Twilight of Ivory

Edited 9:48 PM EST 8/30/07, thanks for all the reviews so far guys. I did some extensive editing to clear up some of the rough patches. The plot doesn't change much but I think I did a lot with the description. :)


The log cabin built at the farthest reaches of the village, near the woods, had a dirt floor, a thatched roof, and greased paper windows. No fire stirred within, but the milling, hushed voices inside were nervous and uneasy.

"Okay guys, it's getting noisy isn't it?"

The boy that had spoken over the others had light brown hair and green eyes. They shone in the darkness like a cat's as he looked around him at the children, over whom a muted hush had grown. However, in answer to his question, there was soon a stifled sob.

"Brother," a boy with curly black hair and olive-tanned skin said unhappily. "What if we get captured by the bad men?"

"Yeah," chorused several others, looking around at each other and shifting apprehensively.

"You're not going to get captured, sport," the boy replied. "I'm here to protect you!"

"You didn't even go out to fight them, Brother Naru," the black-haired boy refuted darkly.

"Well, that's because the safe-passage is near my house, and besides, your parents trusted me to keep you all safe. Don't look at me like that, kiddo, you know I can do it; didn't I beat your brother up when you were five?"

"NARU!"

"Sorry Jarrod, didn't mean to say that in front of all your girlfriends. But really, your parents all care about you a lot, they wouldn't leave you in danger. So stop complaining and let's go, okay?"

"Where's the--the safe-passage?" asked a brown-haired girl in an intimidated voice.

"It's outside, in the trees."

"The trees?" Jarrod asked skeptically.

"Just trust me, man." Naru rounded up the twelve children with a wave of his arms and ushered them towards the backdoor. When he had them lined up neatly, fidgeting and squirming, he made his way to the front and closed his eyes. Straining his ears, he listened for the location and origin of the battle noises.

Damn. It wasn't good.

Naru subconsciously touched the dirk holstered near his back pocket but then shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He reached for the door handle and pulled the door wide open, turning around to face the children as he did so. "We gotta hurry, guys," he told them. "Once you get out of here, run for that willow, okay? I'll tap you on the shoulder when it's clear."

One by one, the children were sent running and stumbling for the willow tree and its overhanging limbs and leaves. The voices and shouting were getting louder and louder, and Naru's heart-rate was picking up. He would be sick if the children even laid eyes on the soldiers, much less let them be captured.

Naru wet his lips. That was not going to happen.

The children were all clustered beneath the branches in one mass huddle when he finally slipped under to join them. He didn't acknowledge them as he strode towards the trunk of the willow, too pressed for time to spare them a kind word.

He pressed his hand to the rough bark, palm flat, and began to whisper urgently. "Mother. Hear me as one of the darra. There are children that need help here, and as their protector, I ask you to grant them safe passage." Something sharp pierced the skin of his hand. The tree was taking his blood. Naru didn't acknowledge the pain, only took a deep breath, knew now that the willow was indeed listening. His pulse roared dully in his ears as he continued on. "I know your protection cannot extend to me, but I willingly sacrifice this, and, likewise, will endeavor to protect them further with all that I can."

The wind was shifting. From behind him, Naru heard one of the children emit a faint, plaintive moan. Then, finally, it came, a voice as old as the wood itself, responding to the daire strain of magic palpable in his blood:

"True intent."

As if a switch had been flipped, light began to fill the woods from within the very hearts of the trees, soft and peaceful.

Naru breathed a sigh of relief and pressed his forehead briefly against the tree. "Thank you," he mumbled, and then he pushed away from the tree and rounded on the children. "Alright guys," he said grimly. "I can't go with you, but trust me. You have to follow the path the lights give you, and you have to keep going, no matter what. They'll lead you to a hiding place, a cave stocked with provisions and emergency supplies and all that stuff. You'll be safe there."

"What about the cave bears?" a ruddy-haired boy exclaimed.

"There's a seal on the cave to keep animals and criminals and things like that out. A magician sealed it, but he made us pay him a real crapload of money. It can only be broken once, too. That's why we didn't immediately go--if things hadn't gotten serious, then it would've been a real waste."

Naru spotted a young towheaded girl in the back, shivering from both fear and chill. She was wearing a sleeveless summer dress that didn't cope well with the sudden shift in temperature between afternoon and night. He fumbled with his own jacket and made his way towards her.

"Brother...are we...going to be alone now?" It was another girl, one with bright-red pigtails and buckteeth. Her eyes were wide and apprehensive.

Naru slipped his jacket over the blonde girl's shoulders. She looked up at him with big brown eyes. He patted her on the head, smothering a slight twitch of his lips as he did so. Then he turned around to the rest of them to address the issue at hand.

