Tales of the Red Rogue - A Heroes Arrival

Chapter 14

Night began to settle on the small town of Whiteglen, the cold snow rested around my feet near the pile of cigarettes that lay on the ground next to me, Keema had yet to turn up but I could hear the gentle footfall of someone coming up behind me.

I took a deep breath, I braced myself, slowing my heart as much as I could... not for the fight ahead, I wasn't worried about that at all but this date was terrifying.

With a beaming smile and a bouncing skip Keema popped into my field of vision, happy as a child with a pocket full of sweets.

"Hey Halhud!"

"Hi Keema, are you ready to head off on our great journey."

Sweat dropped down my face.

"Why are you speaking so weird?"

She poked my nose... my heart, the pain, it was unbelievable, the butterfly's in my stomach where trying to kill me.

She grabbed my hand and began dragging me east, she had a lot of a strength in her, for someone so short and cute it took me by quite the surprise.

"Let me lead the way, if your just going to stair at me like that"

"Oh, sorry... I'm just not used to people being so pleasant when they approach me."

"Stop being so sad Mr. Frowny"

"I'm plenty happy, I'm always smiling."

"You just look like you're smiling I can tell you're sad when you are."

"How?"

"I just know people, my mam can do the same thing so I guess I got it from her, I just know when people are lying to me and what they really feel, just like I know that you aren't really a human"

The dread that hit me in that moment might be the scariest thing I've ever face, far worse than any thug on the streets of the capital.

"Huh... what... no me? I'm like super human, not like a super human I'm just very human... you know..."

She smiled at me, her face showed honest understanding, like she knew the pain I'd been through, like she knew the hate that was shown towards my race.

"Dopplers aren't the only race that's hated in Amera, I don't care what you look like, I judge people by how they act not how they look."

"I'm not a Doppler, shush!"

"Fine, but you'll have to deal with who you are eventually, and I'll be happy to talk to you about it when you do."

"Come on! We have a girl to save"

I stormed ahead, a little taken aback at her stamens and trying to find an excuse to change the subject but she still just looked at me with her innocent and accepting eyes.

The forest east of Whiteglen continued the theme of bleach white trees, the only thing to break the white of everything around was the blue of the sky that just poked through the canopy, it was beautiful and so was she, walking through the snow as it crunched under our feet, she smiled at me, full of joy, as though we weren't about to go into a fight to try save a girl.

We spent most of the day travelling and looking for clues, anything that would lead us closer to Shean but nothing came up.

It didn't seem like we would be able to find anything leading to this dragon cult, the snow had covered up any footprints that may have been left by Kobold or person.

There wasn't even anything around that people could hide in, so if we did bump into anyone they would just be right out in the open.

As the sun started to fall so did my hopes of finding her tonight.