Nakietra

I turn my head down as we arrive. I hear Nero run away down a nearby ally. No one is ever on the streets at this time. The sun is close to being completely down and there are still women at the fountain clean clothes.

I swallow hard. This is the town's center. All the buildings around here belong to shops and there's also one that belongs to my uncle. Everything in this town was built in circles around the fountain. I always loved it.

I see old men get up from their places under the few shady trees between buildings. They must be down in the fields today. Others are gathering too I notice. They're all keeping their distance from us. I take a deep breath and dig my fingers into my hand. They're scared, but so are me. My people have always been unpredictable when they're scared. It all depends on what my uncle has told them seeing as how he's the "leader" of our people.

I look up more so to see beyond the fountain. My heart stops. There are bodies; four of them hug by the neck from a wooden stage. That wasn't there when I left. All their faces are covered but I can see one is a child, another a woman and the other two are men. None of them are Toya or Ira. The child could have been one of my cousins for all I knew.

"You come from another world we see, but why? Why here?" My uncle says. The crowd parts and lets him through to face us directly. My uncle Vece, my father's older and only brother. He's harsh but he's always right to the extent of what he knows. His face is as shallow as I remember as a child, but his body is much thinner. I remember him being a huge, great man like my father. He still looks strong but everything has taken its toll on him. He was a bit taller than Kurogane ad he still made me clench in fear. He never liked me at all even before I killed his daughter.

"We have come to save you," I say loudly, pitching my voice a few octaves higher. He stares down and examines me. I kept my face trained on the ground but I know he would never stoop to my level.

"Tell us, who are you then?" He asks me.

"I am called Mariah. I come from our home Devine with willing help," I respond. There are gasps and stares then.

"Do you have proof?" He asks. My insides turn cold, what could be used as proof?

"I do not understand how to convince you. I have nothing more than any of you do," I say and gesture to the people around me. To the right I see my four cousins, all boys. They're all alive, but I should have known my uncle would die before he let another of his children die.

The oldest two are a few years younger than me and are twins. I remember playing with them when they were younger. The younger two are barely old enough to be in the fields and their mother has her arms clasped around them. She's staring at me with suspicion. I killed her only daughter; she should be suspicious of me. Vece nodded his head and looked me over once more.

"I will accept you for now then. Who are these others? None are of our race," He says suspiciously while others whisper around him.

"They are our allies from all over. We have come to make sure this world doesn't burn out, to show you that in your time of need you are not forgotten," I say. He examined every one of us now. I can't screw up now.

"You ally with white men I see," He states and stares at me. I open my mouth to explain.

"Soldiers!" People scream from closer to the palace, "The King! He's coming!" More yell. The circle breaks as people push and shove to get into their homes. Vece looks around and grabs me roughly.

"We will hide you," He says and drags me to his family. My free hand takes Sakura's and holds her so she doesn't get lost with the crowd. His wife, Karis, has already ushered the boys inside. She looks at her husband. "Ka, have to hide them," He tells her and pushed me forward. I stumble into the house with Sakura and the others right behind me. She pulls us inside and carefully shuts the door after Fai.

"What's going on?" Syaoran whispers to me.

"Benji is coming," I whisper after Karis darts up the slanted stairs. Their house was defiantly the biggest of all the ones in this poor district, but it's still cramped. Cushions litter the small room to the left. It was a sitting area with a chipped piece of wood put in the middle to act as a table. To the right is a kitchen that could fit maybe three people at the most at a time and had all sorts of herbs, pans, and utensils hanging from the ceiling. Up the stairs were four bedrooms I remember: one for my uncle and aunt, another for the boys, one for my grandmother, and another for any of the grieving or hiding. Toya used that room once.

"Let's fight then," Kurogane suggests and puts a hand on his sword. I grab his hand and stop him.

"We can't. There's too many people that could hurt or in the way. We have to get him while he's in the palace, where it's deserted," I hush. He relaxes. I turn forward as Karis comes back.

