Prologue
Dedicated to my Little sister
For loving this story a butt-ton and criticizing every mistake. For getting mad when I didn't add enough romance and hating on all the characters until I proved they were more than she gave them credit for. Thank you, I've grown as a writer. (I think.)
Prologue
“Why do I have to go to bed?” Airin squirmed in his bed. He stared at the craggy grey of the cave wall. He used to enjoy it. He'd used the almost endless caves as a playground, climbing all over the walls and stalagmites. But now...
“I don’t feel very tired.” His world was a small one, he’d grown up in a cave system running through Mt. Kilimanjaro. Still, Airin felt that he just might be different from most of the humans he had never met, somehow, and not just in the way that he wasn’t tired at eight - o - clock... Airin was almost certain that most people didn't live completely alone, literally under a rock with a strange old man who never seemed to age past the eighty-something he appeared and didn't ever give straight answers about why they lived in a mountain in Africa!
“You’re a twelve year old child who should be asleep.” Airin’s sensei replied curtly. The grouchy old man had raised him and taught him everything he’d need to know, from the correct way to wield a blade to sounding out the harder words. Something he hadn't taught Airin was, well, social skills, how to play, how to love... The old man was his master, not Airin's father.
He was a teacher, showing a blonde little boy how to be a fighter despite the boy's age.
“I’m old and need sleep too.” Ugh, the old man's favorite saying always meant that the conversation would be over soon, “I need my rest too, Airin.”
“I know you’re lying,” Airin ran his hand through his blonde hair. Every time the blue eyed pre-teen looked in the reflective pond he had in the cave he called his ‘room’, he saw himself, the budding warrior with short, shiny hair, his favorite yellow robes and his multitude of bruises. (That tends to happen when one is absolutely filled with energy that can only be channeled into climbing and falling on solid stone. It also tended to happen when you fail at the things your master wants...)
He seemed normal on the outside, but when Airin finished his lessons and wandered onto the cliff faces he called home, felt the freezing winds whip his perfect hair and gazed upon the vast expansive sky, he felt trapped and unnatural in his human body. his pale skin (very clearly not the darker color that would usually signify an African descent despite where he lived) felt almost like a glove rather than what it was. Thinking about it felt like it would drive him mad and eventually he’d have to turn from his beautiful sky and return to the horrible, bleak, grey caves to slog through his sad, unfulfilling life. (Okay, that may be just a little overdramatic.)
One of his only joys came from his sword, Airin was very talented with his sword, Kaze. (His master had named her and told Airin that it meant 'wind' in a language not his own.) She could slice through a stalactite before his master could blink, and Airin only got better with age. Though, that was probably because it was the only thing he was aloud to do and was encouraged to learn...
“Go to sleep.”
Airin sighed at his master’s words, and rolled his eyes. Something he'd seen Atohl do before and though he wasn't one hundred percent sure what it meant, he thought it conveyed the snark he wanted.
“What did I tell you? You know not to disobey me…” Airin’s sensei often said things like this. The boy now wanted to rebel simply because his master wanted to control him. Atohl always seemed strangely desperate to keep Airin under his power, much to his own confusion. It hadn't been so obvious when the boy was younger but now...
What am I to him? Airin wondered.
Atohl left the cave.
Airin climbed off of the blankets splayed out on the floor and began to play with his rocks. It was rather sad, but currently, these rocks were his only friends.
Oh well. Airin thought, For my only friends... you guys aren't so bad.
