Niagara Bodyguard

A Long Walk

Chapter 7:  Recap

                Alright, we have five of the most dangerous people in all of the Falls inside of a compact safe house underground along with the prince of a kingdom that takes up almost a third of the Falls.  We might’ve been asking for trouble but it sure couldn’t find us.  I almost got lost myself getting down to it.  We were as safe as we could possibly be, but we had to leave.  It’s not only because my sister and I had severe claustrophobic tendencies. No one knew my sister’s name.  That is, other than her, me, our father, and my other sister.  Other than us, there is no other person that knows her name, and it has to stay that way.  The Curious are an auspicious species.  When they’re born they can be named by their parents.  We don’t have that luxury.  When we’re born, we’re born from the elements.  In my village there are fires that happen.  These were big fires, fires that can burn a Curious’ eyebrows off.  As the fires burn down the flames form babies.  That is how all of the people in my village were born, except for us ‘assets’.  Those fires leave ashes that form us, but the ashes have to be white first.  So whenever we have a big fire the raids happen.  They douse the fires and stomp out the ashes.  The only thing left are our sparks, which is what we use for light.  Hael can manipulate fire.  She can expand the lifespan of a fire by so long.  Plus, she can control the size and heat of it.  She can make it cold enough for normal people to hold.  When she does though, it turns blue.  Or she can make it hot enough to cut through diamonds.  Then it turns white.  So she keeps our village illuminated through the night.  So we could see as we left that night.  My sister was awake but I still carried her through the tunnels that Banner and I made.  It didn’t feel right to let her walk if she could hurt herself.  I watched her head rest against my chest in the dim light of a spark floating near us as she swirled the smoke she blew out of her mouth with her finger.  Every once in a while she peeked in front of us at the girl that begged for me to save her.  I’m glad she found someone she wants.  It makes me happy that she’ll be happy with someone who understands what she’s going through.  I just don’t want to be there when they do get together and uhh, let’s not be blunt about it, have mad loving sessions… or sex, if you want to be boring about it.  I almost didn’t notice that we had left the tunnels.  The open air felt nice on my dark skin.  The buildings looked intact.  All but the ones my family lived in.  We could see smoke in the air so we moved towards it.  The night got a little dark so my sister pulled the smoke down to eye level and trailed it back to its source.

“So what do we call her?”  Banner called out from the back of our group.

“We just call her Kirry.  But no one can know what her name is.  The only ones trusted are her immediate family.  If they tell they’re plagued with constant pain or something like that.  No one’s told anyone so we aren’t sure.”  Hael explained to the naïve, confused looking prince in the back.

“Oh… okay.  So where are we going?” Banner inquired anyone with an answer.

“We’re heading to where everybody else is.  Oh shit!  You can’t be seen!  They’ll want to kill you on sight!”  Nally realized, “What are we going to do?  I mean, I trust you of course.  But, but what are they going to think?” 

                I set down ‘Kirry’ and walked back to Banner.  I wrapped my arm around him and smiled at everyone else.  I told everyone that we’d just tell them the truth.  I’m sure if Nally could trust him that quickly the rest of the villagers could.  At that, we walked on towards the source of the smoke.  The only one still being wary of Banner’s existence was the last one to speak before we walked in silence to our destination.  A hand grabbed me from behind and I turned around to see my father looking at me with a worry stricken grimace.

"I hope so son.  I really do."