The Dark Days

Chapter Eleven

 "What are your siblings like?" I asked the next day. Druig barely ever spoke about them. I was still practising how to use an opponent's strength against them, flowing like a river, my practice became a sort of dance. He knew so much about my family and I knew nothing about his family.

"You really want to know about them?" His tone made me think that maybe he hadn't spoken about them because he missed them. I was about to take it back, telling him it wasn't necessary, that I was too curious for my own good when he shrugged "Alright."

I stopped my defence dance and together we sat down on the boulder for lunch.

He began, "In no particular order, I'll begin with Ikaris. He likes to position himself above the rest of us. He is loyal to the cause and would see the plan through, no matter what happened. Sersi has the ability to transform a room, with her personality and her gifts, she was easily everyone's favourite. Kingo knows how to light up a room, always bringing light to a situation, in its many forms. Then we have Phastos, he is a craftsman. He can build anything, immaculately. He goes unparalleled in his skill. Gilgamesh is the strength of our family. And where he is our brute force, Thena is our skilled warrior. She is methodical and revered all over Olympia for her grand command of fighting styles. Then there's Makkari," Druig's voice softened when he said her name. If Sersi was everyone's favourite, then Makkari was his.

"She is the fastest runner to ever live, I have no doubt about that. It also makes her a hard thief to catch as she likes to collect things and hoard them, often taking them without permission." He laughed to himself. His eyes were vacant, I bet he was reliving a beloved memory of her. "And finally, we have Sprite. She is the imaginative one of the bunch. She could make up stories on a whim and tell it to you in such great detail that you could see it in front of you."

"And then there's you." I wanted to hear about him, where he fit in with his family of extraordinary people.

"And then there's me," he turned and when he smiled, I noticed, his eyes grew smaller the wider his smile went. I loved it. "I have always had a way of getting people to see things my way, convincing them to follow me."

"Surely you would have needed to have this skill to convince ten families to leave their home and start their own little village with you." I didn't think I'd be able to do that. The uncertainty of what to expect. Starting your own village was difficult, on a good day. Were we ever to leave, I'd make sure we were going to an established village with a place for us.

"It wasn't that hard," he scrunched up his nose for less than a moment and my heart squeezed at the mindless gesture. "What about you? You talk about your Nana, your mama, even Isaac. But never your papa. Tell me about him?"

My heart sank to my stomach as guilt washed through me. How could I not speak about him when he had done so much for our family, so much for me? Before I fall into this absolute pit of despair, it dawned on me that he wouldn't have wanted me to cling to the memory of him like a crutch. I could think of him in fondness, or guidance, but never as a crutch. In that same vein, I think Papa would have really liked Druig. Their ideals were aligned.

"Papa was smart and strong. He was the best of men and looked after us thoroughly. He had a bad habit of trading our things for shiny items but Mama always said it was because he never came from wealth, so his heart always yearned for it. Three years ago Papa got sick and then one night he went to sleep and he never woke up again. Mama got sad, and then grandpap died, and Nana got sad." It was a dark time in our lives. More than once did I worry about who would look after us if everyone was too sad to get out of bed, "Then Nana came to live with us and they mourned together, both suffering the loss of their husbands. More so for Mama, who lost her husband and then her own Papa."