Bloodbound

 

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Before.

He turned and closed his eyes;

His ears and mouth too--made a conscious decision

To shut the evil out...

But it always lived on deep in his belly.

Thick in his veins,

Where he couldn't filter it out.

 

    The familiar hollow sensation began in Amon's stomach... It was empty, but still he felt like he might be sick. Bile? Yes, dry heaving water and bile... Collapsing onto the hard wood floor and managing to find the one splinter in the house. It lodged itself deep into the meaty palm of his left hand. He let out an involuntary yelp and scrambled to his feet. And then he froze when he heard Castien stir in his bed across the room. Amon's eyes grew big and luminous in the dark as he even held his breath and hoped Castien wouldn't wake up. He hated being woken up, Amon thought. Castien just cleared his throat softly and rolled over onto his side, tugging the covers with him, and began snoring. 

    Only after a few seconds of measured breathing, did Amon rise and stand at his full height. He tiptoed carefully out of the room and into the hall. 

    The entire house was quiet except for the odd squalling baby, or a mating couple going at it. Maybe one couple arguing. No, not a couple. Amon knew those voices: his aunts and uncles. While a part of him tried to resist his curious urges, that part of him was significantly overpowered by the other part of him that really wanted to know what they were arguing about. Castien and himself, most likely. They always argued about the brothers and their "strange" behavior... Their strange smells, strange urges, unheardof senses, and magic, in Amon's case. Nothing the brothers did was normal or natural to their Shifter family. And so, by extension, they would never be...

 "What happened last night? The boy attacked the little ones and tried to feed from them!" Aunt Shenna hissed in an angry whisper. To Amon's young mind, she sounded like a shrill sparrow, her voice all high-pitched and warbling unsteadily on the precipice of intonation.

"He's still young... You can't hold the child responsible for the sins of the parents," Uncle Ashim rebutted, his own voice smoother and soft, like a warm drink on a cold day. It was created to soothe, Amon believed.

 

    Amon crept closer, letting his instincts carry him closer on the weight of the trickling sound soaking through the pores of the wallpaper. He flattened his back against the wall around the corner from his Aunt Edisa's study and continued to listen, clamping his hand firmly over his mouth to muffle out any sound he might make by breathing. 

    "So, you're saying that we should hold Raina accountable...?" Aunt Shenna croaked. 

    Aunt Edisa whispered, "I took them in. They're my responsibility! Don't worry about them... I have it under control. They're young and they're changing, like we all did. Remember? Just cool it!" Her firm voice stood like  a skyscraper, unyielding and mighty.

    Ashim added, "Edisa is right... They're children themselves. They can't help their urges yet. And if anyone is to blame, it should fall on Raina and their fathers." 

    Amon felt a tickle in his throat, and trying to hold it in only made him feel even more ill. Amon had never known his father, or Castien's for that matter. And he certainly didn't hate or blame the unknown man... He wondered how Castien felt about his own father.

    "Whatever he is, it's unknown to us... He can't stay here around our children when he presents a threat to their lives," Shenna interjected, pleading as only a mother can for the safety of her offspring. "What do you say, Berjin...? You've been silent this whole time."

    The eldest among them spoke his piece, and when he spoke the walls shook like rumbling thunder. Berjin's deep, gravelly bass was intimidating. "They aren't like us... It is of my opinion that those boys could be steeped in our ways for a lifetime, and never become one of us. But as for threat...only Castien presents a real one, and we all know why."

    Aunt Shenna took the opportunity to chime in, "I agree with Brother Berjin... Where Amon is a dud, Castien is a bomb waiting to go off. We can't sit around and wait for it to happen! We have to send them out now…" 

    "They're only children!" Edisa, the barren sister with somewhat misplaced maternal instincts, growled. "I will watch over them and they will adapt. They will be taught only our culture and traditions... I will make them like us. They will fit in here." She turned to face Berjin whom, as the oldest, had the final say in the matter. Like her voice, she would not budge or change her mind, Amon realized with unfathomable gratitude.

