Little lion man

Chapter Two: Broken Promises

As we grew older, it became clear that mother favored Amber over me. Not that I was jealous. Mother's "favor" merely consisted of rigorous training with her powers and weapons. While Amber was training, mother would experiment with my powers to try and gauge my limits. Sometimes she would experiment on my body as well, testing different pills and injections, always pushing me to just before my breaking point.

In the evenings, Amber and I would talk about our plans for the future. We wanted to experience the world. We made a pact to stay together. Once we got out, we would stick together and travel the planet, which we had learned was called chorus. We wanted to see the oceans, the mountains, the forests, everything. We had to escape first, though. Fortunately, we had a plan.

The day after we finished finalizing any stray details and what ifs surrounding our plan, we put it into action. Just twenty one years old, and we thought we were ready to take on the world, starting with our mother. Amber called mother into the room she was training with her weapon, and while she was distracted, I snuck out of the room she left me in, taking a syringe with me that contained a paralytic chemical that would hopefully last long enough for us to escape while she was down.

Once I reached the training room, Amber swept mother's legs out from under her. I tossed her the syringe which she caught and plunged into our mother's neck using her powers. Once that was over with, we ran out of the room and past several guards, Amber slaying the ones that got in our way with her sword.

After practically flying through the halls and a flight of stairs we were almost to the exit. I could practically taste what I could only assume was fresh air. It tasted like freedom. It tasted like hope.

"Tremble for yourself, my man,

You know that you have seen this all before"

I had had multiple dreams, or more accurately the same dream multiple times with slightly different minor details, of failed escapes, and they always started off the way that day did. I assumed it was because I was nervous about the plan. Never once did it occur to me that the spirits could have been warning me of what was soon to come. Not that it would have changed anything if I had known. It would only have prepared me for the inevitable

Amber was the first outside. I was close behind her, almost up the last set of stairs to the door. At least I was until I was grabbed from behind and injected with a syringe full of some sort of liquid that left me completely limp, but aware of everything around me. As the figure dropped me to the ground and stepped over me towards Amber, who had turned around and watched with wide eyes as I was drugged, I realized with a sinking feeling that it was our mother.

"Tremble little lion man,

You'll never settle any of your scores"

As Mother stepped towards her, Amber looked only at me. Time seemed to stand still for a moment as the world waited for amber to choose whether she would try to rescue me or if she would run away instead. I hoped she'd try. After all, she promised we'd stick together. She promised we'd find someone who could help me learn about my powers, and somewhere to live.

It was raining that day. Not a hard, driving rain, but a subtle, misting one. One that gently caressed the face of Amber and glistened on the trunks of the trees behind her as softly as the hopeless tears of a lover who lost everything. I could see it through the still open doorway that perfectly framed Amber as she made her decision. The last thing I heard in my head as she turned and ran into that soft green forest was "I'll come back for you. I will come back and I will bring you justice."

"Your grace is wasted in your face,

Your boldness stands alone among the wreck"