“There ya go, lad,” kindly speaks the old man working the stand in the bazaar, “that should be more than enough flour to get ya through the week.”

“Thanks, Cullen,” I respond. “It’s been such a rough season that my dad completely forgot to send anyone to restock the kitchen. Always be the first to volunteer before anyone is asked, as he always says.”

“Already such a hard worker ya are. How old are ya gettin’ now, Na?” he curiously asked. Cullen Retroyce has had a monopoly on quality baking goods in Port Claude for longer than I’ve been alive. He’s always taken interest in his customers since very few can afford his prices.

“Only nine just last season,” I smile out through my teeth.

“Hah-ha! Well, don’t go volunteerin’ to run down here every time. Yer gonna grow up too fast,” Cullen laughs off as I lead the cart westward out of town. The town is walled off on all sides except the one that faces the Eastern sea and I always love taking a moment to admire the archway of the city’s front gate on my way in and out since it is so different from the one at the ranch. I can’t dilly dally for too long, though. Ahead of me lies just about a hundred mile ride back to my family’s ranch, but it doesn’t bother me at all. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Sacred Talon Ranch and have my entire short life. I love my dad, my sibling, our employees, the animals, and even the work itself. But to be honest, and it may just be that I’m starting to be less of the little kid I’ve always been, I just want to be anywhere else. I had a small taste of that devilishly delightful desert often called adventure once in my life a few years ago and these rides to and from town are the closest thing I get to that rush.

I always like to sing on the ride between town. I’m not as good of a singer as my father, but he always tells me it’s just because I “have yet to put enough time into the art.” As you can imagine I go through a lot of songs on a route so long. A lot of them are repeats since I only know all the words to a few and the rest of the time it’s just me humming until the chorus comes back around again. My favorite song though is of the old tongue very few people speak anymore. My father thought it was of the utmost importance for all of us to learn the old tongue and used ancient songs to help us learn. This one I happen to remember the words better than most songs in my native tongue:

Měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, huànxǐng wǒ,
xīngguāng hé lùzhū zhèng děngzhe nǐ;
zài báitiān tīng dào de cūlǔ shìjiè de shēngyīn,
yuèguāng xià de kōngqì yǐ quánbù xiāoshī!
Měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, wǒ de gē hòu,
yòng róuhé de xuánlǜ xiàng wǒ qiú'ài shí liè chū;
shēnghuó zhōng mánglù de rén dōu hěn guānxīn,
měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, xiàng wǒ xǐng lái!
Měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, xiàng wǒ xǐng lái

Měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, zài hǎishàng,
měirényú zhèngzài chàngzhe kuáng yě de lorelei;
zài xiǎo xī shàng yǒu zhēngqì,
děngdài jíjiāng dàolái de míngtiān tuìshǎi.
Měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, liáng zài wǒ xīnzhōng,
jíshǐ shì xiǎohé hé hǎishàng de zǎochén;
ránhòu suǒyǒu bēishāng de yīnyún dūhuì xiāoshī,
měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, xiàng wǒ xǐng lái!
Měilì de mèngxiǎng jiā, xiàng wǒ xǐng lái!

It’s a very difficult melody to sing right since the old tongue was a tonal language, but it always puts me at ease since my dad would have us all sing it before bed every night. I don’t even think I was saying half of the words right until I was five. Man, were things better back then. Everyone was still around and I didn’t feel so alone all the time. Mak would have loved these trips into town and we’d get to sing all our favorite tunes together like we used to. I think I’ll sing his favorite song to take my mind off of it. You know, the one about the coconuts? It goes-

Actually, hold on to that thought. Is that smoke in the distance? A lot of it, in fact! Way too much to be wayward travelers setting up camp. That much smoke has to be fuming from a blaze the size of a… oh. no!

Frantically, I whip at the Saedir pulling my wagon to pick up the pace. The eight foot tall, feathered, raptor let out a beastly squawk that rings through the surrounding woods like a church bell as it kicks into high gear. I kept a brisk pace up until now, but if we didn’t have to worry about losing the cargo old Sari here could have gotten us home in an hour flat. I really don’t care if we drop anything now. I just need to make sure it isn’t… my house.

As I bear witness, all four stories and two acres of the manor at the forefront of the property where my family and all of our workers lived was caked in an inferno as bright as the guts of a ripened mango. Consumed with fear and pure instinct, I rush into the burning edifice. I know that this is the very last thing I should be doing, but I need to find him.

“Dad!?” I shout at the top of my lungs which are now slowly filling with exhaust from the flames, “Dad… echk, Dad!?” Dang, why the heck did I run in here? I’m going to pass out. My vision is closing in, but an adult figure sprints directly at me as I lose consciousness.

