The Nine Dragons The Life Dragon Part Nine

 Companions For The Journey 

The following morning she woke up at as early an hour as she could. She was well rested and her strength and weight were fully restored to her. She knew that now as the time to go. After all, if she left any later then she could be talked into staying. So she quickly packed her things this time remembering Rock and Stone and went on her way. 

Yet as she did, she could hear shuffling behind her. She looked back to see a small cat on the ground. She smiled at it before she turned around and walked on and on. Yet, again, she heard shuffling behind her. Yet she continued, thinking that it was nothing more than another cat. However, after going further and further up the tail of the land, she could hear that the shuffling was too low and loud to be a cat.

So she looked back to see a doe looking at her. For a moment their eyes locked, looking both innocent and stupid. Yet, despite this she still looked graceful nevertheless. She rolled her eyes as she walked on and on and on. Then she heard it again and this time knew that the shuffling could not have been made by hooves.

“Come on out!” She called.

Soon a group of men came out and looked at her.

“What are you doing here?”

Oh no, not again.

“Following you.”

Oh no, just no.

“Why?”

Don’t say it! Don’t say it!

“We want to fight too.”

Not again.

“No!” She snapped as fast as she could.

“Why not? This is our land and, for all my life and the lives of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents and so on, Paradtopia has been lying to us. So I will fight with or without your permission. Thank you very much!”

“Who do you think you are? Telling us that we can’t fight?”

“How dare you! This is our land not yours!”

“I have nothing!”

She suddenly thought about all those she had led to their deaths. She looked down for a moment as her heartbeat increased.

“But you will die!”

“We don’t care! In fact we have all agreed that we are dead already and this is the only thing that is left for us.”

“Why?”

The first one to speak had red hair and green pupil-less eyes. The second had lime green hair and brown eyes. The third had crimson hair and amber eyes and the last had purple hair and blue eyes.

“Well, I am Kin Wasabi Kiroshi. When I was born, my mother told me that my father was a male prostitute and that I was to go and be the same. Yet something, from an early age, told me that prostitution was wrong. I begged my mother not to send me but she told me that Paradtopia had told her to do it and she told me from day one that I was to trust her more than anything. So I did and I hated it. Every time, I felt a part of me die and soon I could see women, like you, as nothing more than a sex object and at the time I could do nothing about it. I wanted to leave and have a wife, traditional I know, but I did. I wanted children too,and not just ones that came from my ‘job’. Yet when I found someone I liked I could never truly be intimate with her. I could never give her the love I wanted and it broke me.”

“Yet regardless of what you have done, the women that bore my other children would always know me as Kin the prostitute. So the only thing that I can do is this. So that those children do not have the shame of being the sons and daughters of a male prostitute but one of a hero that did all that he could do to ensure that they do not have to be trapped to follow my previous footsteps.”

Loc nodded.

“And why can’t you just tell the mothers yourself?”

“Paradtopia declared that all the children of prostitutes remain in the industry, especially males. So as long as she lives they will not have a choice.”

At this, even though Loc nodded and appeared calm, she could feel nothing but rage consume her very soul.

“How could she decree such an evil thing?”

“Because she is evil even though we never knew until you came along.”

She went to reach out a hand but retracted it, realizing that he had been touched enough.

“And you?” She asked the second one.

“Paradtopia’s advice led my parents to starve to death. I would have done the same thing had I not heard about what you had said. Plus I was a street kid by that point which meant none of the adults paid any attention to me and kept spitting on me. So, in all honesty, I don’t have a life back there.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Do you have a name?”

“Ryo Kiriru.”

“You?” She asked the third.

“I want to prove to my parents that what you said was true. After all, they were going to sacrifice me to her. Yet, I did not want to die, however, I would have been honored to be and I would have been eaten by her if I didn’t meet that strange guy twenty two years ago.”

“Who was he? And why, what did he say?”

“He didn’t give a name. But he asked me if there were any people here that would help with a witch and I told him to go to Paradtopia as she knows all. He asked me about what I was smoking and that dragons can’t be like that. Yet I didn’t believe it at the time. That was when I looked at myself in a window one night and at everyone around me. They were all deathly thin and I started to get it. Yet when you told me and everyone I knew that what he told me was true, especially after I told a lie that she believed.”

“And your name?”

“Sai Hirosé.”

“You?” She asked the last.

“I’m here because of the same reasons they’re here. My name is Diyu Kurochi.”

“Alright. You can come with me only if you’re okay with dying.”

Yet to her utter horror try traveled with her to the next town.