Chapter 7: Freedom's the Name, Sarcasm's the Game

"Okay, well if you don't like Valumer, how about Lycus?"

Where are you getting these names from? You need a new source, said a still nameless dragon, projecting his thoughts so that the whole room could hear his rejections.

"I don't see anything wrong with the ones we're coming up with," I sniffed indignantly. "Besides, Valumer is a nice name. It means noble future!"

So I am to be named after the pursuit of the future? Never feeling successful in the present, but always reaching for a an unachievable goal? I think not!

"This is all hypothetical," I said as calmly as I could. "Just because your name means something, doesn't mean that it turns you into that something! My name, Kiara Louvel, means 'Dark Wolf' but do you see me running around on all fours and howling at the moon?"

But a name is a word used to refer to a being, is it not? A name is something that describes that being. I do not want my name meaning something that I am not.

"Well, we aren't getting anywhere," sighed Ailith. She was right. Three hours of tossing names around and we hadn't come across one that the dragon liked. I had given my approval to Aradace, Eroese, Nebal and most recently, Kismet, but the dragon still refused everything.

"I think he should be called Hope, because that was what we called his egg," stated Dune, nodding eagerly at his idea.

"Might as well just call him Stubborn, or Lazy. Oh, how about Self Righteous!"

That means that I can call you Emotional.

"You know, I'm really liking Pigeon Brain!"

"For Dragon and Rider, you two argue way too much," intervened Ailith again, looking tired and annoyed at the same time. She glared at us for a minute, then stood up and said, "I'm going to go get Selena, she probably knows a few names that we could use."

That's the best suggestion I've heard all day. Were has she gone, anyways?

"She probably knew how disastrous this would be and decided it was a conversation that she didn't need to get involved in," I said in an offhand voice.

"Or, she went to buy some more food for Pigeon Brain here." Selena's voice drifted into the room a second before her body did. Her arms were piled high with paper wrapped chunks of meat as she walked carefully toward the kitchen counter.

Now how come that name sounds so much nicer when you say it, the dragon mused sarcastically.

Ailith, who was already standing, rushed to help Selena unpack. I stood too, glad for an excuse to leave the conversation, but she had already beaten me there. I sat back down awkwardly, staring out the big window.

She told me that this is the last time she's shopping for you, I warned him mentally. You've been coddled for too long.

So have you.

I sighed. Right. And in a few more weeks we'll be living in unexplored wilderness. It's been months since I've done anything useful! I don't think I even remember how to scavenge for resources, let alone build a fire.

We'll deal with that when it comes.

"So, I'm guessing the quest for a name has been unsuccessful,"said Selena, taking a seat beside me.

"Understatement," muttered Ailith as she leaned across the counter. "Puff the Narcissistic Dragon doesn't have a clue what he wants, so that also means that we've been left with nothing to work with. Honestly, it would just be so much easier if he just named himself."

It would help if you actually picked meaningful names instead of flamboyant ones.

"How about you three take a break and we'll come back to this later," suggested Selena, a sympathetic smile tugging on her lips. She turned and pointed a finger at the lethargic creature curled up on the floor. "And Dragon, this is the last of the meat that I'm buying for you, so ration it wisely."

Of course, he purred innocently, eyes half closed.

The room slowly emptied as Ailith and Dune retreated into the library. I twiddled my thumbs irritatedly, trying to phrase the question tugging on my consciousness. Selena leaned over in her chair eagerly, probably knowing what I was going to ask.

"The time is getting closer, isn't it?"

"Tomorrow," she agreed, nodded gravely.

Tomorrow?

"Tomorrow, then," I sighed. "Can't. Wait."

"You should go down to the Trench tonight," she said. "I have a feeling that you've got some heavy goodbyes to make."

"That wouldn't matter," I chuckled. "We've been held hostage here for more than a month. We've probably been proclaimed dead."

"Brendan knows that I've been keeping you," Selena said, smiling. Suddenly she burst into laughter. "You honestly thought that I would let him suffer this long, waiting for his little sister and brother to come back, without telling him anything?"

I couldn't help but smile too, relieved that he knew Dune and I were alright. "Wouldn't be the first time you've withheld information."

Ailith came down to the Sinkhole Market with me for moral support. The sun had just set, but – unlike all the upper-class shops on the Mesa – the booths down here would still be open long into the night.

"I almost forgot what mud looked like," Ailith said, a hint of humor in her voice. Her blonde curls were pulled into a neat bun on top of her head.

As I looked around the rows of vendor booths, tended by rough looking sellers, it occurred to me just how much we had changed. Two young girls, raised as survivors, living in small houses, the pain of hunger our constant companion. And yet here we were, looking out at our childhood town, dressed in expensive clothing, our fingernails clean from a lack of work and our conditioning still not as seamless as an Upper.

Not only were we strangers on the Mesa, now we were strangers here too.

Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow that will change.

"We should buy things," I decided. "Lots of things."

"How much do we have?"

I swung my pack around and pawed around for some coin. "Uh, enough to buyout three stalls worth of goods!"

"Whew, it's a lucky day to be a stall vender," she laughed, taking a handful of coins from me.

Brendan wasn't really around while I was growing up – not because he was a bad brother. In fact, he took his role in taking care of us as seriously as a sixteen year old boy could – because he got multiple jobs in order to pay for our food and clothes. He was always working. Always worrying.

