Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Young Debris ❯ Chapter 7
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Elven_mistress 
Two chapters in one evening, Huzzah for me!
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Post-apocalyptic / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.27.2009 | Pages: 3 | Words: 5.2K | Visits: 187 | Status: Work In Progress
Two chapters in one evening, Huzzah for me!
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Post-apocalyptic / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.27.2009 | Pages: 3 | Words: 5.2K | Visits: 187 | Status: Work In Progress
Here's chapter 7, Enjoy! Review please too if you have the time ^_^
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No more refugees came and life went on for the next few months, winter didn’t seem to come at first and they began to hope that it wouldn’t, all of November and the first half of December it hardly even rained, something they were all grateful for since they were busy trying to harvest anything edible, right down to the last alfalfa sprout in the fields that had managed to grow despite the charred ground.
Surprisingly there was quite a bit to harvest and the refugees were more than happy to help. They even had a little harvest party to celebrate their first harvest and the rest was divided evenly by the clan leaders while they once again debated on unifying under one leader. The same nominations and arguments. There was plenty of hay bundled the old-fashioned way, which was more fun than they all thought it would be and plenty of people were tossed into piles. With the food harvested, dried, jarred as soup, or pickled, and stored for the impending winter, the hay gathered and stored in the barn, and everyone prepared for the cold, it was rather annoying when the snow never came.
It was exactly mid-December when the snow finally fell. All at once too in in the span of two and a half days. Kenny measured it to be three feet deep and wading through it wasn’t very fun when doing the chores. Although, once the chores were done, a snowman army was created and snow forts that led to a great snowball war that lasted the rest of the day and continued again the next morning.
Oddly, Eva stayed indoors and away from the fun. Not that anyone would complain, she had become rather sour ever since the refugees first arrived. Kate assumed that there was just too much history between them and her for them to let the past die and move on. Not with the rope burns of slavery still fresh on their wrists and in their minds.
“I will so get you back for that,” Trent grumbled as he shook out his thoroughly soaked pants.
Kate grinned, “oh come on, a little snow down the pants never hurt anybody. Lord knows you needed it.”
He immediately straightened up, “what’s that supposed to mean?”
She only giggled and pulled on some pyjamas, running up the stairs to escape him as he lunged at her in an effort to tickle the answer out of her.
Then she was met with the unwelcome sight of her sister and David making out on the couch.
“Eww! Guys, we have bedrooms for that!”
Amria blushed, pulled away and rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Oh grow up will you! It’s not like we’re doing it or anything,” She smirked evilly, “not like you and Trent were last week in the kitchen.”
Kate copied Amria’s motion of rolling her eyes and sighing, “whatever!”, before leaving the room in favour of the kitchen to prepare dinner with Heather.
Heather gave her a side glance before returning to the pot of what everyone had fondly become calling gruel after eating it for the millionth time, although it was more of a stew. It was a concoction of dried vegetables, various meats, and oatmeal among other things.
Kate gave her a quick smile before starting on the small hardtack cakes made from flour, water, and thinned honey.
“Interrupted them, huh?”
Kate looked over at her and then peeked into the sitting room, the couple were now sitting cuddled together sharing a book. “I guess I did. Had they been at it for a while?”
Heather just giggled and put another log in the woodstove.
Kate heard the front door open, the wind howling in before it was slammed shut, someone stomping off their boots a little before charging into the kitchen.
“Kate! We have a serious problem!”
She tried to rub off some flour itching her cheek, ending up with more than was originally there. “What?”
“People in the Black sun clan are getting really sick.”
She put the finished cakes in the oven and turned to face Samuel, “what’s wrong with them?”
He shrugged off his coyote skin jacket onto the floor and collapsed into a chair, “I’m a med student, not a doctor. I barely know the basics as it is. And I have hardly any time to study the books I have. I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
Heather frowned at the coat on the floor and then at him, “I just cleaned the floors today Sam. Pick up your coat and put it on the hook.”
He rolled his eyes and obeyed. Sitting back down he grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and tossed it into the air.
“Stop playing with the food.”
He put it back into the bowl, pouting, “you never let me have any fun Heather.”
Kate tossed a tin of dried apple slices to him, “munch on these if you can’t wait for dinner.” She peeked into the oven to check on the cakes before sitting down across from their only doctor. “So what is wrong with them?”
He looked up, an apple slice halfway to his mouth. Sighing he put it back down, “their hair is falling out and they’re getting really weak. It’s not malnutrition, everyone is getting equal nutrients, two meals a day like everyone else. They were the ones in the town when the bomb hit our East neighbour city three years ago, but they were underground when it happened. They should have been safe.”
Kate yawned and looked up at the clock, people would be coming in for dinner soon. “Any chance that it’s radiation poisoning? Or something like that? Sound like it's around the time they stopped using nukes and started using the old exploding type bombs.”
Samuel shrugged and stood up. “Maybe, I’ll check my books, maybe there’s something in them about it,” he pulled on his coat and did up the wooden toggles, “If there’s nothing in them I’ll head over to the Lame Stag guys to check on their library tomorrow, they might have something, a group of them just got back from the East with a whole cartful of different books they got from the library ruins.” He headed into the cold basement to search through his meagre supply of medical books for an answer to their newest dilemma, passing Trent on his way.