     Berjin looked around at his brother and sisters, and then his dark brown eyes settled on his favorite sister whom he had always doted on, Edisa. And he gave his ultimatum, "I never approved of Raina's choices of mates, but her children had no say in those choices... So, I'll give them another chance. Any more slip ups and they will both be put out on the streets... If they want to be part of this family, with this heritage, they will have to earn it." Then he turned and pushed open the heavy double doors of the study and marched into the dark hall.

 

    His eyes glowed in the pitch blackness of the long corridor as he stalked noiselessly back to his chamber. Only once did he stop and turn to glance behind him, thinking for a second that he'd heard a scurrying sound of children's feet on the stairs. 

 

    Castien shot straight up in bed, the aching in his chest fading slowly following each breath he dragged in...however against its will. It often seemed like the natural world functioned to make his life more difficult. Even the air he breathed was against him, he thought. He sensed motion at the door, and his eyes alit upon his younger brother's small, lanky frame as the prepubescent boy crept into their shared bedroom and quietly shut the door behind himself. Amon was facing away from Castien, so when Castien hissed at him, "Where were you?" Amon nearly jumped out of his pale skin. 

    Amon stammered, "I-I just had to pee..." 

    Looking over the younger boy from his head to his toes, his hearing picked up the heartbeat of a hummingbird racing inside his little ribcage. "You're lying," Castien grumbling apathetically and climbed out of bed, stalking across the room to where Amon was standing. "What were you really doing?" He asked. 

    "I-I told you... I had to pee," Amon slipped past his brother and clambered up into his bed. 

    "And I told you that I want you to tell me the truth, because you're clearly lying," Castien began as he moved to sit at the foot of Amon's child-sized bed. "What I can't figure out is why... What happened while I was asleep that you think you need to lie about?" He left the question floating in the air between them, lingering like a malignant spector that would not disapate without words. "Tell me." He commanded softly. 

    "I don't know what you want me to say," Amon rolled onto his back and pulled the covers up to his chin. 

    Castien heard Amon's little heart threaten to burst through his chest and decided to forego the interrogation. "Forget it," he scoffed, feigning disinterest, and rose to his feet. "I'm going to go...pee," he added as he left the room. 

    The young boy was left in thrall that he didn't quite understand. That was perhaps the first time Amon learned to fear his older brother... 

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Ten Years Later.

    Burning. Feels like firewood crackling over the embering waves... The smoke is filling up his lungs and aching in his chest, searing his throat, and darkening his vision changes. It begins to morph into a new kind of pain. His lungs are no longer filling up with smoke from the fire, but instead with salt water from the deep dark all around him. Consuming him... 

    The light from the surface seems to be getting further and further away... He cannot move his limbs to any real effect. He is drowning now. His lungs are no longer clogged with thick smoke and poisonous gas, but water...water that stung and burned in his lungs and throat like fire itself. He fills up like a cheap water balloon clinging to a rusty bathroom sink. He feels heavier and heavier by the moment... 

* * * * * 

    When Castien woke up in bed, he was chilled. No windows were open, and in the middle of a sweltering summer, he found it odd. All he heard was his labored breathing. Other than that, Castien's world was silent. That, too, startled him. For a second, he imagined he was back in his childhood bedroom, with Amon wetting himself in his bed, cowering five feet from him. 

    Amon... Sometimes in the moments just after waking, Castien found himself yearning for those little boy wishes and dreams. When the world seemed so much larger, with so much more unknown. And in that unknown, at least he'd had a glimmer of hope. 

    "Mmm, you're awake," Rizta rolled onto her side to face Castien. That brought him fully into the present, and all the world's sounds filled in the spaces around him. "I'll go, then..." And the tall, shockingly slender young woman sat up in bed, swung her legs over the side and paused to rub the sleep crust from her eyes.

    When she was fully dressed, she turned to face Castien, laying bare-chested in bed, the sheets and the room around them still smelling of their love-making. At least, it was love to her... She knew better than to assume the same of Castien's feelings for her. She had known him long enough to know that asking him to reciprocate genuine affection was a tall order. She couldn't help but love him. Rizta had given him her whole heart when they were children. After two weeks of knowing him, she'd pried into his exterior and the barricaded oyster revealed the pearl deep inside. "Do you want me to come back later?" she dared to ask. 