"Come," She commands and runs back up the stairs. I race after her to the guest room. It was bare of furniture with one curtained window that would let us look out into the courtyard and cracked walls and ceiling. She stayed in the hall and waited for us to file in. "Keep the window curtained, be quiet, and stay in here," She says and closes the door. I hear her rush down the stairs out the door. Everyone takes a silent seat on the ground. I kneel by the window and looked carefully out as it quiet downs outside.

"What are you doing?" Syaoran hushes nervously over my shoulder. I look to him and realize he's just as scared of the prince as I am. I look back out. I can't answer him.

My stomach turns sour as I see Benji. He's wearing his father's robe, the kingly robe. He turns and faces my uncle. Underneath the robe I see his tough armor. The hammer weighs nothing to him is seems and he smiles like he's in the happiest place he can be. Only the men are left outside and only the ones by my uncle look brave. I wish I was brave.

"What's going on out there?" Kurogane whispers.

"He's surveying his kingdom," I whisper back. I'm only watching him and I feel scared.

He bends over Vece and says something. Benji is even taller than my uncle now. Vece responds back just as quietly. Benji cocks his head to the side and raises his hammer. I see fear in Karis's eyes from where she is by the fountain, but the hammer doesn't come down. He just turns and walks away with the hammer across his shoulders like an axe.

I follow him down the streets. He points out four people. White guards dash out and grab them, dragging them down the streets to the palace. No one tries to help them. I'm sickened by them. I sit against the wall next to the window and draw up my knees. Is this what my people have come to? I'm ashamed of them, but mostly I'm ashamed of my uncle who's selling out our people to save his own family.

I clench my teeth. I remember times where my people killed guards who tried to take away innocent people. We helped each other out. It didn't matter if they were blood family or even friends. We never let the white men take out people away. Now our people are selling out their own. There are no tears from the women whose husbands were taken away. There were no men fighting to save their family. I feel disgusted to be a part of these people.

"What did you see?" Fai asks close by. I look up to him. I unclench my teeth enough to talk.

"He took people away and no one fought back. Husbands and wives even pushed their spouses toward him when they were picked. It's…it's disgusting," I whisper, "Everyone used to family here, but now everyone seems to think everyone an enemy." There are sounds of people coming upstairs. I turn my head down and we are silent. The door opens and I can see Karis and Vece entered. Behind them stumbles my grandmamma, led by the oldest son, Bent. He settles her on the ground inside the room and leaves, closing the door behind him. My uncle and aunt take seats on either side of her and examine us. This is adult talk I can tell. I stare at my grandmamma.

She looks even worse than before. Her skin is covered in millions of wrinkles still and her eyes are staring at the ground. She must be completely blind now. Her fingers don't move at all and are slightly curled. Her hands don't work that well either anymore. Her clothes are worn and thin, ready to be recycled as soon as she was dead. She looks up at me then. She can't see physically but she could always see spiritually I remember. Her hearing is amazing also. She always hears things that she shouldn't be able to hear at her age.

"Tell us your names, and we will say ours," Vece says. I don't look to him.

"I am Mariah," I start and the rest follow. Vece slowly nods his head at each of us. People did that a lot in my family.

"I am Vece, the leader here. This is my wife Karis, and my mother Dera," He introduced then. It was common here for men to introduce "their" women.

"Tell us how this happened," I say even though I know exactly how it did. He stares right at me and I stare back.

"One day, our only prince came out of the palace with the white guards. He told us some nonsense about my nephew and niece killing our king. I already had nothing to do with them so I was able to spare my family some pain," He starts.

"Why didn't you believe him?" Syaoran asks before he can continue. Vece looks to him now. I look at the ground.

"My nephew was a respected soldier and truly one of us. He bought the poor clothes and food for the hungry with whatever money he had after caring for his sister. The king treated him well just as he did. Our King took only what was necessary for himself and the white families he supported in the next town over. He gave my nephew whatever he wanted and he always asked for things for our people. After my brother passed away, my nephew's father, our King became like a second father to the boy I believe. He wouldn't have killed him, and his sister wouldn't have been able to help. She was sickly. She could barely function as it was," He tells. I see my aunt's face scrunch up in hate for a moment at the mention of first met while my grandmamma's face turns to the ceiling. She's praying for the dead. I dug my fingers into my hand. I was never that sick, Hiro and Toya just liked to do everything themselves when I was around. Also, my aunt has to recheck her values in life. No matter what, we were not to hate the dead no matter what they did when they were alive.

