[Flashback] The Lost Boy (Imass)

[Naeya]

Timestamp: Season of Fall, 73rd Day, 494 AV – Mid-Afternoon “Lurik! Lurik, please! Please come back!” A very blonde and frantic-looking Konti girl stood in the middle of the Zhongjie Warren, surrounded on all sides by a myriad of goods and people. Olive green eyes strained to see through the crowd of Akalaks in front of her, a group of men who nearly doubled her in height. The girl’s younger Akalak brother had dashed off between the colourful tents just moments earlier and she quickly lost sight of him when he ducked behind one of the many clothing stalls. Not again… Lurik, Naeya’s brother, had built a reputation for himself in his nine short years of living as being an easily distracted boy with a tendency to spontaneously disappear. Their father had tried his best to instill a traditional sense of Akalak discipline in him, but Lurik more often than not found it incredibly difficult to maintain the focus that was asked of him. His teachers in both intellectual and physical activities always said the same thing: the boy needed more self-control. Naeya had a tendency to be more sympathetic to her brother’s failings than her father, and often made a point of telling him how important his kindness and curiousity were to her. She was usually very forgiving of his poor attention span, but today was one of those days where she just wanted to finish shopping at the market and quickly return home. She was in the middle of reading a fascinating book on gemstone origins, and saw the trip to the bazaar as an interruption rather than a pleasure. “Lurik! Lurik, come back!” Despite her best attempts, the Konti girl’s cries failed to carry through the noisy bazaar and it seemed that the only person who heard her was the lone Drykas woman manning the red tent on her left. “I think he’s gone, girl,” the woman said sympathetically, before returning to the herbs that she had been organizing. A cool autumn breeze blew through the tents, and Naeya pulled her thin white cloak tighter around her slender frame. She was sure that it would take her at least an hour to locate her brother, wasting what little was left of the cloudy afternoon. “Hey, watch where yer standin’!” The Konti girl found herself being jostled from behind by several human boys, about her age but a few inches taller, whose parents were nowhere to be seen. One of them jeered at her as she looked around in confusion, clearly mistaking her as human. “Oh petch, look atchu! You can stand in front of me any time.” He nudged her roughly on her side, causing her to stumble slightly to the right and bump into a passerby, and then grabbed her tightly by the shoulder. Naeya, who normally did her best to avoid conflict, was already filled with frustration and concern about her brother’s disappearance. Without thinking she shoved the boy’s hand away and gave him her worst glare. “Don’t you have a boat to catch? Somewhere far away from here?” she muttered, just loud enough for the boy to catch. His expression slid from immature mirth to anger at being shown up in front of his friends. “You’ve got a mouth on ya, bitch,” he spat, and reached out to push her backwards.

[Imass]

Imass entered the scene with a surprised look on his face. The boy had only caught the tail end of the altercation. He witnessed as a Konti female spoke back to a bully, shrugging off the abuse. The boy then pushed her backwards.

Imass looked at the seemingly helpless Konti, then at the three human boys, then back again at the Komti female. Imass quietly burst into laughter. The boy found it amusing that the humans were wasting time trying to fight a defenseless konti female. In Imass' mind, one should only fight to improve one’s ability. It was a waste of energy to fight her, not to mention it was downright bad to fight a defenseless person in general. Imass knew an Akalak would never do that.

The young boy would enter the fray. He felt bad that the helpless female was getting pushed around by ignorant human boys. He would step in.

Using a deeper voice than usual, Imass mocked the three bullies, "You three are terrible! Stop trying to fight a defenseless Konti. You should fight me instead," the boy said as he got into his martial arts stance then continued, "Right now -- you three versus me!" Imass judo chopped thin air, "Fight me proper you cowards!"

[Naeya]