Trent gave him a questioning glance before jogging up the rest of the steps and sneaking into the kitchen to surprise Kate and give her a kiss. “What was Sammy in a huff about?” He murmured against her throat.
She squirmed at the tickling feeling of the scruff that was beginning to turn into a beard and scraped the cakes off the pan, placing them in a basket for the table. "Will you shave that off please? You look silly."
Trent feigned a look of hurt and clutched his heart dramatically.
“People in the Black Sun clan are getting sick. Kate thinks it’s radiation poisoning.” Heather answered for her.
“Hmmm,” he blew a quick raspberry and headed for the door, “Well, I guess I better call in everyone for dinner.”
Kate sighed sadly and shook her head, she felt like she had been doing a lot of that lately, “I don’t understand how he can just shrug things off like that.”
Heather didn’t answer and began setting the table. After a few moments she walked over and patted her on the shoulder, “Well, I would prefer to deal with this than some psycho guy who wants to rule the remaining world.”
Kate shook her head, “not me, I’d prefer dealing with him any day. At least with that nut job I know what I’m dealing with. We can‘t afford people just getting sick, we don't have the resources to care for them.”
Heather only yawned and began pouring the gruel into the bowls as people began pouring in and dropping snow all over the just cleaned floors. Heather sighing angrily each time another person came in the door.
Daniel stood and watched her get angrier and angrier before walking up to her, covered in snow, giving her a big frosty kiss while slipping a snowball down the back of her shirt.
“Dan! That’s cold!” She exclaimed while jumping frantically about trying to un-tuck her shirt to remove the quickly melting snow.
He drew his eyes away from the mirror and looked over at his bed. His Lady, as he liked to call her although she said her name was Myra, was fast asleep. She always did like to sleep in. She was blind, of course, he wasn’t about to allow anyone else to see his face other than his twin sister.. He had chosen her because she was strong, despite her disability. Her enhanced hearing and sense of smell and taste was useful to him. She was able to detect the smallest trace of an odour, she was especially good at detecting poisons that people had been recently putting in his food. Of course, he solved that problem by having one of the slaves act as a food and drink tester. Shortly after doing that, the poisoning stopped.
She stirred slightly and he picked up a robe for her and laid it on the bed beside her, he had other duties to attend to at the moment.
Coiron nervously fidgeted before the line-up of half-frozen workers. They were barely dressed for the kind of weather right now, most of them were huddled together trying to share warmth.
“Why aren’t they working?”
He jumped at the soft voice whispering in his ear.
“M .. my lord, I … um, they were cold my lord. They can’t work in this kind of weather in those kind of clothes.”
The tyrant smirked under his veil, “then have the guards go find them all something more appropriate.”
Coiron gulped, “not to sound rude or disrespectful my lord, but all of the soldiers have taken the suitable clothing for themselves and have left none. They all have at least three coats each.”
He gripped the dragon-tail on the back of Coiron’s head and gave a cruel yank, “than have Aaron go and deal with them, they’ll obey him.” He chuckled to himself as Coiron nodded and walked off, rubbing the back of his sore scalp. Torturing Coiron had become a sort of sport as of late, a very amusing sport.
But he had more pressing matters to attend to, as entertaining as striking terror into his subordinates was. His army had recently acquired a new city, to add to the five he already had under his power. Thirty adults had been executed and his men were already chasing down the ones that had escaped. The only adults spared had been the doctors, but as soon as his healers were trained in all that they know they would be disposed of as well.
His sleigh was already prepared and waiting for him to travel to this city for him to inspect it and give it a new name. He was slightly perturbed by the fact that he was needing more and more escorts to ensure his safety as the rate of assassination attempts were increasing. But he had plenty of soldiers and healers, he felt as though nothing could touch him.
When the sleigh pulled to a stop it was already into the evening, so his servants took him and his belongings up into the penthouse suite of a hotel that had already been decorated to his preferences. He decided against eating and went straight to bed once he was sure his guards wouldn’t fall asleep.
Nights were becoming restless for the tyrant. He would spend half the night tossing and turning and the other night in fitful dreams. Lately he had been consuming a lot of coffee to keep himself up during the day, something he had at one point despised the taste of. It remained the same that night as well.
Quintus had managed to knot the covers around his legs twice and had to untangle them himself, the last thing he needed was for the humiliation of needing his guards help. He had fallen out of the bed three times and had suffered from a horrible nightmare once he had fallen asleep.
Getting out of bed he went over into his private kitchen and prepared a mug of lemon tea with the hopes of it helping him sleep and avoid troublesome dreams. Several doctors and his score of healers all told him there was nothing physically wrong with him and suggested it was stress causing his sleeplessness.
He snorted at this thought as he watched the water boil. Ridiculous. I am not stressed. I am happy and am Lord over six cities and several small towns and villages.
This was a reassurance he was now giving himself on an hourly basis. He knew the signs of paranoia, his lady had been blunt enough to point it out for him. She was probably the only one able to get away with something like that.
He found it strange that she had not arrived yet, he had given strict orders that she be brought to him once her basics were packed, which should have been hours ago. He enjoyed her company, so he hoped nothing had happened to her.
