The black-clad figure, who had been following Mars and RK, watched from the shadows of the forest until the two were finally asleep. He then tentatively stepped out into the dying glow of the fire and approached the woman nearest him, who happened to be RK. Kneeling down beside her, he studied her face while she slept. He jumped back when RK startled him by muttering something in her sleep that sounded like, “Mm, no more nekkid sheep. Strip grazing evil.” RK scrunched herself further down against the tree while pulling her jacket more closely around her. The golden-eyed man approached her again. He squatted on the ground next to her, extended one hand, and gently prodded RK in the shoulder.
“Hm? Mars? Izzat y…AAHH!!” RK shrieked as her eyes focused on the unknown person who was mere inches away from her. “GET AWAY!!” she hollered as she grabbed her fire-poking stick and swung it around, connecting solidly with the man’s head. He cried out in pain and surprise, quickly standing up and backing away, clutching at the side of his head. He cursed under his breath in some language RK didn’t understand, but he didn’t have time to do much more than that, as RK swung the stick back around, again making contact with the man’s head. The figure managed to momentarily duck away and holler at RK, “Stu’peh! Stu’peh, J’ee ai’meh nu’teh gu’eeng’tu tu’loo ho’r’tu tute!”1
Mars jerked awake, shouting, “I wasn’t sleeping!” It was then that she spotted RK beating a black-clad figure over the head with a rather large stick. The figure was shouting things in a strange tongue.
“Gu’dai’mee’teh! Wee’lu tute nu’ku ee’teh ufu??”2 the man yelled, losing his temper. He ripped the stick from RK’s grasp and threw it aside. Extending his arm forward, he lifted her off the ground by some sort of magic and held her suspended in the air. “J’ee sai’ee’deh J’ee wai’s*u’teh gu’eeng’tu tu’loo ho’r’tu tute. Nu’weh kai’l’mu du’nu!”3
RK was still flailing wildly about in midair, screaming, “Ack! Let me go! Let me go! Please don’t kill me! I’m not food! NOOOOOOTTTTTT FOOOOOOODDDD!!”
(THWACK!) The black-clad man’s head jerked a little to the side as the rock Mars had thrown nailed him in the temple. Mars was in a defensive stance, tossing another rock up and down in one hand. “Put her down, Demon!” she demanded of the man.
The dark figure, still holding RK suspended in the air, turned his head slowly towards Mars. “Day’mu’neh?”4 he growled. His eyes were glowing red around the golden irises. Then he enunciated very slowly and clearly in a commanding voice, “Drop… the… rock.” Mars, upon seeing the look on the man’s face, quickly let the rock she was holding fall to the ground. “Good,” the man said. “Now, sit,” he told her, pointing to a spot on the ground with his free hand. Mars looked at the ground, then back to the figure, then back to the ground, and decided doing what he asked was probably a much safer option at this point than any rebellion would be. “Now stay.”
He then looked back to RK who was still floating helplessly in the air, with a more than slightly panicked look on her face. “I’m too young to die!” RK whimpered. He glared at her for a minute, then sighed as the anger drained from his expression. He floated her over to where Mars was, setting her on the ground and releasing her from his control.
He then went and sat on the ground opposite Mars and RK, on the other side of the dying fire from them. “I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said, while carefully rubbing his head. “But it was originally you who surprised me. You see, you’re different than anyone else I’ve met in years.”
“But,” Mars interrupted. “Who are you?”
“Oh, of course. My name is Deygo. I am a Shadow Keeper. I can control the Energy of the night.”
“Uuhh… okay,” RK said uncertainly. “My name’s RK, and that’s Mars. But what about that language you were speaking earlier? What was that?”
Deygo gave RK a surprised look at this question. “That was Nay’weh Spay’chu. You mean you don’t know it?”
“No,” Mars replied.
“But it is the common language now, after Libitina. Everyone speaks Nay’weh Spay’chu! What we are speaking now in this conversation is the old language, one that died many years ago. The only reason I, and a few others, know it is that we’ve taken it upon ourselves to try to keep the past from completely dying away.”
“Dude,” RK said. “You know we have no freakin’ idea wot you’re talking ‘bout, right?”
Deygo looked from RK to Mars, then back to RK, studying them, looking for any clue to explain their ignorance. After a moment or two, he finally said, “You really don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“That’s wot we said, yah,” Mars replied.
He sighed. “Well, then. We have a few hours before the soh’neh5 rises, I will tell you what I can.”
1 “Stop! Stop, I’m not going to hurt you!”
2 “Goddammit! Will you knock it off??”
3 “I said I wasn’t going to hurt you. Now calm down!”
4 “Demon?”
5 Sun
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