Split in Two

Chapter Two

            A few years later, Gerana started to understand the feeling of revenge. Her bright blonde hair turned to black, representing her change of behavior, to evil. Her tone of voice became rougher, and she started to follow her father. She knew though that she still had kindness in her heart, somewhere. It would be found one day, in the deep depths of her heart. She was now twelve years old, she was very intelligent, but she had become an evil child. Her black blade had started to grow over the years, now the size of her arm. In the forests, she had been practicing her fencing with her father, even though she knew her blade would have gone right through him because of his spirit form. With her sword, she found animals in the woods and hunted them down. Then the sword grew more and more. Showing the power she had gained. It wasn't a good type of power to use wisely. It was a wild power, used aggressively and uncontrollably. It wasn't contained or used for good. It was used to show her father what she could do. Gerana had become cold-hearted and a rebel. She could now see things a bit more clearly. She saw more spirits in the halls roaming around the palace. She would only be kind to her father, a handful of spirits, and no one else.
" Hello Flaga, where are you heading to?"
"The dining room, Harpies is on kitchen duty today, I'll say hello to him for ya."
" Is it dinner time already?"
"Yup, it's already 7:43. Dinner's at 7:40, member."
"Bye."

 The dining room was crowded with glass circular tables, servants, spirits waiting for their food,  and diamond chandeliers, its light filling the room. The room was massive, the size of a mansion's rooms all combined into one room. On the back wall, there were three doors. One leading to the kitchen, one for the kitchen utensils storage, and the third for the staff bathrooms. Gerana spotted a fourth door she had never seen. She started to run towards it, gradually getting closer. The closer she got she saw the guards standing at the door. Gerana looked disappointed.
"What's in the room."
" Something we must not show you; especially you," the guards spoke.

 Gerana looked annoyed at the guards. She walked away and caught a glimpse of the room on the inside of the room when the demon dog guards opened it up. There was a golden pedestal, and something black sitting on it, but she couldn't tell what. She went to her table and stared at her plate. It didn't look very appealing. It was some sort of green stew made by the witch Harpies. The waiter pointed out that it was made fresh from Harpies' cauldron. Some cyclops that sat at dinner tables near them said 

"Mmm delicious, try it."

Gerana wasn't looking forward to trying it, so she went straight to dessert. Chocolate Fudge hopper cake. Two minutes later, Gerana had that gobbled down until she saw on the plate were the word "war." Gerana knew she had seen this before. This was probably some sort of sign. After dinner, Gerana had gone upstairs into her bedroom staring at the blade with the word "war" and stared deep into the sword seeing her reflection, but she accepted it for once. The sword clunked down on the floor as Gerana let go of it, stared at the ceiling and fell asleep.

The next day, Gerana went to her usual routine. She went to the forest and fenced with her father. When her father left though, she snuck out deeper into the woods to find more discoveries. She stepped in and heard the chirping of birds and the flapping of their wings. The crunching of the leaves underfoot, the sun shining through the tree's leaves. She found fruit bushes and vines that she cut her way through. 

She ventured deeper and deeper. She heard the whistling of the wind and found more dark spirits. They attempted to attack, but they were no match for Gerana. Their names were Gorgons, Lorlons, and, Zormons. They were all siblings that died together in a car crash, they explained. They wanted to get revenge on the school bus driver who killed them. Gerana learned that every spirit has a story, and instead of fighting, she invited them over to the palace, and said they could go there with all the other spirits inside that were too, from this very forest. Truth was that they would probably end up being in the dungeon or slaves to father, but she obviously didn't care enough about them. She would just let that happen.

 Once they got out of Gerana's way she cut through more vines and found a wolf pup. It looked in pain. It made a faint howling sound as if asking for help, so Gerana went over and healed it with her black magic. It had a scar like hers, cut across the left eye. "The devil's eye!" Gerana thought to herself She finally had someone to relate to. But, the pup probably didn't know what it meant anyway.

 She picked it up, but it bit her instead, sensing evil inside of her. She started to bleed. She healed herself and gave it a handful of the meat she had hunted before, this was probably the limit to her generosity. The wolf pup started to open up to her more. Her hair started to become slightly lighter, she couldn't let her father know about this though. Soon, she would have to go back to becoming bad. She stroked the pup slowly. It started to calm down a lot more. Gerana was wondering how animals could also get devil's eyes, but she didn't care about that, she was glad the pup was okay. It was a timber wolf that was very playful. She decided to take it home with her make it her fighting partner and pet. Now she would have a buddy, a strong powerful fighting buddy. Something to keep her company and make her happy She just hoped that her father would accept it.

Immediately when she arrived home, Gerana went to the armory and weapons room to get her pup some protection. Once the pup was finished it had black armor and iron claws a tail cover, and swords. The pup tried to show off its cool new look. It looked happy in its flashy new armor. She decided to call her wolf friend Sworium after his new look both of them loved.

"Where is my daughter!" Gerana's father boomed throughout the castle. Find her and bring her to me this instant!" " I guess not following the daily routine has gotten me in trouble," Gerana was thinking. She started to run away to the exit until the armory makers all circled her.
"Gatcha," they said. If she attacked, father would get angry, but Sworium didn't know that. His swords swung at them, but Gerana stopped him.
"Seize the pup, the master wouldn't want this mutt inside the building.
"No please don't, he doesn't know any better. He's going to be my fighting buddy from now on. He will be helping me reach father's dream."
They all thought for a moment about that.
"True, but we'll have to seize you both because your father wants you now!" They clutched Gerana's arms and they went off with her and the pup.

The makers threw them on father's floor and left them lying there.
"Gerana, where have you been!?"
"The forest."
"Why?!" he boomed.
"I wanted to explore deeper into the woods and fight more creatures."
"Okay, so you brought one of those creatures with you. What is a mutt doing here?!"
"He will be my fighting partner, he is very powerful and a powerful bite, he even got armor from the weapon makers."
"... That's okay, now you will never go off your routine and you will have to train the mutt."
Sworium started to growl at father. If you do the wrong thing, I will dispose of your mutt."
Sworium started to whimper.
" If you kill him, I'll kill you all five times until you fade away."
Lucifer started to chuckle. "You are too weak to make me fade away, ha, ha, ha." Gerana frowned and walked out of the room, concluding the discussion. "Once I become ruler, I'll be able to do whatever I want to master." Gerana was thinking. What would she do?

...

Sworium and Gerana went on a hunting trip. The goal was to kill a minimum of three animals in the woods and make a spirit fade. They walked farther than when Gerana had found Sworium and found a rabbit. Both sliced through the rabbit and Sworium had the rabbit as his lunch. Next, they found a deer, a little harder than before. It took Sworium and Gerana seven tries before they could take it down. Sworium's teeth were stained with blood from eating so much food. The spirit test had been the hardest of all, but luckily the spirit was weak. Gerana's hair had turned black again, and her sword grew slightly bigger than before. Now she had become bad again.