Humble Beginnings
She’d sat in the cell for two weeks now.
At first, she had cried. Cried and screamed her throat raw, but the guards had beaten her every time she dared make a peep, so she stopped crying. But no amount of beatings could stop the nightmares that filled her head every night. The image of Costia’s rolling head seemed to tattooed onto the inside of her eyelids, and she’d boycotted sleep for three nights before exhaustion had finally overtaken her.
As the second week rolled, she’d begun to ask for her brother. But this pleas were met once more with violence, and now, with several broken bones and a few nasty scars, the little girl had resigned herself to huddle in the corner of the cold, dark, room, with rumbling stomach and aching wounds.
As she was contemplating scratching her own eyes out, the large, ornate, locked doors that stood in clear view of the rows of cells, was opened slowly. When the Queen walked in, head held high and smirk planted firmly on her face, Nyx tried to retreat further into herself, like a turtle into its shell. Her interest was only gained when the Queen tugged on a rope, and she silently sobbed in relief as she saw her brother on the other end, trudging in reluctantly, looking as bad as she felt, if not worse.
“Nico.” His name escaped her lips without her consent, the words scratchy and harsh, hurting her throat to speak, as one guard had kicked her there rather roughly.
“Nyx.” His eyes widened, and for a moment she thought he was going to struggle from his bindings, which were around his wrists, ankles, and throat, but he quelled when Nia fixed him with a steady glare.
“I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to properly introduce myself,” she said cooly, stopping outside of Nyx’s cell, “my name is Nia, and I am your new Kwin.” The word felt heavy in Nyx’s mind. Wrong.
“Now, let me tell you how this is going to work,” she continued, “you two will be kept alive for now, because you’re still useful to me. My sources have confirmed the meanings of your tattoos.” As soon as the Shaman determined the role of a child, they were marked with their station, as was Triku culture, and Nia obviously knew this. “You, young man, were meant to be a member of your heda’s royal guard, I can use that.” Her eyes zeroed in on Nyx’s pitiful, hunched over form. “But you, my dear, you will be infinitely more useful. It’s been decades since the Azgeda have had a true seer.”
“If you do your duties, and serve me well, without a fight,” Nia continued, “you will be allowed to see each other once a month. If one of you tries anything funny, well…” she trailed off, “the Azgeda are known for their scarification just as the Trikru are known for their tattoos. I am not above torturing yongons, as you’ve seen.”
She was truly evil, playing on their love for one another. Nyx would rather die than see Nico hurt, and she knew he felt the same way. They were twins, closer than normal siblings, joined at the hip since birth.
“I will have my generals train you, but, like I said, any sign of disobedience and you will be punished.” She paused, eyeing them both. “Am I understood.” They both nodded hesitantly after making brief eye contact, but she suddenly raised her voice. “I said, am I understood?”
“Sha, Kwin,” Nico said obediently, ducking his head shamefully.
“Sha, Kwin,” Nyx croaked out moments later, throat still terribly sore. The woman grinned, drawing herself up to full height once more.
“Much better, Colton,” a man previously hidden in the shadows stepped out, and she motioned in Nyx’s direction, “take the girl to Freya to be healed, and I’ll have Gregor take the boy to Liam. They aren’t to have contact for another month, understood?”
“Sha, Kwin.”
Before she was lead away by the giant mountain of a man, she shot one last helpless glance at her brother, whose eyes were still trained on her.
“Ai hod yu in, sis,” he called over his shoulder, and Nyx echoed his words before she was being pushed out of the opposite door. She stumbled several times, limping, knowing her ankle was broken. The man finally grew impatient and picked her up, tossing her over his shoulder.
The small girl allowed a few tears to track down her face. The last time she’d been picked up in this way had been a little over two weeks ago, except the arms had been more tender, and the embrace had been loving. Her heart ached. She wanted her brother, her nomon, her nontu, and most importantly, she wanted her sis.
