2
Gahiji stood nervously with his fists clenched, talons scrapping his palms. He had sent a cluster of twelve other soldiers male and female, all away after moon blinking their memory of the incident earlier, excluding Atsu and Ata. A rare pair of brothers, due to being the only twins residing in the Oasis. Even though they both look identical, they’re personalities are quite distinctly unless playing a practical joke and the jokes always portray to Gahiji himself. At times the twins drive him to almost slicing their gizzards for dinner but make him happy to have underlings to fawn with tough love. He completely trusts them to understand the decisions he makes as long as they’re along for the ride.
***
An hour and a half before, it was near dusk a flittering lace of dirty white pattern meteoroid onto their training site. Everyone had rushed from their practices and immediately reinforced their roles as an army. Slow stealthy steps crept along the orange dyed ground; the only communication was a series of clicking sounds as they surrounded the smoking crater. Gahiji signaled his advance, once the debris mist thinned. The view stunned him into a paralytic pose; a small slender young Caucasian male was littered before him. Evidence of white feathers ate themselves in flames, hair as long as a tree was losing its dark brown pigment, turning fluorescent white. From head to toe, the boy’s body was cut and bruised. Clothing was in tattered rags, except filthy bandages corseting his chest, possibly hiding a former wound.
Gahiji flickered back to animation, making clicking sounds with his teeth, reassuring the others to come forth. Atsu and Ata were the first two to join the front, peering at the foreigner. The others, twelve in total half male and female groups fluttered behind them after scoping the sight around the target area.
A bulky male figure kneeled, overshadowing the view. “Can you see it?”
“Should we alert Akila?” another inquired, the voice belonging to a charcoal female with orange feathers.
All the while ignoring these questions, Gahiji could feel it in his gizzard that there was a certainty this boy should be hidden. Thus created a deep confusion, he did not know this person yet instincts want to control his actions. What should he do? Anxiety clutched painfully onto his throat, each moment he swallowed it felt like daggers stabbing into his sarcophagus. Without catching the words, his mouth betrayed him. “No, I will take care of this matter. But before you go back to report, I need all of you to look at something first…” He sending a quick telepathic command at the same time,
Atsu, Ata close your eyes! They obeyed with large grins on their faces. Atsu and Ata knew something exciting was about to happen since Gahiji was using forbidden magic.
The others were helplessly lost in a trance and their memory being eaten away. With success, Gahiji supervised his work. Atsu and Ata gave each other a high five and turned to him. “So, what’s the agenda, Hiji?” both of them chimed with devious smiles. A frown embedded Gahijis face; his right hand cradled a spear. “First of all, it’s G-a-h-i-j-I, not Hiji. Second of all, there’s no agenda to this. I decided to trust my gizzard instead of bending over for rules that aren’t humane.” He answered, irritably.
The twins snickered, heads bobbing in duo as each had gold earrings that glittered underneath the moonlight. Atsu wore the sun, while Ata wore the moon. If you stared long enough at them, you could almost be certain they look like two Akuma with their black hair and black eyes. Gahiji turned away from the twins and slid down into the crater. The boy had not moved an inch from impact but was still breathing.
Ata came in from the left and Atsu came in from the right. The two grabbed sticks and started poking at the body. “What do you think, Ata?” Atsu asked. Ata shrugged, “He’s breathing but completely immobile and reeks of decay.” Ata brought a black cloth to his face, hoping to block the smell. Atsu raised his brows but wasn’t as sensitive as his brother.
“Will you two restrain yourselves?” Gahiji scowled, picking them up like chicks and tossing them head over heels. He bent down, sliding his hands carefully underneath the boy and hefted him over his shoulder.
“Hey, that was totally uncool!” Atsu cried.
“Yeah, Hiji!” Ata added.
Gahiji rolled his eyes and pointed one a talon warningly to his lips and at the sky. Atsu and Ata immediately sucked up their complaints for later. Something largely black was riding through the clouds. The trio did their best to cover up the cavity of the outsiders’ arrival with haste and disappeared through the forest.
