10 Nyka Larkin

_Nyka Larkin_

"Nyka," A voice called out to him. He ignored it, kicking rocks behind the inn. It had been three days since his outburst and he couldn't find it in him to be the same anymore. Perhaps it was just a drawn out fit, but he was ashamed of what he'd done that day.

Never in his life had he made his grandmother cry like that. He was sorry beyond words- he even apologized but that did not feel like enough. Not only had he hurt her, he had also revealed himself to Ingrid and Byrne. No one was supposed to know he was the way he was and he ruined it. Would they move again? He hoped not.

"Nyka," The voice repeated. He looked up to see Ingrid standing at the back steps of the inn. She looked like a concerned mother. Nyka didn't like the way she looked at him. He didn't have a mother. He didn't need one. He had his grandmother and that was enough.

"Come inside, Nyka, ye've been standing around out here for an hour now,"

Without a word, he walked towards Ingrid, and then right past her, no doubt leaving her with more concern. From there he walked through the kitchen and then out to the stairs and climbed them, going to his room silently. Once there, he sat on his bed and grabbed his book. Lately he had been indulging in his studies more. He had little else to do since he was unable to go to the forest. Not only that, but he hadn't done a single trick in those past three days.

Only, they weren't tricks. They really were magic. He huffed at the thought. What was the use of magic if you couldn't do anything with it? He said nothing more however, not wanting to work himself up again. Not only had the outburst scared his grandmother, it had honestly scared him

If he could tear apart a room just by being upset, what would he do if he was truly angry? The thought made him shiver. Nyka didn't want to accidentally harm someone beyond repair- he didn't want to harm anyone in general, physical or mental.

He continued to read his book in melancholy silence but a voice interrupted him. How long had he been lost in the book? An hour? Perhaps more? He did not know. It seemed that this was the first time he had not fallen asleep or found something else to do. Infact, he had only a few pages left before he was finished. He wondered if this would make his grandmother happy.

"Nyka," The voice had called out to him. His grandmother.

"Coming," He called as he set aside his book, walking to the stairs and swiftly descending it.

There stood his grandmother with a broom in hand. "Would you mind sweeping the floor for me dear? I am afraid that Ingrid has taken the rest of the day off and the other staff will not be here until an hour to dinner." She explained to him.

He wordlessly nodded and took the broom from her. She gave him a hesitant gaze before walking to the kitchen. The same kitchen he had destroyed not three days ago. The thought had him look down, gripping the broom tightly in his hands for a moment. They had not let him help clean up the mess he made. He wanted to help but Ingrid had suggested he go to bed early for the night. Bryre had come to wish him well off but Nyka had laid on his side, away from the man, and said nothing.

Thinking back on it, Nyka might have hurt the man's feelings. That thought made him frown as he started to sweep the floors. He wanted to apologize. He already had plenty of times but something in him compelled him to apologize plenty times more. Yet, he could hardly get himself to speak at all.

He wondered if Ingrid had left because he wouldn't talk to her. The thought made him sad. He wondered if she was going to quit because he was dangerous. He bit his bottom lip at the idea of being dangerous. The people after him thought he was of the devil. Were dangerous people of the devil? It sounded fitting.

Grandmother assured him that he was not in allegiance with the dark force but what if she was lying? Soft words to make him feel better about their situation. He did not want soft words. He deserved the cold hard truth. If he did not know the truth, how was he to know if he could hurt someone or not?

He felt the pressure in his hands, itching his insides to come out. He had not practiced in these three days. He normally practiced every day. Was this pressure the magic? He did not know and he did not want to find out. If magic was dangerous, he would not do it ever again.

He continued to sweep the room, lost in his own thoughts when the door opened, jingling a little bell. His eyes looked up through his curly dark hair at whoever had wondered in here at this time of day. He did not recognize them with the cloak they were wearing, but he straightened himself and nodded in greeting. The individual did not nod back and went to sit down.

Since the boy was nearly finished anyway, he went back into the kitchen and set the broom aside. "Customer," He warned his grandmother who nodded to him and walked out to greet the robed man. Curious, Nyka watched from the kitchen walkway.

When his grandmother greeted the man, he had taken off his hood and given her a warm smile. He ordered whatever it was he wanted but what gave Nyka the chills was the man's cold glance in his direction. Nyka ducked back into the kitchen in an instant and made himself busy.

Hearing another ring of the small bell at the door, Nyka paid it no mind. The bell rang all the time. But the voice he heard next was familiar. Byrne was here. Neither him nor Ingrid had been fired after what they had seen. And why they were certainly shocked at his abilities, they still treated him the same- even kinder than normal at the moment. It was likely his refusal of long conversation that spurred that on, however.

