Prompt – fallen leaves

One minute they weren't there and the next they were. A couple walking down the street, looking slightly ill at ease or even a little lost. They were dressed in the local fashion, although the clothes looked almost new. Their open curiosity for their surroundings should have made them an open target for questions. However, that was yesterday, last week, last month. With so much that had happened in town recently, their appearance garnered a few curious looks, but just a few. The town was too enrobed its own misery to pay much mind to anything else

What is wrong? Steel didn't talk. It seemed… safer to merely think the questions. People walked past them, their faces sallow and grief stricken. What has brought us to this town, Sapphire?

A great loss.

Of what?

Something you see every day, Steel, and now take for granted.

I don't know what you mean. What is it?

It crawled into bed with you this morning and called you her sweet prince.

Astra? Steel's expression slipped from his usual scowl to openly confused. Sapphire resisted laughing out of respect for the townspeople.

Children, Steel.

He looked around. The streets seemed oddly empty. I don't see any.

Exactly. That is why we have been sent here. She reached over and squeezed his forearm, then left his side to approach a woman. She was rocking back and forth, a doll clutched in her arms. Sapphire knelt before her. In the local dialect, she asked, "Where is your baby, little mother?"

"Gone, all gone."

"Where?"

"We don't know. If we did, we would fetch them back, wouldn't we?" Her voice rose on the last few words. A man appeared and settled an angry glare upon Sapphire. He gathered the woman into his arms and led her away, back into a small cottage, and firmly shut the door. The message was obvious.

Around them, the townspeople seemed to be awakening from their stupor and noticing the strangers for the first time. They withdrew quietly and quickly until it was only the pair of Elements on the street. "That went well," Steel muttered. "What did They tell you?"

Sapphire walked towards a small gazebo in the center of a smaller park and climbed up the two stairs. She brushed the seat free of fallen leaves and sat. "They said that a time fold had occurred and that the children of this village had been affected."

"What is our task? Retrieval? They are going to have to do better than that."

"Location and determination."

"Determination of what? Cause? Intent? They are being rather sparse with details these days."

"I don't think it's a necessary move on Their part. I don't think They know anymore. They are-"

An unfamiliar voice interrupted her. "Twisted and evil, that's what it was."

Steel looked around, finally locating the speaker huddled in the corner of gazebo. With the shadows just right, it had been easy to overlook him.

"Who are you? Come out from the shadows."

"No one. Nobody. Just me." The figure jerked forward and instantly Steel was in front of Sapphire. As he came into the light, his movements made more sense. The young man moved awkwardly on his wooden crutches. His body was twisted and misshaped. "Not me, I'm not them. I'm not."

Sapphire smiled and pushed around Steel. She offered a slender hand to the man. "Hello. I'm Sapphire and this is my companion, Steel. Who are you?"

"Nobody." He took the hand for a brief moment and he retreated back into himself.

"All right, Mr. Nobody, you said twisted and evil. You mean the person who took the children?"

"They weren't children." Nobody spit over his shoulder. "They weren't. No one would listen. No one paid attention to Nobody. Nope. Well, good, I say."

"We will listen to you," Steel said. "If they weren't children, what were they?"

"Bad things." Nobody stopped and glanced around. "It all happened one night, you see. All of them - one night. They don't remember, but I do." A sharp gust of wind blew and Nobody let out a scream.

"What happened?"

"No!" He shied from Sapphire's hand. "No!" He hobbled away and the wind seemed to follow him, sharp and punishing, knocking him down again and again.

"Well, that was a most useful exchange of information." Steel watched the young man disappear into the bushes that surrounded the small park.

"There is something very wrong here, Steel." She looked at him sharply. He wasn't human.

What?

He might have looked the part, but he is no more human than you or I.

What was he babbling about?

I think he believed the children were evil.

Children?

Steel, did you ever hear of Midwich?

I remember something vague about it. There was some mass hysteria there… something about affected children as part of a military experiment gone wrong. One of the townspeople killed all of the children, I believe.

There were other villages as affected.

This one?

Her eyes glowed for a moment, then she slowly shook her head "It was never recorded as such." She smiled sadly and Steel touched her cheek.

"What is it?"

"It was recorded that when the children were in communication with each other, their eyes glowed."

"And?"

"Nothing." Sapphire took a sharp breath. "It's just… Steel, do you remember your parents?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

Sapphire's gaze lowered to her hands as she searched her memory. "I do… but they seemed… altered after a time."

"What do you mean?"

She frowned and then shook her head. "It's almost as if they… I don't know. The people I remember as my parents were not the same as the ones who raised me. They looked and acted the same, but they were…."

"… Different." Steel finished. "I thought I was the only one or that it had to do somehow with my training or my physicality. It was also as if my real parents were replaced by strangers who looked just like them, but were better equipped to handle an Elemental child."

"What does it mean, Steel?"

A prickling shot down his spine and his mind grew cold as he stood. "It means we are done here. Right now."

"What?" Sapphire followed him as he walked from the gazebo and into the dusk, his feet kicking at the fallen leaves.

He stopped so fast she near ran into him. "Sapphire, did you once stop to wonder why we would be sent on such a mission?"

"No. It was our assignment. We were to observe the situation and analyze it."

He bent and scooped up a handful of dirt and dumped it into her hand. "Well, analyze that."

She was caught short by his order, but she did just that. "The following is what is considered a good productive soil. In every nine parts, eight consisted of siliceous sand; the remaining part was composed, in hundred parts, as follows: Carbonate of lime sixty-three grains. Pure silex fifteen grains. Pure alumina, or the earth of clay eleven grains. Oxide of iron three grains. Vegetable and other saline matter five grains. Moisture and loss…" Then she trailed off and her eyes widened. "Steel!"

"It is as I expected." He didn't need to hear any more. "We aren't the only ones building up an army." He murmured softly. "That what They wanted us to verify. This is the Transuranics' breeding ground. Just as They use human hosts to carry and deliver us, The Transuranics are doing the same.

"What?"

"Think Sapphire. Have you even seen a pregnant Element?"

"Besides me?"

"Yes, besides you?" Steel was getting agitated now, his movements anxious and jerky. He kept glancing around as if afraid of being spotted or, worse, recognized. "Why do you think there has been such interest in Astra? She is the first to be born to Elemental parents."

"Humans act as our hosts?"

"Our growth is accelerated and just before our true nature can be revealed, we are removed to our own kind. Just like the children of Midwich. Except they weren't of us. They were Transuranics. We need to leave now before they discover…" The roar of the wind suddenly drowned out his words. "They know we are here." He grabbed Sapphire and they were gone.

Deprived of its target, the wind raged and screamed and, in its path, fallen leaves danced like young children, now forever lost to a world of conquest and war.