And they will find ...

but in this heart of darkness
our hope lies lost and torn
all fame like love is fleeting
when there's no hope anymore

pain and glory
hand in hand
a sacrifice
the highest price ... ..

It's cold, a gray, rainy day in the middle of November, to be precise, and it's slowly getting dark. It’s roughly five o'clock. Sullenly, I crawl deeper into my jacket, which is clearly too thin for this time of year, and think warmly, in the faint hope that it will at least help me a little.

But no matter how I do it, I don't want to succeed.

In order to distract myself at least halfway from the bad weather and the prospect of having to be on the road for half the night again today, I concentrate fully on my surroundings, which I am now observing with automatic vigilance.

Ashuram quickly taught me to weigh up all eventualities and always keep an eye on my path, because we live in a very dangerous world. The huge, completely overpopulated city molhole in which we are trapped can hardly be overlooked and the neighborhood in which we live is also one of the worst in the whole metropolis. Lots of crime and crime on every street corner ... so not exactly inviting.

But I grew up here in the slums and don't know any other way, so I'm not afraid ... you just have to be careful and on guard at all times, day and night that has become part of my flesh and blood.

Suddenly a pleasant deep melodic voice tears me out of my thought processes.

"Skyla, watch out ... girl, are you dreaming again?"

Confused, I jump up ... a faint sigh then peeled guiltily from my chest.

"No ... I ... sorry ... I was just thinking about something."

I try to defend myself half-heartedly, knowing that HE has long since figured out me as usual. The tall, handsome man at my side actually looks at me punishingly ... I can see it, his dark, expressive green eyes sparkle like emeralds in the twilight.

Ashuram my protector ... he could easily be my father in terms of age, but he is not. It's a community of convenience we live in, we're not related or anything.

No, he picked me up when I was about seven or eight ... in the middle of the street dirt in nowhere ... I was just one of the many other street children who have to get by with begging and stealing, because I am in a way fully informed.

I don't know my real parents ... they are probably long dead.

I wouldn't really be surprised here either ... to survive in this city of the long-forgotten is an art that not everyone has mastered. But Ashuram can and he taught me ... that's why I am infinitely grateful to him for it.

I like him ... I mean, I cling to him ... if you like to put it so casually, because he is the only one who has ever given me the lonely wise child the feeling of security or affection.In the meantime I'm almost grown up, in a few months I'll be of legal age ... Respect, a brilliant achievement that really not everyone can say about themselves here. But Ashuram has managed to get through all the environmental problems so far that I will soon be able to take care of myself.

I still don't know why he does that ... without me he would have had it a lot easier, but maybe he felt sorry for me ... or he just couldn't bring himself to leave a helpless child behind ... ..I don't know what it was.

Almost against my will, my gaze is drawn to him again ... the November gray drizzle is gloomy and damp in his dark, tangled, already slightly graying head of hair ... but these astonishingly green eyes, which I found extremely fascinating even as a little girl, have something peculiarly animal-like about them.

I can't explain it to myself or even measure it with real standards ... and yet it seems to me more and more recently, like a lone wolf on the hunt.

Funny isn't it?

It's a strange metaphor, but it just won't get out of my head. Ashuram is different ... completely different, I've known that since I've known him, but so far I've never been able to reveal this shrouded mystery that surrounds him on all sides.

As if he instinctively sensed what I was thinking and distracted myself from it, he spoke to me again. His voice sounds like a fatherly strict ... a clear alarm signal better to be careful.

"Skyla better watch out instead of continuing to dream ..... this is not safe ... did you hear? We're not here for fun!"

I try to avoid his piercing gaze with which he tries to x-ray me again and instead nod hesitantly.

"Understood .... sir!"

I answer him almost like a shot from the gun, but it sounds a bit defiant, a circumstance that can still be attributed to my flaky age.

Ashuram sighs quietly ... but fortunately spares me any further comment on this. In order not to offend him further, I try to take to heart what he has drawn my attention to ... my surroundings.

As I walk by, I watch dark street corners, in which cheap whores and drugged dealers huddle around in abundance. I can hear their loud voices cursing ... not very nice, but everyday life in my world.

The streets are getting shabbier, the house fronts more and more rundown the further we get away from our ancestral territory.

"Where are you actually going?"

I hastily ask my companion when a disgusting, greasy bum stares after me covetously, whom we have just passed carelessly. I am visibly uncomfortable in my skin, but I would never show that .... after all, I don't want to end up in any corner as easy prey.

Ashuram shrugs his shoulders briefly.

"Wait and see!"

Afterwards he says in a rather short manner and not particularly communicative, but that's the way he is ... mostly silent and rather grumpy ... just not the great speaker, he has never been.Since I know him well, I also know that asking questions does not help ... I will not get a useful answer from him, not as long as he does not consider it important. So instead, I keep trying with serenity.

More to distract myself from my boredom than to face the real reality, I have no choice but to look around in the nascent darkness.

I watch the people around me. Most of them scurry quickly across the streets like sewer rats with drooping shoulders from one place to the next, so as not to attract any further attention. It is slowly getting really uncomfortable, the garbage is piling up on the sides of the sidewalks en masse. It stinks and is dirty, worse than in a dump ... uhhh my goodness where does this man want to go with me?

At the same moment as this question goes through my head, my gaze suddenly falls on something completely strange ... something that in my opinion doesn't belong here at all.

There are a few neglected guys standing around in a dark corner nearby ... probably some kind of thugs from one of the numerous drug lords ..... but that's not what scares me about it.

No ... one of those men is ... is I don't know how to put it.

He is different....

His almost unnatural-looking, white-blond hair shimmers like a bright flame through the tenacious creeping darkness. In contrast to the other men, he is also apparently not wearing any winter clothing, because I can clearly see his strong shoulders and bare upper arms in the twilight of the street lamp.

How unusual for this time of the year ... you could think that he would have gotten too much heat somewhere ... but of course that can't be, it's almost impossible.

But what amazes me most about HIM is a tattoo that he wears ... no, not an ordinary one ... he wears a dragon on his right upper arm .... and I could have sworn stone and leg that THE is moving Has!