Flashback A Copper Miza For Your Thoughts

[Savos]

34th of Winter, 508 AV

Grey skies and muddy waters. Waves rolled along to the beat of their own song, paying no mind to the boy who buried his feet in the sand. The air was cold, the ocean colder, but he did not seem to mind. Savos simply stared out at the infinite stretch of Laviku's realm, thinking away. He wondered why the water acted the way it did. Why did it rise and crash so violently onto these shores, instead of simply drifting along like it did in deeper waters? It was almost as though it were angry that the rock would rise as indignantly as it did, challenging it. The rock would tell the ocean, “This where you stop. You cannot go further.” But the waves would not abide, and petulantly crashed upon the rocks again and again in defiance. Savos knew that the water would have its way eventually, for he could already see how the rocks had eroded at the base, slowly losing their sturdy resistance. One day, the caves would collapse and the cliffs above them would fall, and water would encroach upon the land a little further.

Things that fell into the ocean sometimes got dragged to shore by those restless waves. Savos noticed something with a glint, a bright highlight against the shapeless sun above him. He walked over to the tiny object half-buried in sand. His feet went numb in the cold of the winter water, but the boy did not seem to mind. He picked up the object and delicately wiped the sand off of it as though it were fragile treasure.

It was a coin as far as Savos could tell. He was not all too familiar with the concept, for the people of his home were much more accustomed to simple barter than to the act of exchanging currency. But Savos had seen his father using the small metal pieces to buy and sell things at the market, things that came from far away. Still, he had never seen him use one such as this one. He observed its imprints curiously, the way little stars lined its corners protectively, giving the metal a bumpy texture along his fingers.

He wanted to bring it back home, ask the people around him if they knew what it was. But he felt crippled by the devastating fear that one of the adults would see it appropriate to take the coin away from him. Having discovered it among millions of grains of endless sand, Savos felt the coin was rightfully his, and dreaded to see it taken away. So, when he finally removed his feet from the chilling waters and began his return to town, he decided that no one would have to know about his newly acquired treasure.

[Savos]

Savos was disappointed to see that he had arrived early to his class. He had hoped that his little trip to the beach would cause him to miss the first five or ten chimes of the lesson, at least. He would rather get told off by an adult for being late than listen to them babble on about some lecture or other.

“Does anyone know why we require you to go through military training?” Savos could hear some faceless teacher speaking as though a great distance away. He was more preoccupied with the drawing on his page, scratching at the parchment greedily. He had started to draw the coin that he found, finding that the imprints offered such subtle shadows and highlights that he had to analyze it further. Whatever words were being spoken were only vaguely registered by his mind.

“No one knows?” The teacher sounded disappointed after no one decided to pipe up after his question.

“Well, Denval began as a military settlement, long before the great cataclysm. We survived the Valterrian only by our ancestors' strength and the will of our gods. Nowadays, you children are blessed to know that there is more to the world than our little village, something that was only recently discovered, back when your grandparents were alive.

“Indeed, the world is much bigger than this pile of rock we live on, with many different people and cultures that we never even dreamed of some years ago. For example, Savos here-”

His head jolted up involuntarily at the sound of his name, as though he was suddenly in trouble for something. For starters, teachers never really liked it much when he wasted the expensive paper he was given for schoolwork on drawings.

“Savos here is not originally from our little town. He's from Falyndar, a wild jungle far away from here, where the Myrian people reside. Can anyone tell me what the Myrians are like?”

A nervous jumble of snickering came over the room as children recalled the urban legends that surrounded the Myrian people, the nightmarish tall tales that came from their little corner of the world. Again, no one replied further than whispers in the back of the room. “Humans gone mad.” “Barbarians.” Savos could hear them.

The teacher, giving the whole class a sour look for their lack of participation, continued on, his eye on Savos as he spoke.

“Yes, yes, you've all heard the silly fairy tales. Now, say the Myrians decided that Denval should be their next conquest, that they landed on Denval's shores tomorrow? They are a versatile and able race, with strength and prowess naturally superior to us humans.”

The class went silent. The teacher had a proud look on his face, as though he had finally managed to capture their attention and instill some fear.

“Up until fifty or so cycles ago, our militia training was simply a long held tradition. You kids aren't interested in any of that. But now, we see that there are very real dangers to protect ourselves from. Perhaps not the Myrians, but maybe the Symenestrans in Kalinor. Maybe even the Zith or Dhani, or other humans will come knocking at our doorstep. The point is that when the time comes, you must all be ready.”

[Savos]

The man dismissed the class and instructed them all to go to the training grounds and spend the rest of the day there. Instructors would arrive later in the day, after the kids had struggled enough on their own.

Savos felt sour. He wished people would stop comparing him to a Myrian. He understood what they were, to a degree. Some people, like Delano Marx, had bothered to sit down for a moment and clarify that to him. Even with all the explanations in the world, however, Savos did not feel as though he belonged anywhere near that category. He did not much care for war and killing, nor for conquest and victory. Not more so than any other child his age. So why, why did they keep mentioning it? Over and over again.

He went over to the weapon rack and picked out his favorite short bow from the collection. It was the least used, most symmetrically crafted weapon available in the school training grounds. He was glad that he had the morning class, for if he came any later in the day, someone else would have snagged it.

He scampered up to a decent distance from his target, glad that he could put some distance between himself and the other students compared to that cramped up classroom. Savos did not have a great many friends. Only child in his little family, he was used to spending time alone, and the other kids rarely approached him voluntarily.

