{Night 13: The Rotters and Yunan}

"Woah!"

We'd just fed Yunan and gotten done with introductions when Zaria had burst in. Upon seeing Yunan, she'd skidded to a stop, eyes wide and jaw dropped.

"Careful, you'll catch a bug." Zahara remarked in amusement.

"What kinda freakazoid is this? His Rukh are insane!" Zaria half-yelled, pointing to Yunan with her leafy staff.

"Oh, are you a magician too?" Yunan asked with a polite smile.

"Life-type magic. She helped t' grow our tree." I nodded.

"Really? Neat!" Yunan said, sounding genuinely enthusiastic. Then he turned his attention to Kahil as Zaria began batting at the air around him. I guess she was playing with his Rukh. "Kahil, forgive me for asking, but you don't look like your family."

"Brat, if ya want the cat t' eat 'im, just say the word." I said, pointing. Yunan looked shocked.

Kahil shook his head, sitting up straight. With a surprising amount of pride, he declared, "I used to be a slave from the neighboring country, but I was thrown out and Malik found me. I'm his find, so I belong to him now, just like Uriel."

"Oh, I see... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dig into painful memories." Yunan apologized, dipping his head.

"We're still waitin' on Mal to make good his promise to find a dragon an' bring it home, huh?" Zaria teased, grinning wildly.

"If he brings any more living things home that he intends to adopt, it'll be on him to build more house to accommodate us all." my mom warned.

"Do you bring things home often, Malik?"

"All us Rots do. We live in a trash-heap, so finders-keepers." I replied, flopping over backwards. Looking at Zaria, I was reminded of something. "Hey, Zar, have you had your first fuck yet?"

"Nope! I came over to ask if you wanted to!"

"Sure. Kahil wants me nice and experienced for his sixteenth birthday."

My adopted brother shrieked, tackling me. We tumbled out the door, wrestling and grappling. I vaguely heard Yunan and my mom talking, and Zaria was hooting as Uriel bounded after us. The snow-sabre batted at us occasionally as we fought, hissing and spitting insults.

What stopped us was Master Alban.

We knocked him over, which made us freeze and stare.

Slowly, slowly, he levered himself up with his staff.

We tripped over each other as we ran back home, Uriel leaving us in the dust. I could practically feel the quack's breath on my bare back as he screamed at us. Letting out a very not-masculine-at-all squeal, I grabbed Kahil by the waist and put on an extra burst of speed.

Tearing into our house, I threw us behind Zahara, and Uriel buried his nose in the corner. Zaria was cackling like mad as Master Alban started chasing us around my mom.

"Wuaah, for such an unhappy place, you're all so happy!"

"Huh?"

We all paused at Yunan's statement.

"Aah!" he exclaimed, looking slightly worried. "I didn't mean to offend you! It's just that the country is so..."

"Trashy?" we all said at once. He ducked his head, pulling the brim of his hat down over his pinking cheeks.

"Well, we get by. It's not great, but we're livin'. Don't get Mal started on the state of our turf, though." Zaria admitted with a shrug.

"I'm sorry."

"'Spose it ain't yer fault. Yer just one guy, ya ain't the whole world shunnin' us." I grumbled, hunching my shoulders as I left the hut.

Left with nowhere else to really go, I turned and ran for the ocean. Now that I was older, my legs longer and stronger, I could reach it in half as much time as it once took.

Once there, I took off my pants and started swimming. I wasn't diving this time, just seeing how far out I could go.

Once I reached water that was almost recognizable as blue, I stopped and turned to see how far I'd gotten. That was actually pretty far.

As I treaded the water, debating whether or not to swim back, someone said, "You remind me of someone I know."

I instinctively splashed water in the direction of the voice— To my right and up a bit, just barely getting Yunan's boots wet. He chuckled a bit, perched daintily on his stick-thing as he floated, watching me.

"Is that good or bad, cuz I will fight you if I hafta." I warned, moving my arms lazily.

"I suppose it's good. He was from Partevia, a boy of about your age—"

"You wouldn't be referring to the dungeon-conquerer, wouldja?" I cut him off.

"Yes, as a matter of fact! Sinbad! He was very discontent with the state of his own country, and sought to gain the power to change it. He was run out of Partevia by the royal family, though... Sinbad's been making quite a name for himself lately." Yunan smiled, looking very pleased with himself for some reason. Then his face became very serious. "Malik, what would you do with the power of a king?"

"... Eh?"

OOOOooooOOOOooooOOOO

A/N: Whoo!

So I just put Malik, Kahil, Zaria, Hassan, Chaya, Master Alban and Zahara through a Mary Sue litmus test-thing. The most Mary Sue of them all is Zahara, Malik's mother, but since she and Master Alban go down in importance from here, almost to background-characters, I'm not too worried about it.

There's going to be a huge time-skip soon— I tried writing out several chapters for one section, but it took too long and honestly got nothing accomplished, so I just sent us through a time-skip instead, that puts us perhaps midway through the Magi series?

Anyway, thanks for reading! Please review!