THE SCAR

“Ah, Lobo. The Fool,” she called out, not hearing his whisper but feeling the presence of her slave, “you have finally come to me.”

A guard tried to follow Lobo into the tent, hand on the hilt of his dagger, but Luna waved him away. The boy heard him walk around the tent out of precaution.

“Sit with me,” she commanded. The boy walked further in, past carpets and under hanging jewels.

Smells of incense filled his nose. Smoke clung to the top of the pointed interior.

Beside Luna were jars of spirits, along with powders of exotic colors.

But she, in a strange similarity to her slave, wore nothing but a single draped cloth.

He felt cold, but she looked immensely warm.

“Sit.” She fully sat up now. Her blue eyes followed Lobo to the ground. He found a pillow to rest on after all his transitioning to this world.

They sat in silence, staring at each other for at least a couple of minutes.

“My name is Luna,” she said, taking a cup into her hands.

“I’m the leader of my banner, and Chief of the Yurtari Clan – one of the seven Dead Tribes.” She waited for his reaction.

But Lobo did not respond.

She spoke up again, with another grin, to try and help him respond, “So, you can call me Luna.”

“Luna.” He thought to himself that the name fit her well. “I heard them call you more names, and call you Great Khan.”

“Hmph,” she replied.

“I am no Khan. I am nothing, yet, except the leader of the dead or lost.”

“But you are a Chief, in your own words. You are a leader.” Lobo was confused.

“Leader of myself. All my Clan are dead, except for me.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“I understand.”
His golden eyes tried to touch hers, so that they could comfort Luna. And yet, she looked amused.

“Do you?” Her red hair was pushed out of the way of her eyes. They pushed his away.

“Possibly.”

“Tell me a secret, Lobo.”

“A secret?”

“You said you had them. You told me you had secrets and skills. Tell me a secret,” she repeated.

“I’m not from this world, I think,” he replied, softly.
BLUE EYES DANCE ON HIM

“Not from this world?” Luna had never heard such a statement in her entire life. Not about someone or something tangible.

“Yes. I’m from another world. Maybe. Or I have traveled through time.” The last statement made her scoff. She closed her eyes.
“Maybe you could help me figure out when I am.”

She laughed now. “‘When’ you are?” She opened her eyes and looked into the bottom of her empty cup.

“If I am from this world, then–,” he tried.

“No,” and the blue eyes lept back to him, “this is nonsense. Insanity. Though it is entertaining.”

“I’m telling the truth.” GOLDEN EYES FALL TO THE FLOOR, CONFUSED

“You really are dangerous. Maybe I should kill you,” Luna said, finishing with her laugh to pour another cup.

Purple liquid came streaming out in front of a fearful Lobo, who wished himself an instant death. He thought he could handle this.

Lobo convinced himself of his own rebirth in the stream. He told himself a story of living another life. It crushed him inside to think that a nightmare was his new reality. He trembled at this monster, these moments of haunting awareness that he had been transported.

“That’s what my riders want. That’s what their wives are asking for. And their children crying about. You. You and my allowance of your lynching.”

“I don’t understand,” the boy let out.

“They think you’re an unholy thing.”

“Why?”

“You don’t really know a single thing, do you, Lobo? You must have hit your head hard.

We found you after a week of riding. Nothing but grass. Nothing but plains and streams.

Wanderers told us that a village lay where you were found. A great village with many people.

Twitching in the folds of green. That is what the scouts saw from their mounts. And of course, you passed out before they could even ask you a question.

By the time the rest of us caught up, you were barely awake. The only person in the middle of nothing. Invisible people, or none at all.

How is that? How could so many people tell us of a village, only to find one man?”
She made his heart beat out of his chest.
The scar stung to the rhythm.

The story of his finding itself was eerie and unnatural.

There was no village. There were no people to be found. In the camp of the banner flew a common rumor from every mouth; that this man found on the hill above the plains was the last survivor of a village.

And, that the village made up the hill itself. A pile of dead and long gone.

The idea of it almost prevented Lobo from speaking up again.
“I, I thought I was a boy to you.”

“You’re a man, maybe, or a boy. I cannot read you well. For now, for me, you are a boy because of your appearance.”

“How many years do I seem to have?”

“Seventeen.” Her words were distracting. Back home, he was twenty three in age.

“Huh. Okay. So, I’m a mystery. That explains their fear,” he reflected aloud.
“No, not a mystery. You, Lobo, are a ghost.” She grinned at him.
Then she laughed hard at his face.

“Finally,” she shouted, as he lost all color in the cheeks, “you show a bit of humanity!”

He laughed too, at himself and the insanity of it all. The insanity of living in another body and life. When Luna offered him a drink, he happily took it in an instant.

“I don’t believe your secret, but tomorrow I will let you live another day. I’ll tell my people you’re a lost wanderer who drank too much and hit his head under the hot suns. They will obey my possession of you.”

“They will?” Lobo burped as he was served another drink from Luna.

“Yes, they will, pretty boy. You fool. You belong to me, now.” And they laughed together into the night.