❝ He is everything to me. I will tear this fucking palace down brick by brick, I will kill every last guard, and I will send you to Chaos themself if you do not return him to me. ❞
where the princess of the underworld saves all of humanity with her...
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ii. the guy from the true-crime podcasts.
Ayanna gripped her twin daggers tight, golden eyes fixed on Dylan; she'd always known he was a creepy mwanaharamu, she wasn't surprised that he was some sort of evil cloud shetani. Her baba had warned her about mashetani but she hadn't thought they were actually real.
Next to her, Jason raised his fists slightly — however, before he could attempt to punch literal air, lightning exploded from Dylan, arcing towards Jason and hitting him square in the chest. Ayanna jumped, eyes widening in shock; Jason had been thrown back, his clothes blackened and smoking, one of his shoes laying a few paces away. The other mashetani laughed, their cackles sounding like crackling electricity.
Piper was standing now, wildly swinging Coach Hedge's bat to fend off one of the shetani — the other set its glowing eyes on Ayanna, then charged, its smoking body sweeping across the glass skywalk. Her eyes widened in fear, heartbeat erratic. She could see thorned vines, oleander, hemlock, and aconite bursting in tangled clusters from the charred sides of the canyon, trying to reach her, but she was too high up. Behind her, Coach Hedge and Leo climbed over the railing of the skywalk, Coach Hedge rushing to the aid of Piper and Jason, Leo rushing to her.
The shetani reached for her, its body lighting up with electricity like a Christmas tree. Ayanna acted on instinct; she swung at the shetani's chest, the twin blades slashing in an X across its chest.
Ayanna flinched back as a sound like wind rushing through a window and a thousand fuses bursting rang in her ears, the shetani dissolving into golden dust, disappearing along with all the air in Ayanna's lungs — she gaped desperately, falling back, her lungs aching and straining, throat tight and clogged. Arms wound around her waist as she was cradled against a warm chest.
“Yanna!” Leo said, urgently, holding her closer. He shifted, kneeling down and laying her in his lap, his warm hands cupping her face. Through her blurred vision, she could only see his panic-stricken eyes. “Yanna, breathe, breathe for me— oh, god, please, please, breath!”
Ayanna's vision faded, her head bursting and full. She could smell narcissus flowers and pomegranates, and she could hear her baba's voice in her head; she wasn't hallucinating, she wasn't having another one of her episodes, she knew that much. It was a memory from several years earlier, from when she was eight.
“Baba, tell me about mama again, please?”
“Your mama was a goddess, mche. Too fierce for this world, so she had to leave.”
“Do you still love her, baba? Even though she had to leave?”
