Flight from the Mystic Moon
"No, no, no... no good." "You're going to drop me!" "T-That tickles, cut it out!" and then finally. "You know what? Just... just put me down. I'll walk."
Icouldn't believe after almost 30 mins I couldn't fingure out a decent way of hitching a piggy back ride on the man/creature/beast thing.
"How about like this?" Ragan held out his arms like he was about to take a infant into his arms.
"You want to carry me. Princess style? Uh-hu. No way." It was not happeneing.
"It will take much longer a time to walk otherwise. It time not important?" I didn't like how he was using my own words against me.
I turned and looked at him and for the first time I saw him as a person. I walked to him and stopped between his outstretched arms.
"Do what you have to... The world will not see you weep." I don't know how he knew or even why his words brought it out in me, but I cried on command. I was alone, on some weird planet and the only person who even seemed to care was a strange man how held me against him with one hand head and the other wrapped around my shoulders. At that moment I might not have existed and I was just fine with that.
Until the earth screamed.
Ragan looked up to the sky and both of us saw it. Allen's airship hung in the sky and was all but on top of them.
"They know you are here. I do not know how they tracked you. I was careful." He didn't mention how he hadn't heard the ship creep up on them and that alone bothered him. Needless to say I was rather distracted when he lifted my off the ground and tore of to gods only knew where.
The sound of trees bursting apart and the earth being crushed beneath metal made me shut my eyes.
"Hurry... he;s coming right this way." I only whispered, but I had been heard.
That was when Ragan stopped.
"Ragan!"
A horn blew and from the trees and hills and burrows and nothingness is seemed, more of men and women like Ragan showed themselves.
"I grant this child sanctuary."
Every single person dropped into position in a circle around him and me. They barely gave me a second glance or questioned Ragan.
"Give me the girl." Allen stepped out form the tree line and the front panel of the Guymelef dropped down. "She escaped our airship and..."
"She is no longer your concern." I dropped down low and watched from the hidden place made out of people and shadows.
"I can help you. Keori, why did you run?" I didn't say a word. In all actuallity I was holding my breath waiting for something to happen.
"Her silence speaks vollums of what she thinks of your aid." When had Ragan become so strong sounding. When had the almost childish attitude melt away?
Allen reached into his pocket then and something sparkled in his hand.
Her pendant.
It was pointing directly at her and that was when Allen saw her.
"Then make sure she has this..." He stepped forward to leave the Guymelef but spears rose to stop him. He was resigned to handing it to one of Ragan's people.
He waited and so did I. It wasn't until he was long gone that I allowed my self to emerge from the cirle to people.
"You are safe here." For moment I didn't answer.
"He could have had me..."
"Celena?" Ragan bent down and looked me right in the face.
"He could have cut down every one of you if he'd wanted to. He could have found me anywhere I went and my pendant would have shown hin the way." I turned the pink gem over in my hands and stared at it like some traitorous enemy. I wasn't sure how, but he had made it work for him. It had pointed me right out... but he had given it back.
"Would he have taken you to Fanalia?" Ragan seemed concerned and edgy. It was enough to snap me out of my own thoughts and back into the real world. And in the real world every one whom had stepped in to defend her was staring her down.
"Ragan... why are they glaring at me?" I would have tried to step away if they hadn't been all around me.
"Because they know. The know you are from the mystic moon. That and because I have just sworn an outsider under clan chieftan law.
"And what does that mean?" I didn't have a blinking clue about what was going now.
Ragan signed slightly and looked at me so deeply I felt like I might have been missing a peice of clothing like a shirt or pants.
"As of a few moments ago I was the unofficail heir. When I claimed you under clan protect I envoked my rights as clan leader... The reason they look at you now is because you intrigue them and frighten them... How is it a girl who is not even of this world change or in this case fore that hand of a errant chieftan. You are... mystical to them." I stared and only every ten worlds sunk in. If that.
"So, your there king?"
"In a sorts..."
"You didn't want to be."
"No."
"Why then?" He smiled and almost looked like a cross between and man in love and a man protecting something fragil like a child... it was not mornal.
"Why no?" He smiled and lifted me up. "To me!" And he walked away from Allen and the airship n the sky. The entire crowd followed.
Then pendant that had still been active suddenly dropped; lifeless. Its energys spent.