Chapter 4- Aarushi

It has been several weeks since my birthday, and Lucarus has also turned 5. My family went over to his place to celebrate and made him a similar orb as to the one his family made me. Today we plan to go to our usual spot in town to play around. I get to his house and knock on the door. It swings open moments later and his mother comes from behind it.

“Oh Deadra, how are you today little guy?” She bends over to get a closer look at me while patting my head.

“I’m great! Is Lucarus home I wanted to play!”

“Yes of course, he is in his room getting ready why don’t you come inside and wait.” She opens the door more and motions me inside.

I sit at the table for a little bit and rest my chin on my hands. I feel the rough texture of the gloves my brother gave me on my cheeks. They give me a large advantage in climbing. For some odd reason they do not affect my ability to use pyromancer, and feel almost like a part of my body.

“Hey Deadra, I’m ready to go!” Lucarus chipperly walks up behind me. “Let’s head out.”

I jump of my chair and we both rush out side. The village is not very big, but we still have lots to explore. The river goes across the outside edge of town, and is a natural land mark for one sides of the town. It’s wide and deep enough that we do not have to worry about any animals crossing it. In fact it reminds me of the Mississippi river from my first life just a little smaller. A forest covers the other three sides and has a large man made rock wall to keep animals out. The guards protect the two northern and southern gates. I’m not sure if they are there to keep animals out or keep us in. Either way they do their job well. The northern forest is hilly and eventually leads to a large mountain range, while the southern one would be more flat, almost like a plain.

The town has very few trees in it, I am not sure if it is a natural clearing or not. But in the center of town is a very large red leafless tree. It is larger than any tree near the village, and is the only one that doesn’t have leaves. It towers over all the houses around it many times over, and even is several times higher than our town walls. The branches stretch out and upward for several meters dancing in the sun light like a flame in the sky. Increasing in size and density as you travel higher and higher, gives it an almost mushroom cloud feel to it. This tree is called the phoenix tree.

Lucarus and I climb this tree almost every day. It has become our usual spot. While walking toward the tree Lucarus begins to talk. “Mom said that this tree is special to our village.”

I look over to him and ask “Oh how so?”

“It’s said to be a fallen feather from Suzaku. It is able to give life and warmth to pyromancers, and is the reason we founded our village here.” Lucarus sounds as if he is reading off a script as he continues. “This is one of the medium sized ones, and in bigger villages people can find even larger ones!”

“That makes sense to me, I mean I always feel stronger around it and when I want to regain my strength, it seems to have a near infinite supply.” When I use all my strength on something I can immediately rejuvenate myself from this tree, I guess I never thought about it much. Also ever since the day I got this orb, I have never been able increase my total power by more than ten percent per a day.

A few moments later I notice someone standing next to the tree staring up at it vigorously. The person runs up to it and tries to do some type of jumping bear hug against the trunk of it. They hold onto it for a few moments then fall back onto the ground.

“Hey what are you doing to the phoenix tree?” I shout at them in confusion.

The person turns to my shouting and holding their hands out towards me in a stay away motion. “No, No I didn’t do anything the tree!” The person looks around nervously. I can tell they are about the same age as Lucarus and I. She has long slightly wavy crimson hair, fair white skin and a small button nose. She kind of looks like a doll.

“Then what were you doing? Why were you attacking the phoenix tree?” I continue to attack her with questions.

Lucarus snaps one in as well. “This is our sacred tree, you need to be nicer to it or you will receive bad karma!”

The girl puts her head down in a defeated manner “I’m sorry, I just wanted to climb it. Dad said it would be good for me.”

I walk past the girl ignoring her then reach up toward one of the branches. “Watch me.” I jump up and grab a low hanging branch. I put my foot on the tree trunk and push myself up onto the branch I grabbed. I reach for another branch while standing on the first to balance myself out. I repeat the action a few more times until I’m almost fifteen feet in the air. I prop myself up in a seated position and look down at the Lucarus and the Girl below. “Do you see how to do it now?” I pause for a moment then shout. “Come up here and join me! It’s an amazing view!”

Lucarus springs into action “Ok!” Following a similar pattern of movements Lucarus slowly reaches me, taking about twice as long as it took me to reach this branch.

I look down at the girl as she looks up at me. “Hey girl, are you coming?”

Her eyes light up and the flame on her hand glows a bright yellow. She silently nods her head and reaches for the first branch. Grabbing onto it she kick he feat toward the tree trunk. Instead of being projected upward she is flung backwards and violently kicks in every direction. Flailing around for a few moments the girl exhausts herself and drops into a heap under the branch.

I issue a short command “Use the tree’s base to push off and up with your foot! Don’t just kick it!”

