Defiant as Hell by Hearns
This story takes place just after the episode: Serpents Egg
On the road to a little town called Defiance
Nariah was sitting in the backseat of her parent's roller. For the past hour she had been reading the old text book that her father had given her to read. Every couple of klicks either her mother or father would have her read a section aloud. So realizing that she would be in levels of deep shtako if she didn't start reading a paragraph aloud, Nariah quickly chose one and read aloud to her parents and very annoying brother Nolan.
"The seven species had no idea that when they started their journey over five thousand years ago that they would find a world that was already occupied. The Votan races soon found that their arrival changed everything for them. They now had to deal with the concept that their migration across the stars would bring about a considerable shift in their societies in some a major and minor ways of life." That was when Nariah looked up and looked at her mom. "Mom..." Nariah looked at the image at the top of the page of several Votan individuals all holding hands. One of them was an Irathient female... an Irathient like herself. "Do you remember what our home world was like?" Nariah looked out of the window of the roller at the landscape the moved before her.
"A little like Earth, and a... Little not like Earth..." Nariah's mother said turning to look back at her daughter. "I was just a child when we boarded the ships for here; I was just a little older than your brother. That was before the Pale Wars and the Arkfall took place." This was when concern started to set in. "Why do you ask?"
"Because... Mother..." Nariah held up the history book and showed the picture. "What happened to make our people come here?"
"Our Sun was dying and we were forced to leave the land of our birth." Nariah's mother said with sadness. "It wasn't something that our people took lightly, but in a way some of felt that Irzu was putting us on a path for something greater."
"I just wished those lessons wouldn't have been learned at the cost of so many lives and the amount of blood split over land that would soon become alien to all." Nariah's father said looking up at her in the mirror.
"What happened Father?" This is when Nolan spoke up.
There was a long sigh from their father before he continued. "The Arkfall and then after that the Battle of Defiance." There was a puff from their father as he chewed on his next words before speaking again. "That was before I went toe to toe with the Iron Demons of the EMC 9th." With that Nariah flipped through several pages of the book until she hit the section on the Battle of Defiance.
"Father you fought at this battle." Nariah turned the book around and held it up so that her father could see it in the review mirror.
"Yes I did... I served with several fellow Irathient rangers at that time. Couldn't stand the Castithans running the operations there. Not since the bad blood that took place when they landed on Irath and enslaved several thousand of our people centuries ago." With that her father got quiet. "Castithans still see us as a servant people or as savages, but some of them don't act as the Humans call: Douchbags." Her father's use of a human word took Nariah back some. "But that is a rarity." This was when Nariah's mother reached out and touched their father on the arm. "At the Battle of Defiance, you knew who the Douchbags were and who weren't and those who came out of that battle and chose to save lives were not the Douchbags, Irzu chose to send a message that day and those who heard it took action."
"My Love, what brings this up? You haven't spoken of the war in years or at least when you haven't met up with those you served beside." Nariah's mother spoke with concern.
"The sign on the road to the community we are heading to... It said Defiance."
"Oh..."
"That and Sukar, the leader of the Spirit Riders wanted to know what I knew of a man named Joshua Nolan." Nariah's father said looking over at his wife.
"What did you say to him?" Nariah's mother said sensing something deeper going on.
"There were many humans named Nolan I knew from the war. I just had to get to know the one he was speaking of Aren." With that her father reached out and patted her mom on the hand. "Don't worry. The main reason I am heading to this community is to pick up some supplies to repair my equipment for the lab."
"Hey... I am not arguing with a man who keeps poisonous serpents as pets." Their mother raised her hand up.
"Everything is Poisonous; it just depends on how it is used. Sometimes it can be used to hurt, in other cases the poison can be used to heal. But that is the molecular chemist in me speaking." Nariah's father said grinning.
"Looks like we are coming up on the Valley." Nariah's mother said looking at the window. "Okay everyone, make sure that your Hailers are working, and remember to meet back at the Roller encase we get lost." Nariah understood.
"If you don't Little Wolf will come and eat you." Nolan lunged at her and she screamed. Nariah had heard about Little Wolf off and on from the kids in the Irathian community. The story went that she was a Cannibal that liked the flesh of people. If you were not nice or did bad things, she would come and eat you. It was said that she had eaten Sukar's daughter Rynn after she had gone after some innocent human girl. The last thing Nariah wanted was to be turned into a meal by this flesh eating Irathian.
