Bird of a Nest (bow 3)

Chapter 43

I'm from Klosa," Zaro offered as if that answered the question, touching where Sol'dan had tucked his hair with a flushed face and a slight smile.  The guards blinked, and one of the younger ones did a double-take at Zaro. This new information changed something, Fetmar wasn't sure what though. "Are we heading to your room or the clinic?" Zaro asked, the floaty look in his eyes not fading. 

"The clinic," Fetmar frowned, looking at the guards but they weren't offering anything. Gently he pushed Zaro forward towards the clinic. He needed to talk to someone about this. Zaro was in danger of getting his heart broke again at this rate. That wasn't a lusty look; it was a vulnerable one. "Why is Klosa important?"

"It wasn't in the grand scheme of things. Mostly a farming city, but we had some alchemist experiments occurring," Zaro's face shifted as he tried to remember more. "The plans for the flying boots Wiljam and Oira made for you were from a chip Tiew snuck out when we evacuated."

"Still doesn't answer my question about why you being from Klosa means you can speak k'nairi." 

"Oh, because it was on k'nairi lands, technically," Zaro admitted. "It was one of the northern cities next to the Trenside mountain range.  I don't remember the full details of how it came to be, but it was considered an independent city-state. One of the conditions of its continued existence was that schools and government business were conducted in k'nairi. We had a fair share of halflings in the city. Tiew kept my lessons up after he joined the Namya, so my k'nairi is passable."

"I didn't know that there had been independents on k'nairi lands," Had been, Fetmar knew Zaro's story. Zaro's nightmares of hiding from soldiers and being buried under rumble came from somewhere. Like so many people in the north and midlands, Zaro was one of the few survivors of his home. Klosa was no more. 

"Klosa was pretty unique. I'm not sure there were many more if any. The k'nairi don't like humans claiming their lands. Klosa got away with a lot because we never tried to remove the k'nairi parts of our culture. It was a mix of the humans from the Trenside mountains and the k'nairi who sheltered in our city when the weather was harsh," Zaro's smile turned from the shy heartful one to one that was almost sad as he remembered his childhood. "Most border towns were expected to spilt up once their numbers got too high. We were different."

"I see." Fetmar's little farming village had been as typical as one would expect. Nothing remarkable had ever happened there, and the people had laughed off talks of the war as fairy tales. His father had been so sure nothing would come of it. It was more important to get the crops sowed on time than listen to fanciful stories. Fetmar wasn't even sure his father had died understanding a rebellion was happening. 

Klosa was bound to have ruins. Or even possibly refugees were working to restore it. Any city with alchemy in it would have left some kind of mark on the landscape. After eight years, the fields would be overgrown, and the paths lost. Maybe some areas would be savable, but Eastern Green was gone. The houses had been build mostly from wood and hay. They had all been burned to the ground when the soldiers had come. That area wasn't safe to live in anymore. Any survivors had headed to the plains. If slavers hadn't kidnapped Eyeri, that's where they would have gone too. 

"Come on," Zaro jostled Fetmar out of his thought as they just stood in the middle of the corridor. "We should find the boys."