    "I don't know yet... I'll let you know when I'm sure," Castien replied, pushing himself up into a sitting position, resting against the tall headboard heaped with fluffed pillows. 

    "How do you know I'm just going to keep waiting around for you...?" Rizta teased him, combing her fingers through her shoulder-length, sandy-blonde hair to restrain it with a stiff, small black hair tie. 

 

    "Because you have nothing else going on," he replied, his voice devoid of emotion. He had closed himself off again. With a purpose, he knew. He wasn't an idiot. He knew she'd carried a torch for him since they were children, but whenever they had sex, she always tried to pick his mind and get him to admit to some absurd feelings for her that he just didn't have. Her trying to entrap him just further annoyed him... "You can leave now," he added, with emphasis. 

    Rizta scoffed and left the room, leaving her underwear behind to torture him. When she threw open the door to his room, she paused in the illuminated hallway which allowed the boisterous noise of merrymaking in the bar below to flow into the room around her. She offered a final remark, "You can be a real dickhead sometimes, you know that?" She slammed the door shut behind her. 

    Once she was gone, and Castien was alone with the dark and the silence he loved, he sighed and flopped back down onto his back before noticing her discarded black underwear on the floor beside the bed. He briefly considered getting out of bed to collect them, but decided that for her insolence, he had a better plan for how to effectively dispose of the hated reminder of her irritating "feelings" for him. 

* * * * *

    Leaving the inn early that morning, after the all-night partying riff raff had retired for the day to sleep off their hangovers, Castien headed for his favorite place in the world. His family's house... 

    It was Edisa that answered the door, however, dressed in her mourning best, as per the norm. Her husband, her mate, and the one and only love of her life, Turon had been dead for almost 30 years now, and she had never remarried or even come out of mourning. The single one of Castien's aunts and uncles which would have been a perfect parent, and she missed her chance to have children because her love for one man ran too deep... A cautionary tale against love if ever there was one. And most likely the reasoning for Castien's deep aversion to it, if he was being honest with himself. Of course, he would only ever admit that to himself. 

    When his aunt opened the door, he pulled his hands out of his coat pockets to pull her into a stiff hug, but knowing and loving him as she did, and only she knew how, she knew he loved her too. He had never really taken to tactile expressions of affection, ever since childhood. But he hugged her and as rigid and reserved as it was, Edisa knew it was genuine. "Oh! My darling! I missed you!" she wailed with joy, wrapping her arms around Castien, squeezing him tight. The force behind it would've crushed a Lightling, but Darklings were made of stronger stuff. That was what Berjin had always told him and Amon when they were growing up. Since they were Halflings, they would have to prove to all naysayers that they was more Shifter than all the rest. Castien and Amon would have to become individuals beyond doubt or reproach. And that they did... They were prodigies among their Shifter kinsfolk. Their diverting heritage was neglected.

 

    Aunt Edisa looked up into his face with her endless silver-green eyes, which always reminded Castien of sea glass, and she remarked, "You've gotten so handsome..." she cupped his face and smiled up at him. A weaker person would've cried tears of joy, but not Edisa. No. She had learned to be tough when Turon had died... When she decided she would stick by him throughout her life, and take no other mate. When she realized that her decision meant never becoming the mother she'd always longed to be. She had had no choice but to suck it up and become steel. And she had passed that lesson onto Castien. "And so tall!" her hands settled on his broad shoulders. "If Raina could see you now..." she let her voice trail off. She was probably realizing that Raina had never been maternal or even remotely sentimental, and most likely wouldn't give two shits how her sons had turned out. Edisa never sugar-coated anything for the benefit of others. 

 

    Castien completed the thought with a touch of rough sarcasm, "She'd probably try to get into my pants..." he joked. 

    She scoffed with mild humor, swatting his arm with the back of her hand, "Ugh, stop that! That is not funny..." Edisa led her eldest nephew in behind her, and eyed him to remind him they didn't live in a barn when he'd forgotten to close the front door behind himself. 

