The Children of Nihon (BOOK TWO)

Chapter 20 - Inaan and the Sailors

"I don't trust him," Ami said, when Inaan had gone away 'so that you can talk about me behind my back'.

Orì sighed.

"Don't you start as well."

"He is hiding something."

"As are we," Orì pointed out. "And if he hasn't all of my mother's people chasing after him and throwing riches at whoever will give him up, our secret is worse than whatever he is keeping from us."

"He seemed to know quite a bit about us," Sofia said.

"All he did was figure out that the children Mother is looking for might be us. He doesn't know I'm her daughter."

"What if he finds out?"

Orì's face hardened.

"Then that's my problem, no? And I say we go with him. We don't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," Sofia said, and Ami agreed.

"Is there? Look around." Orì made a discreet yet all encompassing motion. "Have you ever seen a place like this? I couldn't count the people if I tried to. The scenery would be completely changed before I was even halfway done. You two keep talking about trust. What about all these strangers? Do we trust them?"

Sofia and Ami followed her gesture with their eyes. It was true what Orì said, and they were feeling it too. The uncontrollable nature of this sheer number of people. Each of them hiding their own thoughts and feelings and plans inside of themselves. They were truly invisible.

More than a few of them were looking their way. They kept walking, and most of them did not turn back towards them, but some did. And they probably wouldn't forget the three children they had seen, huddled together close to the back wall of a building, unsuccessfully trying to hide in the shadows, staring at their surroundings with big scared eyes.

"We are much too conspicuous," Sofia said. "Inaan was right about that, for what it's worth. If we were smart, we would change ourselves."

"I don't want to look like someone else again," Orì said. "Besides, I am already transformed."

"Oh." Sofia said. "I thought -."

"What?"

"Nothing. I just had assumed -," Sofia continued, and stopped again.

"What?" This time Orì sounded even more irritated.

Sofia took a deep breath.

"I had assumed this was the real you."

Instead of snapping at her like Sofia had expected, Orì looked down at the ground. She shrugged, suddenly awkward.

"It is the way that I feel. It feels real. Like myself. I don't know why."

"Since when?" Ami asked.

"Since I can remember. Even when I was a toddler. It made my mother angry when she found me like that. At first, she was proud of my abilities, but then she said that I had to stop."

"I like you like this," Ami said. His face turned red. "You're beautiful."

"I like you better this way, too," Sofia said. "But everybody who knows you, knows that you also look like this. So, maybe just as long as we're here..."

With some effort, Sofia went first.

Her stomach grew in front of her, making Ami giggle and Orì gasp. Then she grew a black beard from a wobbling chin, plaited into three long tresses. Black hair wrapped itself around her head like a bonnet, thick earlobes sticking out from under it.