Part 4

Well, I got cracking on part four today, and I'm already working on part five! Ain't ya proud? I'm going to go ahead and warn you, I'm only posting through part five, because I don't want my whole baby on here; it makes me feel icky. And besides, I want to try and get it published once it's finished, and I can't do it if this whole thing is right here. So, we shall call what is here "Sample Chapters." Yeah. And since I write short chapters, you get five. Bedumdiggity. Anywho, my next two posts will be a character profile and a GLOSSARY! YAY! YOU CAN FINALLY FIND OUT WHAT A DEVAKI IS! :D Okay, well, here's part four!

Kami ran his foot over the circle he had drawn in the dirt around the area where the tent had been moments before.

Miranda looked at him curiously and pointed, “What’s that for?”

Kami glanced up, then went back to what he was doing. “That is…Well, was, now, actually, a protective ring.”

“Oh…” Miranda said, seemingly comprehending, from her seat in the grass. “What’s that?”

Kami smiled and, finished with the circle, sat down next to Miranda. “Basically, it’s just a ring that doesn’t let anybody in, without me inviting him. Or her.” He nudged Miranda gently.

She grinned and asked, “Do you draw it with your finger, or a stick, or what?”

“No. I draw it with this knife,” he said proudly. He flicked his seemingly empty sleeve with his middle finger, causing a blade to fall out. “It’s been passed down in my family since Krishna’s first Darshan came into existence. Here, you can look at it if you like.” He passed it to her.

She took it, captivated.

The blade itself was made of solid, untarnished silver. It was sharp only on one side, and the hilt was cold, black, glossy, interrupted only by three gemstones, running down the hilt in a vertical line.

“Those are pretty,” Miranda said, caressing one of them. It was brilliantly red, unblemished, and felt warm under her touch.

Kami leaned over her shoulder, “They represent the elements over which Krishna has control. That one’s fire…” He pointed to the red one, “and that one’s earth.” He indicated a murky, green gem with brown specks through it.

“What about that one?” Miranda leaned her head on his shoulder, looking pointedly at a dark, nearly black stone. She squinted her eyes together to focus on it; instead of black, it was a deep, bottomless purple.

“That one represents darkness, since it has control over those other two elements,” Kami stated plainly.

“So…since you have that knife…You’re Krishna’s servant? His Darshan?” Miranda asked sluggishly.

“You catch on quick,” Kami said, then stood, stretching his arms up and over his head and staring out over the emerald green field.

Miranda frowned and pulled out an almost identical blade from a small sheath at her hip that her adoptive father had given her a few years back. Everything about it was the same as Kami’s: the length of the blade, the positions of the gems. The only differences were the colors of the hilts, and the types of jewels.

Kami turned around, and glanced down at the knife in Miranda’s hands. “What’ve you got there?” He stooped down on the ground and, after taking his own knife from her lap, took her own from her hands.

The hilt, in contrast to Kami’s, was a gleaming, pearly white. And the gems, instead of green, red, and purple, were a shimmering diamond that threw specks of light out, a sunny, yellow stone, and a fathomless aquamarine.

Kami’s eyes grew large. “Krishna? Krishna!” he called, running towards the brook that bubbled on the edge of the field, about a quarter of a mile east of where the tent had been, in a little break in the forest’s clutches.

“Krishna!” he repeated. He stumbled, but regained his balance before he could fall.

Miranda stared curiously after him, wondering if she was the only one that was hearing voices.

“KRISHNA!” Kami shouted.

A blonde head poked up, the sunlight glinting off of the hairs, throwing bits of red through it.

Kami, now that he was at the brook, stopped abruptly and tried to hand the dagger over to Krishna. “Look at that.”

Krishna warily looked Kami up and down and crossed his arms across his chest. “Were you just running with a blade? That’s not very smart. What if you fell? You could have stabbed yours--”

Kami sharply shook his head, “Please just look at it. It’s really important.”

Krishna sighed. “Give me a minute.” He wiped the water off of his face with his forearm from where he had been washing up, and then said, “Alright. Let me see it.”

Kami handed it over; Krishna looked it over intently.

“Huh…That’s interesting…Where did you find this?”

“I didn’t; it’s Miranda’s.”

Krishna nodded and turned the blade over. “That’s very interesting…”

“You know what it means, don’t you?” Kami asked, a wild look coming into his eye.

“The entire balance of the universe is being thrown off because Miranda is Dhaval’s
Darshan, and Dhaval is inside of her, making her a Devaki as well. The well-being of half the world is in the hands of a clueless teenager that has more power than any mere mortal has any right to have, and she has no idea. Yes, I’m quite aware of what it means.” He yawned, bored, and handed the blade back to Kami.

“This is a big deal,” said Kami.

Krishna stood, the sunlight gleaming against his long, lean muscles. “I know that, moron. I was one of the ones that came up with the whole thing. But sitting around, going on about what a big deal it is isn’t going to help matters.” He began to walk off. “We need to get moving.”

Kami followed him, handing over a black shirt he’d just pulled out of his own sleeve. “What about the girl?” he asked.

Krishna took the shirt and pulled it over his head, “She’s coming with us. It seems we have no other choice. Is everything packed?”

Kami patted his jacket. “Yep.”

“Alright. Well, go get Miranda. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before nightfall if we want to sleep somewhere out of the Agrata’s reach. Don’t we?”

Kami nodded.

“Let’s go, then.”

Again, Kami nodded, and they both set off in Miranda’s direction, where she sat, confused as to the little bit that she knew of what was going on, and completely oblivious to the rest. And that was the way that Kami and Krishna intended to keep it. She didn’t seem to have the mental capacity to find out that she was a goddess at the drop of a hat.

Who does?