Life wasn’t as hard as it had been at first. All civilizations start rough but it felt like they had been literally knocked into the stone age. None of them knew how to make gunpowder, not that anyone was brave enough to try. But unlike before, they were content with the weapons they had, and they had already agreed to use them for hunting and defence only. But Kate had her doubts about that and some people were actually wagering how long that would last. Her and Amria were hoping that they could negotiate with this nameless tyrant, but from the things that Eva had told them about her he was more of a ‘kill first, ask questions never’ kind of guy. And that was a major problem.
Kenny tossed his cards onto the table, “I fold. Can’t we play a different game?”
Elisha rolled her eyes and tossed in some beans, their favourite currency for card games, “you don’t want to play poker on Wednesday‘s, you don’t want to play monopoly on Monday’s, why don’t you just go to bed if you don’t like Friday nights blackjack?”
He grinned lecherously, “so I can be with you my dear since this is as close as I can get for now.”
Kate raised her eyebrow, “and its gonna stay that way or she’ll kick your butt to Greenland.”
A few chuckles came from other clan members and visiting ones. For the past month Kenny had had his eyes on Elisha, among other things. He was getting on her nerves quite a bit, and she had had to beat him up a few times already. Of course, this provided entertainment for everyone else and bets were being laid for how long it would be till they became a couple or she killed him. Even Kate had put a few bets in, just because she knew that Elisha liked him back, being her best friend and privy to all the girl-talk.
The past two weeks had been fairly quiet now that people were going over to the Lame Stag clan for medical attention since Samuel was still doing research. He was pretty sure that Kate had been right about the recent illness. From everything he’d read, it looked like radiation poisoning, and adding that onto their list of problems was troubling enough. Brian, the leader of the Dark Night clan, and his wife were expecting a child and Samuel was on edge, worrying about whether or not the mother could handle the birth. Helena who was Brian’s wife, was only sixteen, and although teenagers giving birth was not unheard of, Samuel was still very worried. If something went wrong he would be in unfamiliar territory but he had been very relieved when Coral and Traci, sixteen-year-old twin sisters and refugees, stepped forward and told them they already had experience with twelve births among fellow slaves in worse conditions than they were in.
Of course Terra thought that everything was very romantic, like any girl would. The moment Brian had found out that Helena was pregnant he proposed to her and they had been married by the Mystic. They were the first marriage since the end of the war, in their town at least. They had actually managed to make contact with another town further up north that had survived. They had made a sort of alliance and the people had actually let the Mystic give them a clan name just for the fun of it.
Now they had yet another group to trade with on market day, and some love matches were already occurring. They were named the Glistening Water clan since they were established around a small but clean underground spring, they seemed to like the name, very appropriate in their opinion. The town was mostly farmers children and there were even four adults, although they kind of kept to themselves since the adults were merely tolerated. It would probably take a long time for the younger generation to forgive them, if they ever did.
But besides the obvious radiation poisoning, life was turning out to be pretty okay. The teens still didn’t understand what the adults found so hard about being diplomatic and tending to the peoples needs. But Michael contributed their ability to get along to the fact that firstly, a major catastrophe had occurred so therefore people were more willing to prevent the worst scenario from happening again. Secondly, you take money out of the equation and life becomes much simpler as the old haggle with the tradesman method came back into play. And thirdly, they were teenagers and more focused on enjoying life than getting rich, at least most of them anyways.
Of course, nothing is perfect.
Eva leaned on the fence post, watching Arthur and members of the Lame Stag clan teach a small group how to fire a bow. Their students were failing miserably. These people weren’t much, they were just a bunch of kids, most of them barely old enough for the responsibilities that they had been given.
Eva didn’t understand it. How could a bunch of people band together like this without even one trying to become the leader over all of them? Maybe democracy wasn’t dead yet. But the more she thought about it and analyzed people over the almost three months that she had been there, Victoria had a habit of trying to make everyone see things her way. Every time market day was held she would watch Victoria argue with all the other leaders that Amria had been referring to as the council. The girl seemed to want to be in control. From her behavior anyone could tell this was the cheerleader type who thought the universe revolved around her and that everyone should listen and obey. People just ignored her for the most part.
And then there was the little ones. The small children were hardly ever considered in the Tyrant's community. Community, that word made her snort under her breath when she thought of it, him and community didn't belong on the same book nevermind sentence. Here the little ones were made to feel valued and were given little chores to make them feel part of the team. They had little puppet shows of classic childrens movies set up on Tuesdays that everyone came to watch over at the Dark Night Clan. A seventeen-year-old named Jennifer from the Lame Stag Clan had even set up a kind of school that was held on the weekend so that the children could continue to learn. She had even gone sor far as to set up a study group session on sunday afternoons for the teens so that they could still continue to learn from their school textbooks too.
Eva turned her attention to the archery lesson once again.
“Anchor with your mouth, use it to help aim!… Garret! Stop fooling around! These things aren’t toys!”
Garret, a member of the black Sun clan, just grinned and flicked his nearly waist length, blonde hair over his shoulder. He fired the arrow with his eyes closed.
He opened them, “Bulls eye!” He shouted in triumph.
