The Firelands

4 - The Shadows of The Night

7th day of the Second Month, Love's Moon

10:00pm

The Forest Village

Ten hours after Zerron had exploded a sack full of flour into Kalen's hair, Kalen was only just now drying his hair after washing it.

He stood at his bedroom window, roughly rubbing the ends. The window opposite was also open and Zerron sat on the window seat, drying his own hair.

After Kalen's mother had left to find the matriarch, Kalen had thrown a bag of flour back at Zerron and by the time Zerron's mother had found them, they had coated the entire warehouse.

As punishment, they hadn't been allowed to wash until after nightfall and had had to deal with the itchiness all day - oh the itchiness. They had also been banned from the festival for the first two hours, so, since the party had started at nine, they still had a whole hour to be bored.

"Your ma was so harsh today. Two hour ban? On one of the biggest parties of the year? That's so unfair," Kalen said, dropping onto his window seat and wrenching on a jumper, tying his hair up into a knot.

"I'm betting it's a double punishment for last week," Zerron said.

"Last week?"

"You can't tell me you forgot about the frogs in the school hall?"

Kalen wrinkled his nose and frowned. "Oh yes, forgot about that little incident."

"I doubt your sister would consider it little."

"Ah the kid needs something to get the heart racing."

"I think that boy was getting her heart racing," Zerron said with a mean grin.

"She is too young to be dealing with any teenage boys!"

"Oh yes, sure, she being the same age as them."

"Too young! Do you know how bad teenage boys are?"

"Well at eighteen, I think I have a vague idea."

Kalen threw a book at him, which Zerron ducked and watched as it sailed through his room and straight out the door, down the corridor and they listened as it bounced down the stairs and landed on the ground floor. Zerron frowned at him.

"Would you mind the crazy strength, what if someone were down there?"

"Sorry," Kalen said, "to be fair, I knew there wasn't anyone, I couldn't hear anything."

"Uh-huh. You keep that crazy vampy strength to yourself."

"Oh sure, you say that, until you need something heavy lifted then it's all, 'Kaaaallleeeennn, it's too heavy. Help me, pweeease."

Zerron grabbed one of his own books and hurled it at Kalen, who laughed as he moved his head out of the way.

"I've never said 'pwease' in my life!"

"You just did."

"Don't make me slap you."

"You couldn't catch me."

Zerron just hissed at him since there was nothing he could really say to that that wasn't a lie and Kalen hissed back at him - only he hissed and bared fangs, holding up his hands, fingers curled like claws.

Zerron just laughed at him. "You're such a freak."

Kalen stared at him. "I'm offended by that, Zerron."