Unusual

Chapter 1

375 days ago....

          "FINALLY" I say, pumping my fist in the air. "Dude. Calm down, it's just a job" says Shire. He and I have quite a history together. He's been with me for everything. Everything. He was there for me when I got kicked out, when I ran away from home, when... that happened. I don't like remembering what happened. I still have nightmares.

          "CALM DOWN? Do you even see how much we could earn for this? I could finally pay my debt. I could finally live without being hunted down. This is huge!" I say, my eyes wide with excitement.           

          "Sure, but you need to calm down. You know what happened last time you got like this." Shire says. He puts his hands on my shoulders, trying to calm me down. 

          "It was one time" I mumbled under my breath. "And it's not like you haven't destroyed a place before. D'you remember Inash?" He looks me in the eyes and turns away. 

          "Yeah, well at least I didn't blow the place up." He says as he walks away from me. I'm left standing there, frozen in place at this man's audacity. I already knew it had been more than once that I had blown something up, but he didn't need to know that. That had happened when we had a falling out a couple years back, but we didn't need to bring that back up. I sat down on a bench in front of the fountain outside, when I heard someone call my name.

         "Hey! Nyrie!" A familiar voice called. I knew the voice, but couldn't put a face to it. Amongst the crowd, a small woman appeared, clad in leather arm cuffs, a white linen shirt, and blue jeans. She had beautiful brown curls and porcelain skin. Her short stature made her look like a cute child, even if she was almost 22. 

          "Oh, hey, Mir," I said with a little hesitation in my voice, "How've you been? I haven't seen you since Parlan." I asked, trying to cover up my hesitation. Miralna was nice and all, but after what happened back on Parlan, I don't think I can ever forgive her.

          I felt a tap on my shoulder, snapping me out of my thoughts, and realized she was sitting right next to me. She must've walked over when I started zoning out.

        "Hey, are you ok?" She asked. "Yeah, I'm just a little tired, me and Shire just got back from a long trip." I said, hoping she didn't pick up on my lie. Her eye twitched when I said his name, I'm not sure what that was about. I decided not to mention it, she might get defensive. Mir had a habit of blowing up at people, not in the literal way I do, but more like yelling and throwing things. Even if Parlan was years ago, I can't imagine she isn't still the same person. I've known her since I was little, and she always stayed the same. Mir, Shire, and I used to be a trio of best friends, back in grade school. Then we got in a huge fight, that was more or less my fault, and split ways. I apologized to both of them and everything was fine between me and Shire, but Mir was still mad at me and went 'no contact' . As you know, me and Shire started working together and taking odd jobs. But on one job, we ran into Miralna again. Still angry as ever and clearly holding a grudge, we finished the job and left. But not without a few scrapes and bruises. When we ran into her - on Parlan - she unfortunately recognized me, and lunged to attack me. Shire had to get the civilians in the area to help me. And now she's here, sitting next to me on a bench, acting like nothing was wrong.

          "Are you sure?" She asked reassuringly. It was really ticking me off that she didn't seem to remember what happened. She gave me a scar down my arm and she's just sitting here like she did nothing out of the ordinary. Something was off about her, but I couldn't figure out what.

          "Yeah, of course I'm ok. Like I said, I'm just a little tired. What are you doing here anyways? I thought you got arrested back on Parlan after what happened." A flicker of recognition passed over her face, but went as quick as it came. "I'm not sure I know what youre talking about Nye." She said through clenched teeth. I backed off, not wanting to cause a scene. Thank the gods, Shire walked back over with a glass in each hand. I'm going to assume here, when I say he saw Mir, because I could see the immediate fear on his face when he got closer. This was a bit surprising, seeing as Shire didn't show fear often, and even if he did, it wasn't even prominent enough to see it from 10 feet away. But as he got closer, I could tell he realized his mistake enough to get his composure back, and by the time he reached us, he looked calm and collected as always. 

          "Oh, hey Mir. I didn't realize you were in town." Shire said with a little disdain in his voice, hopefully not enough for Mir to pick up on. "Yea, I heard there was something going on in town and figured i'd stop by. I saw Nye in the crowd and thought I'd say hello, I didn't realize you would be here though." She replied sarcastically. She definitely picked up on his hatred for her. Shire handed me a glass of some sort of clear liquid. It smelled like strawberries and alcohol.

          "Anyways, it was nice seeing you Mir, but we have to get going if we're going to make our train out." I said, clearly in a hurry to leave. "Oh, really? So soon? I mean, okay. Unless you would like me to walk you to the station?" She said innocently. Me and Shire both knew what game she was playing. "No, but thanks for the offer." Shire replied sharply as he grabbed my wrist, pointing away from the scene with his eyes.

          "Yeah, sorry, but we've got to get going. I'll see you around Mir." I said swiftly before me and Shire practically ran away from her.