    Aunt Edisa led Castien through the front hall and down the long wood-panelled hall to the large private living room/dining room at the end. "Your cousins are here..." she attempted to make small talk. 

    "All of them?" Castien balked. 

    She turned and smiled at him as she continued down the hall, "It is an engagement party, Castien. A full family affair." 

    "And their...children?" Castien asked as he grimaced. He couldn't help his reaction. It was involuntary, really. 

    They reached the large "entertaining room", his Aunt Shenna called it. The room had large panoramic windows framed by an extended window seat that went around the full length of the room. And Castien was assaulted by the sound and smell of children. "Ew," he groaned under his breath. 

    All of them stopped talking and looked to the entryway when Castien arrived on Aunt Edisa's heels. They regarded him with the same guarded expressions they'd maintained since he'd come to live with his aunts and uncles after Raina's death. 

    His cousin, Therin, appeared from somewhere in the epicenter of the family-quake with his arms up and a wide smile on his face. Therin was Uncle Ashim's middle child with his wife Tyra. And Therin and Castien had always been the closest as the boys closest in age growing up together in the family home. "Hey, cuz! You made it!" And he stuck out his hand and grabbed Castien's in a hearty handshake. 

 

    Castien actually cracked a smile and explained, "Sorry I didn't bring a gift, but you're fiancée doesn't really like me, so... I don't feel too bad about it." Castien shrugged, taking his hand back while Therin shook his head at his older cousin. 

    "Giral doesn't hate you," Therin tried to explain, half-heartedly. "She just prefers to keep to herself..." 

 

    "I hear that makes for a lousy time in the marriage bed, cuz... Sucks to be you!" Castien joked, nudging him playfully, letting Therin lead him to the center of their family. 

    "Hey, where's Amon?" Therin asked. 

    "He's not here...?" Castien asked, his dark brow furrowed. "That's weird. He's never late to be doted on by our family..." 

    "Methinks someone sounds a little bitter," Nissa, their cousin and Shenna's oldest child, remarked as she inserted herself into their private conversation. "Where is Amon? I thought he'd be coming with you..." 

    "Okay, is anyone here actually glad to see me...?" Castien joked. While he laughed it off on the outside, it did chafe at him when he was ignored in favor of his younger brother, Amenemhet. 

    "Don't be so sensitive," Therin joked. "Now come greet the bride-to-be..." 

    "Ugh, must I?" Castien groaned, digging his heels into the carpet. 

    "Now who's being unsociable?" Nissa mocked. 

    "Now, seriously, where is Amon?" Castien asked, looking around to make sure he hadn't overlooked the soft-spoken, young man in a corner of the room curled up with his books. Amon tended to be the wallflower at many, if not all, family functions or social occasions, Castien knew. 

 

Nine Years Ago.

 

    "You did what?!" Berjin bellowed. Castien and Amon had been hauled into their Uncle Berjin's "office", and all the aunts and uncles, even their spouses, had been assembled for this makeshift tribunal. Who was on trial, you ask? Why, none other than Castien and Amon... The freaks of the proud, noble Hydera-Toctumermus Clan, now twelve generations strong and to dishonor that heritage was treason. That is what Raina's boys had done. Again. 

 

    As the older of the two, Castien spoke up, stepping in front of his younger brother, "We went to see the High Council... We heard the Pure Blood Vampires would be there."

    "Why would you go there?!" Berjin demanded. 

    Castien felt compelled to reply with a sarcastic comeback, but that was only until he saw his uncle's eyes go silver and his fully-grown carnassial canines gnash together in barely-restrained fury. "We-We wanted to see if we could find Pinus..."

    "Pinus. Prince Pinus? The second eldest son of King Numa Pompilius...? The direct offspring of a being powerful and ancient enough to kill you without remorse.That Pinus?" Berjin's fury was building. But mostly, it was rooted in shame. He was ashamed of his half-blood nephews risking their lives just to get a glimpse of the man who had whelped Castien sixteen years prior. He was even more embarrassed that his once-beloved younger sister, Raina, had mated with that despicable man in the first place rather than choosing a faithful mate among her own kind. "Do you have any idea what he could've done to you if your cousins hadn't caught you and brought you home...?"

