- CHAPTER SIX -
Nephaeros clutches her chest, the thin line of blood wipes easily enough at her palm. Trying to catch a glimpse of Vicadum before he leaves, The back of his head races off, becoming another head in a crowd of folks who want nothing to do with her. She smiles at a passerby who awkwardly waits for her to move, holding large bundles of wood in both arms behind her.
"Hmph."
The beastly man growls and Nephaeros wishes him the best day. Skipping away and into an alley, then up on a roof in chained leaps.
Landing clumsily still, Nephaeros checks around her and tends to her wound once she knows no one else is around.
She lays down on a roof against a chimney, fighting to let go of the image of a hurting Vicadum. Though her heart is unscathed by any blade, it aches viciously at the thought of the one she holds most dear in any sort of pain.
Losing this mental battle, probably because of her own exhaustion, Nephaeros' eyelids begin to grow heavy, and her thoughts drift into darkness. It doesn't take too long for Nephaeros to enter a sort of fugue state, a quirk of hers that strikes incessantly if she's too excited or too tired.
The poor girl runs herself ragged for those around her. Thinking on the darkness now, dragged into it by her connection to Vicadum- her thoughts take her.
It's daylight, shining bright and warm, as a younger Vicadum runs around a stone on a hill with his father.
Diagis picks up the young boy and swings him into the air and back in his arms. It's inaudible from where she is, but Nephaeros recognizes a laughing smile. Her favourite one.
Nephaeros watches from a nearby tree and giggles as she sees the happiness on the young boy's face. She hasn't met him, not officially, but feels happy just looking at him. Their families both attended a dinner or two inside the castle at younger ages, Vicadum was always at his brother's side during those though.
After looking around at her surroundings, Nephaeros now realizes she is unable to get down from the tree. She had climbed without thinking, only wanting to get a view of the nearby laughter to investigate.
Her days are almost all spent outside and away.
Seeing Vicadum and Diagis walking back to town, she doesn't know what to do, wondering if she should call Diagis and Vicadum for help, but then that would mean confronting the joyous boy. Her heart flutters under the sound of her fearful wane.
She lets them walk away, resigning herself to wait for another passerby to ask for help.
Night time falls and no one has come by this way, likely because past this point is nothing of note. The young girl debates with herself if she should jump, risking the injury and getting home so no one has to fear her missing. Coming to the thought of her family worrying for her, she becomes resolute in jumping. She readies herself for the coming scrape or two and bites her lip to make herself stop shaking.
Nephaeros looks over to a small heap of tossed-up grass and bush, thinking perhaps that'll make a good landing spot, but as she goes to leap, her footing loosens and she stumbles off the tree branch and falls backward, knocking her head against a stone that protrudes from the ground.
As she lay bleeding, she hears that familiar laugh and opens her eyes, and just before her eyes adjust, she feels a sudden warmth disappear and thinks she catches a light fade away.
Confused and injured, Nephaeros walks over to the dirt path, beginning her trek home to quell her family's worries. She listens back to a memory of the boy's laugh, and she begins to smile and rush a little faster to see her family.
Getting to the door of her house, she rests for a moment and thinks again about the laugh that warms her.
Opening her door to calm down her brother, sister, and parents, she wears a smile as pure as the boys' and has it stripped most unfairly as she views her family looking angry and disappointed at an empty table.
"And where do you think you live, that you can just ignore that we have to eat in this damn house."
They didn't miss her; they didn't care that she might be missing, injured or even dead. They only cared that their personal workhorse wasn't around to make their dinner. Nephaeros walks silently, saying nothing as she steps into the kitchen and begins to prepare a meal.
The man at the head of the table continues to berate the small child.
"You will answer me when I am speaking to you" He grabs her by her hair.
"Do you think I want to sit here and watch my family starve? Look at them!"
Ripping her head to turn around, Nephaeros faces her smiling family.
"Yeah Nephaeros, You've hurt us."
The older boy sat at one side of the table sneers.
"Now dad gets to hurt you!"
Says the girl on the other side.
The man cracks a grin, gripping her hair tight enough that some are torn out. He viciously raises her head and just as such sinks her head into a bucket. Holding her head under the water as she kicks and gurgles a cry for help. Over and over, the man repeats the process.
Nephaeros thinks back to her time in the tree, wishing the worst part of her day was falling and hurting herself. She wishes a little further back, listening again to the laugh of the boy, encapsulating this happy feeling. Slowly, she lets her being become this sensation. As the man continues his punishment of Nephaeros, every small gap of time between being forced under, Nephaeros lets out a little more of the boys' laugh.
The family behind the man stops their heckling and laughter as they start to see that she's not kicking and writhing anymore, listening for the beats in between the bucket splash.
"Hahaha!"
They hear this as they all stop and look at her, face down into a puddle of soapy water.
The man lets her go and steps away, baffled by the small girl's reaction.
"H-Hey! what do you think you're doing!"
Nephaeros, sopping wet, wraps her arms around the man's portly gut. His hands raise like she has a knife to him. The family seems disgusted.
"I'm sorry Father, I won't do it again, okay!"
Nephaeros' voice eeks out of her father's stomach, puling her head back to meet his eyes. The father just glares at her. as she wears an enormous and glowing smile.
He pulls her off of him, and angrily grunts, walking away from the wet mess and into the other room, slamming the door.
The family does nothing but look at her, and she gives them all the same smile.
"Who's hungry?"
Nephaeros grabs a towel and wipes her face with it.
The table is set and candles are lit, wooden dishes clink onto the table and tiny mended metal caskets for drinking are poured into, Nephaeros smiling all the while. The family angrily remains quiet and shares looks of disappointment. Inside Nephaeros, as she works away, is a new light, a path that she has become solidified onto.
The brother and sister stake their knives into the table in an attempt to shake her of her mood. The pair despise her mood isn't as soured as they'd waited and hoped all day to see.
Nothing can shake her now, she even hops in her step as the first round of seared meat raises eyebrows. Her siblings smirk at one another before looking to Nephaeros,
"Ew."
Nephaeros wakes up to a shining light, looking over to the sun reaching in between taller houses, she smiles and laughs, walking away with her purpose restated.
"Oh, Vicadum… do your best!"
Her tiny fists clench.
***
All over Regnus, fervor and fire reach into the hearts of those who wish to fight and those who can't alike. This coming challenge widens the world, becoming more fearsome as they too prepare to sharpen their claws.
Change expectantly waits for the young hearts and bodies willing to cast themselves into the fray, to test their mettle and come out on top. Enter into the ring and gain the footing to take on the rest of the world.
Lining the circular theater space, the children of the Guard ready themselves. The crowd below them cheers.
The tournament begins with the flail of the King's hand as if to beckon a coming enemy. The crowd roars.