He stretched the bow out, lining up the markers as best he could with the target. It was difficult, as the string fought him every step of the way, and his arms were still too weak to stretch the bow to its full potential. He didn't mind that so much, as he knew that in time he would be able to, and that at this particular moment, he was able to stretch the bow much farther than the other children who had decided to start learning the weapon.

Though he did not engage himself in physical activities as much as the others, who often played group activities after the classes, he had always been more naturally adept at this sort of thing. At first, he had not noticed it, but as the adults pointed out his fast improvement more often than not and the glares from his age group steadily increased, he was becoming more aware of it. He wondered why anyone even cared that he simply learned these things a little faster than them.

His eye lined up everything perfectly and he shot. The arrow pierced the target proficiently, but much nearer to the bottom edge than the center. He had shot too low, again. The most challenging thing to him about shooting his weapon was not lining up everything the way he wanted it. He could easily do that, with some patience, and the ability to do so felt much like observational drawing. Analyze, create imaginary angles between objects to understand their placement in the real world. Exactly like drawing.

But when it came to calculating the the discrepancies of the real world around him, he often came up short. On windy days, he could never tell how much his arrow would be affected by the irregular gusts of that blew along the Denvali coast. Delano Marx told him that it was simply a matter of experience to be able to tell how much it would affect his trajectory, even in extreme winds. Here, Savos had once again forgotten to remember that the weight of gravity increased its influence on his arrow exponentially the further he was, especially since he could not draw the arrow as far as he liked it to.

He tried again, but pointed the arrow upward instead of lining it up dead center with the target. He overshot this time, and the thing went over and behind the target, landing far away from where he had intended it to. He sighed, deciding he would rather go pick that one up now before he forgot it was there. The teachers hated it when children left equipment lying around, and would make them stay after hours to clean up. He hated it when that happened.

[Savos]

The little coin, tucked clumsily into his shirt pocket, sprung into action and dropped into the sand as he bent down to pick up his arrow. He sighed as he wiped the earth off the disc like he had at the beach, feeling an urge to keep it clean and safe at all times. He decided the object would not be secure in his flimsy small pockets, so he left the training grounds to store it in his school bag. Shadows followed.

He went around the corner and through a few hallways, his bow slung neatly across his shoulder as he did so. But when he finally located the little bookbag he could call his, a voice rang from behind him.

“You're not allowed to take equipment away from the grounds, you know,”

It was a petty child's voice who had not yet hit puberty, and its lack of the deep adult tones made Savos wonder if it was even worth turning around for. Begrudgingly, he decided it would be better not to ignore whoever was addressing him, and turned around to face the voice.

It was Sam, a boy in his class, flanked by two other boys whom he didn't know the names of. The three always roamed around together always, as though a hive mind without the queen bee. Sam seemed to be acting the lead this time, but they were all just as obsessed with assuming the role of leader as he was.

“I'm coming back,” Savos said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He didn't want to put the bow down in fear that someone would snatch it while he was away. He knew he was breaking a rule, and would probably react much differently if an adult had caught him doing the same thing. But who was this Sam kid, acting like an authority figure that he clearly wasn't?

“I don't care what you were up to,” Sam said angrily, clearly upset that Savos was not at all intimidated by his behavior. He was still figuring this whole intimidation thing out, and had attempted to copy the way that teachers instilled fear in their students with nothing but a few words. They had the advantage of being significantly taller than their students, however.

“I don't see why this concerns you,” Savos replied as calmly as ever, but with increasing irritation that this Sam child was interrupting his activities. “I was just putting this...” he trailed off before he could finish his sentence, realizing that he very much did not want these boys to know about the little treasure he held in his hand. He looked at his hand protectively, and Sam saw it.

“What's that in your hand?” He said, and walked up to him to make a grab at his hand to see what was there. Savos jerked his arm back when he saw what the boy was up to, and a look dawned over Sam's eyes when he saw that he had an advantage over the boy. Savos may not have been intimidated by silly words, but he certainly cared about whatever he hid in his palm.

“Give me that,” Sam said, and made another lunge at Savos. He darted away, and quickly understood that his little coin put him at a great disadvantage, as the other two boys were closing in to keep him from running away.

“Get the hell away from me, Sam.” Savos had no intention of giving up his treasure, and his blood boiled at the thought that this boy felt entitled to take it away from him. The other boys giggled at Savos' foul language, relishing in the fact that they had managed to get under the boy's skin.

“What are ya gonna do? cannibalize me?” He laughed at his own joke, and one of the other boys chimed in. “You Myrians aren't nearly as scary as the stories say. We ain't kids anymore,” The boy laughed. The other two grabbed Savos' arms, and Sam pried his fingers open as Savos failed to squirm out of their grasp. After momentary struggling, Sam had the coin in his fat hands and the boys let go of Savos.

“Give it back!” he yelled, no longer fearing that an adult may come around the corner. He made a grab for the coin, but Sam happened to be slightly taller than Savos, and merely put his arm up in the air out of his reach.

“Shiny,” He said with a greedy grin, “Where'd you get this? Steal it off a merchant at the docks? They never said that Myrians were dirty thieves too.”

Savos didn't care much for Sam's words of provocation. He just wanted his bloody coin back, and was determined to get it back. The first thing to do was to get Sam to bring his arm down. So, Savos decided to take the next immediate step to this end, and punched him in the stomach.