“Na!” I hear shouted at me as a stinging pressure connected with my face. “Nanoson Riknia, wake the heck up! Don’t you die on me, runt!” That stinging sensation connects a couple more time before I jolt up. The breathe I took was so deep that it was almost as if the air I inhaled had pulled up off my back. Suddenly the world exists again and I can tell what is going on around me. A man relieved by my condition sits next to me, but he’s not my father. Well, maybe a man isn’t the proper word to use here by most standards. He is definitely what we would consider male for his species, but he is neither an adult nor human. Though we are not related at all, I know him as my brother. Rascal Riknia, or Ras’cal li Ohn as he was born, is one of the species that were here before my ancestors landed on the planet known as an Ancaima, meaning “dark one”. Rascal stands at about average height for humans and has a rather slender build despite performing strenuous tasks all day long. It is likely his species can’t get very bulky, but he is strong none-the-less. His long, shining, silver hair that he ties back in a ponytail contrasts against the graphite color of his flesh. Like all members of his race, Rascal has glossy white eyes that can still see in the light but work better in the dark depths of his native woods, long goat-like ears, and single horn sprouting out of the crowning of his head. He and I have always had the same taste in outfits and even now we have on a similar set of clothes: leather hiking boots,a long-sleeved gi top made of white cotton, a loose, black overshirt with short rolled up sleeves and matching slacks made out of soft canvas, a white sash on top of it all to keep the shirts tied down, and black, fingerless gloves. The only thing he doesn’t have on is my black headband because it always gets pushed down by his horn. My father adopted him even before Anna was born, so as far as I’m concerned he’s just my older brother and nothing less.

“Rascal, where is Father?” I ask still choking on lingering smoke.

“Na…” He is clearly having trouble with whatever he wants to say. “Let me take you around back.”

Rascal lifts me onto his shoulder and trots carefully around the perimeter of the burning building. It’s still hard to focus with what little breath I can manage, but a great sadness drowns out all other surrounding activity as I witness the only home I’ve ever known flicker away before my eyes. It’s not even my stuff disappearing that bothers me, but those of my siblings. See, two of my siblings have been runaways for several years now. They didn’t run off together. When we were five, my twin brother Mak ran off during a tantrum and no one who had the ability bothered to stop him. We were still practically babies for Bob’s sake! Sure, a few years later someone finally set out to find him, but Mak was already dead in all likelihood. Two years after Mak left, my older sister Anna skipped out on us as well. I guess one day she just had enough of this simple life, so she packed a single bag and snuck out to the port in the dead of night. She was only ten then, but I’ve always been less worried about her. I once saw her hold a ranch hand hostage with a spoon and he was like three times her size. It’s never the psychopaths you have to worry about. Still, I may never see either of them again and that junk of theirs was all I had to remember them by. Oh, but if I thought that bothered me, this… this is worse.

“Take it all in, kid,” Rascal sighs out as he sets me down, “this is what I saw first when I came to check on the house fire.” The ground around the shed just behind the house is in wild disarray. Several trees are knocked over, small craters disturb the dirt, scraps of varying fabrics are scattered everywhere, and worst of all a sword larger than the average man is chipped and lying in a sigil of blood. I had seen that sword many times in my life for it belonged to my father. It must weigh more than I do, but I’ve seen him twirl it around in one hand like a small dagger. Beneath his blade, drawn in what I assume is his own blood, is an icon I was also all too familiar with. The very reason I wear gloves is to hide my fatemarks. On the backside of each hand, I have a jet-black, slender, four-pointed star with a crescent facing out from each fold. Father told me to keep it covered because the image was one of grave misfortune and now it lay before me at the worst of times. From one of the tips followed a trail of blood, clearly leading to the source heading deep into the neighboring woods.

“Hey, let’s go! Dad could still be out there somewhere!” I scream without considering that I’m the last person to get this information. Rascal grabs my collar to stop me from running headlong into a forest that even during the day grows pitch black quicker than you realize.

“You don’t think we didn’t already send a search party, Na?” Rascal shouts down at me almost in anger that I would think he took this situation less serious than I did. “We’ve fortified this manor well and yet it has still been burning unnaturally for the last half hour before you arrived. I’ve had the few men I can spare out searching those woods nearly the whole time. I only just got back out myself when I heard you screaming, which you better be grateful I have these dark elf ears of mine or else no one would have heard you were in there. We’ll keep on it for as long as we can, but you know better than anyone what crawls those woods at night and I’m gonna have to pull them all out sooner than later. That thick trail of blood goes in for many meters before it fades off and you’re gonna have to come to terms with the same conclusion I struggled with just ten minutes ago: you and I might be all we have left anymore!”

I’ve never seen Rascal speak for that long without interruption in my life. He’s always been more of the hard-working type that just wanted to smile and listen to whatever you had to say to help the chores fly by quicker. He’s not mad at me though. Sutel may be my birth dad, but he’s also the only father Rascal has ever known. Born into the servant class of his species, being gifted to father was the best thing that could ever happen to the boy. Heck, now he knows how to run the ranch better than dad ever did and has people practically serving under him. He’s only yelling because he’s heartbroken at the loss of his hero. We all are.