3 Nyka Larkin

_Nyka Larkin_

The boy's chest felt like it might burst if he ran anymore, but still he bounded on his way, using what little breath he could spare to laugh as he ran, racing the little dog that easily ran ahead of him, barking. He only laughed all the more. "This isn't fair! You have four legs!" He called to the little creature, slowing his pace from a run to a walk and then coming to a stop. His hands rested on his knees, back hunched over as he caught his breath.

The little brown and white dog trotted back over and jumped at his legs, licking his hands. Nyka, the boy, laughed and pet the dog. "Gross," he said in breathy laughter before standing straight. His eyes looked around at all the green trees. Grandmother wouldn't be happy that he went this far all alone into the woods but he wanted to adventure, and the forest was safer than it was in town.

Nyka wasn't sure who they were trying to avoid, grandmother had never told him, but she had told him that he wasn't from this part of the Ashmore kingdom. They were in the south, where it was warmer most times of the year. She said he was from Comsworth, the same place his father was born. Nyka couldn't remember it, he'd hardly been there for a couple minutes before they'd run from.... well, from whoever they were still hiding from now. That was 13 years ago. 13. Grandmother called him a young man now. He had hair growing under his arms and she had said that meant he would be a man soon.

Adulthood seemed boring. Grandmother said adults didn't have the time or energy to run around the forests like this. They didn't have time to play and run about. It sounded so undesirable to grow old. His own grandmother was busy running an inn all day. There was a tavern in that inn as well so she had even more to do- with all the aggressive drinkers in the area. She had inherited the place after an old friend of hers without children passed. It was a lucky sort of thing, because for the first seven years of their lives they hadn't had much, sometimes having to sleep outdoors in their travels.

They had traveled a lot those first seven years. From those same people who were after them. He would be forever curious of who they were but grandmother never told him. He wondered if she even knew who they were. He also wondered if it was because of the way he looked.

Nyka didn't look like most people here. His hair and his skin were darker than most people in this region. His eyes were different in shape than most too. Being so south now than they'd previously been before, there were a few more foreign people. He supposed he looked similar to them but he was still different. They must have been different than his parents then. Grandmother said his mother was from far east. Since they were south that must have been it. His grandmother assured him that most of the foreign here were likely from even farther south since we were closer to there than we were to the east.

She said the people that far east rarely traveled, and most who did, had run away- like his mother had. Their kings- well his grandmother said they didn't have kings there but they were something similar; their kings liked to keep their people in and everyone else out. They were a mean people- and yet all his grandmother had to say was that his mother was the kindest woman she had ever come across in all her years. He wished he could have met her.

As for the people after him, he wondered if it was the way he looked that they were after him. He may have been born here but half of him... his mother's half was not from here. He wondered if maybe she had done something that had scorned the native people here to dislike the way he looked. He had heard something similar to it before. People being angry at others for the way they looked. It happened here to the people from farther south, and sometimes he was confused for them by ignorant people. However, no one had followed him before, not like he had been all his life. So it must have been something else. What could a baby have done to these people? Perhaps they were simply touched in the head. He had seen his fair share of crazy people but most had only been the poor who lived on the streets.

Nyka had found himself walking now, the sounds of the forest had been lost to him as he had thought but as soon as he snapped back to reality, it all came back. The wind in the leaves, the birds.. even a little stream nearby. The plants had always interested him. For the first few years of his life he would compare the plans in some places to the plants in other places. Most were the same but the farther in one direction you went, the more different of plants- even animals- that you would come across.

Here it was warmer than most, but it was also farther from the capital- where the king was. His grandmother had said that was a good thing. Supposedly that man wasn't a good man but you weren't supposed to talk about him like that so she never said much. He picked up a rock. Most rocks were the same but he wondered if different places had different rocks.

He'd seen this rock before. A white one, shiny too. Grandmother had once called it quartz, he thought. He liked to collect quartz. It was not only pretty but he could do neat things with it. Neat things Grandmother didn't like that he could do. That's why he liked the forest so much. He could practice all he wanted without the scolding of his grandmother.

Nyka walked over to the nearby creek and sat at the edge, letting his bare feet dip into the cool water. It was all very peaceful here- pretty too. He liked it more in the south than he had then when they were north and when they had tried to rest in a dryer climate. He liked it here. Warm but not dry. Not cold and snowy like the north, nor hot and dry like farther west of here. He wondered what it was like, far east.. across the sea where his mother had come from. He wondered just how far that was too. He had never seen it, but he'd been told that the sea was greater and larger than any lake- possibly even all lakes combined. The thought seemed preposterous.

He rolled the quartz around in his hand, examining it in the light that filtered in from the trees. He wanted to try that trick he had stumbled across a week ago. The same trick grandmother had caught him doing and told him to stop doing. He never knew why she didn't want him to do these things. She never really explained much, did she? He'd have talked to someone about it but she had sternly told him not to. Looking the way he did, didn't allow him many people to talk to anyway so there were few people to tell- and those he could tell.. well... he didn't want to get into any trouble.