I hoped that Selena would help him raise Dune when I was gone.

After we had spread some fortune around the town, Ailith and I found ourselves outside my house – or shed. Part of me hoped that Brendan would still be at work, staying late for the night shift as usual, but then the more sentimental part of me realized that this could be the last time I ever see him.

My sentimental side won out, and I knocked lightly on the wooden door, only hesitating a brief second.

It swung open with a soft creak, revealing a shaggy haired man with lively eyes and an unshaven chin. Still the same brother, if not a bit more tired looking.

"I think you ladies have the wrong house," he said politely. Ailith and I were just about to share our trademarked confused glance, when Brendan did a double take. His jaw dropped. "Kiara," he whispered, his eyes watering.

"Hi," I said timidly, fluent as always.

He stepped away from the door in silence, and we shuffled in awkwardly. Brendan still didn't seem in control of his words yet, so it was absolutely quiet as he gestured for us to sit down on the couch.

"Dune," he asked finally, the concern in his voice obvious.

"He's with Selena," I confirmed. Brendan and I never did have the most outspoken conversations, but tonight he was uncharacteristically talkative.

"She wouldn't tell me why you have to go. She just came up to me at the market one day and told me that you would be leaving soon." He snorted a laugh. "Said you were going to save the world. I never doubted it for a minute."

I rolled my eyes. "Glad one of us has such faith in me."

"Everyone gets scared, Kiara, especially when such responsibility seems to come out of thin air and drop on your shoulders... I," he paused and took a shaky breath. "I was scared when our parents died. I didn't know how to take care of myself let alone two younger children."

"Did you run," I asked quietly, feeling my cheeks flame.

"Yes," he replied. "I think everyone does at first. They try to reject the things that happen to them that aren't their choice."

There's always a choice.

"You could have left us, you know. Could have gone to school."

"No," he said. "I'm better off than I would have been because I fulfilled my purpose; raising you. I had to raise you so that you could save the world," he smiled proudly at me.

"I'm not running anymore," I told him urgently. It seemed extremely important that he knew this. "I am scared, but I'm going to do what I have to."

He nodded. "Then you'll need this," he said, bending down and lifting a floorboard near his feet. His hand disappeared inside the ground for a second, then reappeared with a rectangular wooden case.

He held it out to me.

The case was about a foot long, and covered with dark lettering. Ailith leaned in closer to see it, a curious look on her face.

"It is from being responsible that one can learn the true value of Freedom."

"What is it? A giant fortune cookie," she wondered out loud, tracing the letters with her index finger.

"Freedom is capitalized," I said. "Like it's a name or a place."

"Or a state of mind," Brendan added helpfully. "Open it."

Eagerly, I undid the two clasps on either end of the case. Gingerly, I placed my hand on the side, and lifted to top.

Inside, laying on a pillow of brown leather, was the most deadly dagger I had ever seen. It's hilt looked like two different types of wood had been twisted together to make a spiral design. The blade had been polished until it shone. But the coolest, and scariest, part of this dagger was that it widened just before the tip, to create a sort of fatal barb at the end.

It wasn't the initial stab that would kill, it was when the blade was pulled out that it would do the real damage.

As if my morals would ever let me kill something.

"Brendan, I can't take this," I said.

"I'm not letting my little sister go out into the wilderness without a proper defense."

Better not tell that to the dragon, I thought dryly. "No, seriously, I can't...I won't!"

"Take it, Kiara," he said. "If not for a weapon, then take it as a reminder of home. It belonged to Father."

A lump formed in my throat. We never talked about our parents, let alone the inheritance that they left us. I didn't even know we had anything left to remember them by. I felt my hands tighten on the box.

"Thank you," I whispered, my voice breaking.

"Don't loose it," he warned me. "I'll be wanting it back after you save the world."

It was very late when we returned, but Selena was still awake. She was curled up in front of the big window with a candle beside her, looking thoughtfully out into the sky.

"You'll have to leave early tomorrow," she said without turning, as if she had sensed my approach. "So you don't have to saw any more goodbyes. I know how tough that is."

She was talking about Dune and Ailith. I hoped she knew how much I would miss her too.

"Will this be the last time we ever see each other," I whispered, not really expecting an answer.

As always, she gave me one anyways. "Yes," she said drowsily. "But not the last time we will talk to each other."

Her and her riddles. Instead of calling her out on her half-answer, I asked another question. "What is freedom in the Ancient Language?"

"You should have learned that from your studies," she said. Then, because she always had to answer my questions in some small way, she sighed. "There are many variations of freedom, as there are many different contexts in which one can be free... But, I think the word that you are looking for is Thanack."

I could feel that the dragon was still awake downstairs. Our link had strengthened so that I could have even contacted him from Sinkhole if there was a need.

Thenack, I asked him cautiously. It was a good name, and it had what he wanted; it had meaning. And not just a meaning, but it was our meaning. Something that we would be fighting for as soon as we headed out the door tomorrow morning. I could feel him thinking it over, trying to any faults with the title.

Yes, he decided after a while. I will be Freedom.

A/N: Long time, no update!

Sorry guys, I've sat down so many times to write this chapter, but I could never seem to get the words flowing. Maybe I just needed to let it simmer for a while.

Anyways, summer's here and hopefully I'll be updating more often. :P