Kora: Mata Nui
Chapter Five:
Fire Spirits
"Running, running, run away!"
Tahu jerked awake, disturbing the young Ta-Matoran that had migrated to sleep against him as they always did when the fire sprite was sitting or resting inside the village. Tahu caught the Matoran child that had been his chest before he sat up.
He looked around in time to see the Kora of fire run past, a Kolii stick in hand and being pursued by one Chronicler. The lesion of the game proper had long since dissolved as the two now were playing something like tag and keep-away in one.
The elder spirit of fire quirked up and eye ridge as he watched the two run by his feet, Storm, his Kora, had the ball in her Kolii stick and was fleeing. Takua was in hot permute, waving his own stick over his head and the two vanished out of sight for the Toa. Out of Tahu's sight but a ta-Matoran guard across him apparently had a clear view of what was going on with the accompanying yells for he had a strange look on his masked face, winced and then smiled.
When the two ran by again five minutes later Takua had the ball and Storm was chasing him. Tahu rolled his glowing eyes before going back to sleep, he had a hard few days beating back wild Rahi from getting too close to the village, knowing his Kora was well in the hands of the Ta-Koro Guard that was hovering and fallowing the two.
"Not fair Takua!" the Kora yelled as they ran by again, and then as she passed the line of Tahu's feet stumbled. Faltering the younger elemental doubled over coughing, gasping in an attempted to breath again.
Instantly the Chronicler was back, dropping his Kolii stick and the ball, "Kora! Kapura, help me." He added to the Matoran that hurried over.
"M'em fine." Storm wheezed, thumping her chest with a closed fist. It seemed to work as she managed to suck in a full breath, yet despite her vocal protest didn't, or couldn't fight as the much taller Kapura easily picked up the human formed Kora up and carried her over to the Chronicler's 'hut' (a small library was more like it!). "This is somewhat embarrassing." She muttered.
Kapura smiled down at the Kora as he ducked into Takua's home and set Storm down on his friend's bed. "Are you alright Kora?" he asked, Kapura's voice was oddly soft, almost not fitting his body since the second in command of the Ta-Koro Guard was as big, if not a little taller then Jaller. Both were above average height for a Ta-Matoran as it was, so Kapura was quite tall and broad in the shoulders for a Matoran.
"I'm fine," Storm insisted but saw the looks on Takua and Kapura that clearly said they didn't believe her any which way.
"Uh-huh." Takua climbed up on a shelf, pulling down a storage gourd that was like a jar, grabbed a handless cup, "It is not the Turaga's tea." The Chronicler assured seeing to worried look of the young fire elemental. "Still good for you, a friend of mine in Le-Koro makes it for me."
"What's that like?" Storm asked now leaning up against Kapura, who was sitting beside her, as if she hadn't been protesting she was fine twenty seconds ago.
"Le-Koro?"
"Yeah, what were you doing there?"
"Story collecting." The tall guard said with a small smile at his friend.
"Can you tell me some?" Storm asked, unknowingly putting herself and Kapura in danger as Takua perked up at her words.
An hour later the Captain of the Ta-Koro Guard poked his head into his best friends library like home. He found the Kora asleap with her head on Kapura's leg and Takua was talking. The Chronicler hadn't taken any offence at this, in fact he was the one asuring Kapura that Turaga Vakama said that that was going to happen a lot. The Kora were still healing and growing so he didn't mind and it only took a little to encouragement to got the shorter Ta-Matoarn going again in his story.
Smilling in that Bionicle way, Jaller slipped in and sat down to listen to his friend. For all of those little anoyances of Takua's sometimes, the Matoran really did know how to tell a good story! The Chronicler didn't quiet have that same captivating magic in his words that all the Turaga had (but then again the Turaga must have been teling stories and histories for far longer then any Matoran), but he was still really good.
And what Matoran didn't like a good story? More so when it was about one of their Toa heroes!
At the sound of drumbs, distance drumbs, everyone paused to hear the first set that anouced where the message came from. Ko-Koro as the case was now.
Jaller got up and peeked out the open door, Takua hovering behind him and Kapura was starting to disatangle himself. All three knew all the message codes and had pounded out most of those with their own hands as well.
"What is it?" Kaprua ask, having missed the start.
"Ko-Koro says that Kopaka just found the last Kora." Takua said crowding the bigger Jaller, half going under his best friend's arm to hear more clearly.
"That makes six," Jaller said, nodding, "Just like the Turaga said."
Behind the three Ta-Matoran Storm smiled a little, still tired and her body wanting to finish her nap. The young fire elemental blinked as a section of the drumb message. For a brief moment, she was some where else, not in Ta-Koro, or Ta-Wahi, or even back home in Alaska.
It was warm like the sun, but the light was more of a blue-white then the normal yellow tinge. There was no sky or horisen, but walls of earth and stone that rose as high as a skyscraper in the middle, sloping down lower at the very edges. The air was warm and clean, cleaner then what would be expected for being under gound. There were trees too, a stream that twined around the large chamber and somewhere a flute like sound playing out a rhythm.
Someone massive was walking beside her, leading yet keeping long, ground eating strides considerbly shorter for her sake. Glowing eyes of light orange on red, like and unlike Tahu's white on red looked down at the child. Do not fear my little fire sister, this is your true home. A voice, faint in memory but still there.
A Toa of fire that hadn't been Tahu. Storm needed to see Turaga Vakama, yet a name stuck with her, something she knew ment safety.
Nata.