"Your brothers and sisters are under strict orders to leave if it gets too bad. They'll definitely come for you, so just make it there and stay safe," he reassured them, and then fixed them all with a firm gaze. "I know you can do it. You guys know it too. You're made of strong stuff and you're going to come out of this just fine.

"Now, I want each one of you to pick a partner. Stick with that partner as you go, and make sure you stick together as a group, too." He walked through the little crowd, pairing up the individuals that were still looking about themselves uncertainly. "Don't be too worried, either. The trees will protect you."

"Because of your magic, Brother?" The children looked up at him in awe.

Naru flapped his hand at them. "Nah, because I'm one of the darra. It's different, it only works when I'm doing stuff for kids like you. Aren't you glad your parents picked me now?" He smiled at them. "But anyway, enough with that, let's get you guys going."

As the children clutched each other's hands and peeked out from under the curtain of branches, Jarrod separated himself and approached Naru.

"Jarrod--you should get in line--"

"No, I hafta give you something," Jarrod insisted, reaching into his jacket. He took out something small and golden and held it out timidly towards Naru. "There's a shrinking spell on it. You know Jamie can do a little bit of magic."

Naru squinted at the object, uncomprehending, but then his eyes widened.

"What! My dad's sword--! He was the one--"

"Please don't be mad at Jamie," Jarrod said, sounding panicked now. "He was mad, 'cause you b--broke his heart." Jarrod's nervous look suddenly molted into a glare. With this revelation, Naru felt as if someone had hit him, although one part of him wanted to laugh at Jarrod's offended seriousness and yet another part felt sheepish.

When Naru had lost his parents, Jamie and Jarrod's family had been kind. They had often visited and taken care of him. He had spent most of his holidays with them as well. As a result, Jamie, who was only two years older than Naru, had developed a friendship with him. Then, one year ago, when Naru was about fourteen, he'd been out with both the brothers when Jamie had tried to kiss him. Naru had ended the encounter by giving him a black eye; it had been the "beating up" that he had referred to previously. Afterwards, the relationship between Jamie and Naru was never quite the same again.

"Well... I'm happy he gave this back to me." Naru took the shrunken sword and stepped back, pressing his index finger to it to access the magic already on the item. "Release," he said.

The sword immediately lengthened and grew enlarged. It was a fine sword, with a gold-plated scabbard, a sharp blade, and a handle with a single green stone set into it to balance the blade. The stone was almost the exact same color as Naru's eyes. When his father had been alive, he'd told Naru that he'd changed the color on his first birthday. A magic-possessing stoneworker had carefully altered the pigments according to his father's instructions.

Naru had been pleased upon hearing this, thinking that his father had done such a thing because he wished to give the sword to him. Naru wouldn't figure out the significance of that sword, the pleased pride and adoration in his father when he looked at Naru, until many years later. However, eventually, after years of bothering him about it and practicing with wooden swords, Naru's father did let him wield it, and to Naru's thinking, he learned to do it very well.

Naru clipped the sword to his belt. "Thank you," he told Jarrod, and then quickly ushered him to clasp hands with the brown-haired girl from earlier. Throughout his reverie, he'd failed to fully notice the crashing sounds and the whinny of Crown horses already in the village. They needed to hurry.

Damn the Crown. The country Naru and the others lived in was close to the large Empire of Isormine. It was a small country called Aryau, and two centuries ago had actually broken off from Isormine, which explained why they both spoke the same language. They still considered themselves autonomous, however, and Isormine had finally lost patience in negotiation. They were now sending troops to squash any opposing towns and villages. Naru and his village were right in the heart of the most patriotic and rebellious region, and the citizens refused to submit to the already Isormine-controlled government and allow their country to be swallowed up.

Naru had little hope for Aryau in the face of such vast forces, but he admired the bravery of the symbolic fight, and he was sure that one day, Isormine's hubris and greed would come back and bite the Empire in the ass. In the meantime, though, he was going to do his duty as a villager and a daire and he was going to keep these children safe.

"Go," he urged them. They had already emerged from under the willow tree. However, now that it was time for them to be on their way, some of the children had started crying. Those who had been ready hesitated.

Naru tried to soothe them. "You're going to be fine. It's going to be okay. Just follow the lights and get to the cave. You're going to be just fine. Come on guys, go. Please, go."

Those in the front began to start off uncertainly, glancing back multiple times at Naru's stationary form. A loud crash and shouting coming nearer and nearer made them pick up their speed.

