"Stop looking at me like that! I'm fine!" He said, his hand creeping back up his neck to wipe the excess of blood coming from his head. Marcus was getting annoyed at people keeping asking him the same things. But he soon realised, what else would they think when he was walking around with a bloody cloth on his head?

They walked along the corridor, with a stomp to their feet, not caring about if anyone heard them. It didn't matter. They noticed the same oddly coloured oak planks covered the edges of each of the walls and running down the corners. The three of them passed all the doors, lanterns, and windows in their paths. They came to a corner. A familiar corner. This was where he hit his head. You could tell, you could see a bit of dried blood on the wooden skirting boards. Nia looked over at him. She couldn't help but laugh, and neither could he.

They started giggling behind Nathaniel, but he couldn't hear. He wasn't focused on that, he was focused on making sure that his sister would love the surprise he had in store for her. It was getting closer and closer to him having to tell her and now, he was honestly having mixed thoughts about it.

What if she would worry? What if she would want to go with him? No she can't, it's too dangerous. What's going to happen? I can't just shut her down, she wouldn't take it well.

"Nathan?"

He turned around. Nia was talking to him, she had this odd, puzzled look on her face, one that he hadn't seen before. It was definitely new.

"Yes?"

"What's up? You just stopped right in front of the door." She chuckled, but she didn't really mean it. She didn't want him to know that she actually cared about him, even if he was her brother. He knew it anyway of course, but she didn't want to sound too serious.

"Oh, uh yeah... I guess I have," He laughed back, he didn't know what to say. "Should we go inside?"

They nodded. This door was even bigger than the kitchen one. It was too heavy for them to open, so they had to use an assisted opening button. The kind of ones you see outside of shops without automatic doors. The doors swung open. You could tell Marcus was fascinated by it.

The room itself was large. Larger than any other room. The same stone walls surrounded them, with the same lanterns every so often placed around the room. They weren't normally lit, but this time they were. It must have been a special occasion. There was one long table in the middle of the room, probably capable of seating around 20 people. Towards the middle of the table there was a sort of chandelier. But also not. It was the shape of a chandelier, but it was a metal frame. Wrapped around it were the most vibrant flowers they had ever seen. They looked like they smelt amazing, but they were too high up for them to feel their effects. Off toward the north-west corner of the room, were 3 people. One of them made an audible gasp.

"He did not!"

Another chuckled, they must have been talking about someone before they waked into the room.

"I don't want to believe it myself but yes he did!" the person said. One of them turned around, looking at the three of them stood in the doorway. He scoffed.

"Is that her? With the way he was talking I thought she would be a bit more above average." He laughed as he whispered but no one laughed back.

"Lucas! You can't just say stuff like that." A girl said.

"Why not?" Lucas said back.

"It's rude," the girl said. "Now come on. I'm not having you be any ruder." The girl then grabbed his wrist and began yanking him up.

"Jeez you sound like my mother Nevaeh." She stopped trying to pull him up and he scrambled to his feet; before he was sat upon the hearth of the fireplace in the corner.

"Good. Now come on before I act like Mary too."

The 3 people walked towards Nathaniel, Alania, and Marcus. There were Lucas, the other boy, and Nevaeh. Nevaeh seemed like a nice girl. She was over the top but gave the impression that she was only when she needed to be. Her eyes were almost as dark as Marcus', but they were ever so slightly lighter. All of her features were dark. Dark hair, dark eyes. Her skin was actually rather fair to take into consideration the rest of her features. Her eyes were big, almost like a puppy's, but her lips were also larger.

Lucas was tall, very tall. Probably around 6 foot 4 judging from eye. He had all round incredibly light features. He had shorter blonde hair, which was very curly. It looked like it had been permed. His eyes were a mix of blue and green. Somewhere between the two colours. He had the stubble of a beard forming on his chin. But his skin was as clear as a bell. A complete opposite to the other boys'. 

His skin looked quite acne prone, but only towards the corners of his face. His hair was a dark blonde colour, nearly brown. It was still quite short, but longer than Lucas'. His eyes were a very light brown. With a grey tint to them. He was quite small, still taller than Nevaeh, but his lips were quite big in proportion to the rest of his body.

She came up towards the three of them, in particular, towards Alania. She ran up to her and hugged her, then putting her hands upon her shoulders. "You must be Alania! I have been told so much about you!... I'm Nevaeh. You can call me Neve," She turned towards Lucas, "Do you need me to hold your hand through this too or can you introduce yourself?" The other boy behind them laughed.

"Marlowe. Lucas, that is. As bad ass of a first name Marlowe would be it isn't mine." he said. He seemed rather cocky.

"Uhh.. " The other boy said. "My name's Elliott Wickham. Nice to meet you Alania." he smiled at her, revealing his perfectly aligned teeth. She smiled back.

Neve turned back to Nia. She held her hand out for her to shake. She felt overly reluctant to shake her hand, but she eventually grabbed hold of it. She didn't want to seem rude in front of guests. She turned around to see her brother and Marcus virtually dying behind her. They were nearly on the floor laughing that hard.

"Was that over the top enough?" Neve said, in a voice that sounded almost depressing compared to her first impression.

"I am so sorry Ally I just-" Nathaniel had to stop talking. He was laughing so hard he had to stop to take a breath for a minute. He looked back over at Marcus, and then back at Nia. "Phew. Anyway, I said how you hadn't come out of your room in a while and Neve asked if she could... go over the top a bit and almost 'scare' you out but... I think with that she may have scared you back in."

