The Land of Dawn (ML Fanfic)

31. vines and vex

“It’s a funny thing, you know. Me dreaming about flying and me actually doing it.” She whispered to herself, as her legs dangled at the brim of the cliff that she situated herself on.

She was resting after hours of training. Despite the success of her invention—the steel grappling hook, she was relentless in testing it out, hoping to correct the flaws that would manifest every time she took it out to train.

Ever since she mastered the technique of using her hook accurately, people admired her; how with every fling of her hook, with every sway for her blade, people marveled and opened their mouths out of astonishment. It was always Fanny’s dream to fly and she did.

But she did it not because she wanted to try something that’s out of her world, she was human after all— she had a lot of restrictions and her abilities were only limited, she did it because she hoped that something rather extraordinary could help her world become a better place for everyone to dwell in. Notorious thieves and goons plagued her city and she knew she had to do something because if she won’t, who else will?

She knew that she had enough will to create something that would liberate her people from the greedy and evil souls of her land.

Fanny took a shaky breath as she watched the sun sink down ever so gently behind the shadows of the tall mountains. She lifted an arm and let it be basked with the remaining rays of the sun. She watched as her skin glowed, as if her insides were made of jewels that it made her outsides shine.

With the sun slowly setting and the dark creeping its way into crevices and crannies, Fanny stood up from the cliff and decided to go home. She had a long day after all.

It was good enough that her home was close to the mountains and nigh to the cliff where she often launched herself out to freefall.

When she arrived home, she was welcomed by the sweet scent of jackfruits. She hurriedly stuffed her weapons on a hidden tile on her floor and flung herself to the kitchen.

She saw her mother peel some jackfruits out from its shell and how they were placed in a large glass bowl. How she uncontrollably devoured them and munched without no stopping.

“Oh dear Fanny, what would become of you if I am not around to stop you from eating these jackfruits. You would become such a chubby bunny by then.” Fanny’s mother chimed, pinching her daughter on the left cheek.

“Mom, jackfruits won’t make me fat, your love can.” Replied Fanny, as she shrieked like a little girl.

Dannielle, Fanny’s mother, could only let out a dreamy sigh, as she watched her nineteen-year-old child eat like a four-year-old.

“Anyway, can you help your brother harvest strawberries? I bet he’s having trouble keeping Saddie, our gigantic dog, away. I bet Saddie has munched half of the basket’s contents by now.” Danielle said, pushing Fanny towards the kitchen’s backdoor that led to their garden.
Fanny smiled gingerly as she made her way towards their mini strawberry farm. Her mother was not wrong. Their colossal dog’s snout was basked with bits and pieces of strawberry but she noticed one thing. Franny, her brother was nowhere in sight.

She whistled and sent Saddie back home as she delved deep into their fruit plantation, hoping to locate her brother.

She careened through tall grasses and wafted through stubborn bushes when she saw one of her brother’s shoe, wretched and destroyed, as it lay on a bunch of bananas.

Her heart was suddenly beating erratically. Her brother must be in trouble and she knows none of what to do. She got out from her left thigh a small foldable knife and held it on both her arms. As she neared a dark part of their garden, the one that’s covered in vines and trees, she heard a woman’s voice.

The voice was deep and calm, almost too sweet for the ears. And yet as she listened for a moment, the voice turned shrilly and hoarse, as if taunting and seducing anyone that could hear it. She saw a small opening from the hoard of vines. She decided to peek, to feed her curiosity.

And she could not believe her eyes.

What seemed to be a green portal manifested itself on a wall on one of the vine clumps. A woman, wearing a long green dress stood in front of the portal. The woman had long nails and her eyes were all white. Her hair was the color of ash and her skin a shade of dull gray.

The woman had a cape that ran from the sides of her shoulder up until it touched the floor. The woman was floating in mid-air and she was rotating. The woman’s cape had a green skull of what seemed to be a buffalo or a bull imprinted on its back.

And her eyes went wide when she saw what the woman was holding on its arms.

It was her brother. His body was convulsing as the woman opened her mouth, adjusting it so it was adjacent to her brother’s, acting as if the woman was sucking the life out of him.

Fanny hastily stepped in and yelled her brother’s name.

The mysterious woman released her brother and stepped in the portal instantaneously upon hearing Fanny’s scream.

The last thing she remembered of the woman was her glassy eyes that stared at her and how it sent shivers down her spine and then the woman disappeared.

Fanny went to her brother’s side and held him on her arms. Franny was shivering and the veins from his body were visible on his pale skin, almost too visible that they seem to pop out any minute. Her brother was in great pain.

“Franny, Franny! Can you hear me?!” She shouted at her brother’s right ear, desperate to bring him back to his senses.

“Her name… her name…” her brother whispered, as it pointed to the wall where the portal once stood.

“What’s her name? Tell me!” Fanny shook his brother hard, impatient to know the name of the woman who made his brother unknowingly suffer.

“Ve..Ve..Vexana.” her brother uttered and then it went limp on her arms.

She could only utter the name in her mind as she carried her brother back to their house in wobbly knees and with labored breaths.

Vexana. Even her name took Fanny’s breath away; sucked the life out of her.