One Hundred Years: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Blue Dragons

It had been midday when the Winter Wolves launched their attack upon the Redwing Edge Village. It was past midnight now. But most of the villagers were still awake as they waited in the hidden shelters, only the youngest children were sleeping. There was almost no light in each shelter- a traditionally built pit house with a earthen roof to hide it from prying eyes. The fires had long since burned down to embers. The night was still and the smothering black-blue color of an oil slick.

Cooper was not asleep.

Pike was not asleep either. The older boy was sitting cross-legged by the glowing embers of the fire sharpening his knife. He had been sharpening his knife for over an hour, but Cooper wasn't about to say anything to his half-brother. Before sharpening his knife, Pike had spent two hours unpacking and repacking his belt kit. When Cooper had asked- well into the first hour- what Pike was doing, the only response had been a string of distracted mutterings.

Cooper understood. Pike needed to think about something else. Earlier Fergus Wong- one of the elders present in the shelter- had told the story of the Oil Barons War. And he had told the long version, the epic poem version that took three hours to tell. It was a good story with a strong group of villains and good heroes and even a good ending.

Cooper understood the need to not look at things that were painful. But as much as Cooper understood, he didn't share the need. For as long as he could remember, Cooper had wanted to stare at challenges and not step away. His Aunt Koko, had told Cooper that he used to stare at the sun as a toddler, and had to be told repeatedly not to do so.

Some adults would still tell him not to stare at the sun, when he was persisting in trying to do something past when it was a good idea.

Cooper couldn't help it. It was in his nature.

"Know Thyself," was the first command given to the children of the Redwing Tribe. Children were to taught to question what they knew and what they did and why they did from the earliest ages. The Tribe's nursery rhymes were questions. Most of the stories taught to children under the age of five were about Munin the raven, and most of them were about self knowledge versus group knowledge and tradition. Munin taught the tribe to question everything.

Cooper worked very hard to know himself. One day he would be an important part of the tribe. One day he would be able to protect people and responsible for the safety of the tribe. So Cooper worked hard at everything he did. And that meant that he spent a great deal of time studying who he was.

He knew how much sleep he needed in order to feel rested. He knew how fast and how far he could run. He knew how far he could throw and under what conditions. He knew what food his body worked the best on and how different activities changed things. He knew what made him angry and what made him sad, although knowing these things didn't allow him to manage his emotions as flawlessly as he had first hoped. He knew what he knew and he attempted to keep track of what he didn't know.

Aunt Layla said that Cooper was born an elder. Uncle Redwing said that Cooper had the eyes of an immortal.

This was who Cooper understood himself to be. He wasn't the fastest. He wasn't the strongest. He wasn't the most knowledgeable. He didn't take naturally to many of the skills of the tribe- although he could do them. Cooper was not naturally good at anything as far as he could tell, except thinking. Cooper was a thinker and a learner. This was who he saw himself to be.

He could learn. He could break down what he knew and what he didn't know. He could determine what was needed and how he needed to go about learning those things.

Reading still intimidated him, and Malika didn't let him forget it. Her taunts irritated Cooper. The letters didn't sit still on the page. They shuffled around like children lining up for a meal, and they even changed color. Cooper didn't mind the color changes. He was used to color changes in his vision. Cooper saw colors at the edge of his vision when he heard certain sounds, those happened a lot and he could interpret what they meant. The shuffling letters frustrated him. He had found other ways of learning though. He had learned memory tricks from the elders and used them excessively. Pike helped Cooper in this, reading too the younger boy so that Cooper could listen and sort the information into packages that he could remember.

He would rather have been a warrior, or a leader, but he didn't seem to fall naturally into those things. He could learn them, but he was not them. No matter what he learned, it would not come naturally.

Cooper was intent on learning now. In the gloom of the pit house, as the people around him consoled each other and dealt with their grief in their own ways, Cooper sought to learn- to teach himself and know himself.

