"Break" by Reuth Dekel

She was just Lee now, that’s all. The old Legacy, the magic, the glory… they were
all gone. And because of what?
She settled down, reminding herself there is no time for self pity. She must survive.
And she must get rid of this annoying Rion as soon as she can. She set down on a
big garnet rock. “Fine, are you happy now?” she said angrily.
“Don’t be mad at me, Lee, I just thought you needed a break” said the Rion, and
smiled innocently. He was definitely a Rion, one of the damned, a skinny figure with
big head and much too long arms, swaying and twitching almost unconsciously.
‘You are a beast’ thought Lee ‘and don’t you ever forget that’.
A red dragon flew above them, scorching the paths behind him to make the mortals’
roads even harder to walk in. Lee and the Rion ran for cover behind the blood
soaked rocks. Since the Legacy became meaningless, the strong survived – and the
dragons befit the monarchs. “Well,” said the Rion after a while “I think the road is
safe now” he got up, and reached his hand to help her. Lee looked up, moved his
hand aside brutality and got up. The road was now all black and full of ash, but both
of them knew that this was the safest road.

That night they camped quite far from the way, but as Lee put that “I am really not
fond of Fairy blood”. In a way, she was right. All the stones behind them where
stained – and that implied about the danger – Fairy blood meant someone killed a
fairy, and the place is cursed. The Rion tried to light fire with two fire stones and
some sulfur underneath.
“Oh, the smell is horrible! Can not you at least do that quickly, Rion?” Lee
grumbled. “Oh, I’m sorry, Lee; would you like to do that yourself?”
She began reminisces the proper spell to light a fire, but stopped before she could
have made a fool out of herself. There is no more magic. Not for her, at least. “You
are evil” she muttered.
“Well, I guess every dog has its day” he looked straight into her eyes. Lee felt the
blood rushing in her veins fiercely. She kicked a mound of dust at him, right into his
eyes.
“What the…” he tried to clean his face, then jumped from the ground and held her
in his grasp. “Now, you listen to me, princess” he spurted the words at her “you have
no powers now, and I can’t blame you for being sad and all, but you need to realize
this: I’m now stronger than you, and I know how to stay alive. Throwing sand at me
won’t make me like you any more than I am now” he waited to see agreement in her
face, and only then released her. He saw that she was frightened, too. Then she
began crying. She cried for her dead family, but mostly for herself. The Rion sat,
and signed her to sit next to him. “I am sorry, Lee; I didn’t mean to be so nasty.
Please don’t cry”.
“You know” she said “I really don’t know what to do now, and that’s a creepy
thought” the Rion noticed that before. When she was excited, she did not pay
attention to the traditional Legacy pronunciation.
“Well, you see, Lee, I was a slave from the moment I was born, ‘cause I’m Rion.
But even my life was much happier than the Legacy’s slave Humans. You, on the
other hand, were a true princess. That’s why all of this looks so bad to you. But I
promise you, I’ll take care of you. I know I can” he smiled. After all, after the
Legacy’s power talisman was smashed and the slaves unleashed themselves and
sought revenge, he protected her. He gave life to the last offspring of the Legacy, the
last one in the whole world, as long as he heard. ‘She is young’ he said then to the
leader of the rebellion ‘she’s not responsible for the crimes of her family. Let me
take her away tonight, tell everybody that she is dead’ she did not knew that. She
thought he abducted her, until she saw her father’s head on the pole.
She felt better and even dared to look at him, once a deed of betrayal. Now it was
acceptable. “Rion,” she said “do you have a name?”
He did, of course, but he was astonished and it took him a while until he replied
“Umer”.
“Umer” said Lee. The tears were no longer. Her skin was still fairly tender, but her
hair was tangled and her eyes had dark outlines underneath. She was still beautiful.
He drew near her and touched her lips with his.
“Dear amulet! What are you think you are doing?” she cried. He couldn’t answer.
“Oh, by the name of the Legacy, go away Rion!” she pushed him away, turned her
back at him and went to sleep.
Umer looked at her. Then he drew back, looking at the fire stones. He just could not
take them in his hands, so he left them and lied down.
They slept in the darkness that night, with no fire to protect them.

In her sleep, Lee had a strange dream. She was still in the camp, but Umer was no
where in reach. She called him, over and over. Suddenly, she saw something above
her. It was Umer, flying. He was flying like she used to fly, once, when she wanted
to feel protected. He reached his hand toward her, as he asked her to join him. She
refused. Umer looked at her sadly, whispering “I love you”. She felt her rage as he
flew away, leaving her behind as she wished. A horde of Rions drew near her. They
were flying too. She was speechless – when the Legacy existed and the talisman was
intact, she could fly and they were slaves. “After him!’ yelled one of flying damned
in Rionic. She looked with horror at a group of previous-slaves approaching her with
hate in their eyes. She felt something blunt smashing on the back on her head and
everything turned black.

When she woke up, she was no longer in the camp, but she felt like she was inside
hell. Her arms and legs were bind together in large shackles, and a huge Rion leaned
above her and screamed at her to get up and march. She was in a great furnace, and
all humans were in chains like her, digging iron from the hard stone or melting it.
Her head was sore suspiciously. ‘This wasn’t a dream’ she realized, and began
walking. She was now a slave.
She tried to talk to one of the other slaves.
“Excuse me, my dear sir” she said.
The slave, a blemished human in his fifties by her guessed, looked at her, examining
her head to toes with a hostile look. “So, you must be Lee” he said with a wide smile
“let me be the first to bow, princess” he laughed “you know, it’s the first time that I
laugh for a long time” he searched for the guards, and when realizing there were no
where is sight he dropped his tools and bowed exaggeratedly.
“How did it happened?” she asked him, ignoring his behavior.
“The Rions broke your talisman of the Legacy,” he still smiled “and now they have
an alliance with the dragons”.
Lee looked around her – the Rions could fly. There was no longer the Legacy’s
magical power binding them to the ground. They were all flying around her – Umer
could fly, she recalled. “Where is Umer?” she asked, her frantic voice sounded
childish, and the other slave was no longer amused.
“Oh, so him name is Umer” he said and spit “there were rumors ‘bout you. He
sneaked you out then, ha?” she nodded “well, the Rion leader regretted. He wanted
to find you, and this Umer of yours tried to save you. That’s what I’ve heard, at
least. He was sentenced for betrayal and executed, as he deserved” he looked at her,
and that awful smile was back on his face “I was a slave all of my life, and you were
my master. I think I like you the way you are now. Don’t want any filthy Rion to
take you away from here” he sniggered and left her behind since a Rion came near
them. He looked at her, urging her to fill a bucket with small pieces metal.

High above her, she heard the new masters of the world, laughing at her. “How ‘bout
a break, Lee?”, “wanna take a break, Lee?”, “Lee, we really feel like you need a
break”…