SWRC: Too Soon... (Book 3)

Chapter 2 Too Many Problems.

Neeran sighed and went to put Ezra back to sleep as Shakkuri came outside to see if everything was okay.
"Is he okay?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"He had a nightmare, but it could have been a vision," replied Neeran as she re-entered the house with Ezra asleep in her arms. Shakkuri got out of the way as she entered the house and followed her into the kitchen.
"The others should be asleep now," said Shakkuri, as Neeran headed towards their bedroom.

"Thank you, Hiccup," said Neeran. "You should get some more sleep while you still can."
Shakkuri nodded and went over to his room to get back to sleep.

Neeran carefully opened the door as to not wake any of the others up and took Ezra over to his bed. She gently set him down and tucked him in again. Ezra stirred slightly but did not awaken, although someone else did.

"What happened?" asked Chopper.
"You're supposed to be asleep," said Neeran, looking up at the peering face of Chopper from the top bunk to the right of Ezra's bed.

"It's our training," said Jexxel, peering down from the other bunk bed at the end of the single bed. "Keeps us up when these sorts of things happen."
"Let me guess, Janan's awake too isn't she?" asked Neeran.

Both Jexxel and Chopper shook their head and Janan was in fact asleep, though she had been trying to stay awake.

"What happened?" Chopper asked again.
"He had a nightmare," replied Neeran looking back down at the sleeping form of Ezra. "Though it may have been a vision."

"He had a vision?" said Jexxel, looking at the boy who she called her littlest brother.
"Wow," whispered Chopper, equally surprised that Ezra had been able to have a vision whilst being asleep, which was one of the hardest ways to receive a vision.

"I don't quite know what happened, but you two need to be asleep if you don't want to be tired at school today," said Neeran.
"It's quarter to six," said Chopper, checking his watch. "We'd be getting up about now anyway."

"Shakkuri won't be awake this morning," said Neeran. "You can sleep in if you want."

" 'Kay," mumbled Chopper, plopping his head on his pillow and closing his eyes.
"Night mum," said Jexxel, who also lay down her head.

Neeran left the room and closed the door behind her. She needed to think, to see. But couldn't with all the thoughts whirling trough her mind.

Neeran went straight to the smallest room that was considered her apparent 'bedroom' though she almost never slept there. Digging into one of the draws at the desk in the sparsely furnished room, Neeran shifted various sheets of papers and other random things Neeran had stored there until she reached the bottom and pulled out the most precious things from her past life.

Her four kyipens; two orange and two pink.
Exactly like Ezra's.

Neeran sat down on the chair behind the desk and stared out of the window with her own kyipens placed on her lap, her fingers absent-mindedly running over each of the coloured strips of silk that lined one edge of the blankets and silently began nouging.

Exactly like Ezra.

Though nouging sounded like someone was squelching through mud, Neeran had been making that noise for as long as she could remember which in her lifetime was an incredibly long ass time. Over 40,000 years if someone wanted to be technical about it.

"Theta," said Neeran suddenly.
"Yes?" asked the four voiced A.I. of Theta.
Neeran pondering what she wanted to say with her head resting on the back of her chair with her fingers still running along the silk of the kyipens.
"Something wrong?" asked Theta innocently.

"Ezra," said Neeran. "Something's going on with him and I don't know what."
Theta stood in front of Neeran listening to every words she said and trying to think of something to help her.

"He had a vision. He saw Juan and Saval. He saw Juan fighting and eventually killing me. I don't understand it. I've fought Juan many time over the centuries, over the many millennia even, and he only ever come close to killing me a few times and that was when I was saved by someone close to me. What could it mean?"

If the four human fragments of Theta had ever remained human, they would have been able to understand their eldest sister's recount of Ezra's dream but they were limited by the programming of their A.I. fragment. Even though Neeran had tried to upgrade the fragment and give them a more human side time and time again, she had never been good at any kind of programming to a sufficient level to provide her personal A.I. with human emotions.

"Maybe it was a warning?" suggested Theta.
"But a warning for what," whispered Neeran. "Who would send a warning to Ezra if it was to warn me?"

Theta didn't know how to respond to Neeran's question and eventually shut off and left Neeran to her own thoughts.

Neeran sighed and closed her eyes.
"There really are just too many problems for us to face this time. Something's gonna break."

"We really have no idea what we're up against," whispered Zach appearing behind her.

Neeran didn't react to Zach's sudden appearance nor bear any hate towards him for what had happened almost three weeks previously. She had understood, particularly from that mornings incident, that the rift between them had to close before it consumed them and something bad happened to either them and their newest family.

"No," said Neeran smiling grimly. "We really don't."