He was five years old. Once he hit puberty he could begin to undertake the warrior tests and become a man. Most people became warriors by the age of seventeen. Cooper was determined to do it before he was fifteen. He was certain that he would have hit puberty by then. He couldn't be sure when it would hit. The minimum age a child was allowed to take the tests was thirteen. Very few people become warriors before the age of fifteen. That was not a lot of time. Cooper couldn't add above 100 easily yet. But he could add five and five and five together to get fifteen. He was five now, that left five and five years- just ten years- to be ready for the warrior tests. And so he sought to know himself.

He had panicked at the sight of Rikki's body. He had frozen and only Pike's declaration that he would not leave without Cooper had snapped the younger boy out of his panic. Cooper didn't like this. It was something that he would have preferred not to have to learn about himself. Rikki was already dead. People died, especially when at war. His panic and shock had endangered living people around him, and the reaction did not help Rikki- who was already dead. Rikki had been Cooper's friend, but Cooper had been unable to do anything to help Rikki. And his reaction after was even less helpful.

So that was something to work on. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't panic.

His aim had been off when he had sought to help Aunt Koko and Uncle Lamont with the rock he had thrown. He would need to practice his throws further. His aim hadn't been off by much, but it had been off by enough.

So that was something to work on. Get better, don't let down your family, practice more.

Pike had brought Cooper out of his shock by appealing to the mutual loyalty the boys shared for each other. That was good, Cooper could use that. He would work on remembering that. He would work on keeping that in his mind to drive him to action.

Cooper stood up. he walked over to one of the narrow openings that served as doors in the shelter and sat down. He looked around at the pit house. There had been no sounds of gun fire for hours now. The adults were largely talking to children and trying to console them. Cooper knew that there were two guards outside the pit house hidden in the trees watching and listening.

Cooper also knew that he did his best thinking alone.

He moved slowly, trying not to make a sound, practically hugging the ground until he was outside the pit house. Once outside, he continued his inchworm movement into the trees and up to where he knew was a hill with a good view of the sky. He could feel grass and moss against his belly as he undulated along the ground. Cooper knew that there was very little chance that the Winter Wolves were still in the area. The remaining adults had not returned, but the alarm horn had sounded a pursuit call roughly two and a half hours ago. So both the adults and the Winter Wolves were not likely to be nearby. But Cooper was still nervous. There might still be raiders around, in hiding. And if an adult caught him outside, Cooper knew he would be in trouble.

But he needed to talk to the sky. Uncle Redwing talked about spirits of the earth. Great Uncle Luther and his children always claimed that there was no such thing as spirits. Cooper wasn't sure, but thought he should be polite just in case. Beside that, it helped to talk to something as vast and eternal as the sky.

As he inched out of the trees, Cooper looked up and almost gasped. The aurora borealis was twisting through the night sky, sea greens and deep blues hanging above the earth. Aunt Koko had said that the aurora was made when bits of the sun came loose and burned up as they entered earth's air. Uncle Redwing said they were the dance of the spirits. Pike said that he had heard that the aurora was the sky writing of dragons. Pike swore that the color was how he knew which type of dragon it was that had left the aurora. Blues and greens were left by the Northern Dragon, also called the Great Norwegian Blue. Cooper had heard adults talk about the Norwegian Blue Dragon, and had not decided if they were trying to trick the children or being serious.

Still, Cooper was impressed. Maybe, if there was a Great Blue Dragon, the Dragon had left its writings in the sky to honor the dead of the Redwing Tribe. Cooper felt a little silly when he thought this. But he also felt a little better, after he thought it.

If even the sky can honor the dead, Cooper decided, then he could as well.

He spoke quietly to the sky, "I don't know if you are real, I think it would be nice if you were. I hope you don't mind if I don't know for sure if I believe in you."

