Blood Moon

Chapter 3 - Clean Up and Bad Omens

   “Promise?” She asked as she drifts off to sleep.

PRESENT

Outside Sofi is helping Margo hang up some sheets. She doesn’t realise all this mess was her fault. Sofi is normally a very happy, bubbly person, but in a way her emotions are tied to the weather, basically when she is sad it rains. The biggest storms in living memory were around the time that she was teething.

 Stepping out from the cool shade of a house I carry another wet load out for drying doing my best to avoid the bright shaft of burning sunlight. Suddenly I feel Kachiri weight land upon my shoulder and the word “Food!”marched through my mind.

   “In a minute, I’m have to do this first,” I mutter almost to the other group of workers.

   “Food! Food! Food! Foooooood!”Kachiri is never very patient when hungry.

   Kachiri is a Kassalik a native animal on our desert planet. It has the face and body of a very small cat but with the scaly skin of a lizard. Above its neck is a frilled collar that stands out when angry. They hear through small ear holes on either side of its head between the eyes and the frill. Its tail is twice as long as it’s body with a small fluff of fur at the end, which they use as a lure their prey closer. That is when they don’t have some sucker to feed them on command.

   Her body is half-orange and half-red, this lets her blend into this surroundings but they can change the red half depending on their mood or cover.  Right now she is a violent shade of blue, meaning she is impatient.

   Kachiri like all of her species is highly intelligent and telepathic capable of interesting conversations. But she rarely bothers actually talking to me, she usually only gives me one word commands.

  “Food! Food! Food!”  She chants.

“Fine.” I say exasperated.

  Everyone looks up at me confused but seeing Kachiri they go back to their work, they are used to me speaking to my “pet”.

   Walking away from the group I jog up the rose coloured carved stone stairs and along the walkway until I reach my house. The temperature drop is welcoming after the outside heat. While walking over to the kitchen for Kachiri’s food I could not help but notice the difference between Sofi’s home and mine. 

   Where her cave walls were brightened by quilts and tapestries passed down through the years, mine were barren and empty. The only decoration father allowed was an ornately framed copy of our laws and punishments. If a man was caught stealing then he must spend Somnum with only a sheet for cover, once Somnum was over he was to be cut down and treated. The number of times a person was caught dictated how many days they were left untreated. Punishments for other crimes were just as brutal; needless to say laws were rarely broken.

   After placing some food in a bowl, I grab and oraple and bight down on it’s sweet, blue flesh. Leaning back against the granite bench top I begin scanning hard for Ariel.

    It is usually too easy for me to find a persons mind; generally I have to fight to keep all the different voices from drowning me.However those of us who are ‘special’ are harder to read for some reason.  Ariel, Sofi and I are not the only ones in town who can do something extra, but most of them don’t realise they can. For the others their gifts are subtle, like Sofi and the rain. One thing I have noticed about all of them is that I have trouble reading them. I really have to concentrate and even then it is like trying to listen to voices under water. Unless of coarse, I touch them or they are very upset; then whatever is shielding them falls.

    I don’t usually try and listen; I don’t want to hear something that will make me think less of one of my friends. But Ariel been having a bad feeling all week and just today I have started to feel it too…

    An airship arriving

    The shadowed outline of a man in black.

    The feeling of malice in the air

 

   The half eaten oraple falls to the floor and rolls under a table as I race out the door.

Ariel POV

  I can still taste the obsession and hatred from my vision. It was too short to fully understand but I know it is a warning of an unrelenting evil that’s on its way. Nothing will satisfy it but destruction, blood and death.

   Leira finds me huddled behind a rock.

She didn’t say anything just wrapped her arms around me till I stopped shaking.

  "When will it get here?" Leira’s thoughts softly floated soothingly through my mind.

"I don’t know. It arrives by airship so either tomorrow or after the Mother Moonfestival in a fortnight, everything will end by the next Blood Moon rise."

  "Then we have time to watch and plan. We will know more when it gets here, I will read him then."

   “It can’t be stopped. All I see is death, yours….. mine….. so many…. So, so many.”

    I bury my head into the curve of her neck and take comfort while I still can.