“THAT THING IS NOT A TOY!!! YOU COULD HAVE PUT SOMEONES EYE OUT!!!”
Garret rolled his eyes at Arthur, “oh calm down would ya? I didn’t hurt anyone so I don’t understand what you’re freakin’ out about.”
Lara placed her hand on Arthur’s shoulder, distracting him from his sudden urge to give Garret a lesson in something other than archery. If there was one jock the Arthur couldn’t stand, it was him. It’s a surprise that Victoria and him can tolerate each other at all, who knew so much ego could exsist in one relationship?
“Arthur just wants you to be more careful, these are dangerous weapons, especially if you have very little practice.” She explained sweetly.
Garret gave her his most charming smile, “I’ll be more careful gorgeous, I promise.”
Lara returned the smile and nodded her thanks. “Well, I think that’s enough for the day, lets go inside and get warmed up, its so cold out.” she gave a fake shiver and Garret rushed to escort her indoors.
Victoria may be his girlfriend but that was only because Lara was already taken. He never did understand why she chose Robin Hood over him, he was much better looking in his opinion. And he had grown out his hair when he learned that she liked guys with long hair, although Victoria had threatened to cut it off several times.
But he planned to do his best to win Lara over, he was pretty sure he was strong enough to deal with Arthur, at least he hoped he was.
“Hey! Get your hands off my girl!” Arthur swatted Garrets hand away and stood between him and Lara, “flirt with your own girl. Victoria is always just so starved for attention.” Everyone knew she could be a little promiscuous and Garret hated to be reminded of that.
Garret swung at Arthur, knocking him off his feet, “I’ll put my hands on whatever I like Robin Hood!”
Soon snow was flying along with the two boys as they fought and argued, throwing insults and punches whenever they could.
Neither of them expected to be punched at the exact same time by the ambidexterous girl they were fighting over.
“I am not a scrap of meat to be fought over like wild dogs!”
Arthur cowered, smart enough not to make eye contact. Garret wasn’t so smart.
“you ain’t a scrap a meat, I ain’t hungry for that,” his grin afterward definitely didn’t help him as he was sent on his back by another punch from a very angry woman.
She glared at the two of them for a moment longer before stomping off toward the house.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Arthur muttered dejectedly before picking himself up and following her at a safe distance.
Eva couldn’t hide her amused grin at the snow covered boys and the angry Lara, they may have the responsibilities of adults, but it was kind of reassuiring in a way to know they were still hormonal teenagers.
He wished he could have run away with her but he needed to stay here and keep an eye on things, and to make sure their tyrant didn’t go completely off his rocker. He had been grateful when his voice had returned to normal, although he didn’t feel like talking much, now that he had avoided it for so long. He preferred to steer clear of his majesty as well. As a coregent he didn’t have to do much in battle except yell orders from behind the lines where he was safe from any missiles. The slaughtering of adults was a completely barbaric idea for him and was glad he wasn’t expected to do any of that or he’d kill himself out of shame and grief.
Their lord was insane. It wasn’t really a mystery to anyone why he was kept locked up in his parents basement and away from the rest of humanity. He sympathised for Eva, he understood how desperately she wished to leave when she realized she couldn’t save her brother. His presence had been bearable when he was on his medication, but now that there was no one left to make it, he had finally lost what was left of his decency. At least while medicated he wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself.
He couldn’t help but smile the first time he saw her. She had been rummaging through the hospital ruins where the room for all the medication once was, desperately searching for more medicine for her brother’s dwindling supplies. She had been crying, all the while murmuring something over and over. He approached and asked why she was all alone and digging through rubble in the chaotic city. She didn’t even seem to hear him, she just kept digging and mumbling. Coiron had grabbed her arms and lifted her up to face him, intent on getting her to answer him so that he could help. But when he saw her pale face and hollow grey eyes, all he could do was pull her against his chest to firmly hug her and comfort this stranger. He knew he had held her for well over an hour before her sobs and murmurings died down. Once she was calm she told him that her brother had forgotten to take one of his pills, lost his temper and dumped the rest down the toilet, and then killed her parents in his psychotic fury and she had just barely managed to lock him back in the basement before he got her too.
Coiron sighed and stared up at the ceiling. When they had returned to her home her brother had escaped, within a week he had gathered supporters to his insane ideals and started to take over the city before the month had ended. Thankfully he didn’t want his sister dead and had made Coiron a coregent despite Aarons objections to a complete stranger being his advisor.
“I’ll see you soon won’t I Eva?” He asked the empty room as the wind howled outside the window.
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No more refugees came and life went on for the next few months, winter didn’t seem to come at first and they began to hope that it wouldn’t, all of November and the first half of December it hardly even rained, something they were all grateful for since they were busy trying to harvest anything edible, right down to the last alfalfa sprout in the fields that had managed to grow despite the charred ground.
Surprisingly there was quite a bit to harvest and the refugees were more than happy to help. They even had a little harvest party to celebrate their first harvest and the rest was divided evenly by the clan leaders while they once again debated on unifying under one leader. The same nominations and arguments. There was plenty of hay bundled the old-fashioned way, which was more fun than they all thought it would be and plenty of people were tossed into piles. With the food harvested, dried, jarred as soup, or pickled, and stored for the impending winter, the hay gathered and stored in the barn, and everyone prepared for the cold, it was rather annoying when the snow never came.
