Dawn upon Death and Destruction

Chapter 7

Dawn had broken two hours ago. Amara had taken advantage of being awake so early in the morning and had so far taken a shower, dressed, and started a book titled "The moonlight lake" that she'd found while rummaging through the smaller drawers beside her cupboard.

After hours of tossing and turning the last night, she had come to two conclusions as to how she had been discovered wandering around.

The first being that she was out of practice, although unlikely it could have been that what gave her away where her not-so-silent footsteps.

The second being that someone, most likely Nikos, had followed her. Also unlikely but possible that he had been gazing from afar.

She itched to leave her room, maybe go to that training room she had seen yesterday, or find somewhere else, explore a bit more. Maybe she'd ask Nikos to show her around. But if he said no then he might ensure she didn't go alone and then she'd be stuck in her room all day, unless Claeg had any plans for her.

She promised herself that if her shoulder was feeling better later she'd sneak off to the training room and have some fun, even if it was just for a little while.

She turned her attention back to the book. Back in the village she'd adored reading, even more so when the words where being read to her by someone else and would have begged her parents to read to her as she watched the sun contort the sky into various colors of pink and red.

Of course, as she got older she made the habit of reading by herself although it never did feel the same. In some ways it was better, some of the scenes were much too intimate to be said aloud by her parents, but in other ways she missed the feel of it.

After minutes of  staring at the page, she gave up, folding the corner of the page to mark it and set it down on the side of the bed.

Within the next thirty seconds, a knock rang out into her room. Opening the door, she saw Nikos gesturing for her to hurry up, anger was spread all over his face. It didn't take her long to figure out where they were going , again she struggled to keep up with his long strides. She was tempted to ask a question to break the awkward silence and yet she refrained. They reached the hall and he parted ways as soon as Amara was going to speak to him. Her mind ran through the events of everything that had happened and she didn't know why he was so mad. There was no way he'd show her around now. All thought of Nikos flew out her mind as wafts of delicious food washed over her and she practically ran over to the table and starting piling stuff on her plate.

Finishing breakfast, she managed to have a conversation with Claeg without ripping his head off; Amara thought her patience was progressing well. She walked around the hall looking for Nikos; every corner seemed specifically for a separate group. In one, there were the men looking rather unfriendly, every time they caught her eye they gave her a dirty stare. In one corner, the ladies were chatting, some were sitting while the others were standing. Unlike the men, they gave her curious stares. The last two corners were for the younger people; teenagers like her. Maybe she'd fit in here more than she thought. They weren't looking at her at all, instead she could see them making an extra effort to look directly past her.

Amara found Nikos sitting and talking to a few men that looked roughly the same age as him, a faint smile on his face. Each one of them were holding a mug and drinking some odd copper liquid out of it. She got out her chair and started taking long strides towards them. An empty chair lay waiting for her. As she sat down, all eyes turned towards her questioningly.

"Hi, my name is Amara."

"Dean. Nice to meet you Amara." He smiled welcomingly. Dean was fairly good looking, with his green eyes and messy blonde hair, he had a light layer of stubble that gave him more of a rugged look. As he turned around, he began pointing at various people around the table, all of which she didn't know. As Dean smiled and told her about how everyone was wondering who she was, Amara noticed a scar on the side of his face that started at his eyebrow and ended at the bottom of his neck. She purposely ignored Nikos' pointed look from across the table and paid more attention to everyone else.