Looking up at me with new found energy she nods once more and tries again, this time she follows my advice and gets on top of the branch. Siting on the branch like a cat she teeters from side to side for a moment before reaching out to grab the net branch. She once again starts flailing around with her legs while trying to pull herself up

“Use your legs to push off of something you idiot!”

She stops moving and kicks at the tree pushing herself over the branch again. She sits up and is only about nine feet below us now. Lucarus and I look at each other with our somewhat toothless smiles then beam down at her and each wave.

“Good job!”

Lucarus chimes in “Yeah keep it up!”

The girl looks up and using both her hands to wave back at us “hehe, Thank y... aahhhha” She loses her balance from not holding on to the tree and starts to fall to the ground head first.

Stupid girl. She landed on her head. I yell at Lucarus while fumbling down the tree, “Get down from the tree and find an adult. This is an emergency! Hurry!” I get to the ground in record time with Lucarus following shortly after.

“Ok, I’ll be back!” Lucarus runs to the nearest house to get help.

I go over to the girl and start to analyze the situation. She is lying flat on her back and not moving. What should I do? I get down on my knees next to her and start to feel around her head to check for bleeding. I don't feel anything unusual. I stare at her for a moment then begin to talk “Stupid girl, why did you let go of the branch?” I bend my head down a bit and close my eyes trying to think of what to do.

A moment later a dull thud is heard and I feel a pain on my nose. I grab at my nose and open my eyes to see the girl sitting up. She clutches at her forehead and asks. “Ouch what happened?” She looks in my direction.

“You fell off the tree! You should never stop holding onto something when you’re climbing!” My mark begins to glow red with anger. “Don’t be such an idiot you scared me half to death!”

She tilts her head sideways and her mark begins to glow bright purple. “Ummmmm oh ok! Thanks for all your help! My name is Aarushi.” She smiles innocently. If it wasn’t for the glowing purple I would have thought she was just playing innocently, but she seems like a total air head. How annoying.

“Yeah whatever, my name is Deadra, are you hurt at all?”

“Nope I’m fine!” She is still holding her forehead and smiling. Stupid, I know your lying.

“Don’t lie or you will receive bad karma, in fact you probably fell from the tree because of some previous lie.” Might as well teach her a lesson since she seams fine.

“WHAAAT! Really? I didn’t know that! Well…”she begins to pout slightly “I guess my head hurts a little bit.” She pouts a little more than looks back up at me. “What’s karma?”

Before I can reply I am interrupted by a gentle voice from behind. “Hey kids are you ok?” I turn around and see Lucarus following behind an older women who comes over and sits down next to us.

“I am perfectly fine, but this girl Aarushi fell and hit her head” I smugly cross my arms and smile proudly reporting the situation.

“Then why is your nose bleeding?”

I look down at my hands that were covering my nose and see a pool of blood gathered inside of them “Ummm well you see…”

The women cuts me off “don’t worry, Ill bandage you both up, follow me.” She smiles and takes both Aarushi’s hand and my own.

The woman takes us to her house and looks every one over. She helps put bandages on Aarushi’s head and gives me something to plug my nose.

"You kids should be more careful. I don't know how you hurt you nose or head from falling, but don't do what ever you did again."

Lucarus begins to explain the situation. "We were climbing the Phoenix tree when this girl fell off and onto her head."

The old women looks at each of us inquisitively. "That doesn't explain the injuries. Our people are really resistant to fall damage. We are very light weight due to our almost hollow bones and minimal organ system. Unless you fell from the top of the tree without hitting a branch to slow you down someone from out tribe wouldn't get seriously hurt. At most a sprained ankle or some minor bruises. But that shouldn't be a problem, especially to you kids. Children are so resilient!"

Curiously I ask her a question. "So your not mad that we climbed the tree?"

"Hehe, of course not. I used to do the same thing in my youth. I already told you that it would be hard to hurt your self from falling, and if your worried for the tree then don't be. That tree is really strong. I have seen soldiers using it as target practice before just to ruin their weapons without leaving a scratch on the dam thing."

After a few more minutes of talking she lets the three of us leave. I turn around to the other kids “So got any plans of what to do now?”

Aarushi raises her hand and shouts “Lets climb the tree some more.”

“No, you will just fail again, and who was asking you anything? I was talking to Lucarus!” I turn and look over to my friend. “So what do you want to do?”

Shrugging his shoulders he says “I don’t know you always make the plans.”

“So can I decide what ever? Does that mean I’m the boss?” I raise an eyebrow expectantly at Lucarus.

“Haha, yeah of course you are!”

“Mister boss man bring me with you!” Aarushi chimes in with an eager voice.

“Ugh fine whatever, let’s all go to the river then I’ll show you something cool.”