Naeya lost her balance as the boy shoved her, and nearly fell into a nearby pole keeping up a shop tent. She caught herself on the shopkeeper's table of wares, earning herself a dirty look. "Sorry! Sorry," she apologized, her cheeks turning pink. The Konti nearly forgot about the predicament she'd been forced into as she tried to make amends with the shopkeeper, but an unfamiliar voice brought her back to the present. "You three are terrible! Stop trying to fight a defenseless Konti. You should fight me instead." A young Akalak stood in the center of the fray, poised in a defensive stance. Naeya couldn't tell exactly how old he was, but she could see that he towered over two of the human boys. Only the third one, the one who had pushed her, came close to matching his height, but even then he came up short. The Konti felt a surge of gratitude towards the boy who came to her defense, and slowly edged several feet behind him. While she didn't particularly appreciate being referred to as "defenseless," Naeya fully understood that now was not the time to be debating with her rescuer. She crossed her arms and did her best to arrange her expression into something that looked vaguely menacing. As the Akalak challenged them to a fight, all the three human boys seemed to be caught off guard and unsure of what to do. Naeya caught one of the shorter ones muttering, "She's a freaking Konti?" as he stared at the now-visible scales on the back of her hands. The taller boy, however, was more aggressive than his friends and took more offense at being called a coward. He looked at both of his friends and back at the Akalak, as though sizing up their chances. "You petchin' Akalak, always trying to play hero," he mocked, and balled his hands into fists. Taking this as their signal, the two boys at his side lunged towards the Akalak and threw several wild punches in his direction. Neither were particularly skilled fighters, but they both felt that two versus one were pretty good odds. The third, taller boy dove for the Akalak's arms with the intent of holding him back as a punching bag.

[Imass]

Imass grinned as the human boys became frustrated. His plan was working perfectly. He wanted the humans to get mad and fight him. The young Akalak was a warrior, not a bully. He would fight them, not for the Konti female's sake, but for the sake of training. If the Akalak could take on three human boys, it would mean that he was getting stronger. If he failed, at least the female would get away.

Imass bent at the knees, this time clenching his fists. The Konti girl was safely behind him now. Rocky crags overlooking many brightly colored tents would serve as the back drop for the showdown. The young Akalak knew that in a few minutes the authorities would arrive and break up the fight. He needed to kick their butts before that happened. Thus, the boy continued to mock the humans.

The shorter boy muttered some racist nonsense. The Akalak only poked them on using the short boy's tone of voice, "But you are just a freaking human?"

The boys looked at each other, then decided to attack.

The short boy threw a wild uppercut. Imass was much taller, so he dodged the attack by sliding back half a foot. The middle human came towards Imass' flank, throwing a right hook shortly after the initial attack. The young Akalak ducked down low to avoid the hook, then jabbed the kid in the gut. Imass got a successful hit, but in the heat of battle the leader reared up from behind and grabbed his arms.

In two seconds, the Akalak was already being held down. Struggling to get free was useless, despite the Akalak's great strength and size there was nothing he could do when he was in that awkward position. Imass would not give up. Although they had his arms held down, they didn't have his legs.

The short kid tried to grab the flailing legs unsuccessfully as Imass gave him a heel to the chin. The medium kid gave it a try. Imass kicked. The medium kid grabbed the Akalak's leg. Imass connected with his second leg on the kid's nose. Blood began to flow.

The fight was getting heated fast. Imass wandered if the Konti had ran off already or what…

[Naeya]

Naeya had, in fact, run off when the fight began. Once the smaller boys began to throw punches at the Akalak, the Konti instinctively turned and fled from the scene. She did her best to avoid conflict and fights as a general rule, both because they went against her nature and because she was a very poor fighter. As she reached the end of the row of tents, however, she paused and looked back at the Akalak boy to see how he was faring. A small crowd was beginning to gather around the boys, with some of the bystanders encouraging the fight and others looking on with disapproval. Naeya peered through an open gap in the bodies and was distressed to see that her rescuer had been jumped by the larger boy. From what she could tell, the Akalak’s arms were being held behind his back, forcing him to fight off his attackers with only his legs. A line of blood splattered on the ground, but the Konti was unable to see who had been hit. Naeya squeezed her eyes shut for a second, willing herself to stay out of the brawl. He knows what he's doing... He can handle it. Please let him handle it. She was almost able to get her empathy for the Akalak’s situation under control when the shortest boy recovered from his kick to the chin and, dodging the Akalak’s flailing legs, aimed a heavy punch at his gut. Naeya’s anger at the unfairness of the fight began to boil over, and she threw caution to the wind. He saved me, she thought dramatically, and convinced herself that she couldn't just leave him struggling. It's the right thing to do. The small girl ran back towards the growing crowd and squeezed her way past two onlookers. The taller boy was still holding onto the Akalak’s arms, preventing him from being able to properly fight. Naeya ran straight at the human boy’s back and awkwardly jumped on, clutching at his clothes, hair, and eyes. “Get… off… him!” she cried, struggling to keep a hold on the boy’s shirt. Surprised at her sudden attack, the boy loosened his grip on the Akalak in an attempt to shake Naeya off. She closed her eyes in panic and held on as tightly as she could, digging her nails into his hidden skin, while the boy threw his shoulders back and forth. Unfortunately, due to her own inexperience at jumping on strangers' backs, the boy was soon able to slacken her grip and she went tumbling onto the ground. I hope the Akalak boy's doing better than I am.

