In Huck's Hands

Bonus Aiko Chapter: I Will See you Tomorrow; Part 1

Aiko's muscles tried to keep up with the constant strain but her legs gave out far from the top of the sparkling orange dune her father had stranded her on. The midday heat baked her freckled complexion with a vexing testament to why the human body should not be deprived of water and sleep. General Ewabatta would not be pleased when he circled his way back to find his only living daughter slumped in a heap of utter exhaustion, tawny sand particles flowed in and out from her shallow breaths.

"Get the fuck up, GET UP NOW!" She had passed out far too long and truly enraged her typically neglectful father to the point that he had trekked his way up the dune to her location. "Do you hear me you stupid hyena? GET UP!" Aiko felt her dry cracked lips tremble as the vitriol damaged her morale more than the sustained over-warmth of the Buriti desert. Her immaculate grades, stoic manners, and natural athletic qualifications meant little to none in the eyepatched man's mono-glare.

"I-Im dehydrated, Dad..." Aiko tried her indisputable best to obliterate the ragged sob that was building in her weighted chest, the small sandbags added to her clothing stole any degree of stamina that she would have had to pull herself to her bruised legs. Her withered eyes found her father's, anxious fury stared back at the young woman with merciless abandon of paternal instinct. "If you don't FUCKING....STAND UP--I will leave you out here all night."

Aiko knew what would happen to her if she was left alone this close to the capital's barrens, if the terror birds did not already have her scent, the snorting hyenas would be closer than ever due to the Migration of Beasts; A yearly phenomenon that was marked by when the creatures of Buriti Vasca made their way across the length of the nation, an abundant yet precarious duration to be ousted to the wilds of the sands. "Can I t-take the weights--"

Before she could speak the General kicked the loose particulate keeping her near the middle of the middling-sized red dune. Aiko tumbled fitfully as the many sandbags slammed her body while increasing her rotational momentum down the small incline.

After coughing up chunks of swallowed dirt and sand for a moment she heard the crunch of her father's large boots slam next to her motionless form. "You leave for boarding school in a few weeks...Do you want to be soft like the king's sniveling little brats?"

The fond memories of running through the palace with her mother and sister broke through the torrent of self-hatred that shrouded her senses, Huck and Kash were the only individuals who attempted to even speak their names since they were brutally slaughtered by Aygu years ago.

Tuffs of her large curls hid her face from General Ewabatta as he turned to stare directly into the beaming sun, his body not taking the time to even flinch in its 110-degree blanket. "I cannot afford for you to--" A second pair of footsteps compelled her father to cut himself off, he raised his handgun with the fluidity of a seasoned dueler.

"Easy, General--You would not want the blood of the king's favorite nephew on your hands would you?" Aiko recognized the cracking adolescent voice but still did not move. Kyler made a showy bow before whistling a sarcastic tune at the scene before him.

"You genuinely are a strong and...militant man Ewabatta, but I do not think your daughter will survive another Dune-keel." The General grimaced at the same time as placing his firearm back in its place along his belt line, the corners of his brown eyes tightening to fox-like slits.

"Why are you sniffing around my daughter Vasca? She's not a Doigan love-maiden, if you wanna take her off my hands you'll have to actually prove you have become a man of worth." Kyler upon hearing his snide comment adjusted his mauve robes with a cool look of nonchalance, though he seethed on the interior.

"I am not 'sniffing' around anything, my uncle has requested your presence and I had followed you...and I am pleased I did." He flicked a single finger in the direction of the man's now rising daughter. Aiko's tears had given way to unadulterated wrath at how the two of them spoke about her as if she was not there--As if she was nothing more than an article of clothing.