Yukimi stared at him in disbelief. "What do you mean?"
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Ri-is' shut his eyes, brows knitting as he spoke. "My mother's pregnancy with us triplets wasn't planned. She had already gone through many unspeakable things when it came to her family. Let's just say that when they found out that one of the most terrifying warlords in the heavens and hells was going to be a mother...people tried to get rid of us...they thought that having children would make her even more of a problem, y'know...overprotectiveness and whatnot...not to mention she'd have heirs to her newly acquired kingdom. They weren't wrong though. One night some power-hungry relatives sent an assassin to kill us in our sleep. My eye was grazed by a poison dagger when I was pulled out of the way by my mother.
My aunt who was present at the time told us that she awoke to my mother screaming 'if he never opens his eyes again then neither will you!' My mother was already very paranoid and scared of just the thought of raising kids. She thought she wouldn't be a good mother. Even so, more than anything, she didn't want us to suffer the same fate she did growing up without parents...struggling to survive. Things just got worse when we started growing up."
Yukimi listened silently. In the short period of time that she knew Ri-is, she knew him to be kind and considerate, to always put others before himself. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine he could make the expression he was making now. Still, from the first time she met him, she felt a sense of likeness about him. Though she had to admit, she didn't think that he could be so talkative.
"My mother didn't come into power by playing nice. She has a lot of enemies, especially ones that happen to be nobles. They take every opportunity they can to find fault and undermine her. Not just her authority but her skill as a mother too. When we got older and started attending school it just exposed us to all those snobby nobles."
Ri-is hung his head. "I ended up being an easy target for them. I'm not as strong or accomplished as my brothers. Even though we come from such an esteemed lineage of warlords, fighting and leading armies and the like really isn't my thing. It made me the faulty link in their eyes."
Yukimi as a silent witness watched as Ri-is shift awkwardly between his words, like he hadn't spoken to anyone about this in some time and was struggling to find the right words.
"I was...I was so ashamed. If I told my mother about what they were saying it felt like I would be blaming my mother for the way I turned out when I knew she wasn't at fault at all. It just got worse. To the point where they no longer used words to jeer at me. They went out of their way to physically torment me every chance they got. Whether it was pushing me from the academy balcony to see if I could manage to spread my wings before I hit the ground or making sure to pick on me extra hard during training. It was awful..."
Ri-is trailed off, getting a distant look in his eyes. His lips trembled as he seemed to be recalling a memory.
She reached out and gently placed a hand on his arm."You don't have to say it..." She whispered.
His gaze softened when he looked at her. He closed his eyes and sighed.
"They were always careful not to leave marks on me because they were scared of the repercussions should my mother find out, but one day I decided to resist and it was like all reason just slipped away. I was dragged into an old storage room and beaten black and blue. Then to...to add injury to insult they...they just tore off my clothes and carved the symbol for 'slave' into me..."
Ri-is' hands absentmindedly pressed against his stomach, his throat becoming dry at the recollection of his pained screams. Yukimi gently squeezed his hand to being him back from that far away place his mind went again.
"I was so humiliated that when I returned home I just locked myself in my chambers and tried to cut off the piece of skin they had carved it into, but the wound ended up being much deeper than I first thought. I thought mother was overseas at the time but as soon as I started, there she was ripping the doors to my chambers off of their hinges and running over to me.
Maybe it was just seeing me covered in blood, or hearing what happened to me before she found me, but she looked absolutely broken. She just held me there...crying. Whenever she catches sight of my scars I think all those memories of how I was hurt...of how easy it was to get hurt...it all just comes flooding back...the worst part is that there's this chunk of time between her finding me and me waking up after having been treated where I just can't remember what happened. I just remember being angry and feeling ashamed..."
It was silent yet again. Ri-is leaned his head back onto the tent wall behind them and Yukimi fidgeted with the sleeve of her Kimono. Suddenly, her eyes widened in recollection and she shifted. She sat in front of Ri-is on her knees. He looked down at her with a questioning gaze. She wordlessly loosened her obi and began to slip the fabric of her kimono off of her shoulders. A blush seared through Ri-is' cheeks and for a moment he thought his face was on fire. He sat up straight and waved his hands in front of him.
"What the—wha-what are you doing!"
When she didn't respond and continued to strip, he quickly reached out and grabbed her arms before her Kimono could slip all the way down. She looked up at him and pointed to a long, lopsided scar across her chest. His embarrassment disappeared once he laid eyes on it and instead was replaced with something else entirely. As he held her Kimono to her arms, she used her hand to trace the scar.
"I got this when I went looking for my dad. As you know, we snow spirits only come to the village to find a mate. Once we have kids we'd let the man raise them until they were strong enough to withstand the harsh environment of the mountains and then take them away with us. This was mostly to keep our bloodline alive because people would hunt us down for our powers and use us as slaves. I never had the privilege of being raised like that though.
My mother is an escaped slave. The man who enslaved her was the one to forcibly impregnate her. She escaped and had me in the mountains. When I got older I began to question things. I didn't understand why she wouldn't tell me anything about my father so I went to find him for myself. I found him drunk and with a few other women in the village tavern. When he saw my eyes he seemed to sober up really fast. He went from blissful drunkenness to utter rage in a matter of seconds. Before I knew it, he had already unsheathed his sword and slashed me right across my chest.
He was screaming something about my mother and 'my kind' but I was so shocked I don't quite remember most of it. What I do remember though, is the look of utter disgust on his face when he saw me...must have still been upset that his most prized possession ran away..."
Yukimi gazed down at her scar and closed her eyes. She opened them again to see Ri-is' reflecting such a worried look, it made her laugh weakly and smile.
"My point is, we've all got our scars. I'm glad your mother was able to stop you that day, if you had chosen to give up I would never have had the opportunity to go out and see the world like this! I mean I know we could be doing better right now but I'm still grateful!"
Ri-is laughed at her little joke and let go of her, allowing her to pull up her sleeves. "Yeah...I'm grateful too..." He whispered.
"I never thought I'd tell anyone about my scar...you're the only one. In a way though, I'm glad it's you," she said, fastening her obi.
Ri-is smiled. "Yeah...hey...once we get out of here, I'll show you some magic tricks...I mean...if you wanna see it that is." He scratched his cheek nervously.
Yukimi grinned. "Sure! And I'll teach you about some of the plants from my homeland!"
A smile of relief graced his lips. "It's a deal then."
Their pleasant conversation was cut short by a scuffle outside of the tent.
"You there! Bandits! Release your hostages and I will spare your lives!" A woman's voice declared.
"Who's that?" Yukimi tried to peak through the crack in the opening of the tent. Ri-is put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it as if to say "get ready to fight."
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"Looks like backup's arrived."
ns 15.158.61.8da2
