All of this is mine so please don't use it without my permission. Enjoy :) (any suggestions are very appreciated)
Zilane Zaldron had been running for what seemed like hours. Her legs pumped beneath her as leaves and twigs where crushed with every footfall. It was a cold night, something that was very rare on the planet of Raeleth, but then again the entire situation at hand was seemingly out of place. The young girl, a hiyae as the Raelethian people called them; a third gender of sorts unique to their people, had been on the run from the small village she had been born and raised in.
She looked back for only a second at hearing her name shouted a bit closer than the last. She took in a sharp breath upon realizing that her pursuers had gained quite a bit of distance and were now only ten yards behind at the most. She couldn't let them catch her no matter what. She wasn't going back to that hell hole.
Sure she loved her mother to death, but her father and the rest of her family were too much for her to bare. She had just come of age at fourteen years old and her family had started discussing her passing on the name. They had presented multiple candidates to her, to which she rejected each one. It wasn't that they weren't good enough or not beautiful enough. She just plain wasn't interested.
She already had too much to worry about. She was the oldest and strongest of her siblings and was therefore in charge of keeping them out of harms way and mentoring them. It was a chore she already despised and because her brother and sister were so much younger, her father expected her to do much of the work in the house and village.
The village only had a few children, as it was one of the smaller ones in the area. Most of the adults hunted and scouted the territory for members of other villages, so the work was given to the younger members. Zilane understood that it was an important task and that she was the last hope for her family to grow strong, but she wasn't ready for the responsibility yet.
She was closest to her mother. She always felt like she was the only one that understood. Her mother knew full well that she wanted to explore and travel, not stay in the village for the rest of her life. Her mother had tried on several occasions to convince her father that he had to be less hard on her, but he never listened. He was only concerned with making the family grow strong so that they would be able to stand against the other families in the war for control of Raeleth.
Not a single city had been permanently settled on the war torn planet and it had already been nearly three hundred years since the original two hundred ancients had appeared. Her father was one of them, and like the others thought that it was his right to rule to planet.
Zilane could have cared less though. The war was coming to an end and the Nakano family was obviously going to come out on top. Zailen Nakano was more powerful than any of the families combined even though many refused to admit it. Zilane didn't waste her time hoping that her family would win. Sometimes she had even hoped that her family would get beaten so that her father would stop being so delusional. Every time she had even attempted to talk sense into the man, she would interrupted by a slight wave of the hand and an agitated sigh. "Xeluu dene ra," he would always reply under his breath, a denial in their language.
Eventually everything got to the point where she couldn't take it anymore. She had stood up to her father in front of her entire family not an hour before, screaming at him for all that he forced upon her. She didn't want to carry on his name. If she could have she would have changed her last name because she didn't want a single thing to do with the man.
She never planned on running away, but by the time he had yelled that she was a failure and her mother cried helplessly on the side lines, she knew there was no other option. She had burst open the wooden door to their hut and ran as fast as she could into the forest. Her father had called the other hunters in the village to help as he chased her, frantically calling her name as he realized his mistake.
So here she was now, old tears dried to her face as new ones continued to fall freely down her tanned cheeks. She had no future in that village. She had to live out her dream to travel and see the world.
Cuts healed just as quickly as they formed on her bare chest and arms from the sharp thorns on the many trees and brush she sped through. They didn't hurt. The most she felt was a mild discomfort as each barb sliced her skin neatly. She was so panicked that she hardly even noticed. The young hiyae was beginning to worry that she would tire before she lost her pursuers. Small drops of water began to descend from the sky and fall onto her back with miniscule splashes. She never liked rain, but she saw it as a sign of hope.
It hardly ever rained in Raeleth and she knew the villagers had to prepare whenever there was any sign of it. They always had to reinforce the huts and put out large bowls to catch as much water as possible. It always took the entire family to help get ready for any kind of precipitation. She hoped it would cause them to give up and turn back, even if only for a few hours.
Just as she was about to give up hope on the idea she heard her name called one last time. This time farther than it had ever been. She slowed her pace and breathed frantically. She couldn't remember a time where she had ran anywhere near as much as she just had. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her arm and looked back in the direction she had come. No lights could be seen, so she knew she must have run at least a few miles. Her blue cat-like eyes pierced through the night, surveying the lush red forest for any signs of movement. The only thing she saw though was swaying motion of leaves and ferns from the light breeze and steadily increasing rainfall.
She hiccuped and wiped away another tear. She already felt helpless and alone in the vast Mahante forest, but it was better than feeling like a prisoner in her own house. She closed her eyes and relaxed, willing the tears to go away and for her breathing to return to its normal pace. Her sensitive hearing picked up on all the sounds that echoed through night. The dull pattering of the rain, the occasional chattering of wild animals, and the far off thunder that grew ever closer. She felt so numb after everything.
"I'm sorry mom..." she whispered to herself, taking one last look in the direction of her previous home. She took a deep breath and walked slowly forward. She didn't bother to move her wet bangs that now clung to her forehead and cheeks. The girl was so emotionally drained that she wanted to just collapse where she was and sleep her life away.
She knew if she did though that the others may continue their search when the sun rose and find her. She would've hated it if she woke up back in her animal hide bed, so she kept moving. She felt bad for leaving her mother the way she did. She briefly wished that she could have brought her with, but she knew her mother loved her father dearly. Even if she didn't always agree with what he was doing. She would have died for her mother's reassuring smile in her current state. That was one thing she was thankful to have gotten from her mother. She hated being told that she was the spitting image of the man she loathed so much.
Zilane sighed and rubbed her arms as she walked. The rain had made things significantly cooler and she couldn't say that she liked it at all. She had to find or make some sort of shelter fast before she was too cold to continue walking. She tread as fast as she could, scanning the forest for any sort of cover from the freezing droplets. Mud caked in between her toes making it increasingly difficult for her to travel any great amount of distance. The animal skins around her waist and legs were soaking wet and adding a great weight to her, which wasn't helping either.
She was almost about to collapse under a fallen tree when she swore she saw a dark figure in the distance. With new hope and a bit of adrenaline she managed to wiggle her feet out of the mud and dash forward. She nearly smiled when she saw a rocky cave come into view. It was only a few yards away but she felt she would never reach it no matter how fast she stumbled through the muddy forest floor.
After a few 'almost' falls and more scrapes to her arms, she finally crawled into the small crevice. It was slightly warmer and offered shelter from the now full fledged storm. She shook her head as hard as she could in an effort to partly dry her hair. She finally felt safe for the first time in an hour as she sat Indian style on the stone floor of the small cavern and clutched her necklace to her chest. It had the tooth of an animal her mother had slain to save her when she was a small child. It was the only thing she would have to remember the woman she admired most and she promised herself to keep it with her forever. Maybe one day she would even see her again. One day when she could take on her father as an adult.
More tears formed in her swollen eyes as she watched the rain fall steadily from inside the cave. Dull green lightning illuminated the cave every few minutes, showing glimpses of what lay hidden in the dark landscape. She was free, but for the first time she was alone.