[Aeolynn]: 217. Naga Child - Chapter One

      Left to die, the warrior struggled to push himself further through the ruined village, his left shoulder bleeding profusely where the arm hung useless from a few shards of bone and skin. The agony was setting him on fire, almost causing him to black out from the pain but he stumbled onwards. He had to get out of there. If there were any Naga left they would kill him without questions, without remorse... I guess its our own fault for trying to kill them all... the warrior thought to himself bitterly, however he was just a simple soldier following the head tribesman's orders... how foolish he had been. Now he would bleed to death miles from help unless he could find a place to hide and stop the bleeding... and remove what was left of his arm. 

      The burning scenery around him began to fade proving to himself he was losing the battle to live when his vision suddenly cleared. Something moved to his right. With deadly accuracy he pulled out his sword and aimed it at the creature’s throat, stopping when he realized how small the throat was. It was a Naga child, tiny, frail and sickly. There was a unhealthy gray tinge to its skin and it's eyes burned with a fever. 

       It couldn't have been more then nine years old.

       The thing was female as far as the warrior could tell, not being able to focus properly because of his own condition. Moving like lightening the creature wrapped itself around his torso, coming to a halt at his wound, which she also wrapped her coils around cautiously. Squeezing like a snake, the warrior tried to fend her off but failed, finally stopping when he realized she was saving his life. Kneeling as carefully as he could with the pain he was in, the man clenched his jaw in agony and stubbornness and gathered what strength he had to make it out of the village. The place was burning so hot the trees surrounding began to catch making the warrior sheath his sword and limped as fast as he could toward the stream. So far there was a wordless agreement to their companionship... She would save his life, if he would spar hers... Fair enough, the warrior thought before catching site of the water ahead of them. 

"I will not hurt you," He told his cargo which remained silent, concentrated on his wound, "However you must trust that I will not drown you," In response the little thing nodded, her eyes bright even in the smoke. The warrior looked around for some stray wood and caught sight of stacked firewood. It took all of his remaining strength to take one and drag it to the water where he clung to it then crawled into the stream, plenty deep enough to let them float away from their current danger. The only noise he heard from the creature was a brief gasp at the chill of the water.

      It took them an hour to make it two miles downstream and away from danger but the warrior was stiff from the cold and could barely stay awake. The pain from his wound had faded to a deep throb, partly thanks to both the water and the Naga child. She had managed to tie a rope around his shoulder, taking her place as she dropped to the ground in front of him, managing to get there before he fell to his knees, her frail arms supporting him. When she drew a knife from somewhere he jerked in surprise.

"If I don't remove your arm you will die, it will continue to sap your strength..." She said in a quiet voice, shocking the man. He hadn't known that Naga could speak but he found himself weakly nodding before he could stop himself. He was unconscious before she finished her first cut. 

***

       A heavy bandage around his chest was the first thing he noted, for it constricted his breathing but he was astonished when he couldn’t feel any pain. Turning his head in the morning light, the warrior caught sight of the Naga child. She had her back turned to him, tending to a fire that made reflections off of her midnight blue scales, creating rainbows of light to shimmer through the clearing. Long black hair obscured the warrior’s view from making any further observations of her at this time, but it was clear to him that this particular Naga he had discovered wasn’t like the ones he had battled all of his life… this one was different. 

         For one, she was smarter and had completely different coloring then her brethren who were common cobras or boas. Two, there was a grace about her that he could not put his finger on, almost as if his very instincts were telling him something about the child… she was not something that should be overlooked, she was unique. 

        She was old for her age that much he knew. 

        The warrior sat up with a grunt, making the Naga turn revealing whole dark blue orbs instead of eyes with yellow streaks of lightning scattered throughout them. He gasped when he saw them, their very gaze capturing him in an eternal prison which she let him escape when she blinked and looked away, “I thought I sensed you had awoken,” she said in that familiar soft voice she had used the night before, “I am using my venom to keep your wound numb… it’s safe to use for a while and it will give you time to heal.” The Naga slithered over, dressed in one of his shirts from his pack that had managed to stay fairly dry during their excursion along the stream. The shirt gave her plenty of cover, continuing past her waist, halfway down the length of her coils. 

“I am grateful to you… last night would have been my last if I had not discovered you…” The warrior admitted slowly, cringing at the memory but was shocked to reality when she giggled briefly, “You mean when I discovered you!” Laying herself next to him she brought her small arms underneath her head, resting her chin on them, “I was a taken from a village far from here, the last to survive a deadly virus that had cultivated there. It is still in me… but I am fighting it, and in doing so I have the cure in my blood,” Her already soft voice lowered in volume, “They thought I was an Aagana, basically a pretty hybrid with little or close to no brain activity… which is true, I am a hybrid, but I am also a Seer.” The Naga paused, “I was named Selbaska by my surrogate mother.”

         The warrior listened to her story in silence, understanding that the Naga would have killed her after they made themselves immune from the mysterious virus, thinking she would have been of no other use then a decoration, “Will I get the virus from you?” He asked her carefully.

         Selbaska shook her head, “I already made you immune.”

         “Thank you… Selbaska. I am Nodachi, the captain of the guard in my village. I’m sorry that our people are at war, it was not of my choice… but you have changed my opinion of the Naga as a whole.”

         She let out a small smile, “I just wish that there wasn’t a war to begin with. Nodachi? Do you think a treaty is possible between our two peoples?”

         “That, sadly, is not in my control,” Nodachi replied, “I am just a simple soldier, I can only follow the orders of my chief.”

***

         Nodachi was right and Selbaska knew it. She would not ask him to go against orders… but wasn’t he doing that now? She had heard that the humans were supposed to kill any Naga on sight, but then again, this was a unique situation. It’s not everyday that a person survives in the field of battle from such a wound for as long as he did, and it’s the exact same thing with her own situation. The human had brown eyes, the same color of a candy that she had once eaten along with dirty blond hair and fair features. In human terms he would be considering handsome, but Selbaska was only seventeen years of age and did not pay attention to those details, probably considering the fact that she looked and had been treated like a baby her whole life. Most Naga children matured by eleven years but Selbaska had been left behind, growing in wisdom rather than size. 

         She shrugged off the depressing emotions from the past… Let the past die… Selbaska thought to herself, checking the human’s wound, it was time to move on and survive in the real world.






-end of chapter one-

-please comment!-