    "He's my father! He wouldn't hurt his own son..." Castien tried to make excuses for the man he believed would help unlock the sealed off part of Castien's nature which had been kept dormant all his life. 

    "Pinus has no sons," Aunt Shenna interjected. "He's fathered a lot of bastards... But he's never married or had any legitimate children. He would never consider you, a Halfling, as his real son. He wouldn't claim you as his in front of his family whose bloodlines have sired an entire sub-race of Darklings... They've been around for thousands of years, pre-history. Their family is a legion in itself, and royalty besides..." The more she went on distinguishing the differences between Castien and the exulted Prince Pinus Pompilius, the more Castien felt unworthy to be called his son. 

      Aunt Edisa stepped in between her siblings and the boys, "Brother, please... They're young. Any child would want to know where and whom they came from. Raina is gone now... It's natural for them to want to know their fathers. We can't be mad at them for that... Be reasonable."

 

    Berjin pushed her gently out of his way and looking down at the boys, snarled, "We're their only family..." 

    "Those men only cared about pleasing themselves and dishonoring our sister. They've never acted like fathers to their sons, so do they really deserve to be called parents...?" Uncle Ashim had a habit for trying to interpret Berjin's brusque and curt way of speaking. 

 

    Castien burst forth and exclaimed, with a furrowed brow and a snarled grimace, "Pinus is my father! And no one can replace him..."

    "You're naive to think that way," Aunt Shenna remarked. 

    Aunt Edisa turned around to address her nephews directly. Her voice was emphatic, "I know you're trying to be loyal to your father, but he doesn't deserve your love... We care for you and love you. This family is the only one that deserves your love and loyalty. Always remember that..." 

 

Present day. 

 

    Halfway through the formal dinner, the kids were seated at the "kid's table" giggling throughout Uncle Ashim's attempt at making a toast in honor of his eldest son. When Uncle Berjin looked at his grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews, he didn't need to speak a word. His death glare paralyzed them into silence. 

    There were Lissa and Surrid, Nissa's children of 7 and 5 respectively with her husband Derrick (a taboo being that he had been raised among the humans). And then Kaziel (16) and Sidian (12), Nissa's youngest siblings, whom were glaring daggers at their parents, Aunt Shenna and her silent husband Ardoc, for forcing then to sit with "children". And then lastly, there was the youngest of Uncle Ashim's small brood with his wife Tyra, Artur, Therin's younger brother, whom was 15. He was more of a reserved bookworm-type. The youngest was Berjin's newest granddaughter, only one year old, napping upstairs in the nursery, Adeliana. 

 

    Ashim cleared his throat and continued his speech, "It is always a happy day when a parent sees their child find someone who makes them happy, and vows to stand by their side for a lifetime... And for a family like ours, it is always a much happier day when the rise of a new generation is on the horizon. I give my wishes that Therin and Giral will be very happy and prosperous in their life together, and may their union, of course, be fruitful..." Then he raised his glass and cheered on their impending marriage: "Keem Kirash!" Happy days ahead, in Morinthian. The formal language of the realm, including all religious and political ceremonies. The language of their history and record-keeping. Created by the twin goddesses, Korinta of the Light and Munat of the Dark, charged by their parents, Izmara and Knotos, Order and Chaos incarnate, to protect the ever-important balance of our realm. 

 

    The family, even the children with their champagne flutes filled with sparkling cider, lifted their glasses and toasted Therin and Giral's future happiness, as unknown as it was to them and everyone sitting at that table. Castien hated moments of ignorant bliss such as these... But he hated more that he still put on a fake smile for their benefit. He chalked it up to love for Edisa and Therin... 

    Amon appeared then, signaled by a light knock at the front door which halted the dinner small talk, gossip, and chatter. Everyone in silence, they looked to Aunt Edisa to get the door. She was like the unofficial nanny, housemaid, and hang nail of the family... And yet she fulfilled her assigned role with proud dignity. She would never be defeated by whatever loneliness dwelled within the deep recesses of her being. "I'll get it," she smiled and got up from her meal to answer the door. When Amon was shown through the hall into the dining room, Edisa left again to prepare him a plate of food and swatted at him to take his seat directly opposite his older brother, Castien. 

