Clanwar

The day my life changed

~Ciaran~

I watched from the tops of the trees as the two Ximian ran deeper into the icy north.

Sighing, I finally confronted the person I had trapped beneath me.

“What is with you making all that noise?! I almost got caught by the border patrol.” I chastised my friend.

“Were you spying on those girls again? I swear you have a crush on one of them.” Andy joked.

“I do not. I am just making sure that they don’t cross the border into our land.” I replied jumping from branch to branch making my way down.

“Right because they so love to come to a place with colors other than white” He replied, shaking his head.

I kept glancing over the border to try and make out the difference between snow and the Ximian patrol units to no avail. Andy followed me to the forest floor. I made the jump between the last branch and the ground softly hitting the ground. I moved out of the way just in time for Andy to come landing gracefully next to me.

“Are all of the traps set?” I asked walking along the familiar, unmarked trail.

“Yep. Got all of them done while you were spying on your girlfriend.”

“I wasn’t--”

“I sure hope he isn’t talking about us Cia-poo.” A high pitched voice called out from in front of us.

“Why would I want to talk about you, Rachel. You are the least interesting person I know.” Andy retorted.

“I’m sorry, was someone talking to us Ciaran? I guess I can’t understand stupid very well.” Rachel shot back

“That’s funny seeing as how that’s all anyone can think about when your name does come up,” Andy replied.

“All right guys. Retract the claws. Let’s just get back. It’s almost sun-up.” I said stepping between the two before a brawl broke out.

They glared at each other one last time before coming to a temporary unspoken truce. Rachel smiled and latched herself to one of my arms. I smiled at her and looked at Andy to share a secret joke. He smiled mischievously at me and we started our trek back. We were halfway to our camp when the smell of smoke reached us. Almost as if we had planned what we were going to do, we all started running. We reached the camp sooner than what we would have wanted and the scene before us made us all freeze. Our camp had been burned to the ground. I did a quick look through and realized, with relief, that there were no bodies.

“It’s ok. No one was hurt. Everything is good.” Andy said breaking the silence.

“How is any of this good?! Someone would burn our camp to the ground!” Rachel yelled.

“Yes, thank you for pointing that out Rach. I am talking about how it could have been worse if someone was in camp when it happened. So yes, it’s good!”Andy said angrily.

“But our camp is still burned to the ground which means that someone burned it! So it’s bad!!” Rachel shouted back.

“GUYS!!! Could you stop arguing for 5 minutes? Right now, I need some volunteers to go back to the castle and report this to the king.” I called out to the forest filled with hiding people.

I waited a few moments to see if anybody would step forward. After a few seconds, some men and women stepped forward. I nodded my acknowledgment then turned to my friends.

“I am going to need you guys to go with them. Just to be safe.” Then I turned back to the others. “ I need someone to stay here with me and investigate what happened. Is there anybody willing?”

Many stepped forward with confidence. I smiled and nodded at them.

“ I thank you all for this. Vwayaje san danje Izanami.” I shouted, touching three fingers to my head a sign warding off evil thoughts and wishing good travels.

A unison of voices responded saying vwayaje san danje back to me. The wind started picking up anything loose and the ashes of our camp swirled around. I raised my hand to shield my eyes and when I lowered them, everyone was gone except for the volunteers to stay with me. I nodded to everyone in turn.

“Thank you for volunteering. Let’s get to work shall we?” I said motioning to the camp.

Everyone had grim but determined faces on. We started down into the ash-covered camp. The desperate hope that we would find something filled the air around us as we searched the ruins for a clue