"What did your prince say?" Kurogane asks smoothly. Vece took his mother's hand to stop her praying. She could barely hold his.

"It doesn't matter. We know what happened. Everyone in the palace was killed by the prince and hung over the walls as an example. He told us recently, but we already knew," He starts and pauses, "He hung Hiro's corpse from that ugly beam he made us built. We couldn't recognize him. Hiro was my nephew." His voice softened near the end. Tears well up in my eyes. The lightning had gone straight through his heart and left the rest of the body intact. Benjamin had gone back afterwards and then…My fingers dig in more, now for at my anger at Him. My peoples' corpses were hung out for display, while my brother was called a murderer. Even if no one believed it, it was insult to my family.

"Why didn't you rise up against him?" Fai asks.

"With what?" Vece almost laughs, "We don't have armor or weapons of any kind. He kills four people every time he comes to us and hangs them out just like he did Hiro. He calls them his playthings," He says disgusted. Without a means to do so, they can't even think of trying. They were waiting for a savior I realize. They didn't even know I was coming in the first place though.

"What about your niece?" Kurogane asks. I glance toward him. He looks curious and strong, but he avoids my eyes. It feels weird to hear myself being talked about as if I wasn't there. It must be weirder for him to talk about me but also must pretend not to know me.

"He won't give us her body. We know she's dead, and yet he won't let us burn her," Vece says, not showing any distress or anger towards the face. My aunt is unaffected and looks like she wants to get away from the topic of me. My grandmamma stares at me though. Her lips twitch into a smile and then it's gone. She's knows it's me that's here.

"What happened after that?" I ask.

"The prince made himself king. He took everything he wanted away from us just to see us suffer. Food is scarcer than ever and more and more of us disappear into the castle every day. I suspect he's taking more than what I've seen. No one can run away because his guards keep track," My uncle says. I believed every word.

"We have to stop him tonight then," I say. My uncle shakes his head and looks at me suspiciously.

"Do you know what day is today?" He asks.

"I don't know what any day is. We have traveled greatly to get here, and the days have become blurred as well as changed as we've moved from world to world," I say. It's true though.

"Tonight is first of The Dead Days," He states. My eyes widen and a lump forms in my throat. I can't handle being home during this…it's too much.

"What are The Dead Days?" Kurogane asks me.

"It's a celebration for our ancestors. The first day is one of celebration and happiness as the spirits join us. There is usually dancing, food, and music away from the shrines. The second day is of memory, where everyone gathers around the shrines and remembers their ancestors with songs and stories. The third is a day of reflection on how we might live our lives fuller. Many people will sit alone outside or in a separate room in their homes in order to think. The day ends with a simple meal that everyone contributes to," I explain quickly.

"Very good. We have a dance hall that the other families are preparing now. It's a shed we use during harvest in the east. My wife is supposed to be helping prepare the food now with the other women. I must help gather firewood as well with my sons," He says and rises. He helps his wife up and then his mother.

"We would be happy to help you with anything else," I say. He turns to me and looks us over once more.

"The men can come with me and the women will go with my wife then," He says plainly before leading my grandmother out.

Nakietra

Everything about this party is so painstakingly familiar. Nothing ever changes around here when it comes to The Dead Days. It's a time of tradition. Old recipe dishes are scattered around the room on tables with wooden plates around them. I know these dishes and I know my grandmamma knew these dishes and made them when she was a child just like me.

I press my back more so against my dark section of wall. It's breaking my heart to be here. The shed is filled with people. Everyone is dancing to old tunes played on guitars, flutes, horns, drums, and other string instruments that don't have names anymore. I know that there are other parties going on in the other sheds both over here and farther out in the field, but this is where my family always went.

