With unshaking hands and glazed eyes, I looked at him with a foreign ferocity. I felt like I was watching myself in that moment behind a cotton wall. He retreated as I slowly felt my blood begin to run as I returned to my body. I looked at the two children.

“Thank-” he stops himself, seemingly correcting himself to woodland speak. “Thank you.”

I began to respond but realized the boy was losing consciousness. I quickly jumped forward to catch him. Some onlookers came to help, seemingly absent from the encounter but present now. I accepted their help, nonetheless.

I carried the boy into our house and became thankful at once that my father was not home. After he awoke, I gave him some water. After sipping it the boy began to shed some tears. I was surprised at his reaction and glanced at the water I served, wondering if there was something wrong with it.

The boy noticed this and chuckled a little through his sadness, after a bit he spoke. “My name is Nimkii.”

I tilted my head, a foreign name.

“I came from The Mountain Range,” he answered simply. Almost as if he had done this a million times before.

“That’s a long way; almost an ocean apart- how did you get here? Are you a part of a migration?” I passed him the bowls of fruit I prepared earlier, “I assume you two didn’t come here alone.”

He shook his head, then looked down at the fruit in his hand. He drooled but waited for me to say something.

“Go ahead,” I nodded with a slight inclination of my head. His eyes widened and he scarfed it down, not letting a singular piece escape his mouth. As I watched his hands, I noticed he maintained table manners from the way he gripped the fork. “You are royalty?”

He tilted his head, apparently unaware of the word.

“Ah…” I try to recall the snippets of Rangeian my father taught me, “Prince.”

He stopped. As he reached behind his back and pulled out a sharp dagger, I realized I may have crossed a line. While his actions appear overly aggressive -- in truth, I did want to turn him in for a reward. The only reason he would be in Breiðr and not in the Mountain Range would be for a hiding place; Breiðr scarcely let in foreigners and had rigorous flight bans. That meant he must have been a stowaway, and there was a fairly decent reward for handing them over.

“Back off,” his hands quivered intensely, making me chuckle. He was bold. But naive. Never challenge a person within their own home, such a rule was elementary I thought. Was it not my domain? I moved to disarm him but found myself unable to. I willed myself to move again, but my body refused. It was almost as if a hand was preventing me from moving at all. He noticed my hesitation and dropped the dagger himself, slouching and sighing deeply. That is when the second boy emerged from the room and shielded him from me.

I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow. “Were you watching the whole thing?”

He shifted but remained stern. I noticed now that he lent more on his right leg than his left. “Why are you threatening him?”

“It was he who threatened me,” I nodded towards the dagger. “I simply wanted to calm him, but he seemed to regain composure himself.”

“You want to turn him in,” Luo Yu snarled. “I know your type.”

“Why would I…” I trailed off, finally realizing what a discovery I had made. The fierce protectiveness revealed far more malice then if he was an unnamed stowaway – especially in combination with the boy’s table manners and reactions to my guess. “You are the prince…aren't you?”

They glanced at each other briefly, but it was enough to notice. What a reward I would get for turning in a fugitive, I thought. None of this appeared on my face, so I was surprised at Luo Yu’s deduction. But I knew how gullible fledglings can be.

“No. Why would I do that? I have no need,” I said, feigning remorse. He softened almost immediately. “You two are welcome to stay here if you would like.”

Then came a moment of unintended silence. I shifted, surprised that silence occurred without my deftness at conversation willing it to happen. Courting conversation; mediating it; was a tedious game that I liked to play. I found myself becoming annoyed that I was forced to experience the unexpected in a battlefield I usually create. And the unexpected did occur as I felt a cold, sharp point on my back. I immediately recognized this to be the dagger that was left on the floor. In all my deliberating I had managed to miss this key piece. I had much to learn after all.

I looked back at Luo Yu, but the boy was still clutching Nimkii. I looked to see the water on the table still untouched. I tilted my head in confusion, until I saw a small hide on his hip open and dripping with water.

“You really are going to let us stay?” Luo Yu said.

I became silent. Unable to understand just how the dagger had reached my back side and remained there without the boy lifting a finger. Nimkii tugged on his sleeve, urging him to stop. He hesitated, and that was enough for me to reclaim the blade and turn the tides, but I chose not to. If I had, I could not have played the victim.

“Yes,” I whispered. Willing my eyes to dampen, a practice I gained being a beggar child. “Just do not hurt me.”

Luo Yu shifted and looked between us, he lowered his arm, and I felt the dagger’s sharp edge retract from my back. I exhaled slightly and looked at the dagger, still on the floor, but with a small bubble of water wrapped around the handle. I watched wide eyed as the water unwrapped itself from the dagger and floated into the hide on Luo Yu’s hip. I blinked once hoping it was a mirage of some sorts.

“We are sorry,” Nimkii bowed his head, a sign of deep respect. Although Luo Yu contradicted that apology through the expression on his face.

“How,” I whispered, my eyes still wide in surprise, “how in the Great Nest did you do that?”

Luo Yu glanced at Nimkii in confusion, but Nimkii shook his head.

“You mean you don’t know?” Luo Yu huffed, crossing his gangly arms.

“...Know what?”

“...Your powers. Your gift? You mean you don’t know any of that?!” Luo Yu yelped before sinking down, his left leg seemed to creak as he fell backwards.

“Are you alright?” I spoke. I moved to grip his shoulders, but he swatted my hand away.

