Akira looked up at the sound of footsteps. It was her brother. He must have been sent to get her.

“Kira, do you know what time it is?” he asked.

“Kel, does it look like I know what time it bloody is?” she replied.

Her brother sighed.

Askel, or Kel as she called him, was actually a few years younger than her but most people thought he was the older sibling. Akira figured it had something to do with his height and the fact she acted like a child when she got excited about something.

“You’ve been in here the entire day,” he told her. “Have you eaten anything since breakfast?”

“Nothing substantial, just some power bars,” she answered going back to her documents.

Askel sighed again.

“How many years have you wasted on that damned boat?” he demanded.

Akira’s head snapped up. She glared at him.

“First, it’s not a boat it’s a ship. Second, I haven’t wasted 6 years,” she growled. “I know for a fact Anwen and her father were using Greenland or Iceland to store their loot. This means that if the Bloodshed sank anywhere around either, she was trying to get home.”

“Akira, there are no records of that ship,” Askel insisted.

Akira stood and shoved the ship’s log in his face.

“You were saying, little brother?” she gloated.

“This doesn’t say it’s for the Bloodshed,” he retorted.

“The Star of Orion IS the Bloodshed,” she told him, exasperation lacing her words. “Survivors of her attacks said the ship had a reddish hue. Most ships are the color of the wood they are made of. However, wood is porous and readily absorbs liquids. While the hull of the ship was usually sealed to prevent this, the decks often weren’t. They definitely could have absorbed blood which would give it its reddish hue. Though, blood does oxidize and turn brown. I must test this theory.”

            She began to pace. Askel scanned the documents she had handed him. She could feel his eyes on her as she paced.

“What are you thinking Kira?” he asked.

“I’m thinking about why Anwen would use the same island as her father to store her looted goods,” she replied not stopping her pacing.

“She wouldn’t,” Askel said.

“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “All accounts point to her relationship with her father becoming nonexistant after he arranged a marriage for her. Plus, she killed the man herself when she took his ship.”

“A marriage she obviously didn’t want, kinda like someone I know,” Askel muttered.

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Akira turned to glare at him.

“I’d marry if I found someone who found the Bloodshed as facinating as I do or would at least help me with my research,” she snapped. “But no man wants a smart woman, much less a smart woman who can think circles around them.”

“Yet, you’ve turned down every man who has come your way,” Askel said. “You’re still waiting for him, aren’t you?”

Akira stopped pacing. Now that she thought about it, she supposed she was waiting for him. Keir Xanthior, the one man who had loved her and her obsession of finding the Bloodshed. He was the only one who believed her when she said she’d find it; the only one whom she could bounce theories off of and not be afraid of sounding insane.

“He’s not coming back,” Askel said.

“Yes he is,” she said quietly, twisting the ring he had given her before he’d left.

“You don’t know that he is and you don’t know that he isn’t,” Askel sighed.

They’d had this argument so many times already that Akira knew how it would go.

“And neither do you,” she snapped. “Now are you going to let me get back to work?”

Askel shook his head and sighed. Akira knew she shouldn’t take her frustration out on him, but when he pushed her about Keir it was hard not to.

“It’s late and the archives are about to close,” he replied.

“I have a key,” she answered turning back to her work.

“Kira…”

“Enough, Askel,” she sighed. “I don’t want to go home.”

And she didn’t. There were too many people there mourning the deaths of her mother and younger siblings. She couldn’t take the crowd; she never had liked crowds. It wasn’t that she wasn’t sad. She was, but her mother wouldn’t want that to get in the way of her work. Of all her family, her mother understood Akira’s drive to work better than anyone. She’d been much the same, even though their diciplines were nowhere near close.

“Kira, father is asking for you,” Askel told her.

“Did you tell him I’m working?”

Askel nodded. Akira sighed.

“Does he not understand my thesis is due soon?”

“You never talk about your work in front of us,” Askel answered.

“Because none of you understand it,” she replied sadly. “Father did but since his stroke, things are different. He’s lucky if he remembers us much less anything to do with his old career.” She sighed. “I miss the man he was, Kel. It’s hard to look at him sometimes because I keep searching for the man who got me into archeology in the first place. I know he’s not there anymore but it doesn’t stop me from looking for him.”

Askel came and put his hand on her shoulder.

“I look for him too, Kira,” he said quietly. “But that man is gone and we have to accept the one he is now.”

Akira slammed her hands down on the table in front of her.

“Don’t you get it?” she demanded. “The man you knew is not the one I knew! I grew up in the trenches on his work sites. Mom hated it until she figured out it was the only thing that calmed me down. You had your chemistry sets and I had my trowel and shovel.” She dropped into her chair holding back the tears that threatened. “I know more about archeology than most professors and I’ve known this stuff since I was a kid.”

She could feel the pity in her brother’s gaze.

“Don’t look at me like that, Kel,” she told him. “I don’t need nor do I like pity. Just let me continue my research.”

Askel set the ship’s logbook on the table beside her.

“Kira, you won’t be able to focus like this and you know it,” he said quietly.

“I still have to clean up you idiot,” she snapped.

“Miss Akira?” one of the interns stood at the door to the archive room.

Akira turned to the door.

“Yes, Aylin?”

“There’s someone at the front desk asking for you,” Aylin said tremulously.

“Whoever it is, please send them away,” Akira sighed. “The Hall of Records should be closed already.”

“I already tried to send him away,” Aylin answered. “But he insisted you’d still be here.”

“It’s alright, Aylin,” she sighed rubbing the spot between her eyes again. “Send whoever it is in and go on home. You look as exhausted as I feel.”

Aylin bobbed her head and disappeared back to the front desk. Akira sighed then turned back to the records strewn across the table. She began to gather them when she heard footsteps.

“I have neither the time nor the patience for this, so make it quick whoever you are,” Akira said without turning.

“You never could keep things neat or in order when you were working,” a voice said. “Let me guess, you’re looking for the Bloodshed in those documents.”

Akira froze. The voice behind her was one she’d know anywhere. She turned slowly, clutching the documents she held to her chest. Framed in the doorway was Keir Xanthior.