He heard Byrne warming up on his lute now. There were a few off key sounds but as he went on with calm tunes, the sound got better, though it was hard to hear something that fine from all the way in the kitchen. When his grandmother returned, she smiled weakly to him and started her work once more.

Silence was a constant company between them for a long while. HIs grandmother soon spoke up, seemingly trying to progress Nyka out of this silence of his.

"I am not angry with you," She offered to him.

"I know." He answered simply.

"Are you perhaps peeved with me, then?"

He looked up at her with soft eyes. "I am peeved with myself, is all." He answered her before going back to his work.

"Do not be. I did not mean to make you feel the way you did. Perhaps the way you still do. I worry about you and I am afraid I let myself over control things..."

Nyka felt the vague impulse to defend her, but he could not. The things she said rang true, and all he could find inside himself to do, was shrug in response to her words. She sighed at his silence and continued.

"I miss your voice," She said with a sad smile.

His brows raised. "Why?"

"You are my babe as much as you are your mothers, you know. I raised you in her stead."

He supposed this was true. "And what does my voice have to do with any of that?"

"Well, I love you." She reasoned.

He looked up at her confused. "I love you but i do not miss your voice..."

She chuckled and shook her head. "You have not heard me go mute for three days." She pointed out.

"That is true. I suppose I don't understand."

She nodded this time. "Most cannot understand what they have never experienced."

"But what if you can?" He asked now.

His grandmother looked at him for a moment before going back to her work, chopping up potatoes. "Then that makes you wise."

Nyka frowned. "Then I am no wise man."

    Ira shook her head. "You are plenty wise, dear. You have the wisdom of a child. The purity to see good in people, even when it appears lost to elder eyes."

"I am afraid I don't follow," He said, putting down the vegetable he was washing. His grandmother turned to him and set calloused hands on his cheeks.

"You are a kind boy, a right boy. You make mistakes, as do I. This is what it means to be human." She told him with a fond sternness. "You are also smart, and you learn fast. You will no doubt become quite the wise man. But for now, you wash me more potatoes." She said with a smile before placing another dirty potatoe in his hand.

    Nyka would keep these words with him. It had been the words he needed to hear to feel better.

    "What of Ingrid and Byrne?" He found himself asking now. "They know..."

She nodded. "Aye. They know. I spoke with them and cleared it up."

"And what was it that you told them?"

"The same I told you. There are people out there that would see you hurt because you are different."

He swallowed. "And what had they said?"

"Well, they were shocked of course. As was I when I heard the things you would be capable of. But they love you, Nyka. Neither of them would see you hurt. They promised to keep it secret."

"So... things can be normal again?" He asked, almost unsure about hearing the answer.

His grandmother smiled at him. "Yes. Things will be normal again."

_____

The market was alive and bustling with life. He found it difficult to keep up with Ingrid as she moved through the crowd with expert experience. One would have thought that since he had moved here at seven, that he would have found a way to move about the mass of people easier, but that was not so. He struggled greatly, and Kori had long since given up and went to wait someplace else. Where, he did not know.

He nearly lost sight of Ingrid's blonde hair as he followed her through the busy streets but quickly ducked around people to keep up. "How is it that you move about so well?" He asked her, grabbing the fabric of her dress to that they did not get seperated.

Ingrid chuckled at the boy. "It is like a dance ye learn after the years. The most important part is eye contact and smooth, predictable movements."

"You need eye contact to dance?"

"With a partner, yes."

He looked around as he followed after her still, not daring to let go of the fabric of her dress. "And your partner... they are the person in front of you?"

"Aye. You are quite clever. If only you could use that head to clean as well." She teased him.

Nyka blushed and nearly slammed into her back when she stopped in front of a stand.

Ingrid was inspecting some red apples a young woman had up for sale. Nyka watched as Ingrid inspected them for a moment before she looked back to him. "Will ya head to that stand over there and buy some vegetables?" She asked him, motioning to a stand across the busy street where an old man sat at his stand, doing his business. "You know the ones we usually get."

Nyka nodded and took the coins that Ingrid handed to him. He made his way through the crowd and across the street to the man.

He waited patiently behind another person, an older woman, who was buying vegetables. The woman had with her a bushel of carrots and another of beats. "Two coppers for the carrots, three for the beets, ma'am." He said with a polite smile to the woman. "And may I suggest a bundle of my finest kale? Only another three coppers for a fine lady such as yerself."

"My, what a kind offer, how can I refuse?" The woman said with a chuckle, handing the man his coppers and gratefully accepting the kale from him.

