Vale:
“Disperse! Everyone disperse!”
I could hear my father saying this but it was like an echo in a distant world. I knew that he was saying this on account of me, and my mother. I knew that our power colliding like it did, was damaging to everything around us, but I just couldn’t stop. We just couldn’t stop.
Not only me, but Merari as well. Fierya felt my rage and she tried to keep us grounded but there was something even stronger than her. She was muted by both of our life’s trauma and the emotions that came along with it.
There was an unstoppable rage that seemed to engulf us both, and there was no stopping it. Not without intense physical intervention.
We fought. We fought hard and anyone who got into our way was only collateral to us both.
I wanted it to stop! I wanted it to stop. Or at least part of me wanted it to stop. The other part of me-that resentful, and enraged part of me wanted to go and go, and keep going until there was nothing left.
My body was slammed into the ground by my mother. I stumbled to the ground, found footing again and rushed her again, I struck her, slammed her into the ground, cratering it further than it already was and immediately I started to punch her when she kicked me off of her. It didn’t keep me down for long, however, before we both started toward one another again.
Then suddenly, I heard his voice. “That’s it. I’ve had enough.”
With speed, I rushed forward, and before I could make impact with my mother, I rock hard surface slammed into my chest, and immediately snatched me away.
I fought against this seemingly immovable force and could not get the best of it. This strength, and the sensation exuding from it rendered me powerless against it. And I knew who it was. I knew….who he was.
“Calma, pequenina….calma.”
The soothing sound of his voice resonated through me so deeply that….for a moment, I could feel myself almost go limp into his arms.
Then suddenly, we stopped, and we were outside of the small bed and breakfast where I stayed. Or at least, I felt like it was. In truth I didn’t know, because as soon as he released me, I felt the rage and resentment begin to seep back in.
“You’d better get out of my bloody way!” I growled.
He hardly responded to me. With his arms crossed, and his head tilted to the side, he simply watched me.
“I cannot do that.”
“I will punch through you if I have to,” I growled.
He took a step toward me, arms still crossed. “No you won’t.”
It angered me that he was so adamant in his response. What was more frustrating was the fact that somehow, I knew-despite my strength, that I would not punch through him.
He took another step toward me after he said this and I found myself taking a step back.
“You’re angry, mimar,” he said to me and took another step toward me. “You need to calm down. You keep going like this, and you will destroy everything around you. Do you want that?”
Seething, I turned my back on him. It was as if I could not move against his words. Why? He shouldn’t have had this sort of control over me. But it seemed that he did, and I just could not understand why.
Angrily, I rushed to my room, and tried to slam my door closed but I heard him catching it.
I whirled around, “I did not invite you in!” I growled.
“You did not,” he said, but it was evident that he did not care about that. “What is your problem?” he asked me.
I didn’t answer him. He stopped me from fighting but he did not have control over whether I answered him or not. I refused to answer him. I would not!
“You are…erratic, hateful, and very angry. You are acting like a toddler! Fighting, and arguing every chance that you get! It is repulsive!”
Repulsive? His insult did sting, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. In fact, I was irritated by the fact that he could make me feel guilty for being the way that I was.
“You wouldn’t understand, and I am not going to bother explaining anything to you either!” I hissed and attempted to leave the room.
“We. Are. Not. Going anywhere,” he snarled. “Until we hash this out. Here. And now.”
Again, I was forced to stumble back from him. There was something so domineering and assertive. His alpha voice was stronger than my will to leave. I suddenly realized that.
I was tired. I was so tired.
“You wouldn’t bloody understand,” I found myself whispering as my voice began to break, displaying my weakness. I was tired of hiding it.
“Then…don’t…” I could finally hear her-Fierya speaking in the recesses of my mind.
When she said this, I could almost feel my legs buckle beneath me. I truly was tired.
“Then help me…to understand, mimar,” I heard him say from behind me. It was then that I realized that he was closer to me than he was before.
“Why should I?” I hissed, wiping the tear that escaped me. I walked away from him, but not in an attempt to leave the room. I guess part of me did want to approach the subject more than I had initially thought I did. “You’d never understand.” He didn’t respond to me, and though part of me did want to talk about it, I still felt glad that he didn’t force it. “Just…leave,” I whispered.
I was just so confused, and lost, I didn’t want him to leave, but part of me just instinctively told him to.
I then grabbed some clothes, that I’d lounge in, and then I went into the bathroom and took a shower. Surely, that would calm me down.
After an hour under the rain of well-pressured hot water, I left the shower, oiled down and put on my lounging gear. Fully expecting to just…play my frustrations away.
