"I had hoped, Kyera, you would be thinking of that child in your womb." Akira scolded her and knew instantly she made a mistake. Kyera just raised an eyebrow as I if asking if she really wanted to go there. Akira looked away, backing down. If they went down that path every time they met there was no way forward for either of them.
"Why are you here?" Kyera asked finally, after she noticed the way the tension was affecting him. His breathing was becoming ragged. Wrong.
"I wanted to see how bad the damage is and what Half Eye is prescribing. I was intending to help if I can." Akira replied looking at Kyera, turning away from the boy. She was well aware now she had done all she could. This was out of her hands.
"Can you? Can you help him?" Kyera asked and Akira smiled softly at her; almost reassuring.
"Ky Mei, there is nothing to fix. He's going to be fine, but his soul needs rest before his mind is ready to face his near death." Akira replied her voice gentle and… familiar. Kyera knew this tone. A memory of her child hood flashed through her mind.
She had been five; head strong and climbing a tree not meant for such an inexperienced climber. She had fell. Again. The eight or ninth time…. She couldn't remember now, but the frustration was clear, as well as the blood on her knee. Akira had mended her, and the words she said never made this memory burn like fire.
"Mally, Leave us." Kyera ordered and Akira raised a brow, watching as the young woman stood to do as she was told. When the door clicked shut, she turned to face the woman her daughter had become. Her instincts screamed there was something on the child's mind. They were standing on the edge of a sharp knife, one wrong move and the would be severed from one another. The correct step however, could bring them into touching distance.
The air was filled with two shadowed auras. One shimmered like the moonlight was encased in its core, and the other soft, muted shadows. Both explored the other familiarly, powerful bonds made this more intense. The emotions passing between them through the touch of aura to aura.
Akira waited, she would not be the first one to speak. She couldn't be, everytime she had reached out, it had been suicide. If she did it again, there may not be another chance.
Finally Kyera's eyes opened, and she took a deep breath, centering herself. "Did you know, when you picked me up out of that tree, that you were going to leave us?" Kyera asked her voice soft and controlled but the tears in her eyes betrayed her composure.
"No. I didn't. I didn't even want to leave you, or my sons. You were my world." Akira replied taking a step closer but the black moon filled aura spiked and she stopped.
"Then Why?" Kyera asked her eyes looked back at her mother, her voice cracked as she asked, her hand clenched tight into a fist. It was clear she was forcing herself to listen with every fiber of her being.
"The night I had left, I had gone out to hunt. I was tracking a deer near the south berry meadow. They found me, I wasn't even sure who they were when I was trapped. They wanted to use the power of shadow to crush the Human empire and open the void." Akira explained, her eyes pleaded for understanding. She expected Kyera to shut down on her, to yell at her to leave any moment. Kyera however, seemed to be watching him quietly, her aura and expression perfectly blank even as she listened. There was distrust, but she hadn't shut down.
"Why Shadow Magic?" Kyera asked, that being her main question at the moment. If she was to find the truth she would have to analyze Akira.