"Nolan... Behave yourself and stop acting like some Hellbug in search of a meal." Nariah and Nolan's mother turned around in the seat to scold her bother.
"I guess who is going to be stuck with your mother during this trip." Nariah's father said as he shook his head as they neared the checkpoint into the settlement.
Nariah was walking with her father. Somehow that little outburst that her brother Nolan had made had gotten him stuck being with their mother. As they made their way through the alleys of Defiance she started to notice something.
People were getting out of their way.
More like running for cover.
Even children were hiding behind their mothers.
Nariah knew her father served during the war, but people didn't get this scared of others unless... Nariah turned to look behind her. Was Little Wolf following them? With that she sprinted next to her dad and hung close.
"Hey there little one... what is wrong?" Nariah's father said concerned.
"They are acting like we are about to eat them, or is it something else? Like is Little Wolf following us!?" There was a deep sigh from her father.
"This takes place in some towns and settlements. . . Given what happened during the war and possible from what the Spirit Riders have been doing in the local area. They tend to be rough to the locals"
"So they are scared of us? But we are not Spirit Riders! And I don't stink like them." Nariah didn't want to be scary, that was when a ball rolled in-front of her and stopped at her feet. She reached down to pick it up and held it in her hands before seeing the child that had kicked it in her direction. It was a young white skinned Castithans girl with blue eyes. The girl looked scared. Like a deer in the field when the alert lights went on around her house. "Is this yours?" Nariah said in her best Casti. The only other phrase she knew in Casti was 'Where is the Bathroom?' Nariah wished she hadn't messed up and said the latter. That was when the girl took off running away. "Wait... don't you want your ball back." And Nariah went off running right before her father could reach down and grab her.
Irisa was on her daily patrol around Defiance. Despite how she felt about her father Nolan. . . Sukar was right. He was only Human, and doing thing that a human father understood what was needed for his daughter. That was part of their problem now. He still saw her as that scared girl that he and his fellow Earth military unit has rescued from that Votan cult, but now to some degree he was coming to terms that she was a young Irathian woman.
Shtako, she had lost her virginity to Tommy on the floor if the Lawkeeper's office in a moment of passionate intimate emotional connection.
Tommy. . . The very person who she had threatened to kill while was in the Lawkeeper's holding cell. Shtako. Irisa stopped cold. The same person that had saved her life from the Volge. The same man who made her feel safe in his Irzu colored arms after their copulation as she breathed in his sweaty scent. The person that was just as broken as her. . . That had saved her from herself when she had confronted the man that had turned her childhood to shtako and promptly given the Asshole a few well deserved kicks on her behalf.
The one she was in love with.
Irzu . . . You could have told me that the man whose arms I was in during those dreams would be the person I would come to love. Shtako from all of those visions you gave me when I had my first bleed, that scared me of being violated that way, wasn't a violation but the first time I would have sex.
Shtako. Irzu. . . If you are going to let me look up and down the stream of time, please give me some context to work with so that I don't feel as lost as I am at times.
Irisa kicked at the ground. She hated having visions that provided no context for what they meant. It was with what had happened with Rynn. Irisa sensed that the two years of Rynn's sentence would past fast, but in the time of the trip to Las Vegas, Irisa hadn't seen that.
At least Rynn would find happiness ahead in her life with her new traveling companion and put those damn Hellbugs under some control that were popping up all over the place on the West Coast.
That was when Irisa heard a scream.
Not any scream.
A child's scream!
Shtako! Irisa swore that if anything happened to a child, that she would be there to stop it the same way that Nolan had stopped it for her.
No one, absolutely no one should take away the innocence of a child away as it had happened to her or Tommy.
With that single thought on her mind, Irisa took off running in the direction of the scream.
Nariah didn't like how this was looking. She wasn't expecting to run into this many large and scary kids. She gulped hard as she dropped the ball.
"What do we have here... a little I-rath." One of the boys said as he moved towards her.
"Watch out they tend to bite." Said a young Casti boy getting in front of Nariah's and cutting off her path of escape from the ever growing gang of hostile children.
"Why did your people try to take away my father's honor?" A Casti girl said moving in.
"What?" Nariah said in her best Human as she started to move backwards as she was slowly realized that she was being backed into a corner.
"My father had to endure the trials to give back the honor to the entire Canton here in Defiance." The girl said angrily.
"I am not this person..." Nariah yelled out to the kids.
"Parse... Man I don't want to be around when this girl's folks come looking for her."