It was exactly mid-December when the snow finally fell. All at once too in in the span of two and a half days. Kenny measured it to be three feet deep and wading through it wasn’t very fun when doing the chores. Although, once the chores were done, a snowman army was created and snow forts that led to a great snowball war that lasted the rest of the day and continued again the next morning.
Oddly, Eva stayed indoors and away from the fun. Not that anyone would complain, she had become rather sour ever since the refugees first arrived. Kate assumed that there was just too much history between them and her for them to let the past die and move on. Not with the rope burns of slavery still fresh on their wrists and in their minds.
“I will so get you back for that,” Trent grumbled as he shook out his thoroughly soaked pants.
Kate grinned, “oh come on, a little snow down the pants never hurt anybody. Lord knows you needed it.”
He immediately straightened up, “what’s that supposed to mean?”
She only giggled and pulled on some pyjamas, running up the stairs to escape him as he lunged at her in an effort to tickle the answer out of her.
Then she was met with the unwelcome sight of her sister and David making out on the couch.
“Eww! Guys, we have bedrooms for that!”
Amria blushed, pulled away and rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Oh grow up will you! It’s not like we’re doing it or anything,” She smirked evilly, “not like you and Trent were last week in the kitchen.”
Kate copied Amria’s motion of rolling her eyes and sighing, “whatever!”, before leaving the room in favour of the kitchen to prepare dinner with Heather.
Heather gave her a side glance before returning to the pot of what everyone had fondly become calling gruel after eating it for the millionth time, although it was more of a stew. It was a concoction of dried vegetables, various meats, and oatmeal among other things.
Kate gave her a quick smile before starting on the small hardtack cakes made from flour, water, and thinned honey.
“Interrupted them, huh?”
Kate looked over at her and then peeked into the sitting room, the couple were now sitting cuddled together sharing a book. “I guess I did. Had they been at it for a while?”
Heather just giggled and put another log in the woodstove.
Kate heard the front door open, the wind howling in before it was slammed shut, someone stomping off their boots a little before charging into the kitchen.
“Kate! We have a serious problem!”
She tried to rub off some flour itching her cheek, ending up with more than was originally there. “What?”
“People in the Black sun clan are getting really sick.”
She put the finished cakes in the oven and turned to face Samuel, “what’s wrong with them?”
He shrugged off his coyote skin jacket onto the floor and collapsed into a chair, “I’m a med student, not a doctor. I barely know the basics as it is. And I have hardly any time to study the books I have. I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
Heather frowned at the coat on the floor and then at him, “I just cleaned the floors today Sam. Pick up your coat and put it on the hook.”
He rolled his eyes and obeyed. Sitting back down he grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and tossed it into the air.
“Stop playing with the food.”
He put it back into the bowl, pouting, “you never let me have any fun Heather.”
Kate tossed a tin of dried apple slices to him, “munch on these if you can’t wait for dinner.” She peeked into the oven to check on the cakes before sitting down across from their only doctor. “So what is wrong with them?”
He looked up, an apple slice halfway to his mouth. Sighing he put it back down, “their hair is falling out and they’re getting really weak. It’s not malnutrition, everyone is getting equal nutrients, two meals a day like everyone else. They were the ones in the town when the bomb hit our East neighbour city three years ago, but they were underground when it happened. They should have been safe.”
Kate yawned and looked up at the clock, people would be coming in for dinner soon. “Any chance that it’s radiation poisoning? Or something like that? Sound like it's around the time they stopped using nukes and started using the old exploding type bombs.”
Samuel shrugged and stood up. “Maybe, I’ll check my books, maybe there’s something in them about it,” he pulled on his coat and did up the wooden toggles, “If there’s nothing in them I’ll head over to the Lame Stag guys to check on their library tomorrow, they might have something, a group of them just got back from the East with a whole cartful of different books they got from the library ruins.” He headed into the cold basement to search through his meagre supply of medical books for an answer to their newest dilemma, passing Trent on his way.
Trent gave him a questioning glance before jogging up the rest of the steps and sneaking into the kitchen to surprise Kate and give her a kiss. “What was Sammy in a huff about?” He murmured against her throat.
She squirmed at the tickling feeling of the scruff that was beginning to turn into a beard and scraped the cakes off the pan, placing them in a basket for the table. "Will you shave that off please? You look silly."
Trent feigned a look of hurt and clutched his heart dramatically.
“People in the Black Sun clan are getting sick. Kate thinks it’s radiation poisoning.” Heather answered for her.
“Hmmm,” he blew a quick raspberry and headed for the door, “Well, I guess I better call in everyone for dinner.”
Kate sighed sadly and shook her head, she felt like she had been doing a lot of that lately, “I don’t understand how he can just shrug things off like that.”
Heather didn’t answer and began setting the table. After a few moments she walked over and patted her on the shoulder, “Well, I would prefer to deal with this than some psycho guy who wants to rule the remaining world.”
Kate shook her head, “not me, I’d prefer dealing with him any day. At least with that nut job I know what I’m dealing with. We can‘t afford people just getting sick, we don't have the resources to care for them.”
