The Bolter | Avelina Faye

one. life

THE BOLTER
one. life
@ vficsxx

NOBODY EVER TOLD AVELINA
that life would be perfect, but they also never told her it would be this hard. Avelina grew up in a society of warpath and bloodshed. In her mind, that was a normal childhood.

She was only eight when she was pulled into warrior training. She told them she didn't want to as she practically begged to play with her friends in the field.

"Why do I have to do this and not them?" she would whine. But she got the same answer every single time.

"You're a nightbleeder, you're special."

Avelina never truly understood what being a nightblood meant, not until she was about ten. Then, she learned about her upcoming task. In the future, whenever the current commander shall die, she would battle the other nightbleeders to see who would take her place.

The entire thought of it scared her. She would be fighting people she knew just to become a ruler. She didn't want that, she was sick of the bloodshed.

But there was one more thing about her that made her special. Not only was Avelina a nightbleeder, but she was the Azgedian princess, sister to Roan. Nobody exactly had last names, it was usually just what tribe they were. Some people had middle names though, like Avelina Faye.

Ever since A.L.I.E's nuclear apocalypse, there had been a tribe up in space on an orbiting satellite called The Ark. The ancestors of the people that now lived on it abandoned the grounders ancestors, and they were still pissed about it. They were just left to die there. However, they ended up surviving but they had the people of The Ark fooled into thinking they were dead.

Overtime, they created an oral language called Trigedasleng. It was developed over three generations.

This is how life was for about ninety-seven years until everything suddenly changed.

One day, a drop ship came down from The Ark. At first, everyone thought it was a shooting star. But once it hit the ground, they knew it wasn't.

Ninety-eight teenagers came running from the door of the drop ship, thinking they were alone on the planet. They would soon realize just how wrong they were.

For the most part, the grounders left the kids alone. They obviously kept tabs on them, making sure they didn't walk into their territory. Until one day, a group of them set off in search of Mount Weather. The grounders knew how bad the Mountain Men were, but they still didn't tell them. They were still furious at them because of what their ancestors did.

The day the kids set off on their trip to Mount Weather, Avelina also had a group out for hunting. Despite her being a princess, she was still a warrior, and damn was she a good hunter.

Avelina was leading a group which consisted of three girls, including herself, and two boys. The other two girls were Echo and Lucy and the boys were Jeremy and Aiden.

Echo drew back her bow as she hit a deer close by in the head with perfect aim. Meanwhile, Avelina began to notice the voices of the new arrivals across the river, which divided their territories.

"Everyone," Avelina ordered in Trigedasleng, causing the conversations to quiet down, "up in the trees. Skaikru is getting closer to the boundary, we need to be on lookout." Skaikru is what they had been calling the kids from The Ark, meaning Sky People.

Everyone did as they were told, climbing into the trees above. The Skaikru kids got closer to the lake, grabbing onto a vine. They looked as if they were going to use it to swing across the river, which one of them did. Once he reached the other side, he lifted a sign that said "Mount Weather", causing Avelina to know exactly what they were looking for.

She knew the Mountain Men weren't safe, they would only kill her people. So, she did the one thing that she knew she had to do. She lifting her spear, throwing it into the chest of the boy that swung over. The other Skaikru kids gasped, ducking down behind a rock. She could see the blonde girl mouthing things, then when they all ran away, Avelina ordered everyone in Trigedasleng to jump down from the trees, staying absolutely silent as they grab the boy.

The brunette kid was hardly conscious as he bled. "Who the hell are you?" he mumbled, his face turning pale.

Avelina didn't respond. She knew she would come into contact with Skaikru soon, so she couldn't expose her speaking English.

"Do you understand me, goddamnit?" the guy grumbled.

Still, no response from Avelina.

The location that the Azgedian group found themselves at was a large oak tree. They used rope and vines to tie the boy up, planning to use him as bate for something like a cougar or panther.

Avelina, after pulling her spear from the boy, put a seaweed medicine over his wound, something her people had used for years, often for wounds. It was an easy fix, healing up wounds faster. She had only used it on him to keep him as a live bate for their camps later dinner.

As Avelina led her group back into the Azgedian camp, people nodded their heads down as she passed by. Being the Azgedian princess had its perks, of course. But it also had its faults.

Avelina was highly respected, but she had been treated as a tool her whole life. She was a nightbleeder, having black blood only made her more special. Her mother, Queen Nia, wasn't good either. She was the one who had forced Avelina to be a warrior and train ever since she was young.

Part of her hated her life, but the other part loved it. Even though she had killed many people, she was able to use battle methods she had learned to survive and sometimes she used them to just simply blow off steam. Even if she was upset or mad or anything, her older brother, Roan, was always there for her. He always found some way to make her smile, and she was happy for that.

There was one thing now that she needed to do, and that was to go watch over the boy and see if any of his friends came for him. If they did, she would likely kill them.

There was another perk of being an Azgedian. Most of them were spies. They could easily hide high up in trees where nobody could see them. They would know when attacks were coming and they always won. They had always been brutal and cold hearted.

As of right now, her job was to spy on the Sky People.