Nimkii sighed and answered for him, “...Yesterday, he had some bread that I got from the guards-"

“--outside the tall Shrine of the Spring God? The Rain Bird?” I finished, finally realizing the gravity of the situation. That place poisons its bread to control the population of the poor. A common tactic like cobbled pathways around shops to prevent them from being slept on. These boys were not beggars for long, that much was apparent. “I can help him, but you must promise me to explain everything about--”

“I will,” Nimkii spoke in a rush, starting in Woodland speak but ending in Rangeian, “just help him please.”

So, I did, using a remedy I stashed away the first time my father had gotten the bread, and he gave it to me. We acquired the cure by steaming the spines of fish into a broth; my father was more panicked than ever whereas I remained very calm, the memory makes me laugh despite the many ways it could have gone wrong.

Once Luo Yu was at rest, I returned him to the bed he was at previously. While tending to him, I'd noticed one of his legs were of the Rain Bird’s make. If there are those who don’t know, individuals with a missing limb akin to that of the Rain Bird are usually given the option of a prosthesis after amputation. His prosthesis looked dirty, and his skin was sore. I’d be worried if things of a divine make ever degraded.

While going to ask Nimkii for assistance, I caught a glimpse of the door cracked open a smidge, he had been watching from the start. Nimkii noticed too, chuckling slightly. Nimkii shuffled towards Luo Yu and helped to remove the prosthesis – despite Luo Yu’s half-conscious grumbles. Eventually once he was settled and sound asleep, we walked back into the main living room. 

I paused and then asked him plainly as he sat across me, “Does Luo Yu possess the power of The Spring Bringer?”

He was silent but squirmed in a way only the innocent do when trying to lie.

“He just levitated a knife at my back with water, and you say he does not possess the Rain Bird’s power?” I grumbled, getting impatient. That's how I knew this was something unnatural. In my life on the streets, impatience meant an expression of naivete. A way for others to dominate your mind. But in this instance, all I felt was a childlike curiosity.

“...Were you born in the Summer?” Nimkii paused.

“Yes,” I looked at Nimkii and Luo Yu. “Was he born in the Spring? That is why he has powers?”

Nimkii nodded slowly and carefully. He swallowed before continuing. “Have you ever felt a voice…speaking to you?”

“A voice?” I paused, thinking long and hard about answering him. To be honest meant forfeiting my sanity. So, I tried to lie, but was unable to respond myself. For a response tumbled out like a steady stream gliding over rocks.

“Yes.”

Nimkii nodded, “I thought so.”

I prevented myself from putting a hand to my mouth, I had not said that. I had not willed it. It was frightening, to say words without will.

Nimkii straightened, he spoke with a voice uncharacteristically mature, and his eyes met mine for the first time, “To be brief, you are an incarnate as well. A being with a mission to fulfill, akin to us two. Our powers were granted to fulfill a purpose, something far larger than one we herald within our own lives.”

A moment passed in silence, again one I did not create. His words were alien, not Rangeian, but something completely beyond this realm of reality. My hair stood on its head, and shivers crept up all over my body. But I was hot, blistering. As if standing at the precipice of a volcano, its searing heat pierced through my skin and pricked it like a pin. I tried to rise, but my feet were bound to the floor. As if gravity was stronger than normal, as if I was being held by a leash. Held by who? I wondered. I did not have to wonder for long.

“You have the power of the God of Summer,” Nimkii said, his mouth unmoving. “And it is your duty to bring balance to the world once again.”

Light from the now rising sun breached the open windows to my left and shadowed him entirely.

The light created a golden outline around his kneeling form, but when I blinked, he was untouched by light. At once, I realized that there was no light, no window, no floor. All around me was darkness, so pitch and inky that I questioned if light had existed in the first place. But before me was a silhouette of a large form bathed in blinding rays, eliminating that notion. I’ve seen this image in my dreams; the sort of dream where its contents escape you as you wake. But the feeling, the feeling clings to your skin prodding it incessantly any time your mind wanders off. And as I gazed at this being, raking my eyes from its tail tip to its head, I feel. The emotions were muddy, like the polluted waters in the sewers of slums, but they were present. Present and familiar. Yet unknown, all at once. Was that possible? Perhaps for gods.

We exchanged information then; my questions were never-ending and Nimkii struggled to understand me at times – but it was enough for me to grasp the gist. Unfortunately, I cannot divulge too much of what was said to me. I doubt you would believe it, but out of respect for my brothers, I wish to withhold it for as long as I can. All you need to know is that a mission was handed to me.

A mission? No, a more appropriate word is destiny. Destiny was handed to me on a silver platter.

Now, I doubt you fellows at the high court can understand what exactly I mean. After all, not much understanding comes from your class. But surely you have all been enticed into desiring a solution, a remedy for the endless struggles which befall you. That is why you attempt to corral us into pens like cattle, creating martyrs out of loved ones through the fleets, is it not? You find delight in seeing us squirm and huddle together, squabbling over the scraps you hurl at our feet; crying over corpses that we will soon join. It all satisfies your innate desire to crush pests underneath your heels. And you do this because in truth, you fear us. You fear our collective power because it is greater than your own. Knowing that one day, our swords and pitchforks will stop facing each other, and turn towards you.

Imagine wielding enough power to placate that fear for eternity. To know that it was all the work of your paranoid subconscious. What wonders would you enact, by eliminating the fear of the unknown because all was known?

That power, that certainty. That was this destiny.

After our discussion, I remembered my father coming home to the sorry state of this new hatchling. He looked at me briefly, then asked Nimkii if he had eaten anything.

And from then on, I had gained two new brothers who followed me everywhere.