Kings and Thieves

﴾9♦Plans﴿

 The next few days we hiked through the woods. We didn't run into anymore cutpurses, and it felt like the animals in the area grew slimmer and slimmer, as if they were starving themselves.

The water around me felt bad. It didn't feel pure or free, but caged and poisoned. I didn't trust it enough to drink out of one of the ponds on the way. Something felt off. The birds weren't singing as much, the animals lost weight and seemed to shrink in numbers, the water felt contaminated, and it felt like the whole forest had sucked in a breath, and was waiting for the big storm to blow.

"Something isn't right." I said as we reached a small clearing. The grass was dry and brown, dying. The surrounding trees had lost most of their leaves and stood crookedly, leaning on each other for support.

"It's like this all over the South." Nix said, kicking a stone. "And it keeps expanding all around, mostly North now."

"What's causing it all?"

"We're not sure, but I do know it's got to do with Gadreel." The scowl on his face deepened as he walked on.

I wanted to ask so many more questions, but I didn't want to bug him even more. Ever since the cutpurses back in the forest they've all been walking on eggshells around me. Lydia restrained herself from back talking, Axel's been next to me the whole time, and Nix won't look at me.

I wasn't okay with it.

I didn't want them to think I was a broken little girl. I didn't want them to think I'd break at any second and go on a ballistic rampage. But I kept my mouth shut. It'd be better for them to fear me if I were to go my separate way.

I looked up at the greenish sky. Even the air was contaminated with whatever it was. The clouds were nearing a light, rotten green. The sky itself, a lime green. I cringed looking at it. Good thing the Airs weren't alive anymore to see the air so filthy.

The Airs, air benders, had gone extinct a long time ago. They had a civil war and ended up killing all of themselves. One side wanted peace, believing the air was the tranquility needed to balance the world. The other believed in their inevitable extinction, if they weren't prepared to fight the other Elementalists. Neither side won and ended up sending their own people into extinction, but not without marrying off their last female bender to King Michael, though in the end, she died with him during the raid, leaving their last attempt of repopulation completely futile.

The Terras, earthbenders, took over their temples to maintain the culture. The Terras were known to be neutral, usually staying out of the fights. Their connection to nature's earth gave them that sense of peacefulness and they would feel as if they were betraying mother nature herself if they were to go to war.

The Aquas, were a mixture of the Airs and Embers. Though they had better tempers than the Embers, they still had their frighteningly powerful abilities to go offensive. They never had that sense of peace that the Airs had, yet were wise enough to know how to pick their fights, and used defensive moves more often.

The Embers, were known to be short tempered, easily provoked. The element of destruction made them the most feared Elementalists. When Gadreel, an Ember, killed his brother King Michael, he had all the Elementalists hunted and killed. He wanted to be the only one, an unstoppable force.

In my old village, there used to be so many different Elementalists. Aquas, Embers, and Terras all lived in peace until Gadreel's men came wearing iron armor, making them immune to our attacks. They destroyed my home, my people, all because of King Gadreel's gluttony and need.

The maroon colored smoke rising above the trees caught my eye. I opened my mouth to tell Nix, but he was already looking at it with a small smile on his face. He turned and started walking in the direction. We pushed through the forest and came to a small fire, a man sitting in front of it poking it with a stick, flipping the wood over and over, keeping it alive.