    Giral's obsidian eyes followed Amon as he found his seat, the tall, lanky youth of nineteen years, with his gaze on his feet, and blushing bright red in total and complete embarrassment. He hated being the center of attention, Castien knew. When Amon was finally seated, she remarked, "A nice first impression, Amenemhet... It's good to finally meet you." 

    Amon stammered an apology, "I-I'm s-sorry, Giral... The t-time go-got away from me. I barely realized it was so late." Nervously, he nibble on his bottom lip and straighten the tablecloth beneath his hands. 

    "Well, this is a celebration of my engagement to your cousin, so I will keep the mood light," she recanted. "I expect a dance later as a full apology..." She winked at him over the rim of her glass to tease him as she took a sip of her champagne. Amon's resulting full-bodied blush exacted a resounding ripple of laughter throughout the dome-ceilinged room. 

 

    Later that night, Castien was walking through the cold streets of, his hands in his coat pockets, and his head down, as he made his way back to his room at the Scrounger Inn. He smiled as he remembered Rizta's underwear waiting for him on the floor of his room. 

 

    The next morning, Rizta was rudely-awakened when her father through open her bedroom door and it hit the wall, causing a crack to form in the concrete and drywall. "RIZTA! Wake up so you can explain to me why your underwear are flying from the weathervane on the roof! There's more; a letter was left pinned to the front door with a pocket knife... It more than implicates you in being a loose woman with no qualms about spreading her legs for a dirty Halfling in a disgusting inn in the old side of town! All this written in huge letters for the whole neighborhood to read..."

 

    "F-Father, I-" Rizta stammered, trying to clear the cobwebs from her half-asleep mind. "It's not true... You have to believe me!"

    "Did you or did you not have sex with this Halfling outside of marriage?!" Aufric demanded, his face red, his eyes burning silver in anger, and a thick vein pulsing in his neck with each outburst. "That's all I want to know!" 

    "It's more complicated than you think, Father," she began, stricken by terror. How could he know? She wondered. Who would've told him?!

    "It's not complicated! It's a yes or no question... Now tell me!" Aufric bellowed. 

    "Father, I love him! I want to marry him!" She shrieked. Tears began to well up in her eyes for some reason she didn't understand. "I'm not ashamed of giving him my body to show him how I love him."

    "You're disgusting," was all her father said before leaving her doorway and stalking back down the hall to his office. 

    Rizta sat in her bed in shock for a few minutes before she dashed the traitorous tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, and clambered out of her high bed. She raced out of her room bare-footed and still in her pajamas, down the hall, and out of her front door only to be faced with a small crowd that had gathered to gossip and laugh at Rizta and her family. Her own shame and anger welling up inside her, her eyes pulsed silver as she gnashed her teeth and snarled at them, "Go away and leave us alone!"

 

    One group of three teenage boys laughed at Rizta as one of them with spiked up platinum blonde hair remarked, "You're just upset because now the whole block knows you're a whore that sleeps with dirty Halflings..." Which made the small crowd and the passersby laugh at her again. 

    "Oh, just go fuck yourselves!" Rizta yelled and turned her back on them to launch herself, on a powerful leap, onto her roof. 

    She climbed across the shingles with her claws out till she reached her black, lacy underwear tied to her weathervane and waving in the frigid, early morning, winter breeze like a small flag of delinquency. In that moment she looked at the pair of underwear and recognized them to be the ones she'd left behind in Castien's room at the Scrounger Inn. "That motherfucker..." Rizta growled. And she tore the undergarment from the weathervane in anger, climbed down off the roof and in through her bedroom window.

    The crowd began to disperse after that... Apparently they'd only hung around long enough to see her appear and mortify herself further as her new reputation dawned on her with the dawn of a new day. Lucky her, she groaned. She had the worst taste in men... 