People could tell grandmother he told, but trees could not. Neither could the dog that sniffed around nearby. It was a neat trick too- and useful. He didn't understand why his grandmother did not approve of it.

Nyka closed his eyes, and at the same time he closed his fist. He found that in doing this he could concentrate better. He focused on the feel of the rock in his hand, how it was cold but warming with his touch by the second. He wondered if he made it warmer, if the trick would work better than before.

He didn't quite know how to make it any warmer than his hands allowed though... perhaps if the weather was warmer- if heat had anything to do with it at all. What once seemed like a good idea soon faded into uncertainty, but it was that very uncertainty that had stopped these kinds of tricks from working so he tried to clear his mind and focus on the task in hand.

For a moment, he held his breath, either in anticipation or perhaps in a mere focusing tactic, but soon he let out a soft breath through his mouth and allowed his eyes to open. He stared at his hand for a moment, a bit fearful to open it so soon. Sometimes this didn't work... he really wanted this to work. It would be very exciting some day if he could get it to work quickly and even better than he could do now.

Slowly, he allowed his hand to open, watching his fingers uncurl from his palm and expose the quarts. A smile crossed his face as he saw the very trick he'd been working towards. It glowed a pale white, almost like a little star but not nearly as bright. He wondered if it was because it was daytime out. You couldn't see stars during the day plus they were so far away.

More wonder came to his mind at the thought of stars. Were the stars in the sky just glowing bits of quarts like this? Surely they weren't... but they looked so similar. He disregarded the thought as he turned the stone around in his hand, admiring it. If grandmother let him out at night he would have loved to see it then; glowing in the dark. If he were to light up a bunch and scatter them amongst the grass would they look like a mirror to the stars in the sky? Would the sky think it was a reflection like those off the surfaces of water?

He nearly snorted at that last thought. The sky could not think. It wasn't alive. Nyka found himself tossing the softly glowing snow up and down in his hand before throwing it out into the stream water. It landed with a plop where the water grew a foot and a half deep, and he watched it quickly sink down. I glowed all the way to the bottom, and stayed light for a couple seconds more before slowly the light faded away.

The sight reminded him of life. We were all alive- all glowing for a short time before events in our lives lead us to our dimming and eventually to our rest. He frowned. When was it that things had dimmed for his mother? He guessed it was his arrival into the world that had done it. But his father? When had he started to dim?

Nyka knew very little and remembered very little about the man. He didn't like to think about it though. Unlike his mother, he had known and loved his father- but only as a small child. Besides, others had seen worse than him. His grandmother said she had seen her own parents die on separate occasions and both times had been particularly harrowing for her.

He shook his head, standing up from the creekside. It seemed his thoughts were all over the place today. He had been by himself a lot lately. That was a lot of time for yourself to think... and when he thought too much, his mind tended to wander.

Looking up at the sky proved to show the sun had moved quite a bit. His grandmother might be worried about now. It was probably best to return home and check in. She was very adamant about making sure he was up to date on his studies. The woman had used to be a lady of a rich household before it had fallen. She was educated much more than most people were and was very keen on making sure that he was too. She said it would be useful in the future. His grandmother had taught his father, and the both of them had worked to teach his mother.

At least, that's what grandmother told him. He got most of his information from her but he was skeptical sometimes. Grandmother often said to be cautious of the words that come from other people. They often stretched the truth, or lied without meaning to, and other times it was a purposeful thing. He took those words to heart, and treated everyone with that mindset.

Not to say he was an immediate unbeliever, but he kept it in mind not to allow himself to be a gullible and ignorant halfwit', as grandmother called it.

Nyka made fast to get home, but not running as he had earlier. He was a bit tired and didn't want to be exhausted when he reached home. Being tired and studying didn't go so well together. He looked back at the dog still sniffing about in the bushes. "Kori!" He called to the little thing and it lifted its head with the wag of its tail and followed after him as he started to walk again. The mutt certainly had more energy than he did, bounding back and forth, excited to smell this and that. He often ran off after small animals before returning with nothing- but there was one time it had returned with an elderly rabbit. It was a lucky chance, really. Right place and time. Nyka hadn't seen the capture either so perhaps the dog had caught the poor thing in a place it couldn't escape. That would make more sense than it chasing and plucking it up from the ground.

Kori was a fast dog, but he, and Nyka thought of this a bit reluctantly because the canine was his friend, but he was rather stupid. The poor thing would often run headfirst into things, stumble, eat bees, and one time the stupid dog stood on an ant hill and was covered in biting ants. Nyka smiled at the thought as he walked. That's how he'd met the thing too. Covered in biting ants and crying. Nyka didn't know how long Kori had been covered in ants when he'd found him in these very woods but he'd been crying and rolling around in the dirt. There were even blood stains on his legs where Nyka had supposed the creature had gnawed and bit trying to get them off.

At first, Nyka hadn't known what to do. He had approached the dog without much thought, only wanting to help it. But Kori was a stray and immediately growled at him. Nyka even had a scar on his arm from where the mutt bit him. He remembered how badly it had hurt, and how much he wanted to leave the stupid thin to its own suffering, but instead he stayed and tried to pluck the ants off of him. Though that had been a stupid idea. There were too many ants and too much fur to get them all off so he had used what his grandmother had taught him.

