CHAPTER SIX

~ Hesitant Herald ~

The birds sing a patternless chorus as a gentle light nurtures all. A soft hand belonging to a golden haired girl sets down a clean dish and some small, furry ones gather around it with eager. Milk is then poured from a glass slowly into the dish and the small ones lap it up happily. The beauty of this patch of nature catches the cold eyes of a youth as the wind blows through his red hair. He heads towards the green and finds himself wandering deeper and deeper into it, enjoying the freshness and life that thrive in it. He stops at a bit of distance from some furry cats that were enjoying a small dish of milk and gazes at them for a while.

Then, as if an illusion, a flutter of gold catches his eyes and draws his attention from the cats. The red head looks around, searching the gaps between the trees with his eyes and scanning the treetops visible for the enchanting gold. He would've left and judged it to be a mere illusion of daylight but he sees it again. Not knowing what it actually was, he reaches for a white blade that he carried with him and loads it onto a gun shaped launcher. When the flutter came again, the strong youth launches the blade towards it but misses. The small ones who were feeding stops as a yelp becomes audible and scatters into some bushes where the fluttering gold had been. The red head recalls his blade and follows them to discover beyond the bushes, a girl with golden hair clad in leathery white and silky pink sitting up from the ground, rubbing her side as if in pain and assuring the small furry things that had gathered around her that she was alright.

As he watches, a melancholic expression forms on the red head's face as he turns to go only to make enough noise to alarm the girl of his presence.

"Tala…right?" she asks.

"Yeah." Tala stops to say. He then continues to walk away only to be stopped again by a gentle tug on his sleeve.

"Tala?"

"I'm…sorry." He pulls from her and leaves her staring after him.

He is not too far when another high pitched sound reaches his ears. The familiarity of the voice causes him to run back to the site of the cats to find the same girl laying on the floor in pain and holding onto her side. A cloaked figure stands beside her, stroking her hair. He was about to inject something into her arm through a needle when a white blade flashes by and knocks it out of his hands, spilling the liquid in it on the blades of grass a little ways from the two.

"Get your dirty paws off her!" Tala had recognized the figure in the cloak as one of his pursuers.

The stranger in the black cloak turns to him. Then he slowly turns around and walks away, leaving the red head feeling puzzled by his lack of aggression and the girl on the ground. Tala rushes to the girl's side to discover she had fallen unconscious from the pain in her side. He picks her up gently and carries her off.

...

The moon rises and the stars glitter across the heavens. A large door clicks open and the sound echoes through the large empty mansion as a two-toned haired boy steps inside. While outside, he had observed that none of the lights were on and deduced that a certain girl with golden hair was not present. He closes the door slowly, observant of his surroundings in case her absence was not of her own will.

'Where did she go?' Kai wonders.

He checks several rooms of his extravagant habitat to find that someone is indeed missing. Before he can decide if he should bother looking for the missing girl, the doorbell sounds and calls his attention. Kai carefully opens the door to find a red headed youth at his door.

"What is it?" Kai greets him.

"That girl."

"Huh?"

"She got attacked by one of the goons in the black cloak earlier." Tala says interrupting Kai, whose eyes widen at the news. "She's ok, but come to my place to pick her up if you want her back. Spencer and Bryan are watching her right now so she should be safe."

Kai nods and follows Tala outside. They arrive eventually to a more or less run down place and Tala unlocks a rather battered door revealing a small room with tattered furniture and a television. The shades on the windows are closed and the lights are off. A silvered haired youth reads a magazine by the light of the television and a light brown haired youth on the beaten couch watches something on that television.

"Hey, you're back." The silver haired youth who was reading a magazine says.

"Bryan, did she wake up yet?" asks Tala.

"Nope." Bryan returns to his magazine.

"She's in the room over there," the light brown haired one points out, looking up from the small television.

"Thanks, Spencer."

The two of them enter the small room and flips the lights on to find a girl resting on the bed. She had been tugged in neatly and looks as if in a peaceful sleep. Kai could not help but gaze at her for a while before opening his mouth to ask Tala for a more detailed report.

"Wanna elaborate on the details?" Kai asks.

"I went for a walk." Tala replies.

"And?"

"I…heard her scream and ran in her direction to see what was going on. When I got there, she was on the ground and a guy in a black cloak was standing over her. He was gonna inject something into her so I knocked it out of his hands. He just left after that."

Kai remains silent but gazes at the resting girl. He then steps closer to her and gently slides an arm underneath her and throws the sheets off to pick her up.

"I'm going to go." Kai begins to leave. "…and thanks for finding her."

Tala stares after him as he heads off with the girl in his arms. His eyes grow a little doleful as he watches them. He turns from the two and closes the door behind him.

...

When the moon has risen higher, the door to a room is kicked open gently and the lights of that room are flipped on. A two toned haired boy steps into the room. In his strong arms is a girl who seems to be peacefully resting. He sets her down gently onto the bed and tugs her in, then brushes away the hair that had fanned out over her face. He sits at the edge of the bed and gazes at her for a while and then stretches out a hand to stroke her soft cheek. He takes out a white, gun shaped launcher and set it on her bedside table. Then he gets up and heads out, flipping the lights back off before closing the door behind him as gently as he could.

He stands still outside the bedroom for a while and then walks off to his own quarters. Unknown to him, a young man with spiky hair clad in a black cloak sat down on the windowsill of the girl's room. He gazes at her in the moonlight but then quints his eyes a little in discomfort as a teardrop begins to form.