When Nyka approached the stand, he gave the man a respectful nod, and reached for his own carrots and beets. He also grabbed a few onions, knowing his grandmother enjoyed using them in her cooking. "Twenty coppers." He heard the man croak to him.

Nyka frowned at this. Twenty? He looked at the coins in his hand. He only possessed twelve. "Twenty?" He repeated. "But the carrots are two, beets three, and the onions are a copper a piece; I got four of them. That is only nine," Nyka reasoned.

"Well don't we have a mathematician here, eh?" The man mocked him, face soured with contempt. "The price is higher for foreigners- even the half breeds."

"But.. I was born in the north. I don't even have a foreign accent," He tried to reason again.

The man glared at Nyka now. "Ye either pay the fee or you go back south where ye belong." He said gruffly.

Nyka gave him a confused look. "My mother was from the east," He corrected.

The man scoffed at him. "I doubt that. Ain't no one comes from the east. Doubt that place is even real. Price is twenty five for lyin to me. Take it or leave it, but if yew aint buyin then get outta here. Don't waste my time."

Nyka was at a loss for words. The man hated him because he looked foreign? "I only have twelve coppers..." He admitted.

The old man sighed and held out his hands. "Fine. That'll do, han em over, kid."

Nyka went to hand his coppers to the man but a hand grabbed his wrist. He looked up to see who had stopped him.

"Now that's just unfair, aint it?" Ingrid spat at the man.

"This yer halfling son?" The man accused her.

She narrowed her eyes. "And what if he is?"

He spat at the ground. "You belong in the south with the rest of them wild folk. Tch. Procreating with a feral. You bring dishonor to the rightful inhabitants of the Midlind."

"I think i have heard enough of your talk," Ingrid said with a sharp glare. "Ira's inn won't be buying from yew anymore."

The man sputtered. "The inn? Why, she's one of my best customers during the holidays!"

Ingrid scoffed at him. "Not anymore now that yer sorry ass insulted her grandson." She said to him matter-of-factly and took Nyka's hand, leading him further down the street.

"That man..." Nyka said as he followed her. "He did not like me because of what I look like." he pointed out, more to himself.

"Aye."

"That has happened before." He said to her now, and she slowed her pace to look back at him.

"I am not surprised. Plenty of these people, especially the elder ones, don't know how to accept people who are different than them." She said with blatant distaste in her tone.

"Is there something wrong with foreigners?" He asked now. "Byrne is from the south, but he seems normal. Is there something wrong with easterners?" He asked her now.

Ingrid pulled him to the side of the busy street so that they were not in anyone's way. She put a steady hand on his shoulder now, serious in her mannerisms. "There is nothing wrong with being foreign. Nothing wrong with looking different from other people." She explained to him. "The only thing that is wrong here is the people who think that they can exclude people, just because they have different features and come from somewhere else." She explained. "Byrne gets the same thing happenin' to him that yew had happen to ye today. Worse so even, since he is darker in skin than yew are. It is a sad thing, Nyka, that people can be so fickle."

"It is not fair." He said as he narrowed his eyes at the ground.

"Not much in this world is fair," She said as she pulled his chin up to look into her blue eyes. "Yew of all people should know this. Ye have much more on yer shoulders than a person of the darkest skin."

"People want me dead." He said blankly.

"Aye, but best not to speak of that out here. Come, we have to find vegetables from a more honorable stand."

_____

    They had been finishing up their shopping, not encountering much more trouble than the man at the first vegetable stand that they had visited. Ingrid had spoke no more of him, and neither had Nyka. There was a distasteful feeling about people like him and Nyka couldn't place it. Perhaps it was the offence he was feeling towards it all.

    Nyka adjusted his hold on the basket of vegetables in his arms. It was growing heavy on their walk back to the inn. Not only that, but he was sweating in the heat, the humidity in the air not helping his condition. He feared dropping the basket.

    Wardruna was so far south that it grew fairly hot here. He did not appreciate it. The first seven years of his life, his grandmother and himself tended to stay moderately north. He liked the north- he liked the snow. He had

only seen it snow once a few years back here in Wardruna. The boy wondered if it snowed in the far east or if it was hot like it was here. His thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of the basket slipping in his arms. He quickly fixed the way he held the thing and prayed it didn't scare him like that again.

    As the two continued on they noticed a couple people chattering loudly as they walked, a few people running back and forth around him. Nyka looked curiously, to Ingrid who did the same thing. They shared their inquisitive glances for a moment before looking forward in the direction they were heading in. However, something caught Nyka's eye.

