'Till Death We Will Fight

Chapter XIV

After days of endless riding and walking we have made it back to Drastrand Strostton. "We should go see your father before seeing Zena." I look at her and she nods but she seems unsettled. She probably doesn't want to be questioned by her father. "I'll be right here the whole time." I take her hand in mine and squeeze it lightly. She nods and we set out to find her father.

We find him in his drawing room, "Fratren?"

He turns to us and smile, "So? Do we have new allies?"

She smiles and nods, "We have the entire town with us."

He walks over to us quickly and hugs her, "I knew you could do it. Did you bring the highest ranking man here?"

Her face transforms from proud to unreadable, "No, there was an incident and he was killed. I failed to protect him."

"Things happen, it wasn't your fault. You got an entire city from the human king."

She nods and kisses her father's cheek, "I must excuse us, we need to speak with Zena."

Her father smiles and nods, I can tell he is very proud of her. I wonder if she sees it. We walk to Zena's room and V knocks. A moment later Zena opens the door before pulling V into a big hug which she returns awkwardly. "I'm so glad you're back." She pulls away and smiles at us. "What news do you bring?"

"We have the city of Tus'da-Gor standing along side us... but I bring news that I must tell you in private."

Zena's features show her concern, she nods and moves to let us in. After we have made our way inside she closes the door slowly, "What is your news?"

"It has nothing to do with any of our people being wounded or killed." Zena seems to relax a little after receiving this, "It has to do with me and what could happen in the future...."

"Have you been wounded?"

Zena goes into a frenzy of concern and worry, "No... I'm fine in the physical sense.... you see when I was younger...well throughout my life really... I didn't have a good life... because of this I had extreme emotions and I managed to split them into four different auras..... it seems once I get to one of my extremes the auras I created when I was young come out and take over....I can fix it but...it will take a long time....I thought you should know because there is not much I can do to control it at this point...." I place a comforting hand on her shoulder as she looks down. "Mam is a motherly side and it's not bad when she takes over but..Viv is my anger and there is no stopping her until she is satisfied with what she came out to do...Val and Mal are my pain and sorrow....they're always together and they only come out when I'm alone....Viv seems to try and protect them as much as possible but....they are there to protect me....I'm trying to merge us all into one but.....when I do..." I see a few tears fall but she tries to remain strong and not show it, "When I do I will be a schizophrenic...."

Zena drops to her knees and holds V, "We'll make sure this stays our secret until you show signs of improvement on merging...." V wraps her arms around Zena and nods her head.

They are both very strong women, they really need each other. I'm glad they found one another....I wish V would allow me to comfort her... she acts like she's too strong to show emotion and she does get there....I want to know her past but I don't want to go walking into her mind without her expressed consent. I'll find out soon enough though.

Zena pulls away just enough to look at V's tear stained face, "Does your father know? What about Jay?" V shakes her head, "Why haven't you at least told your father?"

"It's bad enough that Julius knows I'm broken....I don't need Father or Jay worrying about what or who I will break next...."

"You are not broken."