Nero's thoughts were happy and wild now. His people celebrated The Dead Days as well, but with hunting and stories though every night. They had spars between the wolves and tournaments among the young. I smile sadly to myself. I'm glad he's happy to be home with his pack.

I have missed my home too…I sacrificed everything to save it, my freedom even, and for what? Everyone acts like an enemy to each other when the prince comes by, everyone thinks I'm dead but still they disrespect my name, and even if come out of all this alive….I'm just Marina's slave in the end.

I close my eyes. Objects of the dead (sketches, photographs, colored drawings, name plates in metal) cover the front and back walls with shelled candles surrounding them so all could see. I don't want to look at any of them. I don't want to know who else has died while I was gone. I don't want to learn if Toya was among them.

I grip my elbows. I feel so very alone. Why did I want to ever come back here? No one but Toya and Hiro have ever wanted me here. I was considered too sickly to do any work and too strange for anyone to want. I open my eyes and follow Sakura as she dances with Syaoran. She looks to happy. Fai is surrounded by a group of young girls who are flirting with him while Kurogane. I can't bring myself to smile even though they're all happy.

I looked out at the happy, dancing faces and tried to convince myself that this is what I've been fighting for. No, I was fighting for the people who saved their families if it meant their own deaths. MY fingers dig into my elbows. These aren't my people. Someone touches my shoulder and I flinch away. I look over.

The person wraps his hand around my shoulder. He's wearing a dark blue cloak with a hood shadowing his face. I look at the hand. Nubbly burn scars cover half his hand. I breathe out and stare up at him. I recognize that cloak; grandmamma helped me make it for his birthday. He holds a finger to his lips and pulls me away to the door. I follow him as we slip out.

He looks around outside and then pulls me toward the wild lands at a jogging pace. I keep up as much as I can until we make our climb up the hill to our tree. I look at the tree with its weeping branches and leaves making a secret area for us. I shudder from the cold as we slip through the leaves. Toya crushes me against him and I can't help but curl my fingers in his clothes. This is what I was fighting for. He pulls back and pushes down his hood.

He looks the same as before. I His pointy chin, his tanned skin, coal eyes, lose black hair, and a hidden sadness that only I can see it seems. I want to say his name and pull back my hood too, but I'm not sure if this is a trap or now.

"Is it really you Nakietra?" He asks trying to look under my hood without moving it. I feel my throat close up as I nod my head.

"How?" I manage and pull back my hood. He smiles.

"Your grandmother. She said…you could use a friend," He says and takes my marked hand in his unburned one. I squeezed his hand and smile up at him.

"I thought she knew…does anyone else know?" I ask.

"No," he answers and shakes his head.

"Good. I want to keep it that way," I say and take a seat on the ground. It's cold and smooth here like it's always been. I run my hands over the roots and then the stone. This place used to be part of the ruins farther away. It's the only part still showing though.

"What's your plan?" Toya asks. I turn my attention back to him. He takes a seat next to me and stares at me seriously.

"So far we are planning to just charge in when The Dead Days are done," I answer. None of us have really discussed it yet, but that was the general idea so far. Toya stares at me.

"Everything will work out in the end basically?" He asks. I smile slightly and nod my head.

"That's the idea," I confirm. That was always Hiro's way of thinking. There was always a goal and we had to make it there some way. Planning was meaningless to him. Toya shakes his head and looks to the ground with a small smile.

"Predictable," He says.

"My group hasn't discussed it yet. We've been too busy hiding from Benji and preparing for the party," I tell him. He wasn't smiling anymore.

"The sooner you take him out the better," He states roughly. I nod my head in agreement. "Have you thought about what will happen once you take him out?" He asks.

"You take over as king and make things fair again for our people," I say easily. I've often pictured Toya as a king, mostly because he acted like one sometimes. He was a born leader, just like Hiro. Toya shakes his head at me.

"No. Vece should be king," He responds. I shake my head.

"My uncle isn't smart enough for that. He's cautious, strong willed, and determined but he's not smart enough to make sure it's fair for everyone. I don't want to see the white people turned into slaves like we were," I tell him. The cycle will never break otherwise.

