The Youngest Ro'meave/Minecraft Diaries Fanfiction/

Chapter Twenty-eight

Annie's POV

"Are you sure you're okay Katie?"

"I'm fine, it's just a cold, I'll get over it."

Our footsteps were drowned out by the voices of the villagers around us, a drag in our step as we were walk towards Zane's house for our weekly assignments and Katelyn and I were not thrilled...wait, no, let me rephrase that...we would rather go to the Nether than go get our assignments.

And, beside me, Katelyn looked as if she had been hit by a train.

A sick train.

And I'm guessing she felt like it too.

"Hey Fire Fist, Ruby Aim," Jeffrey's voice rings out from behind us, causing us to glance over our shoulders to seem him gradually getting closer.

"Hey Jeffrey," Katelyn said hoarsely, hand up to her throat, rubbing at it in distress. It was obvious she was trying to hide her illness and was failing...miserably.

"You okay?" Jeffrey asked, face clear with worry as he began walking in step with us, faces turning back to the road in front of us. Just a bit more to go.

"Yeah, just a cold," she said once more, trying to ignore him, seeming to favor the rocky ground beneath her than the man beside us. A slight pink was dusting across her cheeks but that just be her cold, even though I was pretty sure it wasn't.

We walked in silence for the rest of the trip to Zane's house and arrived there, for what seemed, too soon. With steady and practiced steps, we walked up to the door, Jeffrey opening the door for us. Katelyn nodding with thanks and the pink underneath her cheeks growing slightly. And, though she tried to hide it, Jeffrey seemed to notice and I barely made it in before her started to fret over the poor girl like a mother hen.

With a sigh from me and the worried tone of Jeffrey as Katelyn coughed, we made our way upstairs to the area none of us wished to be at, his study. Jeffrey, once again, walked in front of us and opened the door, but, this time as Katelyn walked past him, her face was stoic and portrayed no emotion. As I walked past him, I did the same, glancing at him for a second, noticing him face go from the usual softness to a firm hardness that no one would expect from the kind and caring man, before walking in where mostly everyone else was gathered.

Zane was sitting at his desk, eyes focused on the, what seemed to be, hundreds of papers in front of him. He seemed to be too absorbed at the white papers filled with ink in front of him, glancing over one before writing something down on it and then flipping to the next one to notice us enter. Glancing over the room, I notice something or rather someone new; a girl standing beside him.

Taking in the girl's appearance without seeming creepy, I notice she could be no older than her early twenties, with long brown hair in a high ponytail that went to the small of her back and glazed over silver eyes make brief eye contact with mine before she turned back to looking out the window and I to the man in front of us. She was in an emerald green jury uniform, which seemed to be a few lighter shades of green than Jeffrey's, was shining in the bright sunlight flowing in from the window in steady beams.
Who did he drag into this now?

We stood, in line against the wall, not an out of place breath from any of us and waited. Zane, seeming pleased with the work done, looked up, scanning the room and smiling, no, no, it more like a smirk, this man never truly smiled, after he saw all of us were there.

"Shall we should get straight down to business," It wasn't a question or a statement, it was an order that made us stand just a bit straighter and hearts beat slower.

We had all seen what happened if you didn't treat Zane with the respect he thought he deserved.

"This is Ashna the Emerald Eye, newest Jury member. I have assigned Annie to show her around, starting tomorrow," he said, looking at me dead in the eyes, a question in his eyes asking if I would dare to defy him. No, no I wouldn't.