Guardian of the Sands

Dodging Fate

"Alistair!"

His head shot up at the shout, glancing over his shoulder in the direction it had come. He shifted the swords in his hands, and straightened up. "Naasir?" He called back.

"Al, you've got to stop running off like that without backup, a year in elite training doesn't mean you can take on a whole group of bandits at once." Naasir said as he came into view, he paused and glanced down at the body lying at Alistair's feet, his gaze shifting to the others scattered around. "Uh...well maybe I stand corrected."

Alistair grinned. "Don't worry, they're not dead, only unconscious." He flicked the blood off his swords and slid them back in the double sheath on his back.

Naasir stepped over and around bodies, making his way to Alistair's side. "I thought we agreed you would hold back, it's not exactly normal for a fifteen-year-old boy to be this skilled at fighting."

Alistair scoffed. "Almost sixteen, and I'm blessed by the gods, remember? I thought we were going with that explanation. It is the truth after all."

Naasir sighed, exasperated. "We don't know if that's the reason you are uncannily skilled in sword-play and hand to hand combat, it's just a theory."

Alistair nodded and walked past him, moving back toward the palace. "Right, a theory that we're going with. Relax, Naasir, Heamah didn't make me an elite guard just cause of my good looks."

Naasir rolled his eyes as he followed him. "It was probably your extreme humility that convinced her."

Alistair glanced over at him. "Since when are you so sarcastic?"

Naasir raised and eyebrow and shot back. "Since when are you so cocky?"

"Whatever, so what are you doing down here anyway?" Alistair asked, changing the subject.

"Uh, to come find you, duh."

"I meant why did you want to find me?"

Naasir shrugged. "To check on you, and we haven't exactly talked much in a while."

"Well I've got my job and you're busy helping Heamah out with matters of state and such, doesn't exactly leave a lot of leisure time."

"True."

There was a moment of silence, then Naasir paused and turned to him. "This may seem strange, but I feel like something bad is going to happen whenever I'm around you, your aura is all crazy, and I know you've been having trouble sleeping at night. So what's up?"

Alistair was silent for a moment, then he shrugged. "I don't know. It comes and goes, this feeling of impending doom...and an unbearable nagging in my head like I've forgotten something."

Naasir frowned. "How long has this been going on?"

Alistair thought for a moment. "Since we arrived in Xyra."

Naasir was silent for a minute or two, then asked. "Do you ever have nightmares?"

Alistair shrugged. "Not since I was little."

"But you did have nightmares?"

Alistair nodded.

"Did anything in them ever actually happen?"

He nodded again.

"How much did they come true?"

"Everything...they all came true. But I haven't had one since the night my parents died."

Naasir tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Did anything strange happen that night?"

Alistair raised his eyebrows. "You mean besides the masked men invading my house, murdering my mother, my father turning into a glowing killing machine with inhuman strength, and the shadow man?"