[Imass]

The fight continued. One of the humans ignored Imass’ flailing legs and swung his all. Leaning into his punch he caught Imass completely defenseless and incompatible. The Akalak wheezed in pain, but he would never give up; he was training to be an Akalak warrior after all. He kept on trashing his legs and trying to escape the clutches of the leader of the human group. He was losing his breath quickly now too. He was sweating hard now too from the constant struggle.

That is when the Akalak heard the girl cry out. To his surprise, the bully suddenly loosened his grip. Imass ripped his arms free and stood up as quickly as possible. In the heat of the fight, the young Akalak went on pure instinct. He just began swinging at any face that came into his vision.

The boy that had slammed him in the gut was up first. Imass through a jab at the kids face, then another one. He didn’t think of the technique he learned or anything. In the head of the fight he couldn’t even think that far ahead. All he knew was that he needed to keep swinging.

His first two punches landed, because he felt his knuckles crack against flesh. He swung again but missed. The kid was already on the floor. Imass had knocked him right in the nose twice.

He spun around, only to meet the bully who held him down. He was mad, because Imass escaped and downed his man so easily.The konti girl from before was also on the floor. From the look of things, the konti girl had entered the fray and helped free the Akalak somehow.

“Looks like I downed one of your friends. You better go home, before the authorities get here.”

[Naeya]

Naeya had landed in a heap close to the boys’ fight. She felt a quick, sharp sting in her palms from scraping them over the Bazaar ground, and winced as the tiny prickles of blood began to form. Pull it together, she admonished herself, watching warily from below as the Akalak hit one of the shorter human boys in the face. Scraped hands were nothing compared to the bleeding knuckles and noses that the bullies were sure to suffer from. After hitting his target, the Akalak turned quickly towards her and the taller, angry-looking human boy. As her rescuer spoke, she scrambled up and onto her feet. “Looks like I downed one of your friends. You better go home, before the authorities get here.” Oh, petch! In the heat of the moment, the young Konti had forgotten all about the Riverfall city authorities. The short fight in the middle of the Bazaar had attracted the attention of several shopkeepers, and she was sure that they had made someone aware of the brawl in order to protect their goods from being trashed. Her olive green eyes searched beyond the small crowd gathered around the brawlers, and soon spotted the towering blue faces of two Akalaks walking authoritatively towards them. Trying not to panic, Naeya turned back to the boys. She unable to see the tallest human boy’s expression, as his back was turned to her, but she saw his hands had clenched into tighter fists and noticed the venom in his voice as he spoke in turn. “This ain’t over,” he fumed, and threw one last heavy punch in the Akalak’s direction before pulling up his fallen friend and darting off in the opposite direction of the incoming authorities. Without waiting to see whether the Akalak boy was okay, Naeya darted towards him and reached out to grab one of his hands. “Come on, we’ve got to go!” she urged, and moved to pull him with her. Assuming the Akalak was in tow, the Konti tugged him in the same direction that the human boys had run off in. She heard a faint shout coming from Riverfall authorities, but continued to hope that they hadn’t spotted her and her new acquaintance. While the human boys made to run out of the Bazaar, Naeya turned down another row of shop tents a number of aisles down from where the fight had taken place. She still had to find her younger brother, and couldn’t leave just yet. Naeya slowed to a walk when she was sure that no one had followed them. She took a moment to catch her breath, her heart pounding, before looking back at the Akalak she had dragged along with her. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me back there,” she said gratefully in Tukant, stumbling over only a few of her words. “You probably want to know the name of the person you rescued, huh? I’m Naeya.” The Konti dropped the Akalak’s hand and gave her rescuer a shy smile. She paused, and her face wrinkled into a look of concern for his well-being. “Are you okay?”

[Imass]

Imass dodged the boy's punch by back up out of range. It was an effective defensive technique, but gave no counter strike. The Akalak didn't want to hit the boy anyways. The human turned and promised the young Imass a rematch. He replied in a cool, relaxed voice, "I will be waiting for you."

