-Chapter 3-
Jett groaned loudly as he rolled over off of his bed for about the third time that night. He had been thrashing around wildly, flailing his arms as if to fight off an invisible, nonexistent force that was challenging him. The truth was, he had been having a very terrible dream in which Scar led a huge pack of rats onto him, and he was shredded to pieces by deadly claws without even a fighting chance. And then he had woken up, all three times, to find himself falling off the edge of his bed with a muffled thump.
He half expected Scar to come barging through the curtain that separated his room from the rest of the house, suddenly sprouting fangs, claws, and a tail. He imagined her pouncing on him and tearing his throat out. He would never, ever admit this to anybody, but having her staying here was bringing out a side in him that had never really been revealed before—cowardice.
He grudgingly pulled himself back onto his bed, but did not lie down again. Instead, he sat of the edge of it and stared into the darkness, fiddling with the hem of his spinner silk shorts. Tomorrow he would have to go back to battle training, and by then, everyone in his training group would know that his family was now playing host for the near spawn of a gnawer. The gnawers' girl. Why did he have to be stuck with her?
After about a half hour of unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep once more, Jett sighed and threw off his covers. He stood up, feeling the cold stone floor beneath his feet. Pulling aside the curtain in the doorway, he stepped out onto the landing and slowly walked down the stairs, being careful not to wake his parents as he passed their sleeping quarters. If he couldn't sleep, what was the point of staying upstairs?
The fourteen year old crept over to the window and peered out into the dim light of the city. The torch lighters always extinguished half of the torches that lit the city by day when night came along, and would relight the unlit ones first thing in the morning. None of the city lights were ever all out at once—not a chance. It was a risk that was never taken here in their subterranean city.
Two dark shapes flew through the air just above the house next door, and Jett knew that the night guards of the city were switching shifts. And the ornate towers of the palace were there in the distance, just as they always had been. He had never really taken time to appreciate the beautiful simplicity of Regalian life. But now that he thought about it, it seemed unreal that any human in the Underland could have missed out on life like this. Whether you lived in Regalia, the Fount, or Troy, it was relatively the same. And Scar had never experienced any of this. Should he pity her for it?
No, her presence in his house made him far too angry for that.
When the fliers and their riders were out of sight, Jett pulled back from the window and sat in the chair next to the family's bookshelf. He only really read when it came time for his lessons, which he had on the days when he was not training for battle. But in just two short months, his schooling would be through, and he would progress to full time battle training. So a little bit of extra reading couldn't hurt, right?
He pulled the first book he saw out of the shelf. It was bound in what looked like red twister skin. By the looks of it, it was pretty old, because the parchment was yellowing. But it was perfectly legible.
The title read, 'A History of Famous Regalian Wars and Battles'. Jett opened to a page and began to read.
The Conflict of Hades, 1782
This famous conflict began as a land dispute over Hades Hall, a passage below the surface of the Underland traveling from the Fount to the Firelands. Both the Killers and the Gnawers claimed it as their own, but this of course, led to a disagreement.
What started off as a calm negotiation ended up in a bloody battle, taking place in the very streets of Regalia.
The first wave of rats entered the city just after the afternoon guards left their posts to switch shifts, taking advantage of the lack of reinforcement. But after the initial shock was done with, the humans fought viciously back. One soldier was quoted to have said, 'It was like as if they were a single force; fighting together, moving as one. And all for a small bit passage in the ground!'
The next few paragraphs didn't interest Jett. He let his eyes scan the rest of the chapter, hoping to catch sight of something interesting.
Some of the weapons used in this battle were hand fashioned daggers, which had made their first appearance only the year before, swords which—
Nope, he knew enough about weapons.
Major contributors to this battle: Corporal Zubeida III (humans), General Bloodscrape IV (gnawers), Colonel Rod XII (humans), Princess Faye V (gnawers)—
Jett stopped and looked at the page harder. Princess Faye? Hadn't she been a human princess? Why was she listed as an ally of the gnawers? He flipped to the book's index and looked up the name. Sure enough, in the short biography, it said that Faye had wandered away from the palace as a young princess, and a rat had found her and raised her, and that was why Faye fought on the side of the gnawers for Hades Hall.
Jett shut the book, mouth open slightly. So there had been others in his city's history like Scar. Royalty, even. But in reality, that didn't really make him feel any better about the whole situation. He doubted that any of them had been kicked out of the rats' land and gone to live with a really unlucky adolescent who just wanted to live a normal life, without any glitches or issues.
With a sigh, Jett reached over to the shelf again and picked out another book. It was obviously fiction, by the sound of the title. Boreas the Bat and his Big Problem. It sounded like one of those books he had liked when he was too young to even pick up a sword. He flipped to the last page.
'And with a smile, Boreas flew off to his cave, to live happily ever after.'
How very typical. A 'happily ever after' ending. Those irritated Jett more than anything. Wasn't it better to teach children that life hardly ever turned out the way it did in those kinds of stories? It certainly wasn't working out that way for him.
He groaned in frustration and tossed the book onto the stone floor in disgust with a loud thump. He immediately realized his mistake, and shoved the book back onto the shelf hurriedly. He didn't want to wake anyone up.
But nevertheless, his efforts were proven to be in vain as he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Jett knew who it was already. And she didn't seem to care about concealing the fact that she was sneaking out of bed, because she wasn't even creeping along silently.