"Yeah... I think she may have as well. Good going Neve. Oh, and you can call me Nia, I prefer it."

Nathaniel looked around.

"So, should we sit down? I'll go get the food."

~

Believe it or not, Nia was actually having a good time. The food was a lot better than she had thought, but to be honest it wasn't really Nathaniel's cooking so anything it better than that. They were all laughing and joking, having a genuinely good time.

"I'll tell you now this food is making me tired!" Marcus said as he yawned his way out of saying any more.

"Marcus that isn't the food, it's the fact you read the invite wrong." Everyone else laughed but Nia was confused. She didn't know what he meant, Marcus saw this look on her face.

"I read it wrong you see... it said 6PM, I read 6AM. I was wondering why you asked me to get here so early in the morning Nathan. I've been to a lot of jobs but none that early in the morning."

"Jobs?" Nia said.

"Right... Umm... God.. I don't know how else to put this and it will sound very insensitive if I say it as I think..."

"We're going to kill the Erans." Lucas blurted out.

"What?..."

"LUCAS! Oh my god I'm so sorry. Please Nathan, carry on." Neve shouted across the room. She then whispered, 'What the hell?!", to which Lucas replied, 'What? You told me to try and help others, so I helped him!"

"No it's OK... there's not many other ways to put it. I asked Marcus, Elliott, Neve, and Lucas to come here, because I hired them. They're some of the best fighters we have that aren't senior soldiers. We need the seniors here to protect us, so that Erans don't destroy us. We need us, so that we can kick them out. We're going to do it to avenge Nicholas, it's for him. Ok?"

"But why? Why wouldn't you tell me about this? I'm sorry but this is something I need to know about! Why can't I come? I'm coming with you. I don't care what you say I am."

Nathaniel turned to Marcus and whispered 'I told you.'

"Nia... I'm sorry you can't. It's just too dangerous. I-"

"No! No it's not. Don't lie! You've seen me before. I'm a damn good fighter and you know it! Why won't you let me?..."

"Look. Us 5 have been honing our Terraria for years. You haven't even gotten yours yet. You would be going against people over twice your age, most likely even more, with nothing you can use against them. You see my point?"

"No. No I fucking don't. Thank you for dinner Marcus. It was lovely. I'm going upstairs." She tucked her chair beneath the table and walked off.

~

She lay on her bed again. She thought she had gotten out of her slump, but she had slumped straight back into it. She wasn't even looking up at the roof this time. She lay on her bed, face buried into her pillows. She wasn't thinking of anything in particular. She just lay there. Doing nothing.

"Hello? Can I come in?" Someone said behind the door.

"No. Go away." Nia said this as if she was acting like a stroppy teenager, she just wanted to be alone. She didn't want to talk to him.

"Please Nia? It's only me. It's Neve."

"Fine. Come in."

Her brown eyes peered round the door, followed by her long hair and then the rest of her body. She sat down on the bed next to Nia. Deforming the mattress, just like Nathaniel.

"He's right you know. If you haven't got your Terraria yet, it would be quite dangerous. How old are you?"

"17," Nia said bluntly. "I'm 18 in a few weeks." She was willing to talk to Neve, but she still didn't want to. She was a stranger.

"You're quite late then. I've been practicing for nearly 6 years now. I'm not bad with a sword either. I've heard you're quite good at that. Do you want to spar with me?" She asked. You could tell by the tone of her voice she just wanted to get Nia up.

"Not really."

"Well tough. You're coming. Come on. Get up." Neve grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her to her feet.

The two of them walked to the door, and downstairs to get to their garden. It was still light outside, but the solar lights were starting to turn on. They both knew they couldn't do it for long. The garden was overgrown, but almost picturesque at the same time. They found the part of the garden that was the shortest, and they sparred for around 20 minutes before breaking. Neve was panting. She was out of breath.

"Damn... I knew you were good but... Damn." Neve said.

"Thanks... Can I talk to you? About earlier." Nia said.

"Yeah sure. You might not really know me, but you can talk to me about anything. Ok?"

"Yes... I know he only means well, but he wasn't as close as I was. I don't mean to say they weren't, I would just appreciate if I could be the one to help with it, if you know what I mean. I want to be the one to grab the man by the throat, and slice it."

"Ok... we're certainly not going for that I can tell you that now. But he's only looking out for you. That's all. He's already lost his brother, if he lost you too, it would break him. You need to try and see things from his perspective. Ok? Are you ready to go back inside? I think you both need to apologize to each other. He's waiting for you, you know. He feels bad. And plus it's starting to get dark we can't spar for much longer."

She wasn't lying, it was getting darker by the minute. The moon was rising and the sun had nearly set. She agreed and they went inside. Neve opened the door, barely holding it open for her. Nia passed her, and then waited for her to catch up. They walked along the corridor together, going to walk upstairs. He was lay on the stairs, he was waiting for them. Waiting for her.

"Look, Nathaniel... I'm sorry about earlier I-"

She was interrupted by Nathaniel standing up off the steps and running forwards to hug her. He wrapped his arms around her in a tight circle, like a rubber band surrounding her. She couldn't see his face, just his hair. And his arms wrapped around her like chains. He didn't do anything, he just held her. She felt safe. He lifted his head up to her ear,

'I'm sorry... I can't lose you too. I- I just can't...' his voice broke as he whispered these words to her.

She couldn't stay serious any more, a tear rolled down her cheek, and she wrapped her hands back around his.