Heather only yawned and began pouring the gruel into the bowls as people began pouring in and dropping snow all over the just cleaned floors. Heather sighing angrily each time another person came in the door.
Daniel stood and watched her get angrier and angrier before walking up to her, covered in snow, giving her a big frosty kiss while slipping a snowball down the back of her shirt.
“Dan! That’s cold!” She exclaimed while jumping frantically about trying to un-tuck her shirt to remove the quickly melting snow.
* * * * * *
Quintus pulled a brush through his lengthening hair. It had only been shoulder length when the war ended. But now, it was growing with a renewed vigour, already reaching his waist. He had always enjoyed brushing it himself. His mother used to but he hated it when someone else touched his hair, or anything else that belonged to him for that matter.He drew his eyes away from the mirror and looked over at his bed. His Lady, as he liked to call her although she said her name was Myra, was fast asleep. She always did like to sleep in. She was blind, of course, he wasn’t about to allow anyone else to see his face other than his twin sister.. He had chosen her because she was strong, despite her disability. Her enhanced hearing and sense of smell and taste was useful to him. She was able to detect the smallest trace of an odour, she was especially good at detecting poisons that people had been recently putting in his food. Of course, he solved that problem by having one of the slaves act as a food and drink tester. Shortly after doing that, the poisoning stopped.
She stirred slightly and he picked up a robe for her and laid it on the bed beside her, he had other duties to attend to at the moment.
Coiron nervously fidgeted before the line-up of half-frozen workers. They were barely dressed for the kind of weather right now, most of them were huddled together trying to share warmth.
“Why aren’t they working?”
He jumped at the soft voice whispering in his ear.
“M .. my lord, I … um, they were cold my lord. They can’t work in this kind of weather in those kind of clothes.”
The tyrant smirked under his veil, “then have the guards go find them all something more appropriate.”
Coiron gulped, “not to sound rude or disrespectful my lord, but all of the soldiers have taken the suitable clothing for themselves and have left none. They all have at least three coats each.”
He gripped the dragon-tail on the back of Coiron’s head and gave a cruel yank, “than have Aaron go and deal with them, they’ll obey him.” He chuckled to himself as Coiron nodded and walked off, rubbing the back of his sore scalp. Torturing Coiron had become a sort of sport as of late, a very amusing sport.
But he had more pressing matters to attend to, as entertaining as striking terror into his subordinates was. His army had recently acquired a new city, to add to the five he already had under his power. Thirty adults had been executed and his men were already chasing down the ones that had escaped. The only adults spared had been the doctors, but as soon as his healers were trained in all that they know they would be disposed of as well.
His sleigh was already prepared and waiting for him to travel to this city for him to inspect it and give it a new name. He was slightly perturbed by the fact that he was needing more and more escorts to ensure his safety as the rate of assassination attempts were increasing. But he had plenty of soldiers and healers, he felt as though nothing could touch him.
When the sleigh pulled to a stop it was already into the evening, so his servants took him and his belongings up into the penthouse suite of a hotel that had already been decorated to his preferences. He decided against eating and went straight to bed once he was sure his guards wouldn’t fall asleep.
Nights were becoming restless for the tyrant. He would spend half the night tossing and turning and the other night in fitful dreams. Lately he had been consuming a lot of coffee to keep himself up during the day, something he had at one point despised the taste of. It remained the same that night as well.
Quintus had managed to knot the covers around his legs twice and had to untangle them himself, the last thing he needed was for the humiliation of needing his guards help. He had fallen out of the bed three times and had suffered from a horrible nightmare once he had fallen asleep.
Getting out of bed he went over into his private kitchen and prepared a mug of lemon tea with the hopes of it helping him sleep and avoid troublesome dreams. Several doctors and his score of healers all told him there was nothing physically wrong with him and suggested it was stress causing his sleeplessness.
He snorted at this thought as he watched the water boil. Ridiculous. I am not stressed. I am happy and am Lord over six cities and several small towns and villages.
This was a reassurance he was now giving himself on an hourly basis. He knew the signs of paranoia, his lady had been blunt enough to point it out for him. She was probably the only one able to get away with something like that.
He found it strange that she had not arrived yet, he had given strict orders that she be brought to him once her basics were packed, which should have been hours ago. He enjoyed her company, so he hoped nothing had happened to her.
* * * * * *
Samuel had made little progress in his medical texts so he had decided to spend the next two weeks over at the Lame Stag clan. Of course, his girlfriend Terra, a refugee, a bull-headed redhead that was constantly fawning and fussing over him. Well, she insisted on joining him. Then all the clans had to be notified of his change in residence in case anyone should need to send for him, which meant a lot of energy and food used in the messengers to carry the notifiaction everywhere since paper had become a thinly stretched resource. Then there was the whole process of transporting most of his belongings over. It was kind of creepy now though. He had just turned eighteen and was now officially an adult, one of the first of them to reach that age. Terra was too, only a few months older than him. But now him and Michael were the only respected adults in the clans. Several adult refugees were now among them, numbering thirteen, and the teenagers tried to make them feel welcome. But many still resented the adults for bringing their world down around them and leaving the ones they had considered too young to be of any use to clean up their mess. So as a result several of the refugee's had gone to join the Adult clan and leave the younger generation alone.Life wasn’t as hard as it had been at first. All civilizations start rough but it felt like they had been literally knocked into the stone age. None of them knew how to make gunpowder, not that anyone was brave enough to try. But unlike before, they were content with the weapons they had, and they had already agreed to use them for hunting and defence only. But Kate had her doubts about that and some people were actually wagering how long that would last. Her and Amria were hoping that they could negotiate with this nameless tyrant, but from the things that Eva had told them about her he was more of a ‘kill first, ask questions never’ kind of guy. And that was a major problem.
