The Cinders of Dezu

9th: Talia (1)

The girl had told them to keep up as they followed her out of the market. They did for a while. And yet somehow, they had lost her. They had blended into the crowd, taking the main road out of town with everyone else. No one seemed to recognize them as the ones who had just caused a scene moments earlier. Quite a few villagers had created a perimeter of onlookers as they watched from outside the walls to see if the flames were going to progress any further than the flags. A crew of men had been dispatched inside the stone walls to contain the fire inside. Using the commotion to their advantage, the boys had slipped off the road and into the trees. They went some ways without their mysterious guide before they finally stopped, not knowing where else to go.

The two looked around until they both were startled by the sight of the girl up a tree. She was staring down at them, crouched on branch with angry green eyes.

"You broke the manifestation rule," she said.

Julian looked around.

"And what is that? Exactly?"

The girl raised her eyebrows.

"You didn't read the manual."

"No, we did!" said Cairo, "Well, kind of. It's been a rough day or two. It's hard sit down and read a whole-"

"How did you find out about me?" she asked.

"Ha! So you are Talia!" Cairo said with a smile.

The girl scoffed.

"You needed to read it cover to cover. Not skim it."

"We thought we caught all the important parts," said Julian.

Her nostrils flared as she sighed.

"The manifestation rule is: 'Do not expose yourself to the public until your dilinium faculty has manifested and you have mastered control of it sufficiently enough to keep it hidden.'"

Julian smirked.

"I don't even know what a dilinium faculty is. So yeah, we probably broke that one."

Cairo smiled at his friend.

"Do you get a pass if you don't understand half the rule?"

Talia shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Well, have fun breaking the rest," she said standing up on the branch,"Hey, just for kicks and giggles I'll give you another rule to break: Don't die. Out here, there's a lot of inventive ways to break that one."

She hopped toward the trunk of the tree and kicked up and off of it, disappearing into the canopy. Cairo quickly ran up to the trees base.

"Wait! Hold up!"

He looked up and she was gone. There was no a sign of her, not even a rustling. Julian leaned down and grabbed a handful of stones. He sorted them as he walked up beside Cairo whose gaze was still in the tree. Julian picked a pebble and looked up, squinting. He reared his hand back and threw it up into the canopy. It bounced around the leaves above before coming down. Julian looked into his hand and started to dig for another. Cairo reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"What are you doing?" he said.

Julian looked at him blankly.

"I'm trying to-"

Cairo interrupted, "Just don't... Don't throw rocks at girls. You're supposed to learn that before middle school."

Julian dropped his handful of rocks and brushed his hands off. He squinted up again.

"She's quick, huh?"