"I lost my cousin Rikki today. He died. He wasn't just my cousin. He was my friend. And I couldn't help him at all. And I cried, and I almost hurt by brother too. And my Uncle got hurt really bad. He hasn't come to the shelter yet. I think he might be in the medical hut, but I don't know for sure. I don't want to have somebody else die today. But I don't get to choose that. And I'm scared, and I don't want to be scared. I'm going to take the warrior test one day, and then I'll be a warrior. A warrior has to fight and defend the tribe and people around him die, like friends who are warriors too. I get scared. But, they're my family. My Mom and Dad aren't here. I don't know who they are even. The adults won't tell me, but I think something bad happened to them. So I don't know who my Mom and Dad are, but they let me stay here. And they like me here, and its almost like I belong here. So I want to prove them right. I want show them that I do belong here, that I am part of the Redwing tribe. I'm not theirs, they didn't have to take me, but they did. And I have to pay them back. I owe them that, for letting me have a home. I have to look after them. I have to look after Pike, 'cause he looks after me. I have to look after Malika and I have to look after Uncle Redwing, because he's really old. I kind of want help, because sometimes it seems like I'm all alone, and I'm not alone, because everyone is always around- but I feel lonely anyways. I don't want to be alone."

The sky looked down at Cooper, dark and open. Cooper could see constellations, the False King's plow, the rabbit Martagas, the great serpent, the wolf Gygas. Cooper watched the the trails of the aurora and was quiet for a long time. The sky was a good listener, but rarely offered obvious advice.

"You're going to get in trouble if the grown ups find you out here." Malika hissed from behind him. Her words caused a burst of deep blue lines to snake across his vision.

Cooper didn't turn around, but noted that he needed to work on paying attention to sounds.

"You'll get in trouble now too, you know."

"Why are you out here?" Malika asked as she shuffled in beside him, nuzzling against him as she did so.

"I needed to be alone and think."

"I'm sorry." She said quietly.

"It's okay, I think I'm done now."

"Elder Fergus is telling the story of the Seven Siblings now."

"I know the story, none of them were orphans."

"We don't know your parents are dead."

"Something happened to them or Uncle Redwing would have told me."

Malika was quiet for a long time at this point. She was quiet for so long that Cooper started to wonder if she was okay. Finally she spoke again in a small voice.

"It doesn't feel like Rikki's dead."

Cooper considered this. Rikki certainly felt dead to him. But Cooper had seen Rikki dead on the trail, and wasn't sure if Malika had seen this as well.

"It doesn't feel fair that he's dead," Cooper finally answered.

"It isn't fair! Rikki wasn't a warrior yet. Why would you attack us? We're kids! It doesn't prove anything if you kill us. That guy was a total loser coward! He wasn't a tribal, he was a total townee! No tribal would attack kids like that."

Cooper noticed that Malika was crying. She was quiet about her crying, but when she tried to hide a sniffle or control a hiccup the color of her words changed.

"It isn't fair. But I'm going to make sure its not fair for them either. I'm going to be a warrior."

Malika wiped her nose and nodded, "Me too, and I'm going to make all the Winter Wolves pay for all of us they killed."

Cooper could feel the pain of seeing Rikki's body rising up in him. He found himself wanting to cry. Cooper didn't like crying in front of people. He tried to hold the tears back, but the best he could manage was to cry quietly beside Malika.

They were quiet then, crying softly beside each other. Then Cooper's thoughts got the best of him. He didn't mean to say anything out loud, but suddenly he was saying it anyway.

"I don't want to be alone." He whispered, and instantly wished he could take it back.

Malika looked at him in surprise, "Coop, you're Redwing Tribe. None of us are ever alone."

Cooper couldn't talk for a long time after this. The emotions were too strong.

"The grown ups are going to kill us if they catch us out here." he said finally.

"Yeah," Malika agreed.

Neither of them moved.

* * *

PIke sat before the fire, sharpening his knife. He hadn't actually been sharpening the blade for quite some time. He was aware of the damage that his constant filling against the blade was doing on some level, but it didn't matter to Pike at the moment. Pike didn't want to think about Uncle Lamont and the man's broken hip bone. He didn't want to think about Uncle Lamont's knife wound- inflicted accidentally by Aunt Koko. But Pike really didn't want to think about his cousin Rikki.

