The Skyward Rebellion

Medi: Lost

Medi wandered aimlessly through the streets of the district the citizens of Skyhaven called 'the Flags'. The wind was cold and vicious, and they young servant boy had only a moth-eaten shawl to protect him from it.

It had been three days since he had escaped from the palace - two days since he had run away from his master and left him to die. Every night, when Medi stole a few hours sleep in whatever doorway he could find, he imagined his master's blue blood spread across the tiles of the palace.

In the winding streets that seemed to go on forever, Medi had become lost. Though his intention was to find his sister, truly, he did not have the first idea of where to start.

Though he had been born here, his skin, turned tan by the desert sun that battered Ironhaven, made him stand out.

He felt no kinship with his birthplace, he did not have some innate knowledge of its labyrinthine streets and climbing spires. He was simply lost in a strange, foreign city. Alone and cold.

When he stopped moving, Medi tried to recall something, anything, of his former life that could guide him to his sister - but there was nothing, no landmark or sudden trigger of his memory.

On the third day, Medi awoke to the smell of freshly baked bread, drifting through the rushing air and into his nose. He had not eaten since the morning of the coup, and his body screamed at him. In a moment of desperation the young slave had resorted to drinking water from the guttering of an old building. It tasted stagnant, but it slaked his thirst for a while.

Climbing to his feet, he straightened out the robes he had been wearing for almost four days and exited the alley he had found refuge in the previous night.

Stepping out into the busy street, the crowd rushed around him as he moved slowly. They did not notice him, as though he had wasted away to be totally and completely invisible.

Following the scent of bread, he found himself in a side street, near to a bakery. A fat man wearing an apron was busying himself outside the door as Medi approached.

"Oh no," the baker said. "Get out of her, we've had enough trouble from your kind."

Medi stopped, unsure of what to say. Around his neck, Medi felt the chain that marked him as one of the Inner Sanctum servants. He grasped it and unhooked it, holding it out between his fingers.

"I can pay," Medi said. The baker frowned.

"Whass'at?" The fat man asked.

"It's mine," he said, the silver chain glinting in the morning light.

"We don't do bartering here, coin or nothin'," he said.

Medi did not know what else he could say.

"Please," he said.

The baker sighed, then looked around.

"Wait here," he said, disappearing into the shop for a moment, returning with a sack with a pair of loaves inside it. "Here."

Medi took the sack and the baker took the chain from his grubby hands.

"I get any more of you lot round here I'll get the guard - the Aegis, I mean," he said. "Now get lost."

Medi did not linger, moving away at pace, the sack of bread clutched close to his breast.

Later, Medi sat on a wall in an open square, obscured slightly by the tall foliage, tearing into the bread and stuffing it into his dry mouth. His feet, dressed only in worn slippers, ached, and he remembered his bed in the servants quarters at the Iron Citadel with a queer fondness.