The Last Dragon And Guardian

She was out of options. Looking down at the floor, Kidaya finds nothing but broken bottles all around her. Bending down, she picks up one of the broken pieces.

Ralph was about to go over and check on her and why she was taking so long when he saw her emerge from behind the building. He froze when he saw the girl. In front of him stood a bald girl with Kidaya's eyes. "Kidaya!" He called just to be sure she really was the one.

She buried her face down, too ashamed to say anything. Did she look that terrible? Out of options, she had used the broken piece of the bottle to scrape off all her hair from her head. She didn't know what to do with the dye Commander Ben had bought. He and Ralph seemed to have known what to do with it with her hair, but she didn't, so she had done the next thing that had come to her mind as a solution for her hair. She had scraped the hairs off.

Kidaya was still looking down when Ralph walked over and held her on both shoulders. She looks up at him and he smiles at her. "You are still pretty Kidaya. You are beautiful, always have, always will be. Okay?"

Smiling, she nodded.

"Let's go," Ralph says grabbing her hand and taking another route with her. They had to find another way to the ship. They had just taken three steps when a hard surface hit both of them behind their head and they both fell down and blacked out.

"Take them to the warehouse. We need three more kids before the ship departs. Have these two added to the group on the left." A bulky man says to his minions, heading off in another direction holding a baton to his shoulder.

Ralph and Kidaya were both carried and taken to a warehouse containing other kids, about a hundred of them.

"Isn't that the boy we saw earlier? The one with his sister?" The little girl they had met earlier said to her brother.

After taking a look. "He is the one. But where is his sister?" The boy asked.

The little girl points him to Kidaya who was lying next to Ralph also unconscious.

"She shaved her hair!" The boy exclaims staring at Kidaya in shock. "She was prettier with her hair. Why do you think they shaved it off?"

Shrugging. "Maybe to avoid the taskmasters, or they may be running from their owner."

"If that is the case, then let us avoid them. They are more trouble than we know. Except of course he still has his purse of coins." The boy says, about to get up, but his sister stops him. He looks up at his sister. "What?"

"Are you about to steal from whom right now, look more less privileged than us?"

"I'll just borrow the coins until we arrive at the other side. I'll return it once we find -"

"Forget it." The little girl says. "Besides, I saw the taskmaster take their bag from him. A doubt they have a penny left." She says looking away from their direction. "Try not to sleep. Once we are onboard the ship, I'll find a way for us to escape from here."

Ralph woke up with a jerk, and the first thing he did was touch the back of his head. It stung there as though he had been hit. And that was when he recalled what had happened. Someone had hit him from behind. "Kidaya!" He called out going into a sitting position and looking around frantically for the girl. Then he saw her. She was beside him, still unconscious. Ralph lets out a sigh of relief before looking around again. That was when he noticed that they were in a place filled with children, some tied up.

That means the Faceless men had not caught them, someone else had. Some children were crying which means whoever had caught them wasn't a good person. Ralph begins to search for their bags.

"You won't find it." The little girl from before says from where she sat chewing on a stick. "The taskmasters took it."

"Where is this?" Ralph asked the girl.

"A warehouse where the taskmasters hide all the children they abduct until he can smuggle them into a departing ship and sell them off as slaves when they arrive at the other side of the ocean." She said to him. "How did they abduct you?" She asks him.

"I don't know. I was hit on the head and I fell unconscious. I am just waking up." He looks at the girl. "How were you abducted?" He asks her.

Smiling. "I wasn't. We sneaked in here, I and my brother." She said.

Ralph looks at the girl as though she is insane.

She laughs. "We need to get on the ship and we don't have the ticket. The only way we can get on the ship without a pass is this way." She explains.

"Stop talking to strangers, Miya." Her brother says turning in his sleeping position, eyes still closed. "These ones look like big trouble."

"So you decide to be sold as a slave so you can get on a ship?"

The little girl, Miya smiles. "Who says I'll stay around long enough to be sold as a slave?" She scoffs. "Once we get on the ship, I and my brother will escape from the taskmasters to another section of the ship and stay there until we get to the other side, then we will get off the ship."

"Is that possible ?" Ralph asked. Because if it was, he would try it. He needed to get Kidaya out of there as soon as possible before the slave masters sold them off.

"Of course it is. I have been watching and studying the Taskmasters for months now every time they come into town. We just have to wait until we are in the ship."

"I -

"Don't even dream about it." The other boy cuts in. "You are not coming with us." He said to Ralph eyes still closed.

"Ignore him," Miya says. "By the way, I am Miya. It is the name I was given by my Mama." She nods at her brother. "He is Samuel, but he likes to be called Sam."

Ralph nods. "I am Ralph." He said because he felt it was necessary if he needed the kids to help him and Kidaya escape later.

"And your sister?" The other boy, Sam asks finally opening his eyes.

Ralph frowned. "You don't need to know her name." He said.

Sam scoffs looking away and closing his eyes again.