He had fetched some sage from a bush nearby. Grandmother said it warded off insects, especially when it was smoking. She also said people thought the smoke warded off evil spirits in the same way but said the people who believed in such things like spirits and ghosts were silly. She said that kind of thing wasn't real. He wasn't sure what to believe on that matter.

But he had fetched the sage, and tried to rub it on the dog but it hadn't done much to his displeasure. Kori wasn't too pleased with it either, growling at him all the while. He had needed it to smoke to work more efficiently but he hadn't any flint at the time. No way to get a flame to start it smoking. He hadn't ever attempted the trick back then. And he couldn't recall now if he had never thought of trying or if he had thought it was a scary thing to try- but he attempted then, because it was needed.

His little tricks hardly ever worked in those kinds of situations, his heart usually beat too fast, and his head usually struggled to stay focused. It was as if the very thought of someone or something needing him scared him enough to compromise his abilities. Sometimes he could get rocks to float in the creek but when one of the towns children was struggling in the river, he couldn't get the child to surface like the rocks had. And that had been an ability he had tried before. Luckily he had not been needed and a sibling fetched the child from the river.

Kori and his ants was a challenge. Again he was nervous, afraid of the pressure upon him to make things right. He tried and he tried to start up even the tiniest spark of a flame. But somehow he accomplished it. There was no flame at all, but the sage started to smoke. And so he blew the smoke all over Kori, which the mutt certainly had not liked, but Nyka held him by his scruff so that he could not get away. The ants couldn't wait to get off the dog after that.

And to make sure the ants were all gone Nyka had ran home to steal some vinegar from his grandmother. To his luck the dog had not ran away so he washed it off in the creak with the stuff. Again the dog was less than pleased but he didn't bite Nyka again after that. Infact, the dog followed Nyka everywhere after that day. So he'd named it Kori.

Nyka found himself at the foot of the steps to his grandmother's inn. He hadn't even remembered his walk through town. He enjoyed looking around but he'd been too absorbed in his thoughts today. It seemed that repeatedly today he would zone out. That seemed a bit dangerous. He would have to be better about not doing that, especially in public.

He walked up the steps and opened the door to the inn. Most of the downstairs was the dining area, and to the far back was the bar. Rooms were on the side and to the far back left was a staircase to upstairs, where there were several rooms. He held the door for Kori.

"You better not be letting that furry mongrel in after I just mopped these floors, boy." a woman said with crossed arms. She wore a grey-blue dress and a stained off-white apron to cover her front. Her blonde hair was held up in a bun at the top of her head.

"But he'll be lonely outside, Ingred!" Nyka whined as he blocked the canines entrance with his leg. He would complain all he liked to the woman, but he did not wish to upset her. She was not nice when she was irritated.

"Yeah? I bet them horses out there are lonely too but they aren't complainin' are they?" She bit back with her usual attitude. "Animals stay outside. Don't make me tell you again."

Nyka sighed and gave the dog an apologetic look before closing the door and walking further into the inn. He walked past Ingrid and looked at the floor as he did so. "Witch..." he muttered to himself and turned when he heard the woman groaned in disgust.

"Nyka!" She complained now. "Look at you! Yer feet are all muddy and dirty. Yer makin my floors mucky! You might as well be an animal yourself! Go clean off yer feet," She ushered him with a disapproving wave of her hand. "You need to learn what shoes are."

The boy was already rushing to the stairs. "I don't like shoes," He called back to her before finding his room and slamming the door. Ingrid was a good woman, a bit strict, but she had a good heart. She worked hard, showed up on time every day. She was respectable. But her case was a bit of a sad one. She was maybe early thirties, had no children, and her husband had run away with another woman. He'd left her with nothing but a sack of coins to find housing somewhere. Nyka's grandmother had gladly hired her and let her work here ever since. The woman had even offered cheaper housing than Ingrid had but the woman declined. Said that she would take away from what the inn would earn during busy times when rooms were all taken up.

She said there were times when many people needed a room at night but there were none available and she didn't want to take away from those people, nor did she want to decline from the establishments business. Nyka respected that thought. Both thoughts. Few thought of anyone but themselves. Ingrid was good like that. Perhaps she thought what her husband had done was selfish, and didn't want to be the same as him. Nyka took note of that. Selfishness was not a good look on anyone.

That thought made him think about his own room. He sat on his bed and pulled a book over to himself. The boy had often complained to his grandmother that his room was the smallest of all the rooms in the Inn, and she had often reminded him that he was born in a one room hut with no kitchen that had been shared by three people, including herself. But now that he thought of Ingrid's reasoning for not staying here, he didn't really feel the need to complain anymore. Why should someone, tired from travel, have to stay in such a small room? Besides, he stayed here cost free. To pay for a room of this size and be so tired, didn't feel very fair. It probably wouldn't have been very nice to stay in either.

He smiled to himself and opened his book. He definitely wasn't the best reader, but he knew how. If only he practiced more often rather than messing around.