The Last of Arrows

White Flag

"Chat-newah." Someone said.

I looked up at the nickname the Nomadic people had started calling me. It all began with my children from the fighting lessons. As they got significantly better at the Nomadic dialect, they began to call me Chat-newah. Which meant Mother.

It began to spread between the Nomad families and soon the adults started calling me that. I didn't mind honestly.

One of the cooks waved at me from the tents. He wore a floppy brown hat that almost covered his eyes. He was a fairly built man with peppered gray hair. Henry was his name, I was sure of it. I nodded at him.

"Good day, Henry!" I said as I waved back. "Say hello to the kids for me." He nodded happily before resuming back to cleaning the pots left on the wooden tables.

                I took my time walking home. I took the longest route back to the house where me, Esmeralda, and Jako lived. Just a couple days after my birthday Jako gave me the surprise he was going to move out from where he lives with his father, Wavner.

      After all, Jako was just one year older than me. He was seventeen and said he wanted to start living on his own. I walked on a small little path of pebbles. I balanced myself as I hopped over the thin lines of the sidewalk.

    My shiny black boots slapped the concrete. I had learned those types of boots were called combat boots. In the Civic Age, they were used for combat but it soon became a "trend" around the common folks of the cities.

Ever since then everyone used it. I had found multiple pairs in the house we were living in. The house was not so new to me anymore. But I was still learning how to use certain things. And the books were still keeping me awake past midnight.

      I turned to another neighborhood and walked into the familiar street. Kids laughed as they ran past me. More people had joined the Rebel community after they saw the video of me almost being executed.

It took a while for the Rebels to figure out how to spread the video but they eventually did. And I seemed to inspire more people to join. It wasn't easy letting them inside Polis. They had to checked and questioned multiple times by the counsel and myself personally.

                But the numbers have risen. And prosperity was on the rise as well. The Council was making their last preparations to begin trade with neighboring towns.

    I walked up to my house and turned the knob. Nobody bothered to lock the doors anymore. There was more than enough vacant houses for everyone. No one stole or harmed each other. Everyone kept their doors unlocked.

As soon as I stepped into the house, my nose twitched. A delicious waft of meat reached my nostrils. A sizzling noise reached my ears. My mouth instantly watered. I closed the door behind me and I placed my folder in the kitchen counter.

             I found Esmeralda in the kitchen. She was facing the stove, her long black hair pulled into a simple braid. She wore a bright pink shirt. Smoke curled off the pan she was moving with her hand.

    I walked up behind her, and placed my hands on her shoulders. "Hello." I said, planting a kiss on the backside of her head. She glanced quickly at me. Her green eyes lit up. "Zaila!" She exclaimed.

She turned and gave me a tight hug. I glanced down at her swollen belly. She was due in a few weeks or a month, according to the medics. I crouched down, leveling my face to her stomach. Her shirt didn't quite reached all the way down her round abdomen.

             I rubbed her belly softly. "Hi there, little man. How are you doing in there?" I asked. Esmeralda rolled her eyes. "It could be a girl." She said. I straightened. "It's going to be a boy." I said.