19 Unhappy Childhood

Apparently, their group was big enough that the locals were not willing to mess with them. While they had seen glimpses of people, they would turn tail and run upon seeing the armed group that looked ready for battle.

Nix'Rylians say whatever else you would about them were survivors. Those that lived to adulthood anyway. When the majority of the populations' own mothers would be willing to leave them if it was likely to get them out of a sticky situation you had to learn to be able to read danger.

Lawlessness abounded here and the only rule was that the strong survive and the weak are trodden upon. True, there were a few kind souls, but unless you were strong enough to protect yourself kindness would get you killed. Hence, not many survived past old enough to just maybe reach adulthood.

Growing up here had been tough and Dawn knew that most of her aloofness could be blamed on her environment. Her mother had been one of the ones who would abandon her child for her own skin and Dawn had grown up raising herself pretty much and trying to avoid people.

Dawn hated Nix'Ryl. The place looked so dismal to her, old ruins that may have once been something grand, no settlements as no one liked staying in one place and did not trust anyone to settle with. The people of Nix'Ryl, to be honest, were very animalistic and tended to obey their own desires more than anything else.

There was very little that could have persuaded her to come back here. Pretty much only this rage at someone taking the man who had taken her out of that dark place away from her could have gotten her to come back to the place of her birth.

Of course, she was in a bit of a dark mood because of the memories that it brought. Even the happiest memory she had was darkened by the knowledge that she would never get to see that smile again.

It hurt so much. This sinking knowledge in the pit of her heart that Arrion would never comfort her again. Never give her that smile of his as he stroked her hair and told her everything would be alright. Hurt because everything reminded her of him.

She sighed again, which caused Raven to get a bit of a concerned look on his face. Without giving him a chance to ask she muttered that she was fine, making him nod and whisper softly that he would listen if she needed him to.

She smiled, knowing that she was actually rather lucky to have made a friend from this lost sheep. He seemed to be able to sense when she was feeling unhappy and was getting better at it every day despite him being blind.

She turned to the road forcing herself not to think about the past but to focus on what they were doing.

The scouts had all gone ahead. Fendrel had given them something that they could use to alert the group if something happened. Dawn honestly did not understand how it worked nor did she really care, just as long as it did.

She heard two people getting into what sounded like a heated argument and whirled around ready to do her best to settle it. It was Brilma and Colton, as they were riding near to each other and arguing over something that was so nonsensical it made Dawn cringe. It was hard even to figure out what the argument was over as it was all over the place.

And the thing was, it was hardly an important argument, they were just arguing for the sake of it… like always. Dawn sighed and shook her head, "Can you two stop, please. Or at least keep it quiet. I don't care what you do when you to are alone but we are on serious business right now."

The two did stop, though she could hear a whisper now and then as they continued ribbing each other. It was obviously good natured as the two actually were quite in love from what she could see.

It was as she turned back that she saw a red light glittering telling them that one of the scouts were in trouble.