"Elspeth, where are we? Are we almost to the city?"
The young woman sighed in annoyance." Janek, you have asked me that twenty times already. If you ask once more, I shall be very mad at you."
Elspeth knew that her brother couldn't help it. They had been walking for days and had still not reached Paris, which had been discouraging for the both of them. They needed to go somewhere that nobody would notice them, and Paris was so big... She stopped walking for a second. "Janek, look over there is a stream. Why don't we stop for a while and get a drink?"
He smiled, only too happy for an excuse to stop. "Okay sister."
Janek ran in front of his sister and leaped into the shallow water with a resounding "splash!"
She planned on yelling at Janek, but stopped herself. It wasn't his fault he was... different. Elspeth looked down at the rippling at her own reflection: Same dark, fluffy brown hair as her mama and Janek. Same prominent nose as her papa. Nobody in her family knew where she got the eyes, though. Mama, Papa, and Janek all had dark green eyes, whereas hers were mud brown. When she and Janek lived back in Spain, the other girls used to call her "ugly Elspy." That made her very upset. But looking at her dirty, emaciated reflection in the water made her realize how far away that all seemed. Looking at her reflection, she saw the one error that truly counted, the one, glaring error that made her and her brother outcasts, orphans forced to hide like cockroaches in daylight; the tiny, golden star of David hanging around her neck. Elspeth and Janek were both Jewish. Them, their mama, and their papa had refused to convert to Catholicism, resulting in them being forced out of Spain and their parents being hanged in front of all of Barcelona. What a horrible day that was... The cool slap of water on her face jarred Elspeth out of her thoughts. "Look, sis! Out in that clearing, I kin see it!"
"Janek, what are you.. Wow! You're right! C'mon, let's see how fast we can get there!"
As Janek had pointed out, about a few miles over the horizon lay Paris. A new start was almost there, just past the next few hills...
A/N: there will be main chars in the next chappy, I promise! I just needed you to get to know
Janek and Elspeth first.