The human's started running down the main aisle of the Bazaar. Before Imass could do anything he felt a tug on his wrist, as the Konti girl began to drag him in the same direction as the boys. The Akalak was thoroughly confused why the girl was running. It never entered his mind that the authorities would punish him. He was too young to understand this. He was too scared to even run away from authority. And thus the noise of the police behind him didn't even register in his mind. He didn't even think about the noises.

Instead Imass would follow the young girl think that she wanted to reward her savior with a good luck kiss, or perhaps she wanted to play a game. Either way the boy was up for it, so he ran after her without care. She turned a corner and so did Imass. The blue kid was grinning wildly.

After zig-zagging in and out of tents, the girl finally came to a stop. Imass was running so fast he didn't even have time to explore the Bazaar. She then thanked Imass for helping her out.

"I am wounded Naeya, look at my stomach," Imass lifted up his shirt to show the bruises. He did this to setup his next line. It was his duty as an Akalak to seduce and attract women. He learned this from his father, who drilled the concept into his head.

The boy put his shirt down, then jumped into his martial art's stance. His flat palms facing Naeya and his head tilted up. He tried to flex his muscles too, "Not an issue. I am as healthy as ever and ready to fight. I am known as Imass," he punched the air and pivoted in his stance, "And I am a student at the Kendoka Sasaran." His voice and facial expression were extremely serious. After a moment of awkward silence, Imass couldn't help but smile brightly at the girl.

"Who taught you how to fight? You have no skills," Imass said with a smile.

[Naeya]

As the pounding in Naeya’s chest slowed and her breathing returned to normal, she began to realize exactly what she had done. She had run away from Riverfall’s city authorities, and she couldn’t even remember why. She must have been so caught up in the heat of the moment that logic had completely escaped her and her childish instinct to flee had taken over again. In retrospect, the Konti was sure that they would have forgiven her and her new acquaintance for their acts of self-defense. She could just picture her father shaking his head at her actions… Maybe he doesn’t have to know, she thought hopelessly, knowing deep down that he was sure to find out one way or the other. Naeya pulled herself out of her brief spell of self-pity and returned to the present. "I am wounded Naeya, look at my stomach.” The Akalak boy was in the process of pulling up his shirt, and she could just barely see that his teenage stomach had bruises beginning to form on his midnight blue skin. She probably wouldn’t have spotted them if she hadn’t known what to look for, but growing up with three Akalaks and a Healer in the family meant she was well-versed in spotting fighting injuries. The concern on her face deepened, and a small gasp of regret for the boy’s “wounds” left her lips. She was about to profoundly apologize and thank him again when he quickly pulled down his shirt and moved into some sort of low martial arts stance, causing her to start in mild alarm. “Not an issue. I am as healthy as ever and ready to fight. I am known as Imass, and I am a student at the Kendoka Sasaran." Naeya recovered quickly from being startled by the Akalak, and tried her best to hold back the girlish giggle that was threatening to escape. The boy – Imass – looked incredibly serious, but she couldn’t imagine why he was suddenly showing off his fighting moves. Hadn’t she already seen them during the fight? She didn’t need any further convincing that he was capable of handling himself. Is he… flexing? The Konti loudly cleared her throat and somehow managed to keep herself from laughing, but she couldn’t stop the grin that found its way onto her face. At Imass’ question about her fighting skills, the grin remained but a faint blush appeared on her pale cheeks as she remembered the events of the brawl. “Is my lack of fighting skill that obvious?” she asked wryly. “To be honest, I’ve never done anything like that before. I don’t know what came over me! I just saw him holding your arms and it made me angry enough to, well, jump on his back.” Her smile faded from her lips as she looked more seriously at Imass. “I’m not very good at handling people like that. Thank you, again, for stepping in. What... what made you want to help me?”

[Imass]

Imass looked at Naeya with a raised eyebrow. 'How could she live without knowing Martial Arts?' he thought to himself. At Kendoka Sasaran they trained with the idea that ambush or battle can occur at any moment. They trained the Akalak boys how to always be ready to fight. Thus, the young blue guy didn't understand any other mindset. He thought it was just the way the world worked, he knew nothing else.

"You jumped on his back to help me. I think you have what it takes to be a warrior too. You should learn how to fight like us and train hard so people don't bully you. Even I wasn't able to handle all three alone. You would have DIED, because you have no skills. Don't worry, you can learn!"

Imass responded without answering her question. The Akalak was not being rude, he was just too honest for his own good. The boy's smile remained bright and happy. He looked Naeya straight in the eyes.