(Fol)

Wefyu looked up from the book in his lap at the sound of his name being called. He pulled up his leg from where it hung off the veranda and straightened his spine out of his lazy reclining position. His long, pale, slender fingers folded down the edge of the page he was on and closed it, turning an amicable smile toward his younger half-brother. "Did you catch the cat, Kisee?"

Kisee's white skirt was covered with dirt, grass stains, and a few smears of something red, and the bottom was shredded, revealing his filthy bare feet. The long, flowing sleeves of his loose tunic were soaking wet. Kisee shook his head, his black messy rat's nest of hair moving in clumps and fly-aways. "There's a dead body in the yard."

Wefyu put down his book, brows knitting together. He slid off the veranda bare feet on the grass, dark blue skirt dragging on the ground. "Where?"

Kisee took his hand and led him through the tall grasses until they came upon a strange indent in the hip high grass. Before Wefyu even got to see the body he felt something warm and wet between his toes, glanced down and saw red. He kneeled down and parted the grass, his eyes finally falling upon the boy.

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Face down in the grass was a small child, just a bit smaller than Kisee. The child wore tight clothes, tan pants, and a white shirt reminiscent of a too simple outfit for a Xul man. The back of the child's shirt is shredded and bloodied. Wefyu stood in the blood that pooled from the wounds on the child's back and the right arm that ended, bleeding, at the elbow right by Wefyu's toes.

Wefyu dropped to a crouch in an instant. He pressed two fingers to the child's neck, getting mildly distracted by the hair that was chopped shorter than any he'd ever seen.

A weak beat thrummed under Wefyu's fingertips, "He's alive! Go get the doctor!" Kisee took off quickly, leaving Wefyu alone with the bleeding child. Wefyu ripped the edges of his long, loose sleeves and pressed them to the stump of the child's arm in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

Wefyu gathered the frail, injured child into his arms, praying that the Yelii would allow him to heal the child. With only the slightest nudge of prayer, the Yelii wrapped around the child, strengthened and supported him.

Wefyu was not young or naive enough to believe that the Yelii responded to his prayer for the first time for his own sake.

The Yelii wanted this child to live. It loved him. It had chosen him.

Wefyu's heart was gripped.