Who Needs Superheroes When We Have Moms?

Brooklyn and the girl waited for 9 o clock to roll by before they stepped out of their house and made their way into the Palace. At 9, the general grounds were mostly empty and everyone was in their offices working. The only people outside were the maids and the stable people.

They took the same alley Brooklyn took three years ago, on the day of the lightning strike. It wound down deep into the palace and finally reached a dead end. Only small golden lights illuminating the ceiling.

The girl looked around, "This is a dead end, where is the Lost Library?"

Brooklyn smiled and bent down to roll up the carpet, revealing an almost inconspicuous trapdoor.

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, crouching down too, the frills of her dress touching the floor. It was actually Brooklyn's and she had lent one of her dresses to the girl. "But why is it hidden?"

Brooklyn tried opening the latch. "Not many people know about it. I came to find out only when I followed the Prince here one day many years ago. Even he doesn't come here often."

The door flew open and they slipped inside, the door locking into place automatically. The girl followed her, awed by the library's enchanting beauty. "I have looked through all the books here. They are all about the Palace's ancient secrets. About the Forbidden Room, The Wheel, The Mars Transformation into a Star, Dragons, Rule-"

"Did you just say Dragons?"

Brooklyn turned around, her fingers stopped skimming the shelves, "Yes, they are real. I know you might not believe this but-"

"No," she nodded, "I believe," and she placed a hand on her chest, "I have the Dragon Stone inside me. That means I'm the Dragon's Chosen One. You might just think that I came here to find a piece of paper but actually...I came to find the Dragon himself."

Brooklyn shook her head and slipped a large book out of its position. Dust suspended around them as she tapped it on the table and opened the ancient looking book. She pointed at a chapter, "But look here, the Dragons only exist in spirit form now. You can't meet them unless they are re-incarnated as a human form."

The girl smiled knowingly and studied the book with the curiosity of a 3-year-old. Her eyes brightened when she found the page she wanted, "Brooklyn, read this."

Brooklyn furrowed her eyebrows as the girls exchanged the heavy book carefully into the other's arms. "The Dragon Stone is connected to the Dragon through the fourth dimension. They have between them an attraction power no magic can counter.

"If however, a planet is in peril, the sacred spirit of a Dragon will be reincarnated in a human of that planet and it is the duty of the bearer of the Dragon Stone to be by the reincarnated Dragon's side, guide him, be his friend, mentor and protect the Dragon with their own life. This is the duty of the Dragon Stone bearer and if broken, will result in the vanishing of their," Brooklyn read the next words with surprise,"Life Thread?"

The girl nodded, "I read it in the scrolls left on Mars too. If my Life Thread gets cut that means I get no after life either. All my past lives will be erased and it will be like I never existed. That's why I need to find the Dragon. If he...or she, somehow is in danger..."

"You're in the risk of dying too," Brooklyn completed for her, completely astounded. The harsh ways of the world. "Are you sure the Dragon of your Stone is here on Earth?"

She nodded again, "The scrolls in Mars said so. The other half is supposed to tell me more but a few of my people who saw Destruction coming tried to transfer all the scrolls from there to here, the nearest planet. In that way, a few are left there and most here, in the Lost Library."

Brooklyn had returned the book to the shelf and led the girl to the Prophecies section. The only section where the writings were recorded in scrolls.

"Prophecy No. 3426," the girl said and Brooklyn moved over the Shelf 42 of the Library, where it was neatly written in black ink, PRCY: 3426.

Brooklyn rubbed her fingers together and formed light at its tips so they could read. The girl did the same thing and the area around them became bright and it illuminated the words clearer than crystal.

Brooklyn read out the words slowly and the girl listened.

"Half the words are messy with running ink or burnt," Brooklyn said disappointingly. She had just met this sweet girl and couldn't rest now knowing that she could die at anytime. "I'm not like Isaiah," she thought to herself, "Who keeps myself before the lives of others."

That was the first time she thought about Isaiah that day and a wave of guilt washed over her suddenly. What did he think of all this? Where was he? The Zyka spies had informed them last month that the Battle with Wintra would start next week, was Isaiah going to fight? All the thoughts she hadn't thought about her friend the past night came rushing back.

"Brooklyn? Brooklyn."

"Huh?" Brooklyn looked up, snapped out of her trance, "Did you get any clues on who the Dragon might be reborn as?"

The girl looked at the scroll sadly, "No. It just says 'beast' then 'celestial will crash' which I'm guessing is the Dragon in human form. So he or she is in Zyka, that fact is confirmed."

Brooklyn wished she knew each and every face and background history in Zyka, then it would be so easy to find the Dragon. Thinking of background checks...she had Kayden's and Sam's background checks to complete. "What else does it say?"

The girl shrugged, "That Zyka is a doomed land and other things I don't understand. A forgotten princess? An infant..." she squinted at the missing words trying to make sense of what was there, "singing a song, probably? It's all so confusing."

Brooklyn smirked, "But one thing is right. Zyka is a doomed land. The Raken killing people without the Crown doing nothing about it. We might face the same fate as Mars."

The girl bit her cheeks, "No." She narrowed her eyes, trying not remember her dear planet, "I will not let that happen again."

Brooklyn smiled and held her hand, "I hope so too. We'll find the Dragon, don't worry. The Dragon will help us too. Unlike some of my friends," Brooklyn added, thinking of how stupid Isaiah was. She didn't care if she didn't get the book or not from him. She had something bigger to find.

