vivian’s face went pale. “My boyfriend is fifteen-hundred-years-old?”
I ignored her breakdown and answered her earlier question. “I have many children, and all of them hate me. They resent me for not teaching them enough magic, for having apprentices, going off and doing my Guardian duties, me being more powerful than them, not loving their mother enough, etcetera, etcetera. Half the time their mother kicks me out because my work is too dangerous and takes too much of my time, or because I never age, then my kids blame me for not being there for them.
“The ones that do want to keep in touch after they grow up and have their own children… I have to watch them grow old. Watching my children grow from a tiny blob to a complex person is amazing. Watching them grow old is the worst thing in the world. Can you imagine knowing what the universe is full of, but never having enough time to show the people you love? Knowing that their time is coming to an end, slowly but surely, and you will be left without them. My children can live for hundreds of years with proper use of their magic, but none will ever be immortal.”
I looked at the sleeping children and thought of Soren. I remembered the important moments of every one of my children, whether they were biologically mine or not. “Can you imagine looking at your baby and knowing that she was only going to last for a moment in time, and then you would be forever without her? I try to show them what’s out there, but there’s never enough time.”
I looked up to see Vivian in tears, no doubt thinking of her own child. “Your baby will outlive you. As Nano’s child, he’s liable to live for hundreds of years. Be happy,” I said.
She nodded. “I am happy for myself, but you should never have suffered as you do.”
“Yet, I kept having children. Because even as I lost my children to time and decay, my life was still better for having known them, and my soul was still better for having brought them into this world.” I smiled at her. “And then there’s Dylan.”
“But he’s not your son.”
“No, he’s my nephew. My twin brother, the only person I had left in my life, who had been there with me from the beginning, was killed. But he left me with the one thing I never had; a child who was immortal. I know Dylan wasn’t a child, but he had a lot of growing up to do, and still does. I can show him the universe, teach him to see its magic, and he wants to learn. There is so much life in him, so much passion for learning. There is no decay, no end coming. No goodbyes. More than for standing by me my whole life, I am thankful to my brother for giving me Dylan. And I feel so guilty because I am nearly thanking my brother for dying. ”
“He talks about you like he would a loving father.”
“It feels more like that recently, but I worry that if he does think of me as his father, he will hate me as my children do. He always grew quickly in magic, but now wants to do his own exploring and learning. I worry that if I don’t let him reach out and find his own path in life, he will feel smothered and resent me.”
“How often do you take him to other worlds? Show him the stars, so to speak,” she asked.
I shook my head. “Too dangerous. He learns magic quickly, but there are evils out there that he is far too young for.”
She laughed, and it wasn’t a friendly one. “I see what your problem is. Yours and his. He wants the adventure that you just told me you wanted to give to your kids, but you’re too afraid to let him have it because you don’t want to lose the only Dylan you have. You can’t have it both ways. I know Dylan, I knew him before you ever did. His entire life, he’s been told he couldn’t do something, then been left alone. He’s learned that he can do anything he sets his mind to, but he can figure out a way to do it on his own.” She glared at me and I felt a profound epiphany in the making. “If you won’t show him the stars, he’ll find them himself. Do you want to be there to teach him or not? You can only control what you do, not what he does. That is what you never had before; someone who can do anything, including control his own destiny.”
How could Dylan have ever left this wise, brilliant woman? I have married women who couldn’t light a cooker, yet he left a woman who could figure out the secrets of the universe.
“By the way, if Dylan asks about your eye… Don’t tell him I hit you.”
Since I had forgotten her that she punched me, I automatically reached up to feel my left eye. It stung, but didn’t feel bruised, so I shrugged. “I heal fast. I’m sure it will be gone tomorrow.”
She squinted with disbelief. “You haven’t seen yourself in a mirror lately, have you?”
Once again, I was reminded why I preferred sweet, quiet women.
* * *
Vivian and I tried to set off early in the morning, but our plans were squandered by a screaming little girl who would not be deterred. The child never said a word, but she could make demands like a pro, and she had a tight grip on my leg. Vivian went out to get some backup; even though she didn’t speak the native language, I would not make it out of the room without hurting the child. Finally the pretty maid from the previous day came with some food to lure the octopus child off of me.
“Where are you and your…” she paused, looking pointedly at Vivian.
“Friend who is in a committed relationship with someone else,” I supplied. Her slight grin grew and she set plates of food down. It was rice with some meat in it.
“Great. I am Leina.”
“My name is Kiro. She is Vivian.”
“Where are you and your friend off to so early?”
“Not sure yet,” I answered. She stepped forward and was suddenly close enough that I could feel her breath.
She was taller than I thought; the top of her head coming nearly to my chin, but she wasn’t too tall. I usually preferred women who were small enough to fit comfortably in my arms, since they were the ones who liked a protective man. Feisty women, like Vivian, were not my type, which just goes to show Dylan didn’t get it from my side of the family. Confident, yes; argumentative, no thanks.
“Then you should not rush off so soon.” She boldly put her hand on my chest. I could tell she was normally shy, but wasn’t willing to let the opportunity slip her by.
Fantastic.
“I guess you could show me around. Maybe show me what the bedrooms are like,” I said, happy to reward her bravery. She blushed and her heartbeat picked up. She stood on her toes to kiss me.
“Oh, my god. Really?!�
�� Vivian demanded, interrupting me from tasting the cute little woman. I looked over in time to see the irritated red-head roll her eyes. “I don’t even know what you’re saying, Casanova but you’re moving too fast. Do you normally pick up women like fast-food? I mean, I get it, you got muscles, you’re tall, and you have this manly aura… kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but really?!”
“I’m not sure if I should be offended or not,” I answered in English. Leina started to step back, but I wrapped my arm around her waist. “What do you care, anyway? We’re stuck here and might as well get comfortable. Go find a store to shop at, because Leina and I are adults.”
She huffed, spun on her heels, and stormed out.
“Can we go to my place now?” the woman asked eagerly. I glanced over at the children, absentmindedly eating while watching us. “They will be fine on their own; everyone in the city looks after them.”
“Are you okay for now?” I asked. The older girl nodded. When the younger girl stood up to attack me, the other girl grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her back down.
A few minutes later, Leina was leading me through buildings and over bridges that hadn’t been destroyed. “We are just about there,” she said. She was pulling me by my arm now.
“Leina, come here!” we heard someone call.
Looking up, we spotted a man leaning over the balcony of the building we were about to enter. Leina sighed and slumped against me, her back to my chest. I knew she hadn’t meant to be seductive, but I realized exactly what her bland clothes were hiding.
“My brother lives in the place across from mine. He was not supposed to be here; he is early to arrive from his trip.” She looked up at me with pleading eyes. “I can make him leave if you can wait,” she said.
“Anticipation makes the dessert sweeter.”
She smiled and I followed her into her into a hallway with several doors and a set of stairs. We walked up three flights, passing identical halls with identical doors, much like in one of Earth’s apartment complexes, and came to a door that she unlocked with a key. Where she pulled the key from, I didn’t know. I would have to watch where she put her hands more carefully.