"Tell that to him," He mumbles. I raise an eyebrow.

"He said he wants to be king?" I ask, thinking that was very unlike him.

"No, he says he wants me to be king and he could be an advisor," He responds with a sigh.

"You would make a good king," I say and smile. He slowly nodded his head in agreement.

"I know, I just don't want to do it," he says. I rolled my eyes.

"What do you want to do then?" I ask. He thinks about it.

"I want…to throw you in the river," He says and darts toward me with a smile on his face. I crawl backwards away from him and then scramble to my feet to run.

"No you aren't!" I say loudly and run down the hill. Toya follows but lets me get away. I stop and smile back at him.

"I give up. You are too fast for me, Black Rabbit," He mocks and bows. I stroll back over and the two of us sit back against the hill. I'm finally able to see the familiar stars again. Each clump has an old story to go with is all the way from Devine.

"I was serious though," I tell him, not letting the topic get away after a little Fox and Rabbit.

"I was too," He answers. I turn my head toward him.

"I want to go back to when things were good and life was easier for everyone," He says. My heart swells with pain.

"Me too," I says quietly and look to the sky.

"I wish I could be doctor like my father, but I know I can't ever do the things he could do," He says. I smile. He always did like helping people.

"Being a king is a different way of healing people you know. We've been neglected and abused over the years by the kings, maybe it's time we have someone who's lived among us step up. Our King was good to us before, but life was still hard because he didn't know how hard it was to live. Right now, the people need someone who will treat them more than fairly, and will take some power from the other white people to balance the sides out," I explain, not even understanding where this sudden wisdom was coming from.

"You're right…if they ask me to be king, I should take it with happiness," he says.

"And pride. You'll be the first king that the people choose," I say with a smile. I pick out my favorite cluster of stars: the phoenix. It's a bird who is said to suffer when it first lives, but then after time it bursts into fire and is reborn into a glorious life of happiness and comfort. When I was little, I used to wonder if my sickness would be cured if I lived a good life with the little I had. It wasn't until I was older than I learned what really made my disease a killer.

"That's true," he mutters as he too looked into the sky. Every little cluster tells a different story, and soon I feel like crying. Hiro taught me every story and made sure I knew them all by heart. Now he's gone forever.

"I should get back. My group might worry about me," I say and sit up. Toya gets to his feet and helps me up.

"Tell me what's wrong," He says as we slowly walked back to the party.

"This isn't home to me," I say and close my eyes. Flashes of my true home flash behind my eyes. When I opened them again, I come back to this broken version of it.

"What do you mean?" He asks.

"There's no family here anymore. These people throw their families at Benji without any emotion. These can't be my people," I respond, my voice very close to cracking.

"I know what you mean," He says, surprising me. I nod my head.

"Anything else?" He asks as we approach the shed again. Dim light spills out of the windows and the music is still going forth with erratic energy.

"Did…" I start but tears well up in my eyes. I look to the ground as they blur my vision. "Could you…could you tell it was Hiro when they hung him up?" I ask, my voice cracking all over the place. I need to know what Benji did to him. I need to know how he desecrated my brother.

"Yes," He responds. I hugged my arms to my body while one hand searches for my long since gone necklace. More tears pushes forward and I settled for digging my nails into my elbows. Toya takes a step forward and put a tight arm around me. I tried to keep my sobs and tears bottled up, but they kept breaking through every time I tried to shut the lid on them. I hear the door open, but don't look to see who opened it. Toya pull up my hood and takes his arm away.

"What did you do to her?" Kurogane asks gruffly. He pulls me away from Toya. I need to talk but I can't. All my nightmares about Benji killing Hiro are catching up with me.

"She was…overwhelmed about being here again," Toya says gruffly.

"No," I say in a severely cracked voice and stand between them. Toya took the hint and pulled his hood up. In a minute, he's gone. Kurogane pulls me into his arms and I wrap my arms around him. I calm down a little and he starts to pull me back to the wild lands.

