For Which They Are Named (pt.2)
"...No way…"
Guns. Lots and lots of guns.
De Lisle Carbines, P14s, M1917 Einfields, Lee Einfields, No. 4 Mk.1 rifles, Lee Einfield No.5 Mk. I "Jungle Carbines", Lanchester SMGs, Stens, Thomspson SMGs "Tommy Guns, Sterling/Patchett Machine Carbine Mark 1s, Bren light machine guns, Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR), Lewis guns, Vickers machine guns, Browning M1919s, Browning M2s, Besa machine guns, Besals, Browning FN-Inglis's, Webley No.1 Mk. 1s, and Welrods (suppressed pistols). Other crates had more guns and explosives. Now, whether those explosives are now duds or still active is a question better left unanswered.
More crates had uniforms of what looked to be infantry or standard issue lower rank military. Others had ammo, maps (which are pretty useless now since they are severely outdated, compasses, and more. Every crate or box or storage container of any kind that they found had one thing in common.
All of these things were from World War Two.
Sadly there was no food, but they will make do with what they have. The medicine was questionable, there is no telling how long it had actually been since it was made. They started by cleaning up the debris as best they could. They were really small children, so really they couldn't do much. They organized what they had. Made beds out of the uniforms that they couldn't fit in. The girl put on the smallest undershirt she could find and exchanged it for her dirty old clothes that had much wear and tear to them. She used an old belt and wrapped it around her waist a few times. From the belt she hung leather pouches and some small knives. She found some pants that she modified to her size by using some needle and thread that she got from an old lady who taught her how to fix their clothes. The boy found a shirt and pants and the girl fixed them more to his size, though granted, it was a little baggy.
They used old wood that couldn't be used to fix the warehouse as some wood for a fire at night. They made a medium sized fire pit in the center of the first floor with many rocks laid together to form a circle. One old map was used to help start the fire when the sun began setting and the air grew cooler. The siblings were lucky to find so many match boxes among the supplies, even better that the girl can start a fire with one match stick.
They did not freeze that night.
The next morning was spent bathing in a creek about a quarter mile from the warehouse. The Scarlet boy had started setting traps for deer in the forest while the girl searched for some berries that were safe to eat. Berries were very abundant in supply this time of year (because it was spring) so the siblings wouldn't have to worry so much about starving every day. It was a small blessing that they couldn't feed themselves too much too quickly. They would have to slowly introduce food back into their diet. That meant they didn't have to stress too much about finding enough food.
The winter months from their escape and roaming were harsh on them, but they made it through. Spring is a new beginning. "We'll make it through this." The girl will whisper to herself every night before she falls asleep on her makeshift bed.
That was how the two lived for two years. Living off the land. They had plenty of supplies that they rationed out enough that they still had tons of it left over. The boy had fixed up the second story's floor up the best he could and that was where he stored their supplies. The first floor was their living space. The center of the floor held the fire pit where they cooked all their food and such. Surrounding the fire pit a little bit away, were the beds––nests made of cloth really––where the siblings slept near the fire to keep warm.
There wasn't much that they had. But they were thankful they still had supplies to sustain them. Their normal routine was thrown out of balance on one particular day. One that would start a chain of events that would push forth changes in the world.
The Scarlet girl was refilling their water supply when she saw the water turn red. It was clouding the water and slowly flowing down stream at a steady, tranquil pace that the girl just stared. It hadn't yet registered in her brain what it was that had turned the water red.
Snapping back into reality, the girl dropped her jug of water and ran upstream from where the color was coming from. She yelled for her brother and he came towards her, dropping his own jug of water, and began chasing after her.
"What's going on!?" He shouted as he ran to keep pace with his little sister.
"There was blood in the creek!"
"Oh." He gasped out as he tripped over a rock in his shock. Deciding to save their breath, nothing was said the rest of the time that they ran. The boy focused on something that he saw in the distance and sped up until he was passing his sister. When he drew nearer, he slowed down his running into a complete stop. His little sister wasn't ready for him to stop and proceeded to bump into him.
