"When was the last time you had our home corn?" Azania asked, "Sweet, fat," she had uttered, waving the sweet corn on her hand in her older brother's face. "Did I mention it's sweet?" she asked taking a huge juicy bite.
It had been a week since the little princess had been by her brothers side. Ever since he had been home, she had been there to serve him. Azania couldn't really care if she couldn't leave for a month since she chose to atone with him, all she wanted was to spend time with her older brother.
"We don't have time for corn in war. The Westerns have been keeping us preoccupied," The young lad answered whilst stretching his arms on the grass, enjoying the comfort and peace it brought him.
"That is why I especially cooked some for you," she had answered. "Where is it then?" Moti asked still confused he hadn't gotten his share.
"well, I cooked the corn, then I ate some for taste, but then it was too good I couldn't stop eating, so.." she shrieked in embarassment and carried on to say while stretching her palm, "this is the last one left," she told him offering the already bitten one.
Moti chuckled in adoration for his cute sister and teased her whilst taking the last corn, "I still wonder who will marry you," he held the bridge of his nose in sarcastic sympathy.
"I'm a princess. Anyone would die to marry me," she arrogantly told him, whilst pushing the bit of her locks under her ear.
"I am always amazed by your shallowness," Moti would always tease Ania this way. But he knew how much depth she had as a person. On the first day he had arrived, she forcefully stripped him off, just to make sure there was no fresh wound on his flesh.
When she discovered the wounds that were healing, some fading and others still fresh, she had cried in her brother's feet cursing herself to have let him get through such inconveniences.
"Are they painful?" she had asked. "Did you cry?" she had carried on to wonder as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Have you been able to sleep? with such scars and wounds how," her voice had altered to a stop. She couldn't speak anymore. She had cried, whilst continuing to clean his wounds. Whimpering inside her breath and buying most of her cries to herself.
"Ania, I go to the battlefield expecting to get wounds," Moti had told her silently hoping that would at least console her. But it hadn't. The mere fact she was told such a thing made her heart pain more.
"Brother, all your life, you've been standing between earth and the afterlife's realm," she had realised.
Moti didn't know what to say after this, because he himself knew it was true. It had been a plenty of times that he nearly ascended to the higher realm.
Moti loved how his sister was considerate and couldn't stand bloodshed. But because of this, he also worried. If someday there would be a time where she'd need to let go of all that she knew and live a life of survival, would she kill so she lives? Would she forego her bearing temper?
Whilst devouring the sweetness of the corn in his hand, he suddenly breathed a breath of contemplating. "Azania," he had called her out, all for her to hum in response. "It is no doubt that you carry a good heart of benevolence. If someday you must forego all your beliefs to stay alive, do not hesitate," he got up, to sit on the same level with her.
Ania had always been quick witted. She felt a tension of energy coming as waves to her. As much as she wanted to know more, or as to why her brother would suddenly command her of such, she knew it had already been hard enough for her brother to bust just the bubble he assumed she lived in. Like the good sister she was, she nodded her had firmly assuring her brother that, no matter what, she would survive.
.....
"You still haven't told me how you plan to inherit the power of the great spirit," Nala questioned when she had walked in her husband's chambers.
Nala never really liked keeping things inside her. Her tongue was almost always laced with the truth. She was willing to hurt and let her words carry rudeness in order to get her point across.
"Come, eat, have you had lunch?" her husband had asked afraid of the fire that would come to burn him after she had known of his plans.
Nala had walked closely to sit opposite him, calculating his every movement and reading his every posture.
"Have the corn, the new year is nearing, We never get to eat such lavish all year round." he had sweetly told her. Wondering if she had tasted any of the harvest yet.
Nala had taken the corn to taste it out of suspicion. It was indeed sweet and juicy. Almost forgetting the real reason why she had come to see her husband that afternoon.
"I could never inherit the power of," her husband had started to say threading slightly before he was cut off by his wife.
"I know, hence the question," she asked losing her patience.
"Moti would,"
"I knew it!" her hands had found the surface of the table, beating it loudly out of anger.
The King had been more than afraid of what was to come next. She seemed to steam off venom.
"You want our son, to commit the greatest crimes? You know forcefully inheriting the power would be going against the heavens," her brain seemed to be in slow, and she couldn't bring herself to understand how her husband's head worked.
"We haven't had a successor in two generations." he tried to reason out.
"thus we wait," she tried to get her point across.
"We have the Westerns backing us into a corner. The Wolf territory holding us by the neck, we-"
"Ekon!!"
Seconds went by slowly, the silence had been too unbearable. How often would anyone call out the King's name. How often would anyone yell at him like that. He was beyond shocked and bewildered.
"Do not use the kingdom's grievances as a hide out for your greediness and as a form to reason out your nonsensical ways," Nala had threatened slowly. She hated his greed the most. She hated his need to be the greatest the most. She hated how he was ready to sacrifice any of his own just for him to be above.
"Curse me in your heart and belittle my morals all you can. But my heart is as clear as water. I know I am not guilty. All I have been doing has been for you and this kingdom," he whispered out of disappointment. Wondering how much less of a person did she really think of him.
"You words carry so much weight, that I might think you could care the slightest for me," her eyes had suddenly become glossy. She couldn't understand how he could always watch her suffer and still look away because he'd benefit in the end. Or go against the greatest beliefs of morality and rules just to please her.
"Because I do, I truly do," he pleaded with her to believe him.
"only If you could have acted this way twenty years ago,"
he could see it coming. The coldness, the way she'd suddenly pull her heart from him and get further and further away from him. He could feel her slipping away.
She had silently risen from the table and walked to the door, preparing to walk out.
But before she did, she slightly gave him a glance just to feel the radiating energy of guilt coming from him.
"I would have done anything for you, and you knew that, hence you threw me to the wolves, knowing I'd willingly get my neck bitten off for you." she realised out loud, feeling a sense of despair in her heart as she recalled the olden days.
"You saved me, when all my hills had fallen, and I'll forever hold you highly for that," she further explained hoping he understood just how much she suffered under his care.
"But putting you on a pedestal and praising you with blindness would be one of the greatest crimes I could ever commit as the lineage of the Imperial Spirit family," she had told him before stepping out of his bundle.
Of course she was The only remaining direct line of the Great Spirit. This it seemed he forgot sometimes. She was far more noble than anyone in this kingdom. Even him included. Her chair still remained vacant. She had lowered herself many times for him. She refused to inherit her birthright for him, suffered for him, sacrificed herself for him, and what had he done to repay her?
he had obviously Taken all the good she had done for him for granted. How many times had he twisted the dagger he had placed on her back? Too many times that the agony weighing her heart had become numb, this the King knew.
But Ekon couldn't only be Nala's childhood sweetheart, her husband or the father of her children. He was also the ruler of the Crystals, he understood this. And him understanding this, he had already accepted that he had to unlearn the morality that had guided him. He could only betray his heart more than he could betray his wife.