The Golden Bridle (Open novella contest)

Chapter 14

Ella's POV

Having just killed the monster, we hand it over to the sea nymphs who have handled situations like this in the past and know how to deal with something that really shouldn't be there under normal circumstances. The instant I board the boat Louise pulls me aside "mum and dad have been texting like crazy, they know it's about Pegasus but they know that's dangerous. The sooner we can give them an update on this whole deal the sooner they'll leave us alone to do what we have to. Besides, they're not even pushing for us to come, which most parents would be doing in this situation."

I nod, the thread of texts has been on my mind for a while, and they deserve the whole story. My sister and I hold hands until were back on the island itself even when Louise has to go and do things related to navigation, which I don't understand. As soon as we've hit the harbour and tied up again we go and speak to Artemis. She understands though not from personal experience "it's a little different if you're the product of an affair, a goddess and your father is the king of the gods. "

We disembark once again and from sheer force of habit make our way to the fields where we camp with Pegasus, there's a good signal there for some reason and my sister takes a deep breath and dials our mum's number putting the call on speaker phone as it both of our stories. Our mum picks up almost immediately "Louise, are you alright? Is Ella with you and is she alright? Is Pegasus alright?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa mum! You haven't even met Pegasus and yes were both alright. Is dad there?"

Louise keeps her voice calm but I can tell that she's unsettled by our mum crazy bout of questions as are mum is never out of control like that. Our dad comes to the phone pretty quickly and proceed to calm our mum down instead of bombarding us with questions.

When both sides of the line have calmed down, Louise begins "I guess this starts with the prophecy..."

We explain everything. From when I found the bridal after following the whinnying, my mum was a little jealous that she couldn't hear it. She almost hit herself when we explained the part about mirror twins and the prophecy "I bet grandma knew. That was the reason she reacted the way she did when she found out I was giving birth to twins. It was so much more than the usual shock. She must have realised in that moment, what the prophecy meant which is why she left the box to you. Also..." She went on to explain that she had known what was in the box, grandma had shown her before her death, explaining that it would have to be passed on.

"I always assumed that it would be passed on to me, generation to generation. Not to you and I certainly never thought I would see it used in my life time."

When we explained about Pegasus having other riders, we knew that my father nodded on the other end of the call "I did wonder, it never quite made sense to me that we were the only ones given how old both Bellorophon and Pegasus are."

When we finally explained about crazy banana guy aka goliath aka master of saddle aka David Ridley my mother burst out laughing "seriously, he even got his own made up title wrong, it should be master of the bridal surely, not master of the saddle."

"Another point to us." Louise says "in all seriousness though his 'allies' are pretty deadly, particularly the last one. We only got out of it because we had Artemis on side, who is a really cool commander by the way. She gets us somehow despite being a thousand years old. She gets young women; always has, always will."

"We're coming down to see you. We know where you are now, I want to bash a few heads together."

"Mum you can't be serious" I say desperately not wanting her to get hurt.

"You're my daughter, not the other way round" she says firmly. "Parents fight your corner unconditionally and if that means literally fighting your corner then that means literally fighting your corner. Nothing's going to stop me."

The before we can argue about it anymore she ends the call. Louise looks back at me "well that different to what I expected, I do not envy those monsters. We've always known that mum takes no shit from anybody."

"I just didn't know it went this far" I reply.

"Well apparently is does so we are not the only ones from the Lillis clan to hit the monsters today."

Looking at each other, we both start laughing and walk away trying to find Artemis. Despite our mirth, we know a battle is coming.