The Shadows Of Lucidum

Those of Inferis

─━━━━━━⊱❍⊰━━━━━━─

The footsteps kept coming closer and I started to freak out. Here I was, sitting in a river, wearing nothing but my sparse underwear. The only fortunate thing was, that I didn't take off all my clothes, which wasn't that much of a positive thing, now that I was thinking about it. Why was there someone here anyways? Noone from Lucidum ever came here, so it had to be....

Someone from one of the other villages!?

I had completely forgotten about those. I just hoped, whoever it was didn't know what I looked like. Meeting Lucidum's chief in such an embarrassing situation could destroy, what I made them believe, I was like. The inhuman, almost immortal, air I kept, would be switched out with the knowledge, that I was vulnerable. That I wasn't as dangerous as they thought I was. This would have meant another war, more blood shed....and again, it would have been my fault.

The footsteps coming even closer, I jumped out of the water and hurried to my clothes. But it had already been too late. "Hey! This is our spot.", two boys shouted, still hidden in the forest, out of my sight, where, hopefully, they weren't able to see me either. Someone else sighed. I couldn't make out who, though, until the first of them came out of the bushes. It was a slim girl, wearing a short, dark brown dress, embellished with green jewels. Her light brown hair tied up into two braids. There was no mistaking it: those juveniles lived in Inferis, the village hidden underground. They were the only ones, who were capable of using jewels.

Once the girl saw me, she quickly turned around, covering the boys' eyes and saying: "They won't let me cover their eyes forever. You'd better do it now or never." Gratefully, I took the chance given to me by this girl, I had never met before and quickly put on my dress again.

"Thank you", I answered, signalizing I was dressed again, without telling the boys, what they had just missed.

"Who even are you in the first place? I believe none of us have seen you here before.", the girl asked me, right after she had turned around again. What could I answer? What was the right thing to say? She was staring at me, waiting for my reply impatiently.

"Koraki". I decided to tell her my real name. She seemed quite trustworthy and the boys hadn't seen anything, that might have sounded weird if they would have happened to tell anyone about our encounter.

"That rings a bell." This time one of the boys answered. He was a lot taller than the girl and, despite probably being as young as me, you could definitely see what he'd already been through by merely looking at his piercing blue eyes. His hair had about the same color as the girl's and he, too, wore jewels, but on the handle of his knife, hidden in his shoe, protruding only a few centimetres, yet enough for my eyes to spot it. This time they were as red as blood.

"Well, you aren't from Inferis. That's pretty obvious. Judging by those tattoos all over your body I'd say...what was it again? I didn't really pay attention during Apes' lessons. I believe it was something with L... Le? Loose?...". The other boy did not wear any jewels. He stood out from the others in general. His hair was blonde, reminding me a little of Ferouna's, but a little darker. His eyes were green and, other than the ones of the other boy, full of joy and life, almost glowing.

"Do you, by any chance, mean Lucidum, Acino?", snorted the girl.

"Yes! That has to be it!" That boy was anything but mature...He reminded me of a child, yet, he didn't seem to be much younger than me.

I allowed myself to laugh. "Well, if you aren't adorable... You know, at Lucidum you'd probably already be dead. Seems like there really are a lot of differences between those from Inferis and us. While you guys are living a safe life underground, we have to fight for our lives as soon as we get out of our crib. Most of the times without parents...".

"This got dark quite fast...", the boy with the knife replied.

"Sorry, I didn't want to push our problems onto you", I apologized, not sure whether I had made a mistake or if I had said nothing wrong.

Other people's feelings have never been my strong point and it seemed like they'd never be.

"No need to apologize.", tried knife-boy to comfort me. He continued: "We haven't told you our names yet, now have we? The blondie, you might or might not have insulted just now, is Acino. The girl with braids, which, I still think, look like horns, is Oryx and my name's Equo. Nice to meet you".

"Ummmm....nice to meet you, too, I guess. By the way... Okay, I might get executed by you for asking this now, but, so far, you didn't do it, so I kind of hope you won't try to. Otherwise, I'll take at least one of you into death with me, understood? Back to my question: Why are you carrying a knife in your shoe? It actually doesn't even look like a knife, maybe a dagger, then?" He looked confused.

"How the heck did you even see that? And no need to worry, we've been out marking our territories with this knife. The days, it could have been used to kill a human, are long over. Only way to still kill someone with it would be to either strangle them or crush them, which you actually couldn't do to a human, only some kind of tiny animal." I guessed those were supposed to be good news, but my guesses were pretty worthless sometimes.

"I still didn't get to find out, how I know your name though.", Equo tried to push me into telling him.

I figured it was half bad, that they didn't know who I actually was, so there was no way I'd tell them. If it really was important to them, they could have asked for my name in Inferis and found it out that way. That's why I simply answered: "No clue. There might be someone else named Koraki, or you simply are mistaking something. I am quite sure I know none of you, so it's highly unlikely we've ever met before." At least the last part was no lie. There was no afterlife for me anyways, since I had already screwed up too much, and had failed at too many second chances, for the gods to deem my soul worthy of being reincarnated.

"Sounds about right... Let's meet again, shall we? I'll even promise I won't be taking any knives." Arguing with stubborn people was as useful as writing without ink and Equo was one of the most stubborn people I had met in my whole life.

"Fine. I can't promise it, though." As I was leaving, I could hear him call after me: "Good, then I'm looking forward to seeing your cute butt again."

That guy was as good as dead.

─━━━━━━⊱❍⊰━━━━━━─