To the Sky (The Pack ff)

Chapter 1: 'his father was one of the ones killed'

In the kingdom of Cadiralla, we join two best friends running through the dust streets of the lower levels of the kingdom, also known as 'The Village'.  They carry with them, two large Hessian sacks, that jingle as they run.  

Running from hut to hut, they ask for any spare glass jars or containers that the people have.  They get swatted away with rags from a few places but others smile kindly as the two familiar boys run away with an extra jar in their bags.  It takes them just two hours to fill both large sacks that they struggle to drag to the out skirts of the kingdom.

"Where do you two boys think you're going?" A loud booming voice startles them as they prepare to push open the towering wooden gates inset in the even taller stone brick wall that surrounds the whole kingdom.  

The tallest speaks for the both of them, being the oldest and more confident, "My mother asked if we could bring her some borage before sundown, sir.  We ran out and she was looking to make my father a special drink for when he returned from duty this night, sir."

He bows his head as the guard walked closer, "What's in the bags?"  He kicks them and the younger flinches as he hears a couple jars break.

"Um, my mother's jars, sir.  She asked for us to wash them but we have not enough time to return them home if we want to be back before my father is due home."  He looks up expectantly and the guard nods, a smile spreading across both children's faces as they scurry out the gates and into the forest.

They reach a clearing, around four or so miles into the trees, and immediately plonk themselves on the floor in the centre of what seemed to be a perfect circle.  Rob, the eldest of the two, suspected that this place used to be for animal fights before they were banned many winters ago.  He thought this because of it's shape and the stone floor, which was scattered with long thin scratches that could easily be claw marks.  Also, there was uniform iron rods, jutting around a metre from the floor, placed around the circumference of the clearing.

Suddenly, the other boy stands and screams.  Not out of pain or fear, but freedom.  Sparks fly all around him, some too close to trees for Rob's liking.

"Calm down, Lachlan, you're gonna set the whole forest

on fire." The younger laughs, spinning round and round.

"But I feel so free out here!  Why can't we live here?"

"Because they'd come looking for us.  I'm ten and you're eight, we're too young to fend for ourselves."

Lachlan frowns but just as quickly as his face fell it lit back up again, like someone turning a light bulb on.

"Can we do the lights now?  Lets do the light thing!"

He tips all the jars out of the sacks, not caring about breaking more or clearing up the already broke ones.  He rises to his full tiptoes and sings, sings his little heart out.  There's no particular words, just a series of 'hmms' and 'arrrghs' that were shockingly beautiful.  A buzzing sound soon accompanies him and as it gets louder and louder, Rob notices the swarm of fireflies flying towards the clearing.  Lachlan didn't understand why people called them fireflies, they had nothing to do with fire, he called them zappy bugs because they zapped people when they touch them, except him of course.  They quickly fly towards the jars, haphazardly filling jars, some getting clumped together.  The bustle reminds Rob of market day, which was the day when the royal family visited the village to buy produce from the market personally.  He normally tried to avoid that day.

"Come on Rob, they're all in.  Lift me up so I can put them in the trees."  Lachlan chimes, full of energy as usual.  Rob smiles, standing up and wiping his hands on his trousers.

A big gust of wind brushes between both of them and Lachlan leans down and gathers up as many jars as he can as the wind pipes up and lifts him, but only him, up into the air.  And Rob, being his artistic self, doesn't listen to Lachlan's instructions of where to take him and instead guides him towards places that he thinks are best for the jars.  After placing all the jars they both lie down in the center of the clearing where it is now dark.

Lachlan clicks his fingers, something he just recently learned to do, and the whole place lit up with thousands upon thousands of fireflies crammed into around fifty jars.

"Woah," Lachlan drones in awe, "This is bleedin' fantastic."

It's in that sentence that his accent is more prominent.  Lachlan had grown up in the lowest section of the kingdom and had a common accent whereas Rob had grown up as a middle class citizen and was more articulate.

"Why do we have to hide?  What did we do wrong?" Lachlan asks, a sudden sadness to his tone.

Rob turns his head, staring at the blonde haired blue eyed boy to find that his eyes were no longer blue but gold as he let the electricity from the surrounding fireflies flow through him.

He hesitates, "Because, a long time ago, people like us, could walk freely around the kingdom until one day when one stupid person decided he didn't like the king and tried to kill him."  Lachlan continues to listen to Rob like he is reading him a bedtime story, "But it didn't work and the king blamed all our kind and tried to kill us all.  Only a few survived."

Lachlan sniffles, knowing his father was one of the ones killed.  Rob wasn't a descendant of anyone like him, or any that he knew of.  He thought he was just unlucky, or lucky as some might say.

"Do you think there is other people in the kingdom like us, or other elements?" Lachlan seems almost excited by the idea, "My dads book says that there was six elements in total.  Electricity, that's me." His tone is proud, "There's air, that's you and then there's fire, water, ice and earth.  Earth is supposed to be the rarest of them all because they can do lots of things like grow stuff and things..."

He carries on rambling for a good while, describing every element in great detail, but slightly boring Rob because he has both read the book and heard Lachlan discuss these things multiple times.  The book itself was fascinating but big and had taken him years to read where as it had taken Lachlan mere days due to his lightning fast ability to take in information and process it.  He would remember absolutely anything you could possibly tell him.

"We should head back, our families will be worrying."

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They soon make it back, heading in separate directions towards their homes.

Lachlan sprints through the archway to the hut his family lived in, there was no door as the last bad storm had blown it down.

"Hey kiddo.  Where've you been all day?" His mum asks, turning from where she is knelt on the floor stirring the cauldron over the fire.  Lachlan didn't like living in the lowest quarter of the kingdom, they weren't allowed electricity for stuff, not that it was commonly used anyway.

"Collecting jars with Rob.  Then we went to the forest and filled them all with zappy bugs and put them round the trees.  It was beautiful." A flash of gold runs through his eyes at the recent memory and his mother smiles warmly.

"That's great!  Do you want some soup?" Lachlan nods enthusiastically having not eaten at all that day.

He lays in bed that night, reading his father's book and wondering whether there really was others out there.