Fire and Steel

Chapter 3: Radha

"Are you an Asura? Will you eat us if we misbehave? Do you know any other Asura?" Radha had been getting bombarded with some variation of that question and several others by the children she had rescued. Somehow being thought of as a demon made Radha feel satisfied. Perhaps an Asura was what she had become after the Crafting. She tried not to think back to that moment, but its memory always threatened to take her back to the burning building in her mind. She had reassured the children that she wouldn't in fact gobble them up if they didn't listen to her, but part of her now wished she had maintained their delusion.

Once they had fully absorbed the reality that they weren't in danger of being eaten, neither by Radha nor by the wild animals that inhabited the frozen woods of Rudira the children had only gotten more persistent in their questions. She was grateful for what remained of the animals in Rudira, they provided her with food to eat and pelts to protect her from the worst that the weather had to offer; Being a walking furnace did her little good in the face of a blinding blizzard or pelting hailstorm. What her unnatural heat did now, was corral the escapees around her keeping them from wandering too far off in the snow. The kids mostly belonged to the same tribe, with light tan skin and clothes tie-dyed with plant inks, they said they were all Sowers except for the boy that had objected to Radha's intervention. His name was Imaan and his dark skin and braided dreadlocks belonged unmistakably to the Metal-Weaver tribe. Radha knew their features well. They belonged to someone she missed very dearly now. Someone she had to keep fighting for.

"Were you the only person taken from your tribe?" Radha prodded Imaan, breaking the silence between them for the first time in two days.

He was silent for a moment, stubbornly clinging to his grudge for a few more moments. Before huffing and nodding.

"I was the only one of age, and they needed someone to justify keeping my people in the settlement. I wanted to keep them safe and then you showed up ... if anything happens to them it's on you." He glared back at Radha, evidently still upset with her.

Radha smarted at his accusation, knowing full and well that there were consequences to agitating the peace. Her bones remembered the strikes of batons that came as a result of her struggling within The Facility. She knew that if she acted out everyone around her was at risk of punishment, but she was not the reason those canes fell on them.

"The Legion is who is responsible for what happens to your family Imaan. It's on them for taking your homes and building settlements in their place. It's their fault you have to conscript and fight their wars to ensure the safety of your family. Don't you see that?" Radha argued. And for a moment, there was a flicker of something in Imaan's eyes; but they quickly turned hard again.

"There's no point in fighting back against the Legion, the best we can do is work with them and keep each other safe. You're an idiot if you think you'll change that on your own." He grumbled before turning away.

Radha sighed and looked back at the kids following her.

"You don't actually believe that," Radha said before pausing to see if Imaan was paying attention. "If you did, you wouldn't have come this far with me, you'd've been looking for another carriage to take back to their city."

Imaan was silent for a while before grunting and picking up his pace to get some space between himself and Radha. Or at least that's what she thought, but then she noticed how the snow had begun to fade around the path they were taking being replaced by patches of grass and little shrubs, there were more trees without snow on their leaves bearing fresh fruit and the air had begun to smell of flowery nectar. Without warning the Sower children ran past Radha darting ahead to what Radha now realized was their home. She smiled, feeling real satisfaction at bringing these kids back to their families. She began to jog to keep pace with the running children but then stopped a thought crossing her mind. 'I can't stay here... they'll be in danger if I stick around any longer' Imaan's words came back to Radha, hitting like a crashing wave.