The King's Men

Chapter 8

Shayne bowed in greeting.

"Hello," he said. "We are Sook's friends." He got back up to look at the woman who asked for their identites.

"I am Shayne. These are Ikuno, Hiroshi, and Waren." Shayne pointed at each man in turn.

The woman immediately dropped her dark look and replaced it with a brighter one.

"Oh, well, hello!" she said cheerfully. The immediate switch shocked Shayne and the others for a bit, but they instantly recovered as fast as they had been shocked. "I am the head of the Yuni clan. My name is Yuki."

She was holding onto the arm of a tall male. He was very well-built, but not overly so. Enough to be noticeably strong, but not grossly so. He had jade-colored eyes and golden-blonde hair.

Yuki gestured toward this male. "This is my husband, Lerey."

Shayne was a bit surprised. He had half expected the leaders to be Vanessa's parents, not the old Akazu leader's daughter.

Next to Yuki and Lerey were a couple that the group could instantly recognize as Vanessa's parents without being told who they were. Well, what other couple was close to the leader of the Yuni clan and was composed of an Akazu female and Wolf male?

"My friends over there are Saki and Cory," Yuki added, noticing the group's attention on the other couple. Saki and Cory nodded politely. They were holding hands, distinguishing their relationship with each other.

They must have noticed the strange looks that the group of strangers gave them.

"Saki was offered to be the leader of the Yuni clan, but she didn't want to overthrow my rule, so she let me be leader. The old leader of the Wolf and his son were okay with it."

Shayne nodded in understanding.

"If given the chance, I would do the same," he said. Yuki didn't know what it was, but she felt no threat from this boy. She could tell that her friends felt the same.

"Please," she continued. "Make yourself at home. Of course, until you go on your way again."

Shayne bowed, his followers bowing along with him.

"We would be honored," Shayne said.

Vanessa walked forward.

"I'll show you guys to your tents," she said, eyeing Sook.

Shayne mentally giggled, and outwardly smiled. "You can go ahead and play with Sook after showing us to our places. Thank you for your help."

Vanessa screeched a little in her mouth, which only Shayne and Sook could hear. However, her composed self made it seem as if she made no sound.

"Of course, thank you for your generosity," she said elegantly.

As the crowd dispersed, Vanessa went to show the men their sleeping quarters.

"Thank you again for allowing me to play with Sook," Vanessa said, back to her childish voice. "You have no clue how much it means to me."

"Why don't you show your childish side to your parents?" Shayne asked. Vanessa stiffened a bit, but then relaxed herself.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Shayne added, noticing the girl's discomfort.

"It's alright," she replied. "I'm alright talking about it."

She took in a deep breath, then spoke.

"There was a time when another village was attacking us. They were..." She paused. "... are, the Colal Clan, a clan linked with birds. When they attacked, my parents went to battle, and I wanted to go, too. However, my parents both pushed me away and hid me, along with my best friend Kisa. My parents said I was too weak and young to fight, so they asked Kisa to protect me. She did... But with a price. When some Colal soldiers discovered us, Kisa did her best to fight them off, but she became brutally injured because of that. I managed to fight off the ones Kisa was unable to fight off, but..."

Tears began to flow out of Vanessa's eyes, her rubbing them away. Her voice wavered just a bit.

"There was so much blood... Kisa was bleeding so much..."

She steeled herself once again, the tears nearly stopping. She gave up on wiping them away.

"I swore to myself that I would never let this happen again, and to do so, I had to act mature enough for my parents to acknowledge that I am not weak, and that I can handle myself without someone else's help."

As the other men let this information soak in their minds, Ikuno asked, "What happened to Kisa?"

Vanessa sighed. "She's back to no-"

A girl with short blonde hair and glacier-blue eyes jumped on top of Vanessa, screeching, "I GOT YOU!!!"

Vanessa shrieked as the two went toppling down, though not with fear, but rather laughter.

"Kisa!" she giggled.

The men and dog looked down at the two, and Kisa looked up at them.

Though they didn't notice it before, she had a large scar that ran from the top of the right side of her face to the bottom left side of her face, as well as a scar that ran all the way around her neck.

Kisa smiled up at them.

"Nice to meet you," she said. "My name is Kisa. Kisa Taika."

Author's Note:

Happy (end of) Pride month everyone! I'm really sorry for the late update, but I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! :)

-Vanguard12😋