I Am A Flyer

The Council

"Here. You know what to do."

"Y-you! W-What are you doing? Where is -"

"Afterwards, put him in the barracks, understand?"

"But why are you - "

"Just do your job. I will deal with the rest. "

"Y-yes, sir..."

". . ."

". . ."

"Take good care of him, all right?"

"O-Of course, sir. We'll do our best."

". . .good."

zXz

It was silent when he awoke. When he stared up at steel bars holding up a gray mattress, it took him a while to realize where he was. In the barracks. In the bed that he had chosen when he first came to this place.

It all came back to him, in a rush of miserable memories. The flyer called Raven. The one who was responsible for ruining his hopes, his determination, his dream. It was over, wasn't it? Yes. Yes, because he was back here, lying in a steel bed, caged and imprisoned.

So he lay there numbly, and stared up at the bars above him. There was nothing else to do. Nothing he could do, but lie there stiffly in some kind of numb haze, and wonder why he wasn't dead.

From what he could remember, he had just taken a trip through a bus's windshield. And that was after he had the living daylights choked out of him, and before his face had been cut -

His face! A hand, struggling against the numb stiffness that seemed to permeate through his body, struggled to his cheek. Felt the rough, ugly scab. He winced; not in pain - he didn't feel anything along those lines - but at the meaning that lay behind that ugly wound.

"Know this; it was I who marked you , and it was I who claimed you. Your life is mine, and no longer yours. You belong to the Talons."

Helplessness. Frustration. Despair.

That was what he felt. And a deep misery, because there was nothing he could do about it. Against someone like Raven, he didn't have a chance.

But...why?

Why was this happening to him? Hadn't he suffered enough, already? Growing up alone, rejected by the villagers simply because he was different... And now, that loneliness, that life of struggling to live and survive on his own - it had become a strange nightmare of flyers and Troit and secrets.

So - why him?

What had he done to deserve this?

zXz

For the first time in twenty years, the Troit Council room was full. Twelve of the original thirty-six eldersmen sat in their designated seats, and all of them seemed to glare down from their high seats. Their attention was focused on two flyers, who were standing in the lowest point of the room, which was the very center.

Gray and Raven stood side-by-side, nearly identical in their flyer suits. The only differences were their size, as Raven was taller and leaner, and their bared faces. Gray was older, and with his pale coloring, somehow seemed even older than his true age, despite the fact that his visage wasn't all that lined and worn.

Raven, on the other hand, was simply unique. His hair was jet black, and hung straight down from his head. His face was somewhat narrow, with sharp, handsome features - the kind of face that caught people's attention when he walked into a the room. The expression he wore was easy-going, a kind of careless attitude that seemed to be almost as lazy as Gray's. However, there was one thing that set him apart from any other.