Mirae Walkers

Chapter IV

Keoni opened the door to her home, immediately seeing Caste kneeling in the middle of the floor with his eyes closed. He'd done a lot of strange things while he'd been staying, so Keoni shrugged it off.

Ryley followed behind her, helping himself to an apple from the bowl on her counter. Caste still didn't move.

"How are the ointments, Caste?" Ryley asked.

"Working beautifully, thanks." He opened his eyes and adjusted his posture.

"Can I check on them?"

"Be my guest." Ryley lifted the back of his shirt again to look. Keoni stayed in front of Caste. She didn't want to see how torn up his back still was from all the beatings.

Keoni sat down in front of him. "Caste... who are the Quuarks?"

He sighed and looked at the floor. "You don't want to know." Ryley started reapplying some of the creams.

"I do want to know." She responded.

"Fine. I don't want to talk about them."

"Caste..." Ryley started. "They took Keoni's family. She needs to know at least something."

He let out another long sigh. "They took everything from me. I had a job, a life, and my connection with the Mirae was ever-strengthening. They chased me away from where I lived at the worst time."

"The Quuarks are an evil organization devoted to harvesting any magic they can. The resources of the Mirae are very valuable to them. Since they cannot strengthen their own Mir-Link without the help of a Mir-Cognate, they enslave us. Over the past fifty years, they've driven all of us in dismay. They've spread propaganda about how we're the bad guys. For Trin's sake, they created a profession entirely for tracking my kind down. We talked about returning to the Mirae and never coming back. Most of us already have."

He winced as Ryley rubbed some more cream along his sides and neck too.

"I'd return to the Mirae too, but I love both of these worlds."

"How many of you have they caught?" Keoni asked.

"There are about sixteen-thousand Mir-Cognates in total. At least two-thousand are being held, and not one of them is meeting the Quuarks' demands."

Keoni and Ryley stood there, bewildered at the number. Ryley quickly did the math in his head, noticing that that was about 12% of the Mir-Cognate population. He pointed this out to Keoni, which just added to her surprise.

"The amount of Cognates that have gone into hiding is far greater than I expected," Caste continued. "If there haven't been any that decided to come out of hiding, then around eleven-thousand five-hundred have left this world for good."
Neither Keoni nor Ryley had words for what Caste had just revealed to them.

"Of the about five-hundred left free in this world, there are only about fifty trying to help rescue our kin." He glanced up at Keoni. "The rest are in Limbo, blocking everyone from going in. So even if you are able to get to the Mirae, I need to come with you, or you'll be turned away. Unless you want to learn an entire language in one week."

More quiet ensued. "I personally want to join that fifty. You would too, if you saw what they were doing to us." Caste finally settled down again, closing his eyes and returning to the kneeling position they had found him in.

"I'll help you, Caste," Ryley spoke. He started packing up his little creams and other supplies into the bag around his waist. "Keoni?"

She hesitated.

Would leaving really be worth it? She thought. I've never had any experience with this kind of thing before, I would be leaving everything I know, why am I even considering following this guy? He randomly showed up in my house, I agreed to help him with no context, and now I am considering leaving everything behind just because he wants my help? She internally slapped herself as she thought about these things.