Seasons in the Abyss (Book 4 EptaBorromean Realms)

Chapter 4.9

Angeline awoke once again. A burning rage broiled inside of her. The bitch had ripped a piece of her soul from her very body, after claiming that she was a thief. She cussed under her breath as she sat up.

"That fucking black winged bitch."

"Calling me a thief? What in the goddess's name did that make her?"

"I will remember this debt, and return it tenfold."

"Fucking Moraie, too!"

"Are you done?" The beast asked, eyeing her furtively.

"You mind your own fucking business!" Angeline shouted back. "And don't tell me to cultivate. I will cultivate when I am good and goddess damned ready!"

She had gotten to her feet and begun pacing the makeshift room. She wanted to run. Wanted to fight or spar, or anything else that could enable her to vent her ire at that moment.

"You need to let me out," she told the beast. "I need to do something other than sleep and cultivate. I promise not to go far, if you are worried about things in the Abyss posing a threat."

The beast's one visible eye widened in shock at her characterization of the situation. "You think I sit here to protect you?" It asked in disbelief.

The beast was emplaced to protect the beings within the abyss from those more powerful creatures without. Angeline did not yet understand, but she would soon enough.

"Cultivate first, then I will let you out."

"Fine," she agreed immediately.

Sitting once again beside the unconscious man, she began the process of circulating her energy through her meridians. After exhausting herself, once again, she passed out; her head tucked against the man's shoulder.

↫↼↼※⇁⇁↬

"If you are my mother, do I have a father?" Angeline asked the woman.

"Why are you suddenly so curious?" The woman asked, not stopping her movements as she pruned a small potted plant within the greenhouse.

"It is written in the scrolls that a mother and father make a child. If I am to call you mother, who is my father?" Angeline asked again, watching the woman in earnestness.

"Your logic is flawed," the woman countered.

Angeline scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. "How is it so?" She asked.

"Gods and Goddesses can make things without joining. I made-"

↫↼↼※⇁⇁↬

Angeline was pulled from her cultivation by the sounds of something shuffling in the distance. Her first instinct was to check the man beside her, but he had not moved. He still lay in peaceful oblivion next to her. She turned her attention to the beast coiled high around them.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" It asked, watching her with the one great eye facing the inside of the walled space.

She wasn't sure if it did matter. "I don't know," she stated.

"If you are not sure whether it matters, why ask?" it countered.

Angeline sighed. "If it does not concern me, then say so and I will continue with the trials and cultivation."

There was a moment of silence before the beast responded again, its attention drawn outside to the greater expanse of the Abyss.

"I did not say it did not concern you. I asked if it mattered to you."

She was stunned for a moment. Why would something that concerned her not matter. As she sat pondering how to ask the right questions, the noises grew nearer. It was muffled by the great serpent's body, but she could hear what sounded like shouting and fighting.