"The Dragon might just have the answers to all our questions...." Brooklyn said and realized that the girl didn't have a name. Before she could ask anything about that, they heard a clatter and both their heads whipped side wise and Brooklyn stuffed the scroll into her coat pocket.

She stepped in front of the girl and scanned the room,"Who's there?"

................

Once they walked past the gate that opened into the wide stables with hundreds of horses, they were separated.

A big lean man with corduroy jeans and a faded pink flannel shirt lead them onto the stables without asking their names. He had long hair just like Kayden except the man's was a bright sand blonde and Kayden's a rich chocolate brown.

Sam played between the colors of their hairs in his empty head and pulled a stand of his own hair and almost gagged. "Bleh...plain brown. Almost black," he thought to himself and tossed the strand away. Why did everyone have better hair than me? Sam thought sadly as, without his knowledge, the strand of hair floated with the wind and landed on the nostril of another stable boy.

He paused. And sneezed.

"So boys," the big lean man told Sam and Kayden pointing in two directions, "You, slant eyes, assist Richard over there with cleaning the horses and you, shortie, can go over to the barn and ask someone to show the ropes of preparing horse food. You'll switch places next week." And the lean man walked away humming a weird tune, his thin flannel shirt flapping in the strong wind and exposing his back for a second.

Sam caught the tattoo on the man's back and giggled. "What is it?" Kayden sighed, disappointed that they'll be separated now too.

"Guess what his tattoo says." Sam said, still looking in the direction of the authoritative man.

"What?"

Sam looked at Kayden, trying not to laugh, "My mom is my hero."

They both cracked up laughing on the spot and the man looked around at the two, "Hey you two! Get to work!"

"Yessir!" the two chanted and parted ways, hints of laughter left on their lips.

Kayden met Richard -- his name wasn't Richard after all, it was Harry -- and it was when he was cleaning the third battle horse for the day that he heard the chatter of workers from the adjacent stall.

"You didn't go?" a voice said, it was a man's voice, but slightly high-pitched.

"No, my mom wanted me to buy her medicines yesterday night. What actually started the protest?" another more boyish voice said. Kayden guessed it might be from a 19 or 20 year old man.

"The Raken killings. There were ten killed the night before yesterday and the government tried to conceal it. Then later in the evening some anonymous dude posted the hidden report on Starpage and I saw people walking outside my house with fire and all. The wife started rambling on about how bad the Crown is and I couldn't stand it anymore."

The young man snickered, "The Crown or your wife's banter?"

The older man clicked his tongue, "BOTH! So I just grabbed a stick from the fireplace and joined them myself."

Kayden stopped rubbing the horse's skin by now and his ears were attached to the stall wall now. The Prince has done it again, Kayden thought, irresponsible jerk. Even I could do a better job than him.

The older man continued, "We stayed there until 1:00 at midnight but the Prince never came out."

"What did you do then?"

"What could we do? There weren't enough people to start a revolution so we went back to our homes. We have families and that's more important to us than some political mess. It's just us now, mate. Nobody has our backs, just us and ourselves. If we are killed by the Raken one day," the man lowered his voice like a true warning, "remember this, kid, nobody cares."

A shiver went through Kayden's spine. Not because of the prospect of being killed but over the amount of truth in the man's words.

An idea popped up inside his brain. It wouldn't have been possible before, but now that he was inside Palace premises...it was possible.

Afternoon rolled around and by the time it was lunch break, Kayden's and Sam's faces had lost their color and their hands were red and sore.

They sat together under a stable roof because the cafeteria was full of the big shots and that included people like the back tattoo guy.

"I wonder how Abba's doing," Sam said, taking a bite out of his skeleton of a sandwich. Kayden's eyes didn't meet Sam's. "What about him?"

Sam shrugged. "He is my father after all."

"A person who abandons his own son is not a father," Kayden replied, switching to his protective side. But Sam just didn't get it. He had thought about it for two nights in his room in the Quarters. At the end, Sam realized, what his father was doing was only normal. Finding a lady for himself, isn't that the normal process of everyday human life?

"What do you know about having a mother or father?" Sam snapped. He regretted it an hour or two later but right now, he was just confused and angry.

Kayden threw his crumpled sandwich cover into Sam's lap and stood up, "You're right. I don't know anything. Sorry to be such a bother."

And he walked away in heavy steps. He had decided to talk to Sam about his plan but now it just didn't feel right. How dare he pick on the fact that Kayden was an orphan? Kayden had felt strong his entire life. Good looking, smart and commanding over the animals in the circus. But when someone poked on his past, especially when it was someone like Sam, Kayden felt like he degraded from the state of a Sun-God to just a little ant in the middle of the desert.

The man he called 'Dad' was just a fisherman who found Kayden floating on the sea when he was just a little baby. But his entire life he wondered...who were his real parents? When he was smaller he used to fantasize about them being the King and Queen of another country and he was secretly a Prince.

Or he had washed over to land from an underwater realm where his mermaid parents lived. As he grew older, he thought that maybe he was the son of a great model because of his great looks.

But now, looking around him he realized his parents were probably just one of those citizens out there, struggling to find their way around. Walks around scared of being killed and subjected to the injustices of the country or probably...

just dead already.

But if they were still alive, Kayden thought, I don't want them to die so I can meet them someday and, he wished, get to know them maybe? And that was exactly why he had decided not to sleep that night.

Instead, he would assassinate the Prince of Zyka.