Even though Lexa had been gone often throughout most of her childhood, some of her fondest memories of were when Lexa was home. The older girl doted on her younger siblings, teaching them everything she knew, and telling them stories of far-off lands she’d visited in her training. Around her little brother and sister, Lexa had been able to drop the severe mask she had on at all times and allow herself to act like her age. Nyx and Nico had agreed long ago that it was Lexa who gave the best hugs in their family. Nothing could quite beat the comfort of a mother’s embrace, but Lexa’s arms screamed safety and warmth and dedication.
So she let herself hang limp on the man’s shoulder, feeling utterly despondent, counting the cracks in the ground as they passed. After a few more minutes of walking at a brisk pace, the man stopped outside of another room, this one lined with several cots, and a door that led to what Nyx assumed was the fissa’s personal quarters. A soft-skinned girl with the trademark scar curling around her temple entered at the sound of Colton’s lumbering entrance, tucking sandy hair behind her ears.
“Leave her there,” the woman instructed, Freya, Nyx recalled, and she felt herself being lowered surprisingly gently onto a cot, and then soft hands are tracing her skin, inspecting darkly colored bruises and barely scabbed over cuts.
“Poor thing,” she made a clicking motion with her tongue, before shaking her head, “I’m not allowed to question the motives of our Kwin, but resorting to hurting children is a bit much, even for her.” She fussed over Nyx for a bit, who laid stiff in the bed, refusing to let herself relax.
“Hush, yongon,” Freya tried to reassure, “you’re in good hands here, we’ll get you fixed up in no time.” Though every bone in her body screamed not to trust the woman tending to her wounds, exhaustion won out, and Nyx felt her eyes fluttering shut.
“Come on, yongon, wake up.” Sticky eyes languidly stretched open, blinking rapidly against the sudden harsh light. For a while, she felt safe, a soft cot underneath her, but the memories soon came flooding back, along with the aching of her wounds. The voice wasn’t familiar, the bed was not hers, and nothing about this situation was safe.
She jerked up, ignoring the soft hands pushing her back down. Nyx could feel her chest tightening, her breath coming out in short pants.
“Hush, yongon, you’re alright.” Freya’s voice was soft, and Nyx appreciated her attempt at calming her down, but it was failing quite miserably.
“I want my nomon,” Nyx sobbed, “and my nontu, and my bro, and my sis. I want to go houm.” For a brief moment, she thought she saw a flicker of pity in Freya’s eyes before they hardened.
“I know,” she said, “but you cannot afford to have such thoughts. This is your houm now.” She paused, motioning to a mark on the left side of her neck. “I am Floukru by birth, but Azgeda now. It is not uncommon for them to take prisoners and keep them forever.” She chuckled humorlessly. “You will learn to adapt, yongon, quickly if you value your head.”
Nico was faring no better. His eyes were red and puffy from crying, but there were no more tears for his body to expel. Liam hailed from the Valley People, but didn’t speak much.
He’d been bed-bound for three days, and was now finally being allowed to walk around the infirmary freely, so long as he didn’t leave without supervision. His thoughts were almost always on his sister, wondering about her health.
On the sixth day, the doors opened to reveal not Gregor, who usually accompanied him places, but a boy who appeared to be about Lexa’s age, with long brown hair and scars over his face. By the way Liam bowed quickly (Nico following suit because he didn’t fancy being bedridden any longer) he gaged that this was Prince Roan.
“Rise,” he snapped, and the two did as instructed. Roan looked Nico up and down, the younger boy jutting his chin out in a silent show of defiance, and the older boy chuckled.
“You have a warrior’s spirit,” he murmured, nodding his head, “that I can work with.” He continued circling Nico like a vulture, and he made silent hums of approval, before sharply looking him in the eye.
“Neeko kom Trikru,” he ground out, “from this day forward, you are Neeko kom Azgedakru, and I am to be your fos, and you will be my seken. My word is law, and you’d do well to listen to me the first time I say something, because I won’t take kindly to having to repeat myself.” Nico found he didn’t quite like the malicious glint in the older boy’s eyes, but he bowed his head respectfully.
“Sha, Prin.”
