Chapter 4 – Boots & Family
Leo knew better than to come to Darian just after he fought. It took no less than half an hour before the young adolescent decided he could confidently approach. As he always did, the man was stripping the cadavers of anything of value. As ever, Leo helped him, and did not initiate eye contact or conversation, as he knew Darian was hardly sociable in this situation.
The man did talk after a while, though, as he noticed the youth had a perplexed look on his face. "What's the matter?"
"They all wear the same shoes, and most of them have the same trousers," Leo remarked.
Darian nodded. "Black rubber and green fabric. The Others always do." He frowned. "You didn't notice, before?"
The boy looked down. "No, Sir."
The man grinned. "No need to look so grim, boy. No one is always alert."
"You are!" Leo retorted.
"I only need to look like I am, but that's not true. Really, no one is invincible. Never forget that."
"Why?" the youth asked, apparently oblivious to the importance of such a belief.
"If you think you can't win, you can't fight."
Leo seemed to meditate on that for the remainder of their scavenging. He was a thinker, much more than Darian ever was. The boy would probably have been better off with a larger group. Sadly, the man had left his family long ago and had found nothing but an empty camp when he tried to find them back, a few years ago. He was optimistic, though. They had always been prone to move on when the place they lived in became too difficult to live in.
When the duo came back to their camp, Darian opened his black-leathered book once more. It was his mother's legacy. A strange piece of literature filled with wonder, awe and terror. Once again, he read this passage, from the second book of kings, and read both the English and the Latin verses. Why was this noun so important to his family? What was this drink his crest was always tied to? Often, Darian wondered about his origins.
"Do you have any brothers and sisters?" Leo asked, as he was playing with a stick.
"I had two of each… Last time I saw my family, only my older brother and my younger sister remained. What about you?"
"My mother was embuchada many times… I was the only one to make it past ten." The boy's voice remained neutral, and Darian nodded. Those were the truths of their time: miscarriages and infantile deaths. They were used to it, it was normal.
"Do you remember their names?"
"Not all of them," the youth answered. "She said I was her last. My closest brother, Guga, died four years ago… Névoa," he specified.
Darian frowned.
"Yellow smoke?" Leo offered as a possible translation.
The mist… Darian too could have died because of it, though much younger than Leo's brother did. He sighed. "What about your parents?" the man inquired with his usual gravelly tone.
"They left for food, never came back. They are probably dead."
There was a brief silence. "Probably, yes," the fighter replied. There was no use for false hopes.
"What about yours?"
Darian shrugged. "We'd better go find something to eat."