The Archress [HOLD]

III

Ulysses usually enjoyed waking early. H enjoyed being first in everything, most of the times, but mostly before the sun was fully up. Not only was it the only time of day when it was peaceful, but because it made him feel powerful. It made Ulysses feel like he could control the outcome of every day by adjusting even the smallest things before anyone else could. It was the best way to make the Huma respect him more and realize how good he really was.

"Stop blocking the light," said a voice from behind him. It was Armia, sitting cross-legged on her cot, furiously scribbling on a sheet of paper and making a mess. Red ink was dribbled all over her fingers and the already filthy sheets and blankets that were spread across the floor surrounding her.

"What are you doing?" Ulysses asked in as he gestured to his older sister's mess. "What are you writing?"

Armia tossed her silvery hair out of her face and paused for a half of second to glare at her brother. "So we're going to do this again," he heard her mutter. "Why are you up so early? And why haven't you noticed me yet? I've been here almost ever since we got here last night. Oh," she added, "do you have any idea what happened yesterday?"

Ulysses rubbed his hand over his face as he angled his body away from the open, carved out window that was almost twice as tall as him. Why was she so upset this early? "I'm thinking, to answer your first question-"

"About?"

He sighed, but still started at the opportunity to have a private conversation with his sister. "Have you ever noticed how, in the early morning, it seems as if you hold the power to change the day? To mold and shape it into whatever you want, for your own benefits and interests?"

"Really?" Armia asked with a dull interest. "Great Beasts, you are as cold hearted as they come. Why does the morning remind you of power and strength whenever it's so gentle? There's a peace that comes with the early hours; one that can only be found again at the very rare moment when the animals of the day sleep and the creatures of the night just begin to stir. The stillness of it all is so mesmerizing, like..." She trailed off and began to stroke her pen across the paper again. Then she stood and walked over to Ulysses, dropping more ink. "Like this."

Ulysses gently took his sister's mess and looked at it. As soon as his eyes landed on the bleeding but colorless sky, and the painstakingly beautiful silhouette of a boy standing besides a window, all he could think about was how perfect the simple drawing was.

"Armia..." he started. "This is amazing. Worthy of the king of Caos himself."

Armia was beaming, a seemingly endless bundle of pure bliss and happiness. "But that's not all," she whispered, as if speaking too loud would break the spell her drawing had put on Ulysses. "Watch carefully."

Ulysses stared and, after looking at it for long enough to begin wondering if his sister had meant something else, gave her a look. He opened his mouth to protest, but was shushed as Armia again gestured excitedly to the drawing. Officially agitated, he reluctantly went back to looking at it--and this time almost threw it out the window.

"Armia!" he breathed. "What is this?"

The dark and artfully sloppy drawings were still on the paper, but something that Ulysses could only describe as magical had happened to them: they inked shapes were moving. Moving, as in the boy began to stretch his arm out the window, and his hand was met by a group of three butterflies that went up and down his arm. Then the sun in the picture started to shake, and the pictures disappeared, leaving an even bigger gang of butterflies in Ulysses' stomach as it returned to normal.

"Do you like it?" Armia asked after they had stood in stunned silence for a long enough time that other Huma had started training.

"O-o-of course," Ulysses gasped. "It's... the most beautiful thing in the world."

The butterflies reminded him of the time when he was sitting alone in one of the beautiful Huma gardens after a long, hard day of training. It was the most peaceful time he had ever had; there were flowers with the deepest scents, the sky was a beautiful blue, the birds chirping a hyptonic melody--

"No it isn't." Armia's voice slowly bled its way through his nonexistent memory, until all he was staring at was a simple drawing that looked as if an animal had slowly died on it. It smelled like it, too. "It was an illusion. That was what it looked like before. Like a mess."

"Before what?" Ulysses asked, trying to keep his thoughts above the sea of pain that was beginning to thrum through his head.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Armia started. Ulysses could tell already that he was not going to understand most of his sister's excited, rapid fire rambling that was about to happen. "It all came to me in a sort of dream, except I wasn't asleep; it was on our way back to the camp that I had a sort of flashback. In it, Mom and Dad were with us--our real mom, mind you--and they were sleeping up in the tall jungle trees. And then Mom opened her eyes and showed me a moving picture, just like the one I showed you. She told me to 'feel and move with it.' Then she told me to always and forever be strong, and then I woke up. But before--Ulysses!" Armia gasped and snatched up the paper from his hands.

"Look! Look, this was exactly what my vision was about!"

The paper now had an enormously tall tree on it, and impaled through their hearts, the twins' birth parents were lying still with their eyes staring emptily at the sky. Blood steadily flowed from their mouths and ears and eyes and nostrils, covering every open area of the tree's bark, so much it seemed to be made of it. It was a gore-some scene, even for an assassin.

"This was what you saw?" Ulysses barked. "Look at them, dying on a tree of their own blood!"

Armia's smile faded and a confused look took over her face. "Dying? No, they're sleeping. See their chests, they're rising." She pointed to the spot where the flesh met the bark. "They're breathing. And there's no blood anywhere."

"That's not what I see."

Armia brought the paper closer to her face, knocking an elbow against Ulysses' shoulder for less than a second. "What? What do you mean--Oh, that's terrible."

Ulysses nodded. Good, he thought. So she can see.

"But..." Armia gaped at the bodies and backed away from the paper, as if it were real. "That's not what I saw. See there? It's normal again."

The gory image remained.

"You must be tired, sister," Ulysses suggested. "Please-"

Suddenly, Armia snatched his shoulder. She clenched it for five frozen seconds before shoving it away. Then she touched his shoulder again, and let go. She repeated it four times before coming to a realization.

"Only when I touch you is when I can see them...dead." Her voice cracked on 'dead.' "But why? And how?"

Ulysses shrugged, the excitement draining from his body. "That is for you to figure out another time, Armia. The early training is beginning, and you know how much I hate being late." The last part was said with an air of authority and superiority that accidentally escaped his mouth. Armia, noting his tone, huffed. The suddenness of what had just happened was shrunken by a blob of annoyance and a little anger.

"Well, if it's so important, 'Your Higness'," she said and stomped out the door.

"Wait!" Ulysses called. His sister froze, her body tensing. "You're forgetting your equipment."

Armia wore a scowl as she promptly stalked back through the room, went to her bedding area and grabbed her bow, half empty quiver, and training clothes, and stomped back out.

Ulysses turned back to the window just to look down on the regular Huma practicing, and smiled.

It was nice to know that his sister would always need him.