44 Nyka Larkin

_Nyka Larkin_

    Nyka was hungry. Terribly hungry. The boy sat down on a log and reached into his bag, pulling out what was left of his food. Or, he was going to but there was nothing for him to pull out. He was completely out even though he had been trying his best not to eat too much too fast. The boy sighed and set his bag aside, lifting his head to look up into the sky. How many days had he been walking? It had likely been a day or longer. The boy cursed himself for not thinking to keep track. In fact, he had not thought any of this through. The least he could have done was look at their map before he left so he got some Idea of where it was he wanted to go.

    In the end, he supposed it didn't matter as the boy had nowhere he desired to go. If he did happen to die out here he didn't think he would mind so much. However, starving to death was not something he wanted to do. That kind of death involved too much suffering, and with his stomach paining him as it did now he knew for certain he did not want to go out that way. He would need to find something to eat and soon. But what? He did not trust the occasional berries he came across out here. He could likely manage to catch game with his powers but he could not eat it raw. Like hell was he starting a fire of any sort. Nyka had sworn off fire. It made him too uncomfortable, especially being out here alone.

    It seemed the boy was going farther north still by the looks of the way the sun rose and set. He wondered yet if he had crossed between Faun Gaia and the capital Denheim yet. He had crossed what seemed to him like three different roads but he had been quick and careful about it and had never crossed paths with another person.

    People... Nyka missed talking to others. He missed Ingrid and Byrne... he missed Kori. He soon looked down at the ground and put his palms to his face. He missed his grandmother. The way of life at the inn that he had so easily taken for granted. Hot tears threatened to spill past his eyes so he shut them tightly and clenched his jaw. He would not cry. Not again. Nyka was done crying, he was done being a child. He wanted to be grown, to know things and make more accurate decisions. He wanted to know what to do, to know where to go, to know who he could trust. But most of all it seemed, he just wanted peace. Sure he got a few years of peace but everything had fallen apart. He wanted his grandmother back, his father back... he wanted to meet his mother. Perhaps she would still be alive today if these people had not been after him just because he had his own abilities.

    His breath shook as he breathed in deeply, his throat aching from forcing himself not to cry. Soon it was unbearable and he let out a sob, tears wetting his hands. Ingrid and Byrne cared about him and he had so easily left them behind. It was not as though he did not appreciate their help and their care, but they did not deserve this life. They did not deserve to be hunted along with him for the rest of their lives only to end up with fates similar to his own family.

    It was better this way? Wasn't it? His stomach growled in protest to that thought but he paid it no mind. Perhaps he could eat bugs? He did not need a fire for those did he? However, the thought made him cringe. Nyka did not want to eat bugs. Hell, he did not want to be out here in the woods all by himself. The thought of bears and wolves scared him even though he could likely deal with them. What if something snuck up on him? He supposed if it was that easy to be taken out then there was not much he could do about it. After all, he would not mind dying out here. It was not as if he had anything better to do. The boy stood grimly, looking up at the sky through the trees. The sun would likely go down soon so it was best to find some sort of place to rest.

    Nyka walked for hours and hours until the sun was going down and his blistered feet screamed at him. It did not seem like he would be finding any shelter soon so he settled down where he was, setting his bag down next to him and pulling out a blanket. He sat up against the tree and covered himself with the blanket, allowing himself to sit and think some more until he found himself slowly drifting off into a slumber.

______

    "Nyka? Nyka... wake up, dear." A woman's voice cooed to him, waking him from a dead sleep.

    His grey eyes fluttered open as he surveyed the area. The forest he had fallen asleep in. Soon they came to land on the black-haired woman before him. Her dark slanted eyes stared back at him as she smiled. "You should not sleep so heavily out here, it's not too safe you know," She warned him.

    "W- who are you?" He asked her now, scrambling up so he stood.

    "No one in particular," She said with a shrug.

    His eyes narrowed. "You knew my name," He said suspiciously.

    Her brows perked up. "I suppose I do then, don't I? I guess that would make me somebody then, wouldn't it?"

    "Who?" He asked again, flexing his hands down at his side. He did not know what to do to defend himself if it came to it but he figured he would have to manage as he had with the man who had been trying to kill Byrne, Ingrid, and him.

    "Huh, beats me," She said with a shrug.

    "You're foreign. You don't look Southern or what I've heard of westerners... and you look a little like me. You're eastern aren't you?"

    A soft smile graced her features. "Indeed."

    "Why are you here in the Midland? From what my grandmother told me, they don't like letting anyone in or out." He said, looking her up and down. She was wearing a heavy coat and boots as though it was cold out.

    "Can't quite remember that either,"

    "What do you remember then?"

    She hummed to herself now, her eyes looking up as she thought silently for a long moment. "A couple of things," She said after a moment.

    "Like what?" He pressed.

    "Like that, you are Nyka Larkin, and you're oh so very special." She said with a chuckle.

    Nyka lifted his hand up, his palm to her. He did not know what he was going to do but he felt this was as good a threat as any, especially seeing as soon as he did the woman jumped back and put her hands in the air. "You're with those robed people then?" He asked her sternly.

    Wide-eyed, she shook her head. "I mean you no harm, please let us not get violent,"

    "Then get to talking," He told her now.

    "About what?"