"Don't run. Walk fast, but don't run, don't trip," Naru called after them, trying to calm them, although his own palms were clammy with sweat. Then, from not too far off, Isormine accents--

"Hey! There're lights in the woods!"

"GO!" Naru shouted at them, and despite his previous instructions, he did want them to run, he wanted them to run fast--and thankfully, they did, fueled by adrenaline and fear. Naru said a quick prayer for them in his head.

He turned back and sprinted for the village. The willow passed his line of vision as he ran, and he pleaded with it to keep them safe. As if in response, the light from the trees that had already been passed by began to fade.

Naru saw the first soldier, a tall, broad-shouldered man in metal armor. He drew the sword from its scabbard as he ran and plunged himself into crossing swords, badly outnumbered, with the Isormine Crown soldiers.

He didn't remember much of the fight. His body reacted mostly on conditioned instinct, instinct he'd picked up remarkably quickly due to his daire genes. Throughout the fight, although he saw blood and red, he didn't feel anything that would engender it as his own.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone going into the woods, and for one desperate moment he felt terrified: what if the children couldn't outrun him? But then, miracle of miracles, a tree branch came roaring downwards and struck the man solidly on the forehead. Naru almost started crying and laughing simultaneously in relief, but this moment of distraction cost him dearly, because his sword was knocked out of his hand and now he was in deep, deep shit.

"If you wish to see your friends and family again, kneel and give obeisance to the Empire," the soldier standing over him ordered, panting slightly. It was the same soldier that he'd first seen upon running out from the woods. Naru realized then that he had injured two people, and just before, had been fighting three of them simultaneously. Fortunately, these five--and the one that had been knocked down by the tree--were the only ones that had been sent directly into the village, and so he wasn't overwhelmingly outmanned.

Naru's legs felt weak but he remained standing. "You haven't killed them all?" he asked, his voice throaty and thick.

"No. Well, two casualties, but the remainder has been taken captive."

"Why would you need captives?"

The soldier shrugged. "To hold until this region surrenders."

Naru knew it was hopeless, but he felt unsettled and angry upon hearing the blasé, nonchalant tone of the soldier's voice, as if implying the utter futility of his people's struggle to remain independent. It was with unnatural speed that he slipped behind the man and pressed his dirk against the soldier's throat.

"Stay back," he warned the others, pressing the flat of the blade hard against the man's jugular. It would only take a flick of the wrist. The other soldiers looked startled. He watched them, his gaze wary and accusing.

He'd already lost, but before he died, he was going to give these fuckers a piece of his mind.

"You," he said into the stiffening soldier's ear, but still loudly enough for the rest to hear as well. "What gives Isormine the right to take Aryau, when for centuries we have been separated? The government is responsible for the well-being of its people, and a hostile takeover such as this is unforgivable, so don't mock the bravery of Aryau citizens who are willing to stand up to--"

There was a loud thump, and explosive pain suddenly erupted against the back of his head. Naru collapsed to the floor. The dirk dropped from limp hands. Through the blackness already clouding around the edges of his mind, he saw the soldier he'd almost cut straightening into a salute.

"Milord--" the soldier began but was cut off: the man who had stricken Naru had seen the mark on his neck.

"He is a daire," a cultured but experience-hardened voice said in surprise.

"No wonder he fought so--!"

Aw, shit, Naru thought, and then blacked out completely with a thud of his head against the dirt.



There had once been a powerful magician, many centuries ago, who had fallen in love with a male. Although magic was only hereditary to a point, he still wanted an heir to leave all his magic secrets too. Thus, with the agreement of his lover, he had changed the latter's body to be able to accommodate and beget children.

His lover's name was Daire. Subsequently, the term "daire" was used to term any of the child-bearing males descended from him and the magician. The plural of "daire" was "darra".

The darra were very rare. A born daire did not have to be directly descended from another daire, they only needed to possess the blood of the magician and his lover. However, the trait was recessive and so not often embodied. The trait also marked the daire on the back of his neck, a tattoo-like symbol that was the crest of the magician and his lover, flowers entwined with the sturdy and robust trunk of a tree.

Furthermore, the darra were often sought after, and this was because of something the magician had done: he had added a tiny, tiny modification (or so he had told his lover) that made it so that the darra and their children happened to be blessed with genes that translated into good looks, fair health, talent, and potential. What proud, heir-deficient male wouldn't want all but a good personality guaranteed in their offspring?

Also, as Naru had demonstrated, the darra were granted magic that could be used when children--not only their own, but others as well--were in danger. The magician had been fiercely protective of his brood and had wished for his lover to be equipped with the same ability to protect them.

If only he'd made it so that the darra could use the same magic to protect themselves, because then Naru wouldn't be in this predicament.