Jace

‘Excuse me, but I feel I should warn you that taking me will put you in the bad graces of his Lordship the Baron of Westharbor, General of Marines, Aaryn Seamount.’

I began looking around even as I began to speak, “Who’s talking…wait it’s talking…um, hush…sword?”  I brought the sword up to my lips as I began to whisper to it.

‘I understand with the juvenile feel of your thoughts, that you might not truly understand what I am saying, but I am only speaking to your thoughts and not speaking aloud…unlike yourself.’

“Wait..you’re talking to my mind?” I said, whispering, again before I simply began thinking at it.  ‘I mean, you’re talking to my mind.  I suppose you can hear me when I do this?’

‘Yes, I can.  So, will you put me back, then?’

‘Put you back?  You’re a rune-sword, and by the fact that you are talking to me, that will mean that you must be a powerful one.  So, what can you do?  Throw fireballs or something?’

‘Actually, yes.  I can throw fireballs and something.’

‘Cool, what else?  Come on, don’t clam up on me now.’

‘Please, just put me back.  I’ll not tell him that you considered taking me.’

‘Considered nothing.  You’re the symbol of his office at the leader of the Bizantium Marines.  The fact that you’re also a rune weapon just adds icing to the cake.  This is so cool.’

‘Indeed…’

‘No need to be angry.’

‘I’m not angry.’

‘Snippy then.’ Having moved far enough away from the building that I figured I would be safe to make a noise I whistled for Horsefeathers and mounted up.  They’d originally called my pegasus Adonis, but I thought the name too pretentious, and so the moment I ran away from the Sky Raider’s barracks…

‘You ran away from the marines?’

‘Sort of, well, the king, I mean Minischmee, the True King, he woke me up the night of the coup and he told me to run.  I went into the stables, saddled Horsefeathers and, and the two of us flew out there at the highest speed we could.’

‘You’re a dwarf.’

‘How observant of you.’

‘No need to be rude.  I just found it to be astonishing.  How in the world did a Dwarf become a member of the Sky Riders?’

‘Why?  Because we are all supposed to be human?’

‘Yes, exactly.’

I stopped and thought of the ending of my short childhood.  I was barely 26 years old, a literal child for a dwarf.  The king had chosen me from among all of my friends, from among all the other possible dwarves.  He had set me apart and put me forth as the poster child of the entire Shortie movement.  There I was, training with adults, and doing my best to act just like they were.  I was learning to fly and to fight, but I was slow, oh so slow, because I didn’t understand how all of this fit into any sort of framework.

‘I got the basics, though, so when he told me to run, I ran.  The problem was, that after I ran I realized that I couldn’t be a child anymore.  I’d already learned so much about being an adult and being a Sky Rider, that I couldn’t just go back to who I’d been.  I had to become who I’d been trained to be.  Those early days were hectic.  I was running from place to place.  I was hiding out in the woods and living off the land.  It would be a great continuation of the story were I to have found the rebellion.

‘In truth, they found me on the brink of starvation and going completely out of my mind from paranoia.  Not a one of them wanted to put me to work, but they showed me a safe place to begin working from.  And work I did.  I began going behind enemy lines, as I had been trained, and I began harassing the enemy.  I stole items, including this little baby on my other hip.’

‘And now you’ve stolen me?’

‘I stole you for a special reason.  You see, the General put a price on my head.  He called me a terrorist, even though I never once attacked a civilian target.  This is asymmetric-warfare.  So, I figured if his men weren’t legitimate targets, then I would attack him directly.’

‘Um…well…I can’t fault your logic.  One question.’

‘What now?’

‘How were you planning on evading the Sky Riders that are on our tail?’

The next couple of hours were a blur of dodging through the trees at top speed on the back of a pegasus.  In the end, Mariner, the sword, Horsefeathers, the pegasus, and Jace, the..um..me, ended up hiding in the mud at the side of an inlet.