Two Moons, One Earth

Ch3: Away From Home

The music is one that I listened to inspire this chapter. I reccomend you to listen to it during the ~Dream~ and afterwards! Enjoy!

Need me? As in the love-love way? The I'm-using-you way? Or the I-need-you-because-my-master-told-me-so? I don't know which one it was, but he seemed distracted with something else. He perked his ears up, dog-style, and strained to hear something. He got up quickly, looking outside at something. Seems like he picked up something.

"What? What's wrong?" I ask, but getting a shhh in return.  He steps out into the blazing sun. What time is it? I shrug that question off and focus on what he's so distracted on.

"I know you're there! You filthy boggart! You're like the rest of them! What do you want?" He yelled out to the forest. I thought he was wacko, but, something small and green came out of the bushes.

"I want to bargain. And the name is Greggard." The little green thing said slyly. "What for what?" Aaron says, playing the deal. "I give you a free ticket to Heaven, for the girl." Greggard suggests. Aaron is silent, maybe hesitating about the trade.

"I don't understand. Doesn't everyone go to Heaven?" I finally get the little green thing's attention. "Oh no~!" Greggard cooed. "I will give him a chance to go to Heaven, by sending him to Gate Mary. In doing so, he shall hand you over to me. Aren't you far away from home? Won't you like to go home?" Greggard continued, slyly.

"What do you mean? Why does Aaron need a ticket to Heaven?" I ask uneasily. "Oh~? Has he not told you? Are you unaware by the fact that he is a-" "Stop!" Aaron says, cutting off Greggard's sentence. Greggard stops and promptly sits on a tree stump near by. "No deal!" Aaron growls. "Are you sure? That growling makes you sound like you're hungry? I am! Got anything?" Greggard jokes.

"Yeah. Boggart stew." Aaron says, as he ascends towards Greggard, ready to make him into stew. "Hahahah, funny like always. But no can do, can't stay for the meal. I've still got the Lord to serve. Don't need to be so serious." Greggard hurriedly jumps off the stump and runs behind the stump. "Well Percy, if you need me, just say my name. I'll be watching! Bye!" With that, Greggard snapped his fingers, and disappeared into thin air.

"That stupid boggart! He's gettin it when I get there!" Aaron mumbles quietly. "What was that all about?!" I get  Aaron's attention."Huh?..Uh, nothing. Let's go back inside." He turns around and heads back into the cave. I follow. "Be ready, tonight, we moving out." He says. I nod.

It's still midday, so I decide to take a nap.

~Dream~

"Hey sis?" I turn around to see my little brother, Keni. "Hmmm?" I watch him run up to me. "Can you play with me?" He asks, very cheerful. "Where's Karliah?" I ask, picking basil for dinner tonight.. "She's too busy helping Mother get the hen eggs." He pouts. "Okay. I'll be there in a moment." I tell Keni to go wait beside the forest. I quickly put the rest of the basil in the basket and hurry to put them away.

After I'm finished putting them away, I hurry to the south side, where he was waiting. When he saw me, he ran happily to me. "Yay! Play! Play! You're the best Percy sister!" I picked him up and spun him round and round. We both were giggling. When I put Keni down, he jumped up and down. But suddenly, he stopped. All the happiness and cheerfulness he had in him was dispersed. It was still there, just not around.

"Sis..I think I hear something from the woods." Keni pointed towards the woods. "It's probably just the river." I check the sky, it was getting close to be dark. "Come on Keni, let's go." I turn around and beckon for him to follow. Holding my hand out, I waited for my little brother to come and take it, but instead, he runs into the forest.

"No! Keni! Come back!" I run after him, into the forest, shouting out his name. I come across the river, and see him just a few feet away from me. He's staring at the water. As if the water was beckoning to him, he dipped his finger in it. "No! Keni! Don't!" I yell out for him to stop. He turns his head and faces me. His face showed a dazed look.

Something was wrong. His eye color turned pitch black. "Keni?" I say in a little whisper. Then his whole body and head faces me, his back, towards the water. Then something flashes, like a tail, elegantly and beautiful. Then hands jump out of the water, surrounding Keni in a circle. "Keni! Keni! Behind you!" I scream at the figure behind him.

It's a woman with silver gold hair and beautiful characterristics. Then, just as fast as she had appeared, she's gone."Percy!" Gone. Gone with Keni. "KENI!"

~End~

"AHHHHHH!" I wake up with a down chilling scream. I'm sweating crazily. A hand touches my back, and I jump up in surprise. It's Aaron. "Are you okay? I just went out to get water, then I heard you scream. What happened?" He asked. My eyes get teary with blurry vision.

"Ke-Keni..Keni's gone.." I huff and puff, like I just ran from Asaban to here. "Keni? Who's Keni?" Aaron sets down the fur bag of water and sits down beside of me. I shake my head, reluctant to tell him about my little brother.

"You can tell me anything." He soothes me to try and tell him why I screamed. I take a big breathe and then tell him everything that happened.

"Keni is...My little Brother. It happened 14 years ago. I was 6, Karliah 3, and Keni 2...." I continued on, finally to the part where he got tooken away.

" After Keni was tooken, I almost went after them, but I found that it was wiser to tell the village head. They searched the next morning, all day. We didn't get any news until late afternoon. They..They said..' We couldn't find him anywhere. But one of our Law and Order scout found a pool of blood farther down the south side river..and this'. The village head handed my parents a piece of green torn shirt. It was blood stained. We held a funeral for him." I carried on with the rest of the memory.

" I knew it was my fault. I always did. But my parents refused to let me think like that. We mourned over and over again. My sister went into coma for 8 months. My Mother fell ill for a whole 13 weeks. My Father went to work for the family, to keep us alive. I cried over and over again, falling ill a few times myself, but never for too long was I sick. I never got in coma. 3 years passed, and my family finally got it together. My sister, Karliah, became better, having function well enough that she wasn't in coma anymore. Soon, everyone forgot about Keni." I hug myself.

"But not me. Still to this day, even after 14 years, I am haunted with these memories and flashbacks. Every year, on the same day he disappeared, when night would come, I would go to sleep. Only to wake up in the morning, screaming, from the terror and sadness from that day. I never got over it completely. But, for some reason, today, it happened to me. I know, when that day comes, every year. But it has already passed. Maybe it's getting a bit worse, as I get older. And..Maybe..Keni even hates me still to this day, that I couldn't save him." I sit there silently, after finishing my story, I felt a surge of guiltiness and anger.

Aaron sits there silently too, progressing in what I had told him. "You said that you saw a beautiful woman with a elegant tail right? And that she popped out of the river?" He asks me. I nod, not wanting to remember much. He sits again, this time, writing in the dirt with his stick. Then he turns to me and beckons me to come closer. I move my head a little closer to see what he's doing. He gently puts his right hand on my forehead. "Don't move and just close your eyes. Think back to the time when you saw that thing take your little brother."  I whimper but does what he says.

"Videam, huic memoriam. Nunc dimittis me ut videat, quid. Colorem. Eieci tui incantatores. (Let me see the memories of this person. Let me see what they see right now. With color.I cast thy spell.)" He said under his breath like last time.

After a few minutes or so, he puts his hand lightly beside of him and thinks silently. I quietly pull away from him and look outside. Dusk was closing in soon. Creatures! Animals! Not good. I'm about to tell Aaron about the night but he looks up and looks like he's refraining from telling me something.

"What? Did you see anything? What happened?" I ask, trying to get him to talk. He shrugs and then says, "As I thought, the thing that took you brother was a mermaid..."