    "What it is that you know!" The boy was becoming exasperated by how little this woman would answer questions. When she did, she was very confusing.

    "I don't know much, I'm afraid."

    "So you've said. Tell me what it is that you DO know," He said with growing irritation.

    "The first of seven," She hummed out. "Nyka Larkin, the first, the strongest, the most dangerous- ahh well you would tie with another of the seven on that count," She reasoned aloud.

    "Are you mad? What is it that you are rambling on about. I don't know anything about this Seven you keep talking about," He hissed at her.

    "No, I don't suppose you would, but she would,"

    He got more confused as this woman continued talking. "She? Explain this to me, I do not understand any of it."

    The woman gave him another of her smiles. "Drop your hand and I will tell you. I cannot think so well when you so openly threaten me," She said, pouting to him. Nyka slowly lowered his hand, still suspicious of this woman. She seemed of a mature age but acted so... unlike any adult, he had ever met. Even Byrne was more mature than she seemed.

    "Why thank you," She said with a nod. "There are seven special individuals. You are the first. There is no particular specialness regarding the order, you are merely the first. The third is who knows what it is the seven is special for. Find her."

    Nyka narrowed his eyes. "I do not care about any of this. I have more to worry about than being special for another stupid reason."

    The eastern woman tilted her head to the side, her long black locks swaying in the breeze. "Oh, but you will wish you had when the time comes."

    "What time?"

    "It is not for me to say. Seek the third. She seeks the second and the second seeks you."

    "First, second, third, what in the god's names are you even talking about? Are we counting now? You confuse me too much!"

    "I am not as confusing as you are unwilling to take in any more knowledge than you already presently have!" She yelled back at the boy.

    "Forgive me if I do not trust the words of a stranger who cannot even give me their name! Nor explain how they know me!" He was fully yelling now, agitated.

    "Calm yourself," She said as she tried to regain her own composure.

    "Leave me before you are hurt,"

    She gave him a bemused look. "You could not hurt me if you wanted,"

    "Then what was with the reaction when I raised my hand earlier?" He asked her now.

    "I don't know, you should ask yourself that," She told him now, any friendliness fading from her expressions.

    "What do you mean?"

    "I have the information, but you yourself created this scenario,"

    "I don't understand..." He said, taking a few steps back from her, but there was no crunch of leaves under his feet. He whipped around to survey the area but as soon as he did it was all dark. Turning back to the woman proved to be the same as all previous forestry scenery was now gone. "It is all in my head," He mumbled out now.

    "Aye," The woman said with a slight nod. Now they were the only two things left here, the rest was barren and dark.

    "Who are you really?" He asked her, his eyes narrowing yet again.

    "Who's to say, really..." The woman said now, her voice warping and the skin on her face moving around, warping slowly into other faces. Her hair changed colour and lengths multiple times as her thick coat turned to ashes and drifted away from her so that she was naked, though the natural private areas of a human body were missing. She had no reproductive organs to speak of. "You merely made me up to who you wished to see," She said simply, her voice fluctuating from a man's to a woman's along with her body build.

    "I do not know anyone who looks like that," he said now.

    "Your mother."

    "But I have never met her."

    "You saw her once, as an infant and that was all your consciousness needed to fabricate her once more,"

    "That is just wrong," Nyka said now, glaring at her. "I would not do that knowingly,"

    "Right, and thus you did it unknowingly."

    "So what is this? What is this information and why are you delivering it to me? That is what you are, isn't It?" He decided to ask now.

    "I couldn't tell you. I am unable to think as you are. In fact, I am going now," She said as she started to fade away.

    "Wait, but I am confused now, why come to me with this information," He said as he rushed up in order to take her wrist into his hands, desperate to obtain answers.

    "You wanted a purpose, you didn't know what to do," She said with a smile as she too turned to ash and blew out of sight.

    As soon as she was gone his world was completely black. He expected to wake up but to no avail; only was he now left in the dark alone. This was just some sort of odd dream, right? So why could he not yet wake up?

    "Hello?" He called out into the echoing dark. He felt the creeping sensation that he was not alone. But it felt different than when that woman had been here. The hair on his arms stood on end as he kept himself as aware as he could. A chuckle in the dark had him flinching and spinning around as if he might be able to see who had done it.

    "Yes," A deep and dark voice echoed all around as if coming from both many places at once and at the same time from nowhere at all. "Yes you will do quite well, a perfect catalyst," the voice said with an ominous glee.

    "Catalyst? For what?" The only response was booming laughter, so loud it sent him to his knees, covering his ears. The disembodied voice laughed and laughed, making Nyka grit his teeth at how loud it was. He felt as though his ears might start to bleed. "Go away!" Nyka yelled at him. But the voice did not stop. "GO AWAY!" Nyka shouted louder than before, the sound of it amplifying all around him as his eyes shot open to reveal the tree's shaking and the birds fleeing the scene. He heard cracking and jumped up to look behind him as the tree he had been leaning against fell to the ground, snapped at the point Nyka had been leaning against.

    It was a loud and frightening thump that had him putting his hands on his head and looking around. Was he still dreaming? It did not feel like it. He swallowed and started stuffing his blanket into his bag. He needed to keep moving. "I'll make my own damn purpose," He muttered to himself. "Fates be damned. Seven be damned."