Stars Of Memory

Chapter 26

"What?"

Liala Nitheina repeats herself, still not taking her eyes off of Jīvitaya. "You are our daughter."

Jīvitaya shakes her head repeatedly and buries her face in her hands, shocked. After a few moments, a soft hand is placed on her shoulder. She looks up, her eyes slightly red with the beginnings of tears.

Liala Nitheina - no, her mother - is looking down at her. Her voice is gentle, in stark contrast with her concerned face. "We will leave the room so that you can come to terms with this. Take however much time you need, but please, call us if you need anything."

Jīvitaya nods shakily, and her mother exits the room with one last glance over her shoulder at Jīvitaya. The Laial, her father, follows with one hand on his wife's back. He too looks back at Jīvitaya before he leaves. Kysanden hesitates, before making his way to the door.

"Kys, wait."

He stops, and when she beckons him over, he does so quickly, sitting on the bed next to Jīvitaya. "Jīa?"

She leans into him, and he wraps his arms around her. "I know you had said that I wasn't human, but it didn't really feel true. Not until now. And this is never what I would have expected my biological family to be like."

"Their personalities?"

"No, the personalities feel right. The fact that they are royal."

He nods. "Ah."

They sit in silence for a while, Kysanden just silently comforting her as she silently cries until Jīvitaya breaks the silence at last. She rubs the tears out of her eyes.

"Can I go to the forest?"

"I don't see why you can't, but maybe you should ask your parents."

Jīvitaya quickly shakes her head. "I'm not ready to do that yet."

Kysanden sighs. "All right. At least take Laira with you?"

Jīvitaya smiles shakily. "Of course." He stands up and goes to the door. "Kys?" He looks back at her. "Are they out there?"

He pokes his head out before pulling it back in. "No, I think they are trying to give you space."

Jīvitaya nods and slides out of bed after dislodging Laira from her lap Laira stretches and yawns before hopping down to the floor, her whiskers twitching. Jīvitaya follows Kysanden out of the room and darts down the hallway with silent feet. As if realizing that Jīvitaya doesn't want to be seen, Laira shifts to her smallest form and goes ahead of Jīvitaya, meowing a warning to her if there is anyone in the hallway that she wants to turn into. It takes about ten minutes for Jīvitaya to slip out of the palace, and another twenty for her to run through the streets and to the edge of the forest.

She steps through the tree line and into the forest, breathing in the clean, green scent of nature that is so much more prominent in the thickness of the trees outside the city. She opens her senses and is astonished by the colors of the light that she sees. Like always, Laira is in shades of blue, currently a dark blue now that she has shifted into her panther form as they enter the forest. The plants emit a pale green light, so dense that they are almost hiding the red animal lights. The ground of the forest is absolutely littered with a blanket of the tiny yellow lights of nutrients.

At first, Jīvitaya can't see any spots of black that indicate a chink in the balance, and she is contrastingly relieved and saddened at it. Relieved that La'Vi'Ai was in balance, but saddened that she can't use healing of the balance to distract herself. Then there is a tug at her navel and a black spot appears, leading her deep into the heart of the forest. She follows it and emerges into a small clearing with an old stone well at its center. The black spot is emanating from inside the well and Jīvitaya approaches it, peering over the side. The black spot flares up as she gazes into the well, and she stumbles back with shock. What happened here? She doesn't realize that she had spoken aloud until someone else speaks from behind her.

"Something horrible."

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Who do you think spoke? What happened at the well?

~Goddess of Fate, signing out.