***
Gahiji, Ata and Atsu made their way back to his home with the outsider. The boy still had not regained consciousness; he was set down on a lone bed while the trio sat around in a circle.
“What do you suppose that blotch of black was?” Ata inquired, folding his arms behind silky black fluttered hair, tipping back his seat. Atsu mischievously looked back and forth from his brother and the leaning chair he was sitting on and knocked him over.
“ATSU, YOU BLUDDERING BIRD BRAIN!” Ata screeched, grabbing a fist full of Atsus locks. Both of them tumbled around in a whirl. A vein pulsed against Gahijis forehead with his eyes closed and fists clenched. Unfortunately, even though the Atsu and Ata were the best team to put together, they couldn’t control themselves without getting at one and another.
“Is there not a moment you two do not sustain any sanity?!” Gahiji stood, raising his voice. “I would rather deal with a plague of locusts than the two of you! I swear, if it weren’t for your fath—“Gahijis rant had been cut short by a sound of sharp sizzling hiss. All three heads turned back onto the boy, steam was burning off of his flesh with wounds closing.
Ata climbed off of his brother and knelt beside the bed. “Holy Ra…”
“What he said.” Atsu replied.
Gahiji started forward but was frozen when a knock sounded through moments after. Atsu and Ata accidentally turned their heads too fast and withered in pain from pulling their neck muscles. Inwardly, Gahiji rolled his eyes; however, outwardly he stiffly lumbered downstairs to answer the front door. Sweat filled his palms as he anticipated who might be on the other side. Get it over with already, he told himself. Swiftly Gahiji turned the lock the other way and opened the door, which quickly invited a blaring shock of gold bouncing off his chandeliers candle light. It was Kyriotite!
Seemingly out of breath, Kyrio’s white scarf puffed in front of him. “Gahiji, I need to speak with you. I had the dre—“Kyrio’s brows furrowed together as a glint of gold caught his eyes at Gahijis stairwell.
“Do you have company?” He asked, cautiously.
Gahiji gave it a moment for his heart to stop racing, while hanging his head in relief. “It’s just the twins.” He said, “Hurry in; I have need to speak with you too.” Moving aside, Kyrio glided through the entrance. Gahiji closed and re-locked the front door, leading his friend upstairs.
“Were the twins up to something again?” Kyrio asked, climbing after him.
“When aren’t they up to something?” Gahiji countered, shaking his head. A hidden smirk crept upon Kyrio’s face as they reached the occupied bedroom. Immediately the twins were standing hip to hip with their usual matching crimson genie pants, black slippers and gold earrings, covering the bed from view.
“Yo, Kyrio!” they chirped, grinning.
Kyrio stopped halfway through the room. “Should I be worrying?” he asked, suspicious of their expressions. Atsu and Ata took in sarcastic gasps, as if insulted. Gahiji glared at the both of them.
“For once it is not them who is up to something,” Gahiji confessed, “Don’t question why I chose to do it...I just followed my gizzard.” Kyrio shifted his weight to the right, “What did it make you follow?”
“This!” The twins removed themselves from beside the bed and sat down in the chairs like before. A blaring shock of white blurred Kyrio’s vision, once settled he became sick to his stomach.
“Who is this person?”
Gahiji stood beside him. “I honestly have no clue,” he said, “almost seconds ago he was covered in wounds but they healed just before you got here and an hour or so before that he had a change of appearance.”
“Gahiji even moon blinked the others to keep this a secret.” Ata said, smiling with satisfaction.
“We didn’t get to observe long. Something was traveling the skies.” Atsu added, which brought a moment of silence.
“Yeah, come to think of it, we still don’t know what that was.” Ata replied.
Kyrio looked at each of them, guiltily. “That was me; I was searching for Gahiji. There’s something suspicious going on with Hafsah, Lukman, the Pharaoh and Khnemu. I was hoping that he’d know what their meeting was for.” However, Gahiji looked at a loss for words.
Atsu and Ata looked from each other to Gahiji and Kyrio. “Secrecy, it’s a trend, everybody’s doing it,” they said in union and shrugged.