"Hey! What was that for!? Why did you––" She couldn't finish her sentence in her shock and horror. What laid before them was a meadow. One that clearly used to be beautiful and full of life. It was scarred and burned. Small caters dotted the land. The ground was soaked in blood that every step they made created a squelching sound as if they stepped into a wet swampy marsh. That wasn't the worst part.
Dead bodies were strewn about, torn apart and ravaged. Men. Women. Children. And the smell. The girl threw up what little breakfast she had left in her stomach and continued to dry heave. The smell was putrid. The air wreaked of decay and death.
A low groan broke the silence and the boy began searching the meadow from where the sound came from. The girl followed his example as soon as she had finished gagging. The groans had, within seconds, became whimpers and cries. Heavy breathing sounded through the air. They searched for many minutes and found the source of the noises.
There, under a pile of dead bodies, was a child who looked to be not that much older than the Scarlet boy. He may even be the same age. As much as the girl would have liked to examine the features of the boy, she had to get him treated for his obvious injuries and Lord knew how many more underneath his torn and blood soaked clothes. She made a note to herself to make him some new ones.
The Scarlet boy carefully picked up the injured boy into his arms and started walking back towards what the siblings have been calling home for the past two years.
"I'll start taking him home and do my best to get him cleaned up for you." He said. The girl nodded her head.
"I'll continue to look for any more survivors. We can come back and bury the dead later. Make sure to boil the water for a bit so that it's clean and sterile." The boy did not argue with his sister, he knew someone's life was in his hands. For now, he'll just focus on getting the boy to their home. So with that final instruction, he took off back to the not-so-abandoned warehouse.
The girl sighed as she went around checking all the bodies for a pulse or a breath. She found none. That boy was the only survivor. That was going to be difficult to explain to him. The girl ran all the way back to the warehouse and as she stepped through the door, her brother looked up and she solemnly shook her head.
The Scarlet boy's head dropped to his chest as he took a deep breath. "This isn't going to be easy to tell."
"I know." Was all she said. The girl got to work cleaning the rest of the new boy's wounds and dressing them with the plentiful amount of bandages that the two have in stock. The Scarlet boy began making some soup from scratch in the large cast iron pot hanging over the fire that he got going earlier.
While the new male was recovering and his wounds were all dressed and taken care of and her brother was preoccupied with making their meal, she took this time to examine the boy's features.
He didn't look like a regular human being. In fact, his skin was red. As if it had been dyed with the blood he laid in previously. She took her hands and gently caressed the skin of his cheekbone and was in awe of how soft it remained.
She tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear and found a pointed red ear hidden amongst beautiful, dark, raven locks.
The boy twitched in his sleep when she touched his ear.
The girl paused––afraid to have woken him up––but the boy stayed asleep. She began raking her fingers through his hair and gently scraping her nails against his call when his dark brows began to furrow in his sleep from no doubt a nightmare. However, she stopped in shock when she came acrossed something hard protruding from his skull.
Horns.
This boy had a pair of horns growing from his head. Not his forehead, but from the spots above and further behind the ears and they grew towards the front of him. It strangely fit him. He could grow to be quite the looker in the future, she mused to herself. She wouldn't ever tell her brother she thought that. He would flip out and go all overprotective on her. Christ, she was just almost 4 years old, cut her some slack!
The girl turned to face the fire and relished in its heat for a few minutes until her brother handed her a bowl of venison stew. It was bland without any kind of seasoning, but it's food and she's thankful that they don't go hungry.
After the siblings had finished their food they made a small bowl for the other boy and kept it near the fire to keep it warm for him when he woke up. It was silent for a few minutes until the boy began to stir. He tried to sit up, but the girl was quick to gently press her palm against his shoulder in order to get him to lay back down. The boy's eyes flew open and the girl got to see the most beautiful pearlescent lavender eyes she had ever seen. Granted she had never seen this color before. She snapped herself out of her awe when the boy began to put on a guarded look about him and she did her best to put him back at ease.
"It's okay! It's okay. It's okay…" She told him, "You're safe here. It's just my brother and I. We found you nearly dead and brought you here to take care of your wounds. They were pretty bad, but I was able to stitch up the worst of them and bandage the rest…"
The red-skinned boy watched as the girl rambled on about how she and her brother had found him and what they did to help him. She seemed so harmless, But he knew how quickly they would change if they knew what he was. They all did.
