Nameless

The girl was startled to see the person standing on the tree branch as if it was perfectly fine to do so. Before she could ask any question, the person jumped from the branch and landed in front of her. She was surprised a bit by the actions of this individual and tried to step back a bit. Before she could do so, warm hands caught hold of her and the person said to her : " Don't be afraid. I do not mean to hurt you. But I hope, you will come with me, instead of freezing up on account of being surprised". She could not say anything, no words came out of her mouth. But she nodded her head. She came to understand that the owner of the voice is a boy, perhaps not too much older than her . The boy let go of her hand and started walking up front. And she started following him taking his lead.

While following him, she started to look at the boy to understand his motivations behind his actions. He was covered in black clothing from head to feet ; his face was covered in a mask and his head was covered with a blue scarf. After they have travelled for quite sometime, she asked him : " Can I rest for a bit ? I am feeling extremely tired."

The boy stopped. His grey eyes looked at her, apprised her and then he told her : " This is a place as good as any. There is a rivulet a few paces from here. We need to cross that and walk a while to arrive at the nearest town. "

The girl sat down on the ground under the shade of a tree, rummaged through her bag and brought out a bottle out of it. The bottle was made of strange green material and contained water. She gulped down quite a bit of water and then tried to hand over the bottle to the boy. But he denied and said : " Keep it, I am not thirsty and you will need it till we reach the rivulet."

The girl : Thank you for saving me out there. I have no doubt that I would have been in tremendous pain or worse would have been dead, had you not saved me.

The boy : I thought about it quite hard before knocking that lady out with a sleep inducing drug . Frankly, I did not want to save you.

The girl : Then, why did you?

The boy : You had given up on yourself. You were ready to be tortured or slain. If there is one thing I don't like, they are people who give up without trying until their last breath. However, I also acknowledge that you had been trying to get away from your pursuer for a long time. That is not the action of someone who was ready to give up on her life. That piece of information prompted me to action.

The girl was very surprised, she did not that there was an individual who was following her without her knowledge. She asked : "If you knew my plight, why did you not help me before?"

The boy : Wrong. I did not know about your plight. I still don't know who is in the right and who is in the wrong between you and that lady, Henna. Why do you think, I drugged her and not outright killed her ?

The girl : Then does not saving me is just you bending your moral compass without knowing anything?

The boy : It is, to an extent. However, I have a feeling that you will not betray my trust in you being in the right in this squabble in the near future.

The girl : I have no idea as to what I should reply to that statement that you had just made. Anyways, my name is Kut..

The boy : STOP. I did not ask to know your name. You should not give away your name wily nilly to people. Names have power and the right person who can use that power can abuse that.

The girl : It's my pet name, not my real name. Do you think I will give my real name to you? No offence, you had saved me and I am thankful for that. But, I know nothing about you. And what are you talking about names having power? I have never heard such strange things about a name.

The girl was feeling very irritated since the boy stopped her from giving her name . Looking at her, the boy realised that she was feeling annoyed. So he moved closer to her, sat on the ground and said : " Well it's okay if it's a pet name. Now then, tell me what your name is". The girl looked at his grey eyes and said : " My pet name is Kutti". The boy looked at her incredulously, laughed out aloud and said : " Really... Kutti....Kutti means small. Well, it does make sense. You are small."

Kutti : Don't laugh at my name. I will not be small for ever. Besides my parents gave me that name as they love me and the way I am.

The boy : I am sorry. It was thoughtless of me to laugh at your given name.

Kutti : You are forgiven. By the way, what is your name ?

The boy : I have no pet name given to me by my parents endearingly. And as you said, we barely know each other for me to give you my real name. Hence you can call me : Nameless.

Kutti : Nameless ? That's not a name. If you did not want to give me your name, you could have told so.

The boy's grey eyes shone with a blue hue when he replied : " Yet, I have not lied to you. I am known by Nameless in a few places. And since I cannot give you my real name, this is the best I can do."

Kutti : Well that will do. My lucky stars had definitely shone on me that I got to meet you. Because without you, I may well have been a corpse till now.

Nameless : That's all right. I think we should get a move on before it gets darker. And the drug that I have inoculated Henna with, will wear out in the next 7 hours. Before that happens, we should be far away from here.