Seven Souls |Updates Fridays|

3 Nyka Larkin

_Nyka Larkin_

The boy's chest felt like it might burst if he ran anymore, but still he bounded on his way, using what little breath he could spare to laugh as he ran, racing the little dog that easily ran ahead of him, barking. He only laughed all the more. "This isn't fair! You have four legs!" He called to the little creature, slowing his pace from a run to a walk and then coming to a stop. His hands rested on his knees, back hunched over as he caught his breath.

The little brown and white dog trotted back over and jumped at his legs, licking his hands. Nyka, the boy, laughed and pet the dog. "Gross," he said in breathy laughter before standing straight. His eyes looked around at all the green trees. Grandmother wouldn't be happy that he went this far all alone into the woods but he wanted to adventure, and the forest was safer than it was in town.

Nyka wasn't sure who they were trying to avoid, grandmother had never told him, but she had told him that he wasn't from this part of the Ashmore kingdom. They were in the south, where it was warmer most times of the year. She said he was from Comsworth, the same place his father was born. Nyka couldn't remember it, he'd hardly been there for a couple minutes before they'd run from.... well, from whoever they were still hiding from now. That was 13 years ago. 13. Grandmother called him a young man now. He had hair growing under his arms and she had said that meant he would be a man soon.

Adulthood seemed boring. Grandmother said adults didn't have the time or energy to run around the forests like this. They didn't have time to play and run about. It sounded so undesirable to grow old. His own grandmother was busy running an inn all day. There was a tavern in that inn as well so she had even more to do- with all the aggressive drinkers in the area. She had inherited the place after an old friend of hers without children passed. It was a lucky sort of thing, because for the first seven years of their lives they hadn't had much, sometimes having to sleep outdoors in their travels.

They had traveled a lot those first seven years. From those same people who were after them. He would be forever curious of who they were but grandmother never told him. He wondered if she even knew who they were. He also wondered if it was because of the way he looked.

Nyka didn't look like most people here. His hair and his skin were darker than most people in this region. His eyes were different in shape than most too. Being so south now than they'd previously been before, there were a few more foreign people. He supposed he looked similar to them but he was still different. They must have been different than his parents then. Grandmother said his mother was from far east. Since they were south that must have been it. His grandmother assured him that most of the foreign here were likely from even farther south since we were closer to there than we were to the east.

She said the people that far east rarely traveled, and most who did, had run away- like his mother had. Their kings- well his grandmother said they didn't have kings there but they were something similar; their kings liked to keep their people in and everyone else out. They were a mean people- and yet all his grandmother had to say was that his mother was the kindest woman she had ever come across in all her years. He wished he could have met her.

As for the people after him, he wondered if it was the way he looked that they were after him. He may have been born here but half of him... his mother's half was not from here. He wondered if maybe she had done something that had scorned the native people here to dislike the way he looked. He had heard something similar to it before. People being angry at others for the way they looked. It happened here to the people from farther south, and sometimes he was confused for them by ignorant people. However, no one had followed him before, not like he had been all his life. So it must have been something else. What could a baby have done to these people? Perhaps they were simply touched in the head. He had seen his fair share of crazy people but most had only been the poor who lived on the streets.