After everything that had happened at the Jasmine Sky. The remainder of my friends and I just went our separate ways. I had no idea how I managed to get to a bench that overlooked the sparkling blue waters of the beach, but it was helping me get my thoughts together. Sometimes it bothered me how much me and Beatrice could seemingly read each other’s thoughts. I knew how she was feeling and she always knew how I was feeling. She understood my true motives for wanting to go even before I truly knew them myself. She called me out for being selfish and even slapped a bit of sense into me.
I have wanted to kill my mom for five years, although I had created my own headcanon that she was dead. I never quite accepted that canon as fact. I wanted to kill her with my bare hands, I wanted to stain them with her vial blood and watch her breath her last breath. She deserved it for everything she did, it has been the driving force in making me stronger and stronger, to training even better so that if a day came that I stood toe to toe with her. That I could survive the fight and maybe win, yet even I knew that dream was never going to be a reality. Yet it still didn’t stop me from training and trying to get stronger as quickly as possible.
Cause if the day came that I had that chance, I would make the most of it. Even if it ended with me missing two arms and a leg, if I even had one more leg that could kick her head clean off her body. Then I would use it, it was what I needed more than anything in the world, and I would get it via any means necessary.
My hand began to scratch underneath my animal spirit’s chin. Aisu, my jaguar spirit, was bright purple matching my own jepei, with a few darker spots and swirls on her soft coat. Aisu was the only other person beside’s Beatrice that could read how I was feeling without saying it. As my spirit animal she was connected to my soul, so if I took damage she would feel it and the same stood for if she took damage I would feel it. She could also feel and read my emotions and I could read hers. Although she was a spirit animal, I considered her my sister, as she considered me her sister. If I had unlocked her when I was seven or eight, she would consider me her momma as all late bloomer animal spirits refer to their owner. “Aisu? Am I being selfish?”
“Do you want me to answer honestly?” Her voice sounded much like mine, if only a bit lighter. I nodded my head prompting her to go on. “I think we are being really selfish.”
“We?” I questioned.
“You know how I feel about Katherine.” A low growl began to emit from Aisu’s jaw. “And how I feel about Vitani.” The name of my mother’s larger and more dangerous animal spirit. “You remember what she did to me, what she wanted you to do to me.”
My touch grew softer as I sadly nodded my head. Members of the dark order don’t see their animal spirits as family or even friends, but as tools and weapons. To remind them of that, they are made to torment their animal spirits, beat them, whip them, leave them with scars that cannot be healed. It also destroys parts of their own soul, mostly the parts that let them show kindness and even love. Katherine wanted me to do it to Aisu on the day she came to steal me away, she almost tricked me into doing unimaginable harm to my sister. If I had done that, then I wouldn’t be on this island, cause I would have lost the part of me that loved my home so much, and without love, you give into foolish reasons.
And she might have been able to convince me into joining the dark order.
“I will never do that to you, Aisu.” I whispered forcing that day out of my head once more, but it was growing harder to do knowing what my daddy was getting ready to set off to do. “What are we gonna do?” I asked. “We have no help and I don’t know how we are gonna get to New York. Once we are there, daddy will have to keep me around to protect me…” I stopped myself as I said those words. “I am being selfish.”
“Yes we are.” Aisu remarked. “What we are gonna do is not a good thing, and we are gonna get in trouble… like very big trouble… especially when this is over and we have to face momma again.”
My entire body seemed to break out in goosebumps as that thought now crossed my mind. Ravana had been my momma for three years, and if there was something I had come to understand, it is that she is not a fan of three things. Stealing, lying, and putting oneself in foolish danger.
And considering that I was probably gonna have to steal a seat or money to get a ticket to New York. Would be lying to both her and my daddy about it and putting myself in terrible danger. I suddenly wasn’t afraid of facing Katherine, I was more worried about my ability to sit once (if) I got back. “We will worry about that when it comes. Right now we need a plan cause I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, I am sure that we can put our heads together and come up with the best plan in the world.” Aisu declared confidently. “Sis, just one question.”
“What is it?”
“Do you think we are ready to face Katherine and Vitani?”
“We have to be.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” Aisu said firmly. “Are we ready to face them?”
I opened my mouth to answer but found my entire mouth seemed to go as dry as the sierra desert. “If you don’t think we are ready, then maybe we shouldn’t do this.” Aisu answered, sitting up to stare at me with her large purple voids for eyes. “I want revenge just as much as you do, and I want them gone just as much as you do. But I don’t want to lose you in the process. So are we ready to face them, yes or no.”