We get to the river and I pick up a flat smooth rock. It looks similar to an arrow head in shape. “You both need to find rocks that look like this.” I hold the rock up between my thumb and index finger to let them both see it. “Then you throw it like this.” I face the river and pull back my arm. I keep the rock level to my shoulder and swing my arm forward while flicking my wrist at the last second. The rock skips across the water’s surface three times then sinks on the fourth strike. Several waves of circles sprout from the places the rocks hit creating a ripple effect.

Lucarus crosses his arms and looks at me with a matter of fact face. He nods his head and says “That’s boss Deadra for you.” He then smiles and runs off to find rocks.

“Wow that’s so cool! Teach me teach me!”

“I will but first go grab some rocks.” A few minutes later the two come back with several dozen rocks. “Ok first I want you two to try it yourself.”

Lucarus tries to mimic what I do exactly and gets the rock to bounce off the water one time.

“Don’t forget to use your wrist.”

He tries again and makes it bounce twice. He is a pretty fast learner. Aarushi simply throws the rock without any technique and the rock plummets into the water without a single skip.

Aarushi turns around and sticks out her tongue. “I forgot to do the wrist didn’t I?”

I shake my head “No you did everything wrong. Keep your arm level with your shoulder” I demonstrate again and make four bounces in the water. “Here try again.” I hand her another rock.

She looks down and pouts for a second, then takes the rock from my hand and tries again. She once again throws the rock wildly completely ignoring my advice. “Did it look better that time” she turns around puts her finger to her lip and tips her head to the side looking at me for confirmation.

I slap my hand to my face and mutter “This is going to be a long day.”

…

The next day Lucarus and I are walking to the phoenix tree when in the distance we see a figure leaning next to the tree. “I hope that isn’t the girl we saw yesterday.”

“You didn’t Like her either Deadra?” I nod my head “Good, I was worried you were going to be her friend. Girls are gross!” Sometimes I forget we are still only five years old, but I would agree she was very annoying.

“Listen to this, if it is the girl all we have to do is climb the tree and she won’t be able to follow us, you think you can do that?” I look over to Lucarus.

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” He smiles back at me.

“Alright” I pump my fist then start running “last one to the top of the tree is a rotten egg!”

“Hey wait that’s cheating!” He starts running behind me both of us laughing.

As I near the tree I can see the figure is the girl from yesterday and begin to quicken my pace. I jump up and grab one of the branches. With the momentum of the running jump and a whole lot more luck I twirl into the air, flip over the branch and land on top of it without having to touch anything else. I pause for a moment from the surprise of my own acrobatic capabilities.

The girl standing beneath me looks up with her eyes bulging from surprise. Her mark glows a bright yellow. “Wow that’s so amazing! Teach me that!”

I turn my head and see Lucarus following shortly after. He climbs the branch in the normal non acrobatic fashion but with more haste then usual. We continue to ignore the girl and climb the tree. I use slightly more finesse in my climbing then I usually do, I feel almost like a monkey jumping from branch to branch. When I get to the top I look out across the village and over the walls. Mountains ripping out from the ground covered in green and brown spots. Forest plains as far as the eye can see on the other three sides. A black and grey spot catches my eye in the distance; it must be some type of cave or tunnel. I must go there when I am older.

Lucarus completely out of breath and a few branches below me pants “ugh ugh… I didn’t know you could do something like that!”

In my head I think ‘hell I didn’t know I could do it either’ but I know not to show such weakness in front of him. “There are a lot of things I can do that you don’t know, and as time passes you will learn to do these things as well. But that is only if you stick by my side.” I stare into the beautiful horizon, never giving Lucarus a moment of my sight.

“I’ll stay by your side forever Deadra, I always look up to you!”

We stand on our individual branches for a couple of moments in silence. Then as if nails on the chalk board a voice destroys our peaceful moment. “Hey guys wait for me I can’t climb like that!” I look down and see her trying to climb the lower most branch. Today I will not help her. She needs to learn on her own.

Several minutes pass and the girl below is still struggling to climb the first branch, she should give up soon. I turn my attention back to my friend “So Lucarus want me to teach you something cool?”

He looks over at me with a serious face and nods his head and gives me a huge grin. “Yeah!”

Hmmm I honestly don't know why I have been hiding this for so long any ways. I might as well show him and see how he reacts. Depending on what he does maybe I can start showing other people.

I hold out my palm and gather energy into the palm of my hand, a moment later an orange and red light flickers into existence. The twin tales on top of the fire wrap and unwrap themselves making an eternal dance of flame. The warm glow wraps around our faces as we stare at the palm of my hand. I can feel the power of the tree being soaked up by one of my hands and traveling across my body to the other hand.

“So what do you think of learning how to wield the power of fire my friend.”