REFLECTIONS

REFLECTIONS

Mira

I was practicing archery and the bulls-eye was more than five hundred yards away. I exhaled , concentrated. Felt the bulls-eye grow in front of my eyes, then I released the string. The arrow flew straight in.

"As expected of the royal family", said a man. I didn't have to turn around. I knew who it was.

"What business do you have with me Vice-Captain?"

"Come now, is that anyway to speak to your uncle?"

I placed down my bow and arrows. "I'm sorry Uncle. I've been in a bit of a pensive mood lately. What can I do for you?''

My immediate 360 change in attitude put him on edge. It was fun playing psychological games with him. In the elkin world women are arguably better than men. We're more proficient in the way we use our brains. But it's still arguable because there are men that exceed both. Like the founder. The very first Elkin. His name isn't known. Neither is it known whether he's dead or alive.

"I have news for you. Atlas's crew is coming our way".

"Is this solid intel?" I asked.

He nodded. "And they're coming for our prisoner."

"Jason?" My mind raced back to a recent conversation between him and me. "Your friend recently joined the rangers"… Atlas's crew were probably the rangers he was referring to.

"Good", I nodded. "We'll be ready for them".

"Mira, when are you going to see the military strategy for attacking Draconia?"

I started to walk away. "Where are you going?" he asked.

I stopped and turned around. "Let's go and see the war plans together", I said.

The plan was simple. Deceptively simple. Draconians were very fragile against the sun's rays. They'd made some improvements so that they were able to move around for a period of time in the day. However after an extended period of time, one of two things would happen. They would either revert to their human, much weaker selves or they would slowly dehydrate and shrivel up. They would become dry enough for their corpses to become dust just from touch.

What did we think of draconians? We thought some were barbarians and some brilliant. We'd tried poaching before. It hadn't worked out. The draconians were intensely loyal. Maybe it came from the group behavior they'd inherited from animals. But even a dog's loyalty can be destroyed.

The plan was to build a weapon that could provide highly powered sunlight for a prolonged period of time. And then lure the draconians into an area where it could be unleashed on them.

 

He stood by the dungeon gate, the secret dungeon which led into the castle. His demeanor was deceptively carefree. In reality he was constantly looking around for intruders. His eyes darted around and then returned to me. Darlak, one of my most trusted spies. It was with a hint of irony. Darlak was probably the one Elkin suspected the most. He was mysterious, cunning and there was a hint of something dark about him.

Why did I trust him? Because someone who is untrustworthy does so much more to prove he can be trusted. But it was more than that. In some ways we shared a connection. Although Darlak was seen as a person who only worked for the money I knew he cared about the Elkin kingdom.

He smiled. “Well hello princess", he said.

"Hello, Darlak. I've got a job", I replied.

His eyebrows went up. I couldn't tell whether he was mocking me or genuinely surprised. It had been months since we'd last met in private.

"Someone you don't trust anymore?" he asked.

I handed him a piece of paper with my instructions scrawled on it. It was still befuddling how elkin with impeccable memory still used paper and ink and other ancient technology. Force of habit perhaps.

 He took a look at it and smiled. "I see". He took out a lighter and burned it.

 

"He doesn't feel anything", the teacher said. The two parents exchanged glances. They'd been through this before. Some bad news was on the horizon. Damage had been done and they had to do damage control, again.

"You know about his situation, his emotional disorder", my father said.

Ms. Granger shook her head. "He's scaring the other kids", Ms Granger said. "I've had parents come to me several times about him". She tapped her pen against the table's surface, creating a rhythmic annoying sound. My parents were worried. Would I be moving again?

I had hidden behind the curtains, close to the corner, eavesdropping.

"Come now, Jason's hardly troublesome", my mother said.

"Really? Like when he tied May Poppins and hanged her upside down and pushed her like a seesaw?"

My mother frowned slightly at the thought. Even she couldn't sugarcoat this.

"Well…"

"And when he-"

"-Okay, okay. We admit that Jason can at times be…eccentric", my father said slowly.

"Eccentric? It's cruelty. Doing things without any regard for the feelings of others. Mr. and Mrs. Janson, this is a public school. We sympathise with your son's ailment but he should learn the difference between right and wrong."

Jason's father stood up and stared Ms Granger in the face. "And how is a little kid like him supposed to figure that out without support from others? Our emotions are like signals that help us know deep down when something is wrong and help us relate to and with others. Even we with emotions are cruel. We might even be worse than he is. He does those things because he doesn't have strong emotions. We do them in spite of our emotions".

There was a hidden message under my father's little speech. He was implying that Ms Granger was cruel for bailing on a sick child when he needed her. That she was worse than I was. That she wasn't setting a good example by giving up. And if she gave up on me, would I give up on me?

For a minute Ms Granger was flustered. She opened her mouth but no words came. "Jason has to leave before the end of the week. And that's final", she managed to say. She turned around and walked out.

 

Shawn (7 years ago)

I came to. Jason was gone. Lisa was nowhere in sight. Fear gripped me. I had seen the wolf hit her on the head during my slips in and out of consciousness. Could any ordinary human even survive those hits?

I felt pathetic. Whilst my friends had been running, trying to find a means of escape. I had done nothing but black out. Jason was abnormal. Thalia was the oldest. But I should have at least been as brave as Lisa.

Thalia assured me that Lisa was still alive and getting treatment. "Thalia, where's Jason?"

She tried to avoid my question. "You've been out for a number of hours, you should get some rest", she said.

"This isn't working and you know it. You're just as freaked as I am. You-"

"I'm going to join Atlas's crew", she said quickly. This time I knew she wasn't just trying to divert my attention. I could see it in her eyes. The shame, the fear and the guilt. I could see it because I felt the same way. We'd lost our entire family today. And we hadn't even been able to protect each other. We felt pathetic. We'd thought that the world had changed, that civilization had made us safe. We were wrong. It was simply the illusion of security that it had created.

Thalia joining Atlas's crew then was simply to make herself stronger. "Don't worry", she quickly added. "I won't be leaving right away. I get to be with you for three months".

"What about Lisa? When will she come out of her treatment?"

Thalia placed a hand on my shoulder. "Shawn, there's something about Lisa you don't know…"

5^1/2 years ago

Lisa

I woke up in a dingy apartment. At least that's what I thought it was at first. I had no idea what  I was doing here or how I got there. The last thing I remember was Atlas saving us from the pack of draconians who attacked us as wolves. I scanned my surroundings. The place looked funky. Where the others here as well?

I opened the door and there was a staircase leading down. I walked down the stairs. "Hello? Is anyone home?" There was no answer. I yelled out again. Still no response. I walked to the base of the stairs and took a look around. It was a big house, made of wood and from the smell, in desperate need of fumigation.

I walked to where the blinds covered the windows and spread them open. This wasn't a part of town she knew. There were more cars than she could count. What was going on?

There was a rapping sound on the door. Someone was knocking. Maybe it was Shawn…or one of the others. She opened it. And felt the humiliation of greeting a stranger in her pajamas.

"Who…who are you?" she asked.

 Continued in Chapter Twenty-Four