“Y-Yes,” I said in a raspy voice.
Aisu tilted her head at me before laying back down across my lap. Though my mouth had said yes, deeper down in my heart. I knew the real answer, I was just too stubborn to admit.
And if that stubbornness got me killed then I would deal with that when it came.
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It was around six o’clock in the evening when I finally returned home. After everything that happened with Beatrice I needed to relax a bit more. So I went to see a movie, did some shopping with the last of my allowance, and got a small gift for Sevil in the process. It was just what I needed to get out of my head a bit and forget everything that had happened in the last two days. However, judging from the cross armed figure of my momma standing in the doorway of the house. Something told me that I was in for a talking too of some kind. “My room, ten minutes.” That was all she said before stepping back into the house.
I nervously looked down at Aisu. “Did you do something wrong?” She questioned.
“I don’t know,” I answered. I tried my hardest to go through my mind and figure out if I did anything in the last few days. I was sure my chores were all done, I couldn’t possibly be behind on school work as it was still summer break. Sevil and I had been getting on like peas in a pod since we broke the television in her room after a “playful” wrestling match. As we stepped towards the house, I could see in the dirt that had multiple paw prints from our animal spirits, were not the usual paw prints but a pair of hoof prints. Moose ones to be exact. “Damn it,” I muttered under my breath as I knew what was happening.
Beatrice had come and probably told my momma what I was planning.
“Aisu, come on.” I muttered, turning my heels. “I am not in the mood-”
“In the mood for what?” I nearly leapt out of my sky as my mother’s black and gold spotted Hyena was sitting behind me. She was licking one of her paws and giving me a knowing look. “Going somewhere, Verona?”
“Me and Aisu were going for a walk.”
“Really now, cause sometime tells me you were gonna run off and spend the night at a friend's house to avoid a certain conversation.” Leela slowly rose to her and stood before me. She was huge in size, around five feet five at the shoulders and her head put her at around 5’8. She was at least six feet long in length. All animal spirits, especially the adults were usually much bigger than their living counterparts, and this wasn’t even Leela full size. Most animal spirits could control how big they could be to a certain size. “Besides, me and Aisu are gonna go on a run to have a conversation of our own.” Leela said, stepping in between me and Aisu. “So how about you head on inside and upstairs, little cub.”
“Damn it,” I mumbled once more before stepping into my cool house that suddenly felt much colder.
“Don’t let my sister hear you swearing, and have fun.”
I kicked off my shows and slowly moved up the stairs. I took a hold of the bright purple gemstone around my neck and thought to Aisu. “We can still make a break for it if you meet me outside of my bedroom window.”
“I might be a bit faster than Momma Leela, but we both know I cannot outrun her, she could chase us for five days and never tire!” Aisu hissed back at me. “Because she is not gonna let me near the house until your talk is done. What I can tell you is that you're not in trouble it seems.”
I slowly reached my parent’s door and knocked twice. “It’s me.” I said softly before pushing in the door and stepping inside. My parent’s room was the largest in the house. They had a large king sized bed with jet black blankets with white engravement on them and the pillows. A large walk-in closet was open showing off my father’s many different suits and my mothers clothing as expensive jewelry that she sometimes let me borrow for special occasions. THey had two separate dressers, one for each of them and two separate dark brown nightstand. My father had a stack of books he was going to finish reading in the next few days. My mother mostly held a few of her perfume bottles and two pill bottles for an illness she didn’t let us know about. Sitting on that large bed with her prized leather backed bible, was my momma Ravana. Her hair was a bit damp as if she had gotten out of a shower only a few minutes ago, she was wearing long black pajama pants and tank top with one of the straps spilling off her shoulder.
She didn’t seem upstairs so I suppose that was a good sign. However, the large oak hairbrush beside her was not a good sign. It had been weeks since the last time I had felt her sting and I was hoping to not break that record. My mother patted the spot in front of her. “Come here.”
“Yes ma’am,” I quickly climbed up and sat down in front of her.
My momma grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me around so my back was to her. I was confused at first but then waves of relief flooded across me as she took that brush and started to brush the knots out of my hair. “Don’t worry,” she began. “I don’t plan on using this brush for any other purposes tonight. I just wanted to talk to you about some discomforting news that brought to my attention today.”
“What news?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” her voice became firm just for a moment. “I know what you are planning, and I am not happy about it.”
“I don’t know what-”
“Verona, unless you want me to use this brush for another purpose, then I suggest you stop trying to play dumb or try lying to me!”
“Yes ma’am,” I knew not to test her patience right now, the other day she let me off the hook because of what day it was, but right now she was not in the mood for my bullcrap today.
