Asher, Asher

The children linked their small hands and danced in a circle, chanting:1

“Ring around a rosy2

Pocket full of posies3

Ashes, Ashes4

We all fall down!”5

Once they reached the last line of the age old nursery rhyme, they threw themselves to the ground, laughing wildly. Watching them, Omri let a bittersweet smile touch his lips and then banished it. To the children, dressed in their traveling clothes, this was just a grand excursion to a neighboring country. The mothers who waited for the steam engine to bear them away saw this trip for what it really was – an evacuation. A woman approached the laughing children. Omri couldn’t hear her words, but judging from the look on the woman’s face and expressions the children returned to her it was obvious she was scolding them.6

Let them have their fun, Omri thought. This is just the beginning. Let them have fun while they still can, before the war truly comes and they are forced to face the horrible truths of life. He turned his focus back to the children, who were being herded toward the waiting railcars, sullen looks on their faces. Omri felt for them, and almost wished he had a seat reserved on the car, but as leader of the Peacekeepers, he knew that was impossible. At first, Omri had fought against evacuation, but upon revisiting the issue he found he could not in good conscience stall the evacuation any longer. Fighting could break out any day. Peace talks between the two opposing sides were growing more and more strained, with neither side willing to compromise.7

One child broke away from the woman and ran back to where they’d been dancing in a circle. Mischief shone in this little one’s eyes as she belted out the last two lines of the rhyme in defiance. “Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!” The child threw herself to the ground. Giggling, the other children followed suit, collapsing onto the ground where they stood – an immovable force. Now the mothers saw fit to involve themselves and began calling various children’s names, the disapproving tones unmistakable. The children obeyed these calls. They jumped up and ran to the railcars, finding their families, laughing the entire time. The woman who had originally admonished the children shook her head joined the evacuees.8

“Ashes…” Omri found himself repeating quietly. “Asher…” The word morphed into the name without much thought, since that name was the cause of the entire problem. It wasn’t fair to blame the situation entirely on Prince Asher, but perhaps if the prince hadn’t suddenly become a recluse, if the King and Queen, his parents, hadn’t died mysteriously . . . Omri put those thoughts out of his head. As a Peacekeeper, he couldn’t allow his thoughts to become biased. It was his job to avert the war, and lately he felt like he’d been doing a fairly shoddy job of it. No, it wouldn’t do to dwell on the past. He had to think of the future. Rubbing his temples with his fingertips, Omri tried to stave off the massive headache that was looming. Failing that, he headed through the nearly deserted city until he reached the place where he had tethered his horse. Mounting the animal, he urged it into a gallop and slipped out of town. He needed to be alone, and he needed time to think.9


***Go on to part I: http://storywrite.com/story/139920***