"...Your skin looks really cool too! I mean yeah it was kind of hard to tell what was blood and what was your actual skin, but my brother figured it out. It turns out your blood is practically black. It's really cool! I've never met anyone with horns before!—"
"—Why are you so nice to me?" The red-skinned boy asked.
"Pardon?"
"You know what I am! You see that I'm not human! I'm—"
"A person."
"Wh–what?"
"You're a person. Just like me. Just like my brother. You just look a little different than most humans."
The red-skinned boy didn't say anything in response. He couldn't. Not when he's been told all his life—. He won't go there.
(Badthoughtsbadthoughtsbadthoughtsbadthoughts)
The girl just gently smiled at him with a soft look and tucked her hair behind her ear to reveal–
He choked.
Pointed ears.
"My brother has them too. Say, how old are you? I've just turned four years old! My brother is six!"
"S-seven..."
"Cool! You're just three years my senior!" The girl would have continued to talk but her brother had come up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, successfully startling her.
"As much of a good thing conversing is, he still needs to eat something." The Scarlet boy turned to the red-skinned boy, "I know it doesn't taste like much, but it's food." He said as he handed the other boy a bowl filled with venison stew.
The boy tentatively took the warm bowl in his hands after the siblings helped him with sitting up in the 'bed' that he realized was the most comfortable thing he had ever laid on. He carefully took a sip and realized it wasn't poisoned. The food was the best he has ever tasted. Much better than the scarce stale, moldy, bread the people who were taking care of him fed him. He figured that if this was poisoned with a tasteless, odorless poison, it wouldn't be a bad way to go. Being treated like a person.
The girl continued to speak to him and it had definitely startled him at first until he realized after he had woken up that, indeed, she was talking directly to him. He also secretly enjoyed watching the siblings banter with each other. The atmosphere that the two created was so peaceful and enjoyable. He laughed. A full, stitch inducing, laugh.
The two siblings stopped what they were doing. The girl's head was stuck under her brother's armpit in a headlock. They both stared at the boy. One in surprise and the other in awe. The girl broke out of the headlock and rushed over to the boy and couldn't help but gush over the sound of his laugh.
It was a nice sound.
The three kids chatted and got to ease the horned boy into their presence more.
"Say, what do we call you?" The brother asked.
The other boy was able to answer a little easier this time. "My name is Cascius, Cascius Voyage..."
"That's such a cool name! I wish I had one!" The girl exclaimed.
"You don't have a name?"
"No! And neither does my brother! It's a tragedy! I mean we have a kind of last name I guess. Scarlet."
"It's a good start."
The brother pointed out something they've been thinking about, "We just didn't want a too difficult of a name to remember you know? Something that rolls easy off the tongue."
"Terra." Cascius said, looking at the other boy.
"What?"
"Terra, you seem like a down to earth person..." Cascius suddenly seemed uncertain. The two siblings didn't like seeing him so. It hurt to see such obvious signs of abuse. All throughout their conversations he seemed hesitant to speak his mind. To think of himself as a person. It hurt and tore at the female's heart.
"I like it. Terra Scarlet it is. Has a nice ring to it." The newly dubbed, Terra, said.
Cascius looked at the only girl to have ever acknowledged him and felt like a name for her had to be special some way. And one he could never forget. He stared into her eyes. Those beautiful eyes. Eyes of a shimmering silver. He knew exactly what to call her.
Cascius smiled and said, "Silver. It's the color of your eyes. Now I'll never forget it." He continued to gaze into her eyes as she smiled—which brightened her eyes that much more—and he couldn't help but relax
"Silver Scarlet..." She whispered. "I love it!" The smile playing on her lips told the truth on how much she did. He was so glad to have given her something to be happy about. Something as a thanks for taking care of him and helping him back to health.
"So Cascius Voyage, Terra Scarlet, and Silver Scarlet. What a trio we make don't we?" Terra asked as his single brown eye danced with mirth.
Cascius smirked, showing off pointed canines, and responded. "We make one hell of a trio."
Silver perked up from between the two boys and looked at both of them. "Friends till the end?"
Both males looked at her and then to each other. They smiled and nodded
"Friends till the end."
