we are shunned.

ISAIAH

                Isaiah delicately sipped the china cup, feeling the warmth of the tea spread from his fingertips, to his tingling feet. The life of a red-hair was incomparable to one of somebody with brown or black hair- as one who was gifted with natural ginger hair, you were allowed to sample delectable treats for the entire day, without having a care for the world as a child. When you had black hair, you had to worry if there would be anything on your plate today, or  if you’d even have a plate. You had to worry about the government of Solair, who were constantly harassing everybody, just because they were a class higher than everybody around them.

                “So, Reina, how was your day?” Reina was the daughter of the Queen, but Isaiah hesitated to call her a ‘princess’. She was spoiled, idiotic, manipulative, and smart all at the same time. It hadn’t seemed possible at first, but Reina was everything, then nothing. She knew how to play with your head, and for that Isaiah automatically had to make sure she trusted him. She was tough, but fragile at the same time. In short, Reina was a mass of contradictions. None of which he trusted.

                Reina, who was sitting across from him on a silk seat, smiled lightly, as if laughing to herself about an inside joke. “Quite well, thank you. Now let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What do you want to discuss with me?”

                Inside, Isaiah’s heart plummeted. She had seen through him. He had forgotten how well Reina could read a person, and how dangerous it was to be involved in matters like this, especially since he didn’t really belong here. “I want information about GROUPB,” he said, staring directly at her. Isaiah resisted the urge to fidget uncomfortably- if Reina sensed any signs of discomfort or hesitation, she’d pounce, and then this would end up as a waste of time.

                “GROUPB, huh? And what’s in it for me?” Reina asked, clearly intrigued. She was like a combination between one of those mountain-lions, and a snake- vicious, but innocent looking at the same time. Could kill with one bite, but didn’t… but of course, everybody was working at their own angle, and Reina had her own agenda of things to do- she wouldn’t help him unless he helped her.

                “I’ll owe you,” he said firmly. It wasn’t the best offer, but it was the only thing that he could give.

                “…You’ll owe me? And what’s that supposed to mean?” Reina tossed her wavy red hair back, and let out a cackle; like the one that a witch would do when stirring up some kind of mysterious brew. “…but I suppose that it’s worth it.” As Isaiah let out a sigh of relief, she continued on. “I think that it would be better if Marcus told you, seeing as he is the son of Lord Tobias. He’s blonde, but his father is quite the commander, from what I hear. MARCUS,” she called, yelling to the other room, where the other royal children-teenagers were most likely relaxing, or fooling around.

                Within a minute, Marcus came sauntering in, casually putting his hands in his pockets, like he gave intel every single day.  “Let me guess…” he said, giving Isaiah an analyzing look. “He wants information on something?” Marcus didn’t sound surprised- Isaiah guessed that he went through this a lot. When your father is a commander of the entire royal army and everything related, you get a lot of classified information that everybody wanted to know- including Isaiah.

                Reina rolled her eyes, as if just to say tell him already. Marcus shrugged defensively. “So, uh, anyways. GROUPB is a secret organization. It was really famous when our parents were our age, which was, a long time ago. They were rebels that protested against the whole hair-color system, and when their leader was killed by our secret forces, they ceased to exist… or that’s what Solair thought. In truth, they had just disbanded. One of the members of GROUPB was Alexander, whom we’ve all heard of. Another was a woman by the name of Catrina. She was a red-hair, but dyed her hair silver to protest the hair color systems. Of course, Solair didn’t appreciate that, and tried to hunt her down… but they failed. Over a period of four years, she handpicked the members of her organization, naming it GROUPB- plucking most of them out of the hands of our very own military and dungeons. Although Solair won’t admit it, the military is no match for GROUPB. They sent one hundred soldiers to find eight members of GROUPB, and only one came back, before dying days later from severe wounds. Back when we were children, they did a lot of acts of terror, but only directed them at the royals so that they wouldn’t ‘hurt any innocent people’. Legends were made that year, because of all the things that they did. In the end, they disappeared again after the natural death of Catrina; we’d thought that they’d disbanded permanently… but they’ve appeared on the radar again. A few days ago, one of the children of one of the cousins of the Queen was kidnapped. They told us to either give them the ransom and tell the entire kingdom that they were back, or they’d take the child forever, and do more things like that. Of course, we did that, to get the baby back. Then we framed a black-haired girl, and took back the declaration, claiming that she was the one who did it, and we’d caught the leader of GROUPB.” He finished with a long breath, and nodded at Reina. “That’s about all I can tell you. Dad says that they’re all under control, and he’s going to annihilate them completely- once and for all.”

                Isaiah jumped a little at the forceful last part, but was otherwise satisfied with the information that he’d obtained. It will be pretty valuable in the coming months, he thought to himself ominously, referring to the impending war in the near future between the rebels and the kingdom of Solair.

                The rebels were pretty underestimated, in his opinion. Because there were naturally more people with black and brown hair, the majority of them would have sided with the rebels, with the exception of a few devious people that just wanted to be ‘special’- a goal that they would never achieve, because society would never allow it. He wondered if GROUPB would appear in the midst of battle, and end it all right there, right then.

               “OH! Isaiah, I forgot to tell you- there’s another part of the story that Marcus forgot to tell you.” She whipped her head at Marcus, and he slunk back in defense. “So anyways. As I was saying. In order to combat GROUPB, the kingdom of Solair created their very own force- calling it Aelrune. Don’t ask me what it means, because I have no idea whatsoever. It was actually the idea of Lord Hawthorne. The Aelrune are the feared in society. Occasionally, you’ll come across somebody who’s actually heard of them. The majority of Solair doesn’t even know about them- they’ve heard about things that they’ve done, like massacring sectors of the Omega district where things were getting unruly, or releasing diseases on an entire district in order to punish them… but nobody actually knows who did it. They’re everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. The only people that know about this are the royal family, Hawthorne’s family, and Tobias’s family… and you. We genetically enhanced them in order to combat GROUPB, and they’re an even match, if I do say so myself. Soon enough, the entire world will know about their existence, and be too scared to go against us,” she shrugged, as if this was no big deal.

                Isaiah choked on the tea that he was casually sipping, nearly spewing it on Reina, who was pleasantly nibbling on a small cookie dusted with powdered sugar. How could she not care about this? Then again, Reina was… Reina. She didn’t have to care about anything- that’s what her parents did. In the time that it had taken to meet and talk to her, she hadn’t found anything to care about. These people are so messed up It’s ridiculous.

                “T-thank you for the intel. I’ll be sure to repay you when I get the chance,” Isaiah said calmly, abruptly standing up from the small coffee table that held his breakfast. It was only about eight or nine hours into the day, but he’d suddenly lost his appetite- the thought of some super-human evil Solair soldiers made him sick to his stomach. Ruffling his ginger hair, he nodded goodbye to Reina, before  heading out the door of the large room, trying to find something more pleasant to think of.