* * * * *

    The gossip came floating into the Scrounger Inn a couple of hours later while Castien was drinking in a dark corner of the bar, drinking his lunch. And he couldn't help a self-satisfied smile... Now she'll forget all about me, he thought as he smirked triumphantly.

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The Previous Day.

    "I can't do it!" Amon slumped to the floor, defeated, and his micro-wings stopped fluttering immediately. 

    Emeela sighed, but with tested patience rather than pessimism or frustration, before she approached Amon slowly and rested her hands on his shoulders. "Yes, you can... Listen to me. You're overthinking this... That's all this is." 

    "No, it's not! And you know it... Maybe I just can't perform higher level Inta," Amon suggested, using the word he'd learned for Nature Magic, Inta. Emeela's teacher had taught it to them when they were children learning the basics. 

    "We can't be sure of anything until we try," Emeela, ever the optimist, reminded him. She knew fully well that Hybrids were unpredictable, as were their abilities, but she had vowed that once their teacher had chosen her to be his successor, his M'yana, that she would never give up trying to unlock Amon's power. 

 

Eight Years Ago.

 

    "Who is this...?" the elderly Fae man with cropped short salt and pepper hair and pointed ears stopped watering his plants, and looked up at the small young boy standing in his doorway. "From first glance, I can tell you're not part of the Fae Folk..." his glassy eyes, the oppressive gray of storm clouds, narrowed as he looked over Amon from head to toe. "Come in," he waved his hand for Amon to come further into the room, setting down his watering can on the stone-paved pathway of the greenhouse. "Is there something I can do for you...? A medicinal remedy? Or something for your plants to grow...? Not everyone has the green thumb..." he smiled, and it was warm and genuine and sunny. 

    Amon wouldn't lift his gaze for more than a few seconds, but when he saw the old Fae's smile, he felt safe... secure. "I-I'm loo-looking for a t-teacher," Amon whispered.

    "A teacher? What kind of teacher?" the old Fae asked. 

    "A Nature Magic teacher..." Amon spit it out. 

    Just then a little silver-haired Faeling girl came into the greenhouse carrying a small sack of fertilizer, and struggling with it, frankly. Amon rushed forward to take it from her and carried it over to where the rest of the gardening supplies were gathered on a rustic-looking work table. 

    The moment she saw the scruffy-looking, obviously Hybrid, boy around her age, she asked the older Fae man, "Who's he?" She noticed his superior physical strength, and knew he had to be a Darkling. Lightlings weren't physically strong like that, she knew.

    "He says he's come her looking for a teacher..." the older Fae man said, a smile of curiosity playing on his lips as he never took his stormy gray eyes off of Amon. Then the Fae man introduced himself and said, "Well, first thing's first. My name is Farox... And yours?"

    "A-Amenemhet..." Amon mumbled, giving his full name. 

    "Do you call yourself by that name...?" the older Fae man picked up on Amon's awkwardness where his birth name was concerned. 

    "I-I prefer A-Amon," Amon revised himself.

    Did he stammer when he was shy or anxious or embarrassed, the observant little girl wondered. She blurted, "I'm Emeela!"

    Farox turned to smile at her and ruffled her wild, silvery hair, "This is my apprentice, Amon... My student. She's learning Inta too." Farox took the opportunity to explain that each Inta Master Fae is allowed to take two students a generation, choosing at their discretion. And from those students, they will eventually choose one to succeed them as Inta Master to further that education tradition. Then Farox gestured for Amon to come closer with a beckoning wave of his hand, "Come here, Amon, and let us take a look at you..."

    Amon took off his coat and turned his back to them to show him. When they saw, Amon heard them both gasp softly. Whether it stemmed from pity, surprise, or fascination, he couldn't tell, but he remembered the feeling of her small, warm fingers gingerly stroking his wings. They felt like rods of pure sunlight, warm and

serene. Farox remarked, "A Hybrid Fae... and what else, if you don't mind my asking?"

    "Shifter... on my mother's side," Amon didn't stammer. He noticed it, and he wondered if they had too. "My father was Fae... But, I never met him. So I don't know anything about being Fae. My mother's family raised me. They come from a long line of pure-blooded Shifters." Amon didn't know why he was suddenly sharing his personal history with these people he barely knew, but in them, unlike in the Darklings he was used to be surrounded by 24/7, he felt them to be guileless. Trustworthy. 