Kenny tossed his cards onto the table, “I fold. Can’t we play a different game?”
Elisha rolled her eyes and tossed in some beans, their favourite currency for card games, “you don’t want to play poker on Wednesday‘s, you don’t want to play monopoly on Monday’s, why don’t you just go to bed if you don’t like Friday nights blackjack?”
He grinned lecherously, “so I can be with you my dear since this is as close as I can get for now.”
Kate raised her eyebrow, “and its gonna stay that way or she’ll kick your butt to Greenland.”
A few chuckles came from other clan members and visiting ones. For the past month Kenny had had his eyes on Elisha, among other things. He was getting on her nerves quite a bit, and she had had to beat him up a few times already. Of course, this provided entertainment for everyone else and bets were being laid for how long it would be till they became a couple or she killed him. Even Kate had put a few bets in, just because she knew that Elisha liked him back, being her best friend and privy to all the girl-talk.
The past two weeks had been fairly quiet now that people were going over to the Lame Stag clan for medical attention since Samuel was still doing research. He was pretty sure that Kate had been right about the recent illness. From everything he’d read, it looked like radiation poisoning, and adding that onto their list of problems was troubling enough. Brian, the leader of the Dark Night clan, and his wife were expecting a child and Samuel was on edge, worrying about whether or not the mother could handle the birth. Helena who was Brian’s wife, was only sixteen, and although teenagers giving birth was not unheard of, Samuel was still very worried. If something went wrong he would be in unfamiliar territory but he had been very relieved when Coral and Traci, sixteen-year-old twin sisters and refugees, stepped forward and told them they already had experience with twelve births among fellow slaves in worse conditions than they were in.
Of course Terra thought that everything was very romantic, like any girl would. The moment Brian had found out that Helena was pregnant he proposed to her and they had been married by the Mystic. They were the first marriage since the end of the war, in their town at least. They had actually managed to make contact with another town further up north that had survived. They had made a sort of alliance and the people had actually let the Mystic give them a clan name just for the fun of it.
Now they had yet another group to trade with on market day, and some love matches were already occurring. They were named the Glistening Water clan since they were established around a small but clean underground spring, they seemed to like the name, very appropriate in their opinion. The town was mostly farmers children and there were even four adults, although they kind of kept to themselves since the adults were merely tolerated. It would probably take a long time for the younger generation to forgive them, if they ever did.
But besides the obvious radiation poisoning, life was turning out to be pretty okay. The teens still didn’t understand what the adults found so hard about being diplomatic and tending to the peoples needs. But Michael contributed their ability to get along to the fact that firstly, a major catastrophe had occurred so therefore people were more willing to prevent the worst scenario from happening again. Secondly, you take money out of the equation and life becomes much simpler as the old haggle with the tradesman method came back into play. And thirdly, they were teenagers and more focused on enjoying life than getting rich, at least most of them anyways.
Of course, nothing is perfect.
Eva leaned on the fence post, watching Arthur and members of the Lame Stag clan teach a small group how to fire a bow. Their students were failing miserably. These people weren’t much, they were just a bunch of kids, most of them barely old enough for the responsibilities that they had been given.
Eva didn’t understand it. How could a bunch of people band together like this without even one trying to become the leader over all of them? Maybe democracy wasn’t dead yet. But the more she thought about it and analyzed people over the almost three months that she had been there, Victoria had a habit of trying to make everyone see things her way. Every time market day was held she would watch Victoria argue with all the other leaders that Amria had been referring to as the council. The girl seemed to want to be in control. From her behavior anyone could tell this was the cheerleader type who thought the universe revolved around her and that everyone should listen and obey. People just ignored her for the most part.
And then there was the little ones. The small children were hardly ever considered in the Tyrant's community. Community, that word made her snort under her breath when she thought of it, him and community didn't belong on the same book nevermind sentence. Here the little ones were made to feel valued and were given little chores to make them feel part of the team. They had little puppet shows of classic childrens movies set up on Tuesdays that everyone came to watch over at the Dark Night Clan. A seventeen-year-old named Jennifer from the Lame Stag Clan had even set up a kind of school that was held on the weekend so that the children could continue to learn. She had even gone sor far as to set up a study group session on sunday afternoons for the teens so that they could still continue to learn from their school textbooks too.
Eva turned her attention to the archery lesson once again.
“Anchor with your mouth, use it to help aim!… Garret! Stop fooling around! These things aren’t toys!”
Garret, a member of the black Sun clan, just grinned and flicked his nearly waist length, blonde hair over his shoulder. He fired the arrow with his eyes closed.
He opened them, “Bulls eye!” He shouted in triumph.
