Breathe

Chapter Three - Decim

The sun had barely risen above the waterline when the leader of a small tribe of sorts was roughly awakened by his most trusted warrior and also his close friend, Lavinia.

"Decim! Quickly, you have to wake up!" She said, shaking him without any regard for his well being or his profound need for more sleep.

"Unless something is on fire or someone is dying you better start to run..." He threatens with his usual morning mood, but the woman quickly interrupts him.

"Someone has stepped into our territory, well, something... A bunch of weird looking people just came out of the sea!" Lavinia blurted out and Decim couldn't do much but look at her in disbelief. If he wasn't so sleepy and in such a foul mood he might have laughed, but that was too much of a nonsense, even for her, that still continued, pulling him out of bed. "Look just come and see for yourself, if I'm lying you can beat me up for all I care!"

"I really don't know what you drank last night, but to see your sorry arse all beaten up it's worth it!" He shows an evil grin, despite Lavinia being his friend they would sometimes quarrel, especially since she was his best warrior and so, fighting her was always a challenge he enjoyed, normally ending up with a lot of cuts and bruises on both ends.

Lavinia pressed her lips in a thin line in response to what he had said, but didn't questioned him, throwing some clothes at him and hurrying to the beach. To move quicker and without making any noise they climbed a tree and used the hundreds of lianas and thick branches to move around. The muddy ground would only slow them down and it was better to stay hidden. Once they reached the periphery Decim could barely believe his own eyes: Lavinia was right in being reluctant to call them people, their skin was white, even translucent, most of them had white, blonde or really light-brown hair and all of them had weird things around their necks, it looked like some sort of headphones but it seemed like they were glued to the skin and had water in them! They were like some kind of mermaids, but the nightmarishly gorgeous version.

"Close your mouth or a fly is going to fly in." Lavinia said with a smug smile on her face, that was splattered with an I-told-you-so expression. Decim gave her a small growl and an annoyed look, trying to get closer when a tall man with a certain age began to speak, to his surprise, the same language as them, despite the accent being slightly more posh. They didn't say anything about an attack, or even knowing about their presence, but what kind of leader in their right mind would when he knew others could be listening? It could be just a trick to lure them out, make them show themselves and annihilate them.

"We have to get back and talk to everyone about this, I didn't see any lethal weapons with them but we can't be sure they aren't here to attack us, we need to prepare ourselves!" The young leader said in his most serious voice.

Lavinia nodded, agreeing with him and then they came back to the village in the same way, trying their best to be as quick and as silent as possible. Neither of them knew what was going on or what those beings were planning so urgency was necessary; actually, it was fundamental. As they rushed home, Decim's head was rushing with million possibilities and plans from fighting them head on to running away to find shelter to try to meet them peacefully. However, before they could decide anything, they had to know what the others wanted.

"Gather the council for an emergency meeting immediately, Lavinia." Decim ordered, nodding to her before he turned to his house, where the meetings were normally held.

Being the leader was very stressful, especially in times like this where he had to decide something without knowing the outcome for sure. At least he had the council to advise him but he had so much responsibility on his shoulders. He could handle it but there were times when he wished he could set aside his leader position for a day so he could just be a normal guy with only a few things to think about, a few people to care about. He loved his position though and all his people, nobody could doubt that.