Fanfare

Memory

The world spins around her. She sees flashes of light and dark. Flames, shadows, smoke twisting into the sky. Sparks spit at her, catch at her sleeve as she spins. She has no control over her body; it moves on its own, looks where it wants to look. She is only along for the ride, seeing whatever the body wishes to see. She looks down, and a long, slim hand brushes burning embers from its sleeve. The hands look familiar; it takes her a moment to place them as Pierce's. But they are a darker brown, worn and leathery from days exposed to the sun and fire. The body turns and, with a shock, she sees her own father's face as he walks past the fire. His face is closed, expression stern. The body she is in walks after him, laughs, catches at his arm and turns him.

"Why so sombre, Thom. It's just one night," the man says.

Her father gives the man a bewildered look before leaning close, gripping the man's shoulder. "Keep your head, Michael. We're working." Michael. Pierce's father. Her view shakes from side to side with the man's movement as he shakes his head.

"I-I'm sorry. I got lost," Michael says to her father. 

Her father smiles grimly. "It's alright. Just don't get lost in it. Gods, I know how hard it is." His smile has actual humour in it now.

"Enough to take her away from this place," Michael says. Trenna sees the reflection of teeth in her father's deep brown eyes and knows that both men are grinning.

Her father clasps Michael's arm before letting go. "Come on," he says, turning. Michael follows him through the market. And they go through a very familiar situation.

Trenna watches them follow after a man in a long coat with a hat. He is, oddly, identical to the man she and Pierce followed through the market. And he does exactly the same thing, going to the tranquil outskirts of the market and crouching, drawing a circle on the road with a pointed finger. The mercury-like liquid flows into a perfect circle which he reaches into. And he pulls out a young man.

Trenna's heart stops beating as her father leans closer to Michael's ear and whispers, "The Leader's son." The Leader. The leader of where? The Outsiders. There is no other place where a young man, skin and hair white as snow, eyes as clear as amber glass, would or could come from.

The two men watch the Coated man pull him from the hole before absorbing the liquid back into himself. They watch as he stands and silently leads the young man towards the market. And then they follow.

The market has lost its appeal to her. All she sees are screaming men and women, flashing sapphire eyes and bewitching children. She does not wish to be lost in this place. And neither does her father. His expression is grim as he and Pierce's father follow at a safe distance, the young man donning a cloak as he goes. He still draws attention; he is handsome in an unavoidable way. Trenna can see that other girls might think so. To her, he is purely menacing.

And, as he turns at the flap of a tent he is entering, he gives a pure white smirk from beneath his hood; Trenna swears he is looking right at the two men.

The world goes black.

She is on the ground, gasping. Her body is seizing, bucking, twisting for freedom and air and life. The colour is being pulled from the world, until all she can see is white white white. Unforgiving and stark. And a pair of golden eyes look down at her, a wicked smile inside of them. Electric blue rings the pupils before it is sucked in, the gold rising to the surface like oil on water. And then nothing exists.