"What happened?" He asks me. I pull my hood down and wipe a tear away from my cheek.

"I miss my brother," I say as more tears come. He finds a different place on the other side of the hill and lowers me to the ground. I curl up against him and lie my head down in his lap.

"It's harder to be home than you thought," He states. I nod my head. "You could probably get out of the celebrating if you really wanted," He suggests and I nod my head no.

"When we leave this world, that's it. This is my last time to be here, the last time to honor my parents and Hiro," I tell him.

"You aren't alone here," He says and leans down to kiss my head. I shivered from the cold and he drapes his cloak over me. He's wearing clothes from my people now but he kept his cloak because it's cold. It always gets cold at night at this time of year. After The Dead Days is harvest season.

"We should go to my uncle's house. It's warm there," I suggest.

"Do you know the way?" He asks. I sit up and keep the cloak wrapped around my shoulders.

"Of course," I say and get to my feet. He fixes to cloak around me and kisses me longer than usual. "We need to tell Vece first," I tell him. He nods his head. We go back to the party and he handles talking to my uncle while I wait outside.

"Who was that man with you before?" He asks after he comes out again.

"Toya…I've known him since…I don't know. I always remember him being there with my brother," I respond. I try to think of my earliest memory of him, but I don't remember how old I was at the time.

"Sakura's brother," He states.

"No," I say sharply, "A different Sakura's brother." I focus on the deserted streets, memories assaulting me from everywhere because of the knife. That was the house where a little boy who liked eggs lived. There's that corner is where I fell and skinned my entire arm when I was racing Hiro once. That slab of craftsman's stone has never moved and I used to hide behind it and draw when it was busy in town.

"Where did you used to live?" He asks, looking at all the houses with me.

"I lived in the palace. There were servant shacks on the edges of the walls where people like us lived," I respond.

"Was it better than living down here?" He asks.

"No," I respond, "The palace was a place for the rich and white. We were treated like dirt or nothing depending on the people. Sometimes we were given table scrapes, but other times we had to buy the food from down here. It wasn't cheap. Whatever the palace didn't take from each harvest was distributed among the people. There was rarely extra for people like us to buy," I explain.

"Why did you live up there?" He asks.

"My father wanted a better life for Hiro. Even if we were treated like dirt, there was a better chance of us learning something, and we did. The King always favored my family since my mother attended to his wife and my father and brother fought in his army. Hiro was like a second son to The King, and treated both of us really good. In turn, we treated our family good too," I say tiredly. He nods his head and takes my hand.

"Did your father teach you how to fight?" He asks. I shake my head

"Hiro taught me everything I know. Papa was always off to war, and then he died one day. I don't remember much about him," I say. It helped that I had multiple sketches of him in my book, along with Sakura, my cousins, my mother, and Hiro. I never can remember what papa looked like without the sketches though.

"He taught you good then," he says and kisses my head. I pull him to the house. The door opens silently and we slip inside.

"Follow me," I whisper and lead him to out room. I remember staying here many times when my brother was home. We took spots by the opposite wall and I try to sleep. I feel so tired.

"How long does that party usually go for?" He asks sleepily.

"Til morning," I respond.

"We have time then," He says and nuzzles my neck. I roll onto my back and he roll with me so he's on top. He starts kissing me everywhere, inching my shawl off while my dress moves up. I didn't see any problem with this, and I guess he didn't either.

We were clothed and separately asleep by the time our group wandered sleepily in. I only know this because they woke me up with their loud footsteps and pushing me around. Also, Syaoran stepped on my hand. I had yelled and woken Kurogane up in the process. We had to wait for them to settle until we attempted sleep again. We slept until early afternoon, which is when Vece busted in and probed us to help set up for the second party.

The set up was easy here. Fires were lite and set up around the shrines. Flowers, candles, more food, and music surrounded the shrine yard then in beautiful arrangements. The shrine yard was the place where stone boxes were placed into the grass. These took the places of headstones and stored the person's closest possessions. As the fires are lite as night comes once more, I keep to the edges near my parents' boxes. This will not end well me, I have a terrible feeling.