“Honestly,” Momma said. “Even if your friend did not come to tell me what you were planning, you know I still would have figured you were gonna do this.”
“How would you have known?”
“Because all good mother’s can read their children’s minds,” she answered. “And you, young lady, are very easy to read sometimes. As much as you think you are hiding your emotions, it is easy to tell what is happening in that head of yours. I knew you might try this the second you found that Katherine was in New York.”
“You can’t blame me for feeling this way?” I winched slightly as she tugged on a large knot in my head, I hated how tender headed I was. “Momma, she took everything from me and my daddy, she hurt me in ways that I can’t heal. I just want her to feel what I felt, and I want to be the one to do so.”
“Verona, you are 13-years-old, too young for revenge, too young to be living with hatred in that heart of yours. You are letting one woman control your life, and it shouldn’t take killing her for you to feel better.”
“Haven’t you ever felt like this before?”
“I have,” she answered. “I am 45-years-old dear, I have had my fair share of enemies, my fair share of family that hurt me. My father and mother hurt me in ways that you cannot imagine, I have felt revenge for the man that…” She trailed off for a moment. “That took Sevil’s father from her.”
My mouth went dry as I remembered that my momma lost her first husband in the battle for the port. Master Mohammad Khalid was a very strong and wise man, I had only met him a few times but from what I remembered he was one of the nicest men I had ever met. “I’m sorry,” I whimpered.
“It’s okay, I know that fool is looking down and smiling at us all right now. Grateful that we found each other, I love you as my blood daughter Verona. As far as Sevil is concerned you are her blood sister, it is why I cannot and will not allow you to do what you are planning on doing. I-I cannot lose someone else I care about, especially a little girl who’s vision is so narrow right now that she cannot see or think straight.”
“What my daddy, don’t you care that he is gonna be risking his life? That he might not come back.”
I felt the brush come to a stop. “Verona, listen to me carefully.” Her voice was like a calm whisper on the back of my neck. “Last time Katherine and your father fought, she caught him off guard. She and her true husband jumped him when he was already sick from whatever drug she put in his drink that night. He is much stronger than he seems, he should be a grandmaster but the council will not allow him to challenge for the position. In a one on one fight, your father will not lose to her, and with the help of the student he is taking with him and that old cat of his Thanani. Katherine will be brought back alive or dead, and than you both will move on.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked. “What if things do go as planned.”
“No matter what happens, I will be right here with you and you will be mine forever more. Say she escapes or things somehow go wrong, no one is taking you from home. That is a promise, and you know I don’t break my promises.”
Her words should have brought comfort and joy to my heart, but it wasn’t working. As long as Katherine draws breath there is no plan, no amount of strength that will work. She is too crafty, too smart, she never goes into anything without having a plan A-Z. I know this cause she taught me to be the same. “Verona,” my momma turned me around to face her. Her eyes warm but also stern. “Me and my father discussed this this morning, you are grounded until further notice.”
“What!” I snapped. “Why?”
“Because right now we do not trust you to leave this house, your father leaves in two days for his mission. We both know that you are gonna try whatever it takes to go with him, even if it means breaking the three most important rules that I have given you as my daughter. So until he returns, you are not leaving this house under any circumstances, if you try to leave then you will have Leela to deal with and we both know that is not gonna work.”
“M-Momma please don’t do this.”
“You are the one that is forcing my hand to do this, Verona. I don’t want to do this to you but even now, I can look at you and tell you are planning to do something foolish.”
“I can help him…” I pleaded pathetically.
“Verona, Katherine want you more than anything, and we both know that as strong and skilled as you are. There is nothing you can do to stop Katherine from taking you away, especially if you go off on your own.” Momma took me by the shoulders and gave me one strong shake. “Think with your head Verona, not with the anger and hatred that lay in your heart. You cannot go, you will not go, and you are not strong enough to face-”
I twisted out of her grip, trembled onto the floor and made a dash towards the door. I pushed through it and ran into my room as fast as I could slamming and locking the door behind me. I couldn’t stop the tears flowing down my face if I tried too, I let out a loud scream as I picked up the small vase of flowers on my desk and threw it against the wall as hard as I could. I didn’t want to hear her say that.
I didn’t want to face that truth.
I didn’t want to face that she was right.
I was gonna be in the way, I wasn’t strong enough, it was suicide for me to go.
Yet there was one voice that kept telling me. “I would rather die on my feet than hide on this island. I will face her and kill her.”
I wish I had listened to a different voice instead.
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