 

    "Hmm... Combination of Light and Dark..." Farox nodded as he handed Amon back his coat and scratched his silver-crowned head. His pointed ears twitched as he thought, and Amon couldn't help cracking a smile. "It must be so difficult to live with them both fighting for control inside of you..." Farox remarked. 

    The small boy responded, "Not when it's all you're used to... It just becomes normal." 

    Farox was not used to being surprised, but as he looked down at the small, awkward, gangly Halfling boy, he realized that the sensation could be pleasant...given the circumstances. He spoke slowly to Amon, "I sense wisdom in you, young man... Perhaps an old soul. But most of all, I sense someone deprived. Incomplete and in need of knowing... Of a different way of seeing, of knowing, and of being. You have two halves of yourself, Amon, and with one neglected for so long...it is no wonder you finally came to seek us out. To begin to understand the missing piece of your puzzle, if you'll excuse the cliché," Farox punctuated his thought with a smile. "I'll take you on as a student... You will learn alongside Emeela. See if you can keep up. She's a quick study..." He let out a hearty laugh at that point, and extended his hand to Amon for a handshake. 

    Amon took it hesitantly, and his micro-wings begun to flutter excitedly as he thought about the future he could have in this place. Filled with Light and life and magic!  He smiled. Farox left the greenhouse at that point to go outside, half-fluttering off the ground with his enormous, glittering silvery white winds that looked spun from spider silk. 

    Emeela stuck out her hand to him at that point and said, "Come with me." 

    "Wh-Where...?" He squeaked. 

    "To begin your lessons, of course!" She beamed at him, her silvery hair like a curtain of starshine. 

    "D-does that mean we're friends now?" Amon dared. 

    "In a way..." Emeela considered the boy. "I've never had a Halfling for a friend."

    "Then why are you being so nice to me?" He asked.

    "Because you're still one of us..." Emeela replied, not missing a beat. 

 

Present. 

 

    "Ugh! Why can't I do this?!" Amon slammed his fists into his sides.

    "Stop moaning and just close your eyes..." Emeela suggested.

    Amon questioned it the way he questioned everything, "What good'll that do?"

    "Just do it!" Emeela insisted. 

    Amon grimaced the whole time as he let his eyelids shut, squeezing them tight, his whole world plunged into darkness. Until he felt a warm pressure on his lips, warm and slightly moist. But in a pleasant way... Then he felt thin arms entwine themselves around his neck and rest across his nape and shoulders, someone pressed up against him. He didn't have to open his eyes to know that it was Emeela... He knew the scent of her skin and hair, the same porcelain accents which had obsessed him as a child. He knew the touch of her fingers, the same fingers of the hands he'd held for years as they'd learned together. But, Amon hadn't known just how long he'd been waiting for Emeela to finally kiss him. To feel her lips on his; the pressure of her chest pressed tight to his. When he wrapped his arms around her waist, he felt release and no pressure. He felt confident and powerful and...worthy.

    Only when Emeela pulled away, and Amon opened his eyes, did he see what she saw in him. Looking around the room, all of the plants in the room had flourished and bloomed, their intermingled scents heavy in the warm, humid air of the greenhouse around them. Amon stared in disbelief, with dark, wide eyes, and then looked at Emeela who was blushing uncontrollably and trying to tilt her face downward so that her hair would hide her embarrassment. "It was the only thing I could think of to make you stop thinking," she laughed from behind her hair and turned to flutter away on silvery, spider silken wings.

    With a goofy smile of his own, Amon muttered, "I guess the lesson's over..." Then he noticed how dark it'd grown outside and looked at his wrist watch. His happiness faded and his face blanched as he realized the time, "Shit! I'm late!" Grabbing his coat, he sprinted for the door. 

    Amon was goddamned late for his cousin's engagement party! His family just might crucify him this time... 

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The Night of the "Party".

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A Day at the Bathhouse.

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Seven Years Ago.

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An Afternoon Spent with Sisters.

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