“THAT THING IS NOT A TOY!!! YOU COULD HAVE PUT SOMEONES EYE OUT!!!”
Garret rolled his eyes at Arthur, “oh calm down would ya? I didn’t hurt anyone so I don’t understand what you’re freakin’ out about.”
Lara placed her hand on Arthur’s shoulder, distracting him from his sudden urge to give Garret a lesson in something other than archery. If there was one jock the Arthur couldn’t stand, it was him. It’s a surprise that Victoria and him can tolerate each other at all, who knew so much ego could exsist in one relationship?
“Arthur just wants you to be more careful, these are dangerous weapons, especially if you have very little practice.” She explained sweetly.
Garret gave her his most charming smile, “I’ll be more careful gorgeous, I promise.”
Lara returned the smile and nodded her thanks. “Well, I think that’s enough for the day, lets go inside and get warmed up, its so cold out.” she gave a fake shiver and Garret rushed to escort her indoors.
Victoria may be his girlfriend but that was only because Lara was already taken. He never did understand why she chose Robin Hood over him, he was much better looking in his opinion. And he had grown out his hair when he learned that she liked guys with long hair, although Victoria had threatened to cut it off several times.
But he planned to do his best to win Lara over, he was pretty sure he was strong enough to deal with Arthur, at least he hoped he was.
“Hey! Get your hands off my girl!” Arthur swatted Garrets hand away and stood between him and Lara, “flirt with your own girl. Victoria is always just so starved for attention.” Everyone knew she could be a little promiscuous and Garret hated to be reminded of that.
Garret swung at Arthur, knocking him off his feet, “I’ll put my hands on whatever I like Robin Hood!”
Soon snow was flying along with the two boys as they fought and argued, throwing insults and punches whenever they could.
Neither of them expected to be punched at the exact same time by the ambidexterous girl they were fighting over.
“I am not a scrap of meat to be fought over like wild dogs!”
Arthur cowered, smart enough not to make eye contact. Garret wasn’t so smart.
“you ain’t a scrap a meat, I ain’t hungry for that,” his grin afterward definitely didn’t help him as he was sent on his back by another punch from a very angry woman.
She glared at the two of them for a moment longer before stomping off toward the house.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Arthur muttered dejectedly before picking himself up and following her at a safe distance.
Eva couldn’t hide her amused grin at the snow covered boys and the angry Lara, they may have the responsibilities of adults, but it was kind of reassuiring in a way to know they were still hormonal teenagers.
* * * * * *
Coiron yawned and leaned back in his favourite chair with a book in his study. He didn’t like serving Quintus but it did have its perks, such as the large house he had along with whatever furnishings took his fancy. He missed Eva though. They had picked out the house together and she had helped choose the furniture as well. Now he spent most of his time in his study, reading the books that sat on shelves on every wall. He slept here and ate his meals in here, dirty dishes stacked on his desk as evidence, Eva had always done the dishes and he was considering taking one or two of the slaves to work for him as housekeepers. This was the only room she never went in, Eva didn’t like reading, her dyslexia and ADD making it too difficult for her. She had preferred to use the gym he had put up for her, therefore, he never went in that room since it reminded him of her.He wished he could have run away with her but he needed to stay here and keep an eye on things, and to make sure their tyrant didn’t go completely off his rocker. He had been grateful when his voice had returned to normal, although he didn’t feel like talking much, now that he had avoided it for so long. He preferred to steer clear of his majesty as well. As a coregent he didn’t have to do much in battle except yell orders from behind the lines where he was safe from any missiles. The slaughtering of adults was a completely barbaric idea for him and was glad he wasn’t expected to do any of that or he’d kill himself out of shame and grief.
Their lord was insane. It wasn’t really a mystery to anyone why he was kept locked up in his parents basement and away from the rest of humanity. He sympathised for Eva, he understood how desperately she wished to leave when she realized she couldn’t save her brother. His presence had been bearable when he was on his medication, but now that there was no one left to make it, he had finally lost what was left of his decency. At least while medicated he wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself.
He couldn’t help but smile the first time he saw her. She had been rummaging through the hospital ruins where the room for all the medication once was, desperately searching for more medicine for her brother’s dwindling supplies. She had been crying, all the while murmuring something over and over. He approached and asked why she was all alone and digging through rubble in the chaotic city. She didn’t even seem to hear him, she just kept digging and mumbling. Coiron had grabbed her arms and lifted her up to face him, intent on getting her to answer him so that he could help. But when he saw her pale face and hollow grey eyes, all he could do was pull her against his chest to firmly hug her and comfort this stranger. He knew he had held her for well over an hour before her sobs and murmurings died down. Once she was calm she told him that her brother had forgotten to take one of his pills, lost his temper and dumped the rest down the toilet, and then killed her parents in his psychotic fury and she had just barely managed to lock him back in the basement before he got her too.
Coiron sighed and stared up at the ceiling. When they had returned to her home her brother had escaped, within a week he had gathered supporters to his insane ideals and started to take over the city before the month had ended. Thankfully he didn’t want his sister dead and had made Coiron a coregent despite Aarons objections to a complete stranger being his advisor.
“I’ll see you soon won’t I Eva?” He asked the empty room as the wind howled outside the window.