"Maybe we should show this girl a lesson." the boy named Parse said pulling out a small knife. Nariah screamed. The next thing she felt was a pair of hands grabbing onto her clothes and hair and shoving her back into a wall.
"All I wanted was to give back your ball." Nariah screamed out as she felt the blade be put against her hair and the boy started to cut at one of her braids. That was when a loud ka-thunk sound could be heard hitting the wall above her head.
"Leave the girl alone." The children looked at the knife and with fear before all slowly turning around to see a woman standing at the end of the small alleyway. A pissed Iraithain woman with short cut red hair and a stare that would make a Hellbug dump a huge load of shtako the size of a house and run away in fear to find the deepest hole it could find.
The Casti Children looked at each other and slowly backed away from Nariah as Iraithain woman slowly approached. "You children run home to your families." Then taking the knife out of the wall above Nariah's head the Iraithain woman pointed it at the Nariah. "You little one, come with me." The words were said in full Irath...
Nariah didn't want to argue there as she sprinted behind the woman and didn't look back at the children who had tried to hurt her.
"Thank you..." Nariah said keeping pace with the woman who had sheathed the blade into the knife harness on her back.
"Where are your parents little one?" The woman said scanning the area for danger. Her body language spoke of danger and of power.
"I was with my father in the market, but we became separated when i tried to give that girl back her ball." Nariah said until she patted on her shirt and felt that her hailer was missing. "Oh no.. My hailer... it's missing, without it I can't call my Mom or Dad." The woman knelt down to her eye level.
"Do you know the frequency that your parents use?" The Iriathian woman said as Nariah got a good look at her and saw the badge on her left shoulder. A Lawkeeper...
"Yes... You are a Lawkeeper?" Nariah looked at this figure in a new light. This was a person of status in this community. "How did you become a Lawkeeper?"
"Nolan..." The name was said... If that was an answer in itself.
"That is my Brother's name..."
"It is?" With that the Irathian Lawkeeper said looking around. "How did he become to be named Nolan?"
"He as named after a friend my Father served with during the War. At the battle of Defiance." This caught the Lawkeeper's attention.
"Joshua Nolan?" The question caught Nariah's attention.
"Yes... You know of him?" Nariah jumped seeing a connection between this woman and her father.
"He is the reason that I wear the badge." With that Nariah reached out and took the Iriathian's hand and saw the cloth sweatbands around her wrists and a bit of scar peeking through.
"My dad worked as a medic he said that Nolan took in a girl who had scars on her wrists and that she was treated for some poisoning that took place and that he gave her a bowl of soup."
"What is your father's name little one?" This had the Irath woman's attention.
"Conte Troyens." That was when the woman reached over and got on her hailer and made a call to someone.
"Nolan... This is Irisa... Listen.. Do you know an Irath from the battle of Defiance named Conte Troyens." It took a moment for a voice to respond.
"Yeah... I do. What is up Irisa?" The voice said catching the woman's attention.
"Nolan... I think that your friend is in town and I might be with his daughter." Irisa looked at Nariah. "What was the last place that your saw your father?"
"I think it was around the market area, near one of the place that Vo and Po tech stuff is sold."
"Did you get that Nolan?" Irisa said over the Hailer.
"I did Irisa... What is the girl's name?" The voice said back.
"Nariah... Nariah Troyens." Nariah called out her name to the Hailer.
"Okay... Irisa, head back to the Lawkeepers office and I will meet you back there. I think I know where to find Nariah's father." With that Irisa looked at Nariah and studied her before she spoke again.
"Your father... does he have a scar on his right arm from the back of his middle finger to his lowest arm marking?"
"You mean the scar he got from a girl who got bit by a snake... yeah... he tells the story all the time. Why do you ask?"
"Because when I was your age after Nolan saved me. I got scared when your father tried to treat me and I gave him the scar as a result." Nariah's eyes went wide. "It wasn't one of my finer moments but Nolan kept me calm enough that he was able to get the poison out of my system. Now Nariah come with me and tell me some of what your father has been up to and I will tell you about Some of Nolan's life as an Arkhunter before he became a Lawkeeper."
"Wow... You will do that!" Nariah said as she followed Irisa the Lawkeeper to her place of work.
"I will." Irisa said sensing some kinship with the girl.
Let me know what you think of the story so far.
Please post a review.
I am planning on making this a longer story so hopefully next chapter you all will get some back story on how Nolan and Conte met during the war.
Hearns