“No need to call me prince,” Roan continued, “you will call me Roan, and you will be the best seken the Ice Nation has ever seen, because you are mine, and I am always the best at everything. Are we understood?”
“...sha, Roan.”
“Again!” Nyx’s chest was heaving, the girl short of breath as she stood up slowly and readied herself for the onslaught. A tall, heavily scarred no-nonsense man named Nam had been tasked as her fos, and he was currently teaching her the power of a good defensive, unleashing his full fury upon her with two long poles to represent dual wielded blades, instructing her to parry and dodge until she got hit.
So far, the longest she’d managed to last was two minutes, and they’d been going at it for three hours for the fifteenth time that week alone. There wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t beginning to bruise.
“You have to feel for the blade,” he barked, “use your sight in order to see, anticipate the blows before they come.”
“But that’s impossible!” Nyx snapped impatiently, inwardly fuming. Nam regarded her coldly for a moment, before ripping a piece of cloth off of his shirt.
“Come here.” Begrudgingly, Nyx did as instructed. The second month of her stay with the Ice Nation had recently started, and she was trying to maintain her best behavior in order to be able to see Nico as promised. She tensed as he pulled the cloth up to her eyes, tying it firmly behind her head. She couldn’t see anything except the black of the fabric.
“Step back four paces.” His voice seemed louder now that she couldn’t see him, almost as if her senses were heightened, compensating for the lack of sight. “Assume first position.” She bent her knees, getting in a starting stance, single long stick held in front of her defensively. “Prepare yourself.”
Nyx took a deep breath, calming herself. On the battlefield, one couldn’t afford to have wayward thoughts. She felt a light brush of air on her left side, and quickly brought her stick to parry the blow, ducking fluidly with the motion as the second pole swooped over her head. After spending three hours with Nam, she was beginning to be able to decipher his attack patterns, and she could hear her mentor let out a delighted laugh when she jumped over the next swing, aimed at her knees, before ducking to the ground and spinning with her own stick, which made the satisfying noise of wood cracking against wood, a sign of her immense improval.
“Good! Now, faster!” Sweat broke on Nyx’s forehead once more as she felt the speed of Nam’s attacks increase. She’d barely managed to block one hit before another was inches away from her nose, and the two were engaged in a dance of sorts, Nyx using her small size to her advantage to avoid everything her mentor was throwing at her.
A hit finally landed on her stomach when Nam feinted a blow to the right, while aiming for her stomach at the same time. She doubled over, panting, hands clutching at her stomach, and felt the steady hands of her fos pulling her up, gently removing the blindfold. The stoic man wasn’t much for smiling, but the glint in his eyes told Nyx all she needed to know, and a small bud of pride bloomed in her chest, startling her.
She was still sad and angry, oh so angry, and so homesick it physically hurt, but she was growing to care for the people here. Nam was a voice of wisdom, and he reminded her greatly of Anya, and Freya was there to tend to her bruises. She found that being angry at everyone was pointless, especially if she was stuck here for a while. She might as well learn to appreciate the small blessings in life while she had the chance.
The nine year old had been forced to grow up a lot in these past two months, but she found that training herself to the point of exhaustion helped keep the nightmares at bay, and the visions were coming less often. Sometimes she saw her sister’s face, cold and closed off, so different from the warmth and love she was so used to seeing. Sometimes she saw Lexa screaming, clutching at a severed head as though it was her very source of life, and insisting with her generals that they storm the Ice Nation, regardless of backlash, only to be reprimanded and told no.
But more and more often, Nyx was dreaming of someone known to her as only wanheda, who fell from the sky, and her band of lumbering branwadas. Sometimes, she saw wanheda with her sis, other times with a dark-skinned boy, and others with a boy with floppy hair and an arrogant smirk that Nyx wanted to rip off of his smug face.
However, there was one image that stood out clearly in her mind, which had been keeping her going these past two months. It was of Lexa, older, grasping onto a much taller Nico and Nyx as though they were the only people in the world. She knew that one day, regardless of the struggles she’d be forced to face, they’d end up back together.
And she planned on living to see that reunion.