Nixon was ready to continue on his quest for his answers. “Good mornin', sir. May t’day be better for ya than yesterday.”
Aryu smirked. It was the best possible wish he could have been given.
Daylight brought a new vision of the man who had saved him. He could see clearly now the armor he wore, black as night and fit to his form perfectly. His great broadsword was on his back, his hair falling back around its hilt and handle like fire. He had known his eyes were dark, but not as black as what he was seeing now, the red flicker inside them reminding Aryu with absolute certainty that this was no ordinary man.
“I must ask, Aryu, before I get t’ tha point of tha matter. What’s the story with the wings?” Nixon didn’t look all that curious, as if he already knew, but he’d rather hear it from the man himself.
It occurred to Aryu that in all the previous night’s conversations, the topic of his wings was never mentioned. Nixon had done most of the talking, but it seemed odd that the subject wasn't mentioned even in passing.
Not a fan of the topic at the best of times, Aryu hoped to keep the talk short and to the point. “I was born with them, a mutation I've been cursed with.” Quick, easy, and a clear statement of his disdain for these things.
As expected, Nixon persisted. “Cursed? An odd feeling toward such a useful gift.”
“Ha, useful? Do you have any idea how people here react to them? Fear and name-calling to start with, from children and adults. The only reason my parents came to that village was that the name-calling was the worst of it. Where I was born I was supposed to be put to death as a demon or something. That, and when I finished my quest, I was going to be recognized as a man and treated like one. Guess that won't be happening now, will it.”
Aryu began to get fired up, reminded of his lost home and family coupled with the respect he would now never receive. Nixon didn't seem ready to let it go.
“Really? Just a random mutation? I don't deny the shortsighted foolishness of people on average, but I'd hardly call wings a mutational anomaly. Can ya use ’em? Can ya fly?”
“Yes.” Still trying to be short, but still failing to get Nix off the topic. “Well, glide anyway.”
“If you hate them, why keep them? Surely you could find a way.” More antagonizing than a question.
“No one would touch me. No one had ever seen them before, so no one knew the effect it would have on me. I'd rather live with them than die needlessly. I hate them, but not enough to risk that.” Saying that out loud gave instant rise to doubt about his proposed hatred. Both he and Nixon noticed it.
“Well now, there is some common sense in there. Tell me then, where do ya come from tha’ you'd be burned at the stake for yer appearance?” It still felt like further pushing, to see what Aryu would say.
“Burned at what?”
“Sorry, I guess tha's not a common act anymore. Killed. Killed for yer 'random mutation.'“
“I don’t really know. East. Over the ocean.”
Nixon’s eyebrow rose. “And you've never been back?”
“No. I’ve barely left Tan Torna Qu-ay all of my life. I did have intentions of going soon, though. I wanted to see where I was from, see the people who would cast my parents out and see me dead thanks to an act of chance.”
“Well sir, tha’ is a chance ya may well get, as I hope our time together is brief after I find Crystal. She lives in what has been called many things, but when I left it was called Napponia.” Aryu smirked. It was still called that, the land of the Embracers. “It seems everywhere changes, even my home, given enough time.”
Nixon seemed unaware of the door he'd opened. Aryu saw the chance and grabbed it. “And where are you from? A place that sees gods give rise to large men of power?”
“No gods. There is none but one. That's a point I'd like t’ be very clear.” Aryu nodded in relent. “When I was given life, it was in a place then known as Scotland, but o’er time it changed and became many other things. Should word of it e'er 'ave reached this far, I believe you'd call it Lion’s Den.”
Aryu looked amused. “Lion's Den? Wow, that is quite a journey, isn't it?”
He knew of the place, more from myth and story than fact. It was supposed to be a great distance away, farther than any man Aryu had ever met had traveled. The name instantly conjured up images of a barren and rugged landscape, devoid of life and bristling with unseen dangers. It was a common location for the bad guy in a child’s story to come from. Although he knew they were just stories, Aryu had never heard of anything good coming from Lion's Den. “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. A person like you could hardly have come from anywhere else.”
He explained his history with the name and what he knew. Nixon seemed to glower at every word, but Aryu pressed on, happy to return the favor of uncomfortable conversation topics.
“Aye, ya speak true. Tha’ is how it is now, perhaps even worse than ya say. It wasn't always like tha’. Once it was lush and green, full of rollin’ grass hills and the liveliest people ya'd e'er be likely t’ meet. Good, 'ard workin’ people.”
Aryu questioned the thought of pressing more, but Nixon carried on for him. “Lost, it