"Ingrid look," He motioned with his head, arms too full to point out what it was that he was seeing.

The woman followed Nyka's eyes and looked up to see the sky, full of smoke off into the distance. The inn was in that direction. "Come Nyka, make haste." She told him sternly, her walking speed picking up.

Nyka followed and did as she said, dread filling his gut as they grew closer to the cloud of smoke. They didn't know what it was that was on fire yet, so it was okay, wasn't it? He swallowed and continued on. It was one of those thoughts anyone would have. "What if it's my home?"

Surly everything was fine.

As the two drew nearer, there was more ruckus among passersbies and it was clear that the smoke was coming from their side of the street. A on point, Ingrid started to run, and Nyka struggled to follow, not wanting to drop his basket or any of its contents.

He soon forgot the contents he was holding with him and dropped them to the ground right after Ingrid did, forgetting their existence entirely as they realized, to their horror, where the fire was coming from. They ran up to the burning building, hearts nearly beating out of their chest. Smoke covered customers and staff stood around coughing and staring on in horror at the burning building.

"No," Nyka whispered, looking around frantically in the crowd for his grandmother. He could not see her, nor was Byrne anywhere in sight.

"Ingrid, grandmother was inside when we left, wasn't she?" He asked her quickly, whipping to face her for a moment but like a magnette, his eyes found the fire again.

Ingrid nodded numbly, staring at the burning inn with frozen eyes. A noise from inside the building caught everyone's attention. It seemed like the whole street held their breath as the front doors swung open with furious speed. Nyka ran up to the two people who burst out of the building, smoke trailing out behind them.

There, coughing, stood Byrne, helping one of the working girls out of the inn. Nyka was dismayed that it was not his grandmother. "Byrne!" He called to the man. Said man was helping the girl down the front steps and handing her off to someone in the crowd. "Nyka, thank god you had left!" He said exasperated, looking back at the smoking place with fear.

"Where is grandmother?" He asked frantically, clinging to the mans ash covered jacket.

"I- I am truly sorry, Nyka," Byrne said, his dark wavy hair dropping ashes every time he moved. If Nyka had not been caught up with the whereabouts of his grandmother, he would have been overjoyed with Byrne's survival.

    "We have to get her out, " Nyka said immediately, moving to rush inside but Byrne caught him by the arm.

    "A beam fell inside, Nyka! I heard her cry out!"

    "We have to go get her!" he yelled in panic, writhing in Byrnes tight grip.

    "You cannot go in there! You'll die!" The man yelled back to him. "The beam likely landed on her!"

"But what if it didn't? What if she's still in there, Byrne?!" He said with tears streaming down his face, eyes stinging from the assault of the smoke blowing out of the house.

"I cannot let you go in there and burn to death, Nyka!" Byrne yelled to him, using both arms to hug a kicking and squirming Nyka back.

"Let me go! Let me go, I have to save her!"

"You can't!"

"Yes I can! I- I'll do something! I can do something!"

"No! Not here, then you are as good as dead anyway!"

Franticly, Nyka screamed out, shaking himself away from Byrne who was thrown back by a sudden blast. He hit the dirt on his back, having flown completely from the porch of the inn.

The boy wasted no time running into the burning inn, coughing at the instant assault of smoke and ash trying to blind his senses. "Grandmother!" He screamed into the smoke, navigating around fire and debris. "Grandmother where are you?" He yelled out again, but no one responded.

He walked further into the burning mess, coughing and rubbing at his irritated eyes. When the ceiling collapsed just inches in front of him he fell backwards onto his bum in surprise.

The ash that followed this collapse blinded him, getting in his eyes causing him to grunt and wipe furiously at them. He breathed furiously, panic spreading through his body. Breathing proved to be just as fatal, as now he was coughing so hard he was no longer able to keep rubbing at his eyes.

He could not see, nor stand in this mess and called out again. "Grandmother!"

"Nyka!" Byrne called from somewhere.

"Byrne! Go away! I have to find Grandmother- aahh!" He screamed out as he felt the burning heat of fire eat at his arm.

He had not seen the fire for his eyes were still ashen and blinded, and he could not get the fire to leave him as he batted at his arm to dissipate the attack. His screams rang out through the building until he felt hard hands ripping the shirt from his body and slapping the rest of the fire from his skin.

"Nyka, you idiot!" A voice called to him, it resembled Byrnes, but it was fainter now.

He felt motion as he was picked up from the floor, but his body was going limp and his head was lulling back in an uncomfortable way. His blinded eyes opened a crack, and through the orange and grey haze, he swore he saw a hooded figure standing behind them.

And then the world went black.