I opened the door, and walked out, and sensed that he was still there. “What are you still doing here?” I asked, though part of me felt like I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“I told you that I wasn’t going anywhere.” He shrugged haphazardly as his he took a look around my room, fiddling around with the odd knick knack that was lying around.
I grabbed a beer from the mini fridge, and popped it open, I then took a drink of it. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Yes, you do,” he said without hesitation. It was clear that he was not going to back down. “Now, tell me what it is that you think I wouldn’t understand.”
“Again,” I said and sat down at my chair and continued to drink my beer.
“Because,” he snatched the drink out of my hand and then began to drink it himself. “You need to,” he said. “Else you will destroy everything in your path.”
As he said this, I pulled out my cello and positioned it between my legs, gently plucked a string or two.
He squatted down in front of me. “Talk to me.”
I tried so hard not to look into his eyes, then I slipped up. My gaze found his, and suddenly I…I felt myself wanting him to know every inch of me. In…and out. The tears began to come again.
I dropped my head, and again, my fingers began to gingerly pluck at the strings. Ihad forgotten that I needed to buy another bow for it. Bloody hell. Still, simple plucking was calming enough. Eventually a melody began to form.
“I am…so angry. I…am…lost,” I croaked softly.
“Why are you angry, mimar,” he asked me. “Who are you angry with?”
“I don-I don-bloody know!” I hissed. “Everything! Every…everyone! And no one. I just-” I couldn’t form my thoughts properly.
“You know, Vale. So, tell me. I will not judge, and I will not discount your feelings.”
“Her,” I said without hesitation. So quickly even, that I surprised myself. “I…am so…so angry with her.”
“Who?”
I plucked another string and then looked into his eyes. “Merari,” I replied. “Harlyn…and another.”
As I said this, my stare shifted, and I tried to remember who else I could have been so upset with.
“And why?”
I shrugged, although I knew-mostly, why. “Harlyn has always hated me, always treated me like I was less than and then she’d try to act as if he cared about me. I just…I just wanted to be accepted by her. I’ve always only wanted to be accepted by her. Then…there’s my mother…who always hid behind a face just to talk to me instead of letting me know who she truly was all this time. The times that she didn’t hide her face, she was in shadows lurking. I should feel grateful, and…I guess…I should feel…” I exhaled. “Why was she so afraid?” I looked at him as if he’d have an answer. Somehow, the shadow within me-those shadows that seemed to know things had not given me an answer to this yet.
“Perhaps, she was afraid of your rejecting her. The way that you are rejecting her now.”
Instead of responding to his sensible response, I plucked at the string once more. I hadn’t thought about it or maybe I did, and just rejected the plausible thought just as I had been rejecting my mother.
“You already know that your sister is a brat. She’s spoiled, and she’s…jealous. You’re the daughter that Alastair Wade places all of his dependence in. He trusts you and has always felt like you could handle things where she could not. You are…talented on the field, as well as the stage. You are….” his hand touched my bare thigh and suddenly I felt that sensational feeling rushing up and then down my spine. “Extremely beautiful,” he said to me. “Sexy…without trying.”
Where his eyes fell on my thigh, shifted awkwardly in my seat and then suddenly he looked at me. A grin lifted the corner his lip and then he removed his hand.
“Now…tell me about this other entity.”
When he mentioned the last female. The female that I could not place, I suddenly shut down.
“I don’t know,” I shifted the cello to the side and stood up. “I just don’t…” I walked away from him.
“What do you mean you don’t know.”
“Just what I said!” I snapped. “I don’t. Know.”
“I think you do,” he said.
“I don’t!” I growled. I don’t know why but this one, whoever this girl was, this one enraged me more than my mother or Harlyn. “I told you don’t know.”
“To feel so much rage, you have to know something, mimar,” he said to me.
“Stop it! Stop, Ares!” I snarled. I suddenly felt my anger resurfacing. He backed away from me.
“Fine,” he said.
“You need to leave,” I suddenly said. I wasn’t necessarily sure that I even wanted him to leave. I was sure, however, that I was too mentally tired to go further into this discussion. I wasn’t ready to delve this deep into the conversation. Into my mind. Not yet.
“Mimar-”
“No, don’t!” I quickly retorted. “Just…please…leave.”
He stood there a moment as if contemplating whether he should or not. Eventually, however, he did as I had requested.
“I will leave,” he said. “For now.” He walked to the door and opened it. “But whatever this entity…this nameless, faceless woman that you cannot name, Valene…you really need to figure out who she is. There is a reason why you’re angrier with her than you are with anyone else. The quicker you find out, the better, mimar.” he walked out of my room.
When he left, I fell back against the door. Resonating on his words, I was forced to think about this faceless woman…I didn’t want to but I did.
Whoever this person was. I couldn’t shake the feeling…that she was responsible for my death.