Yuragwyn: Ours

---Chapter 2

∞Kaitra ∞

Stepping out of the car and onto the bustling sidewalk is completely uncomfortable. People whisk by with their smartphones and their shopping bags without knowledge or care that they are not they only race of humans existing. The neon signs and car horns are all jarring, over-stimulating. Nothing like this would ever mar the natural simplicity of Yuragwyn.

But I refuse to go there again. This is the world I have grown up in. In a matter of days everything will seem normal.

I wonder if people here even missed me.

"Kaitra, we're going in here," my father— pardon, uncle, as he now asks me to call him— says, pointing at a small, bright yellow door leading to a grocery store. "If you want to walk around, just meet us here in twenty minutes."

I nod numbly and meander down the strip. People I've passed since my toddler years on this very same strip barely even look up as I pass by. This place I've lived all my life now feels removed and foreign.

"Kaitra, Kaitra!" A voice bobs and weaves through the foot traffic behind me, and I stop and look for it.

A girl from my homeroom bounces up beside me, "Hey! Kaitra— that's your name, right? We're in first period together. Anyway, I don't remember seeing you in class for a while. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm doing alright," I mumble.

"You'll be at school Monday, right?"

"Probably," I answer. She smiles and walks away. I watch her go until she blends in seamlessly with the rest of the multitudes on the street and then direct my eyes to the sidewalk below me to keep passers-by from seeing the tears welling up in my eyes.

She wasn't even sure she knew my name.

I knew that I had never made any close friends at school—living so far away from them made hanging out on the weekends difficult—but a tiny bit of me somewhere deep inside had hoped that someone would have been concerned about my extended absence and come to check on me. To be missed here would be extra proof that I belong in this world completely, not at all tied to that other one, the one that wants me.

The stimulating vibrancy of the sights, sounds, and smells of town all meld together and fade from their overwhelming pungency to a soft, far-away grey. They are nearer to a memory than a reality. I feel as though I am floating along in a world of my imagination, not walking firmly on the concrete of a real, tangible place.

I can do nothing else but turn tail and run back to the grocery store and to loving arms.

₰Traugott₰

A small buggy attached to a black, mournful looking pegasus stands in the evening twilight of the courtyard. Its driver is tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick shock of brown hair that curls at the nape of his neck. He looks towards me as we approach, and his eyes bore into me with hatred, fear, and a twinge of urgency. They remind me of someone's, but the blurred image in my mind fails to clear as the guards pull me to the small door in the back of the wagon and force me up into the back.

The space is barely large enough for the two girls, and my large frame pushes Calanthe's legs on Briallen's and her shoulder onto my own. She shifts uncomfortably, but there is no way to keep from overlapping.

The driver's eyes come back to the forefront of my mind and again I try to place them. I ruffle through various files in my mind: childhood friends, various leaders of Yuragwyn's cities, fellow soldiers, and prominent enemies. No match presents itself, though, and I am left with a frustrating outline of a person.