The event had happened so fast and so slow at the exact same time. One moment the path ahead of the children was empty, the next moment a pitch black giant was looming ahead of the children and firing two guns. Pike remembered seeing RIkki freeze- his mouth open. Pike remembered grabbing RIkki, and he remembered dragging RIkki to the cover of a tree as the children around them scattered. Pike could remember how slow it had seemed, and how desperately they needed to move quickly. The event had seemed to occur in a nightmare where molasses wrapped around his ankles and slowed him down to prolong the horror.

Pike remembered all of this. Pike could remember looking down at RIkki once Pike and Rikki had reached the tree. And then? And then Pike couldn't remember anything. It wasn't until PIke found himself staring at Cooper frozen on the road that Pike could remember anything again. Pike couldn't even remember what he said, or what his little brother had been looking at, although in both cases PIke knew what he couldn't remember- at least on some level.

Pike also knew that he had to deal with this. He was being eaten by a slow creeping amnesia. He could feel it. Any time he got close to a memory that might draw up... then it changed and he couldn't remember that either. Pike could feel his sense of self trying to drown itself to hide from the pain. Pike couldn't allow that.

His Mom needed him and Cooper needed him. His Mom could maybe get by on her own- she was strong. Pike could vaguely remember her fleeing from the dangers that one night with him and baby Cooper in tow. He couldn't remember who or what they were running from, and he suspected that these memories too had been buried by some survival mechanism to help him go on. His Mom would be okay, PIke thought, Cooper wouldn't be so good.

Cooper was smart. Most Redwing children began to read around five years old. Pike knew that this was considered early elsewhere and he liked that. Cooper was therefore a slow reader. The grown ups thought this mean Cooper wasn't quite as sharp as the others. Pike knew better. He read to Cooper and knew how much his brother could memorize and learn and keep and even sometimes improve on- already at five. Cooper said the letters would move on him. Pike didn't know why this was, but he believed his brother. So Cooper was smart, very smart. But he was little- even for his age. And he would never be able to read if the letters didn't stop moving on him. Cooper was fast. But being little and feeling as though he had to help everyone, Cooper was always getting in over his head. And PIke was certain that no matter how good Cooper got at what he did, and Pike suspected Cooper would get good at virtually anything except reading, Cooper would still end up in over his head. It wasn't hard to notice- Cooper headed for deep waters every time. Without Pike there to pick up the slack, Cooper would be in trouble.

Pike wasn't going to let Cooper down. Mom and Cooper were all Pike had. During the scary weeks when they were fleeing the dangers, Pike's mom had always stressed that it was her job to look after Pike and Pike's job to look after Cooper. Pike had taken that seriously and never forgotten it. If something happened to him, there would be nobody who knew Cooper well enough to look after him and keep up with him.

And so, Pike had to find a way to beat this overwhelming devouring amnesia that was stealing any memory that might... be bad from him.

"Rikki." He said the name aloud to test the results. It hurt him mind, because he could feel the guilt and the loss and pain pushing at the edge of his mind. He could feel another part of his mind trying to steal the word to protect him.

"Rikki is dead." He said, still quietly.

"I didn't kill Rikki. I tried to save him. But because I tried to save him I almost didn't save Cooper." This worked for him. His need to be there for Cooper was more powerful than his guilt over Rikki's death. If he looked through the eye's of Coop's big brother, he could deal with his failure as Rikki's cousin. Rikki didn't matter, because RIkki could not save Cooper. This wasn't a good way to look at things, on some level Pike knew this, but he could think about things through this lens. His mother mattered, and Cooper mattered, nothing else was worth worrying about. Through this lens Pike could manage himself again. his world contracted in other ways as he got used to this lesson, but that was acceptable.

Pike looked up and around the darkened. He paused.

"Elder Fergus. Where are Cooper and Malika?"