The girl kept her shock to silent whispers of disbelief. And Luma felt, if only just a little, that some of the weight of incident had been relieved from him.
"You're lucky they didn't just execute you, you know," she said, breaking the silence. "But if what you say is true, then I'm sorry about your friend."
Luma didn't respond. Apologies wouldn't stop it from happening again.
"Were they taking part in the rising ceremony?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I was," he replied. "The bastards were cheating, and he tried to speak up," he added right after, before turning around to look her in the eyes. There lived anger, hatred, and a cold amused cynicism.
"Do you know what they did to him?" he asked.
The girl pushed against the wall, as if trying to hide away inside their wooden boards. Once she realized it was futile, she shook her head in response.
"They blew his arm off," he said blankly. "Then infront of his wife, sons, daughters, friends and family, they turned him to a bloody stain. Something to be wiped off the stands," Luma spat, his voice choking at his throat with emotion.
He chuckled as the girl covered her mouth. "And do you know what the rest of the tribe was doing as their precious head instructor was murdered?" he asked. The girl remained silent, but he was going to answer anyway.
"They let it happen, and sung of how it was the sun's will," he finished, his tone low now. "If it was your mother on those stands, would you have watched in silence?" he asked. "Or would you have trust in your tribe to stand behind you?"
No answer came.
Luma shrugged at that. "But based on the way they were acting, it probably wasn't the first time one of our own was executed in such a style," he said. "The adults seem indifferent to it. So if it ever comes down to it, keep in mind that there is no 'union' in this tribe. Atleast not in the face of those... outsiders."
Just then, they heard footsteps coming up towards the room.
The girl began panicking, searching around the room for a place to hide.
"Under the bed," Luma whispered, and the girl darted under.
The door opened slowly.
"The security rune on the front door was off, so I let myself in," a familiar voice called. The boy from earlier stood in the doorway, a mischievous smile on his face.
"Come on now, Tala. If I could hear your voice from downstairs, then your mother would've heard it from down the street," he called out, moving to look behind the door.
An angry grunt came from under the bed, and the girl rushed out. "You scared me, idiot," she shouted, cleaning herself off.
So Tala, huh? he thought to himself. It was the name of a bramble flower, he hadn't expected someone like Rela to name her daughter after something like that.
"And what do you mean, the security rune is down. That's impossibl—" Tala stopped, suddenly realizing something, she raced down stairs.
The boy just laughed, and turned to look at Luma. "Wanna go see how she messed up this time?" he asked, before gesturing for Luma to follow him downstairs.
They found her tinkering with the main power stone at the centre of the door.
"So what did you do this time?" the boy asked, standing beside Luma behind her.
"If you aren't going to help just quiet," she snapped, removing a few of the smaller power stones from the door.
The boy bent over to help her, and after a bit they had all the power stones down. "I'm guessing you were trying to get into a restricted room," he said, studying the runes on the door.
The girl remained silent, studying the runes as well.
"A few of them are fried. This wasn't your best work," he continued, before turning to look back at Luma. "So red hair, do you happen to have advanced knowledge in runic security?" he asked.
The girl scoffed at that. "He's from the inner settlement. They don't get taught anything," she said under her breath.
Luma wasn't at all offended by that. In fact he was sort of annoyed that he'd never even suspected that some of the 'dangerous' information was being taught to others as young as him.
"Well, not like fixing it is going to help anyway," the boy said. "Your mother was probably alerted, and is on her way back," he added, before standing up. "And with Mr criminal over here, I'm sure she's in quite a rush."
In a panicked rush, the girl began placing the stones back, reading the rune for a few seconds before stuffing a power stone into its socket.
"You're just going to fry more of them if you stuff them in like that," the boy warned, before moving to stand next to Luma. "I'm Grava, by the way," he said, holding out his hand. "Yes, Grava like the great warrior," he added, before looking down at his hand.
"Ahh, I forgot, restriction tunic," he whispered, retrieving his hand.
"Don't just stand there," the girl said, realizing that Grava was right. "Aren't you supposed to be a god at runic assembly," she asked, her face pale from fear.
"So now I'm a god?" he teased, before looking towards Luma. "Well, there is one way we could restore the runes," he said, now turning to look at Tala. "But you won't like it."
...
"No."
"Then we wait for your mother to come home and know you were tinkering with her security systems," Grava replied. "Either way, no harm comes to me."
Tala stared at him with frowned brows. "We can't just take him down to the lake," she said before side eyeing Luma. "He's a criminal."
"Right here, you know," Luma sighed. "And like I said, I'm not a criminal," he added.
"Yeah, he did it because he was emotional," Grava smiled. "If anything, he's the most promising member we've had in years."
Both Tala and Luma turned to look at him in shock.
"How did you know about that?"
Grava shrugged. "My father is corporal of internal security. I overheard him and my mother talking about you this afternoon," he replied. "Not many young members have the highest level restrictions tunics on them," he shrugged.
"Nevermind all that," Tala cut in. "Will this work or not?" she said, before looking at the tunic. "Without breaking anything?"
Grava sighed. "Look, the restriction runes, powerful as they are, are one of the simplest systems you could reconstruct," he explained.
"Why do you think they don't place elders, or past scholars in them? Because they know that they'd easily be disarmed," he continued. "This is for mindless brutes and, no offense Luma, children."
The group stared at each other in silence for a moment.
"Okay, we'll go with your plan. But we need to hurry," Tala said finally. "My mother is fast."