She completely ignored him when she passed the chair he was sitting in. He cocked an eyebrow. What the hell was her problem?
"Where are you going?" His tone was scornful.
She didn't turn back. "Out," she responded simply. She stopped walking for a minute, just before she reached the door. "Don't worry, I'm coming back…not like you care." She was mocking him. He didn't like that.
"You got that right. You could go launch yourself off a cliff for all I care." He wasn't sure if he really meant what he was saying. But something told him she would not take it personally.
For the first time, she turned to him, eyebrows raised. He though he caught a hint of amusement on her scarred, pale face. "I'll keep that in mind," she said, and Jett was sure the corners of her mouth twitched into a sort of smirk, but it was gone in a flash, and she looked solemn again.
"What about light?" He was surprised to find himself suggesting something that could help her. "They extinguish a lot of the city torches at night." Like she couldn't already see that.
"I can see," she answered simply. "I can probably see better than you can with light."
Was that an insult? "How?" he asked.
"You get used to the dark" was her response, and with that, she pushed the door open. Jett watched Scar as she retreated out of the house, leaving him wearing a frustrated scowl.
--
Why does he have to be so curious? Scar thought to herself. Is it really a crime to want to get out of a stuffy old room for an hour or so?
She had woken up wondering, for a moment, where exactly she was. Was she still in the palace, sleeping after being interrogated by the Underland's most annoying ruler? No, the prison she had been in for the past day or so was much brighter than this. Of course, she could still see, as she had been trained by rats to use echolocation to an extent. But when she had been staying in the palace, the area was so illuminated by torchlight that she really had found no need to use her sixth sense.
And then she remembered with a jolt.
Was it possible to endure some of the worst times of your life in just the short span of three days? Did things really have to get worse before they got better? Because Scar was enduring a lot of both at the moment.
Relieved to be away from the watchful eyes of Jett, Scar closed the stone door of the house behind her and looked out into the dimly lit streets of this unfamiliar city. At this point in time, she would have relished the presence of even the smallest rat pup around her, just to remind her of the life that had once been so familiar to her and was now lost amid a sea of buildings and humans.
But she knew she couldn't dwell on this for long. The reason she had wanted to get out of that room was because she needed some sort of distraction. And—now that she had executed the first part of the plan—well, it time to find a distraction. The question was, though, how was a thirteen year old girl going to find a safe enough distraction in a completely unfamiliar city in the dead of night?
Scar was fairly surprised to discover that there was no one else out for a walk at this time. Surely in a city as large as this everybody couldn't be sleeping? It was kind of peculiar, how quiet this place was. Back at her cave home, Scar had always been comforted into sleep by the rhythmic snores of her adopted brothers and the soft pawsteps of the occasional gnawer walking by. But here it was just…quiet? How was it possible that everyone rested at the same time? It was so strange, at least to her.
Scar glanced upwards. The cavern that the city was in was so large that she could not even see the top! It just looked like a never ending space of darkness. She didn't like it.
Suddenly a shadowy shape flew right about her head, and she very literally jumped in shock. Then she realized it was a flier, and she sighed in relief before remembering that fliers carried humans. And the humans who flew at night were most likely guards. And those guards would most likely not be pleased to see her roaming the city at this time.
Sure enough, the flier stopped in its path and muttered something unintelligible to its rider. The human on top turned to look down at Scar, who had frozen to the spot, not from fear of getting caught, but more out of the fear of being forced to ride another flier back to the confined space of the house she was expected to live in.
"Hey!" The man gave a shout. "Who goes there, and what are you up to?"
With a miraculous recovery, Scar remembered how to use her legs, and she took off. She had always been quite fast, and by the time the man had pinpointed the direction she was running in, she had already gotten quite a head start. She didn't no nor care if they were following her, but she kept running. Honestly, it felt amazing to be running again, almost like she was racing one of her gnawer friends back in the tunnels.
The city walls loomed closer. It had never occurred to Scar that she would not be able to get out of the city, but as she came to the wall, she realized that if there was any entrance into the place, it would not be open while everyone was asleep.
She was about to turn back; after all, she had gotten her bit of distraction. Being pursued by a man and his flier had turned out to be much more entertaining than expected. Perhaps she would try angering one the next day, and see if they would chase her again. Maybe she would steal the guy's sword, Silvertail had always said that what bothered them most in battle is when you disabled their weapons. Yes, that could keep her busy…
At that moment, she happened to stumble over a stone protruding out from the wall. Whether it was by pure coincidence, or it was destined to be so, it made Scar turn her head towards the huge blockade of rock and noticed a crevice in it. Silvertail had always taught her against venturing into unknown places; there was no telling what could be hiding there. But the hell with Silvertail, who needed her anyway? She was curious.
Scar was extremely slim like her previous gnawer guardians; as a child she had been given a very small amount to eat, as the humans had been starving out the area of rats she had lived with. Scar was grateful for that quality, though, because it made it easy for her to get inside of the crevice in the wall. Once inside, she gave a tentative click with her tongue, and her echolocation brought up a long passage. Well, it couldn't hurt to explore, could it? She took a step, and collided with a large heap of gray fur. The furry heap whacked her away and stared her down. It spoke.
"And just who are you?"