: What Happened

Another week passed as if the days were rolling up a hill in an unhurried manner.

Kayda sat upside down with her legs hanging in the air over the head of the couch with her head dangling down off the edge.

The tip of her tail flicked back and forth in boredom. With nothing to do in this room, she mainly focused on watching the birds or exercising.

She had lost a lot of weight and muscle from the experiences she had lived through over the past couple of years.

She used to be a bit healthier, but to be honest, she never really remembered herself as one of those people who ate to their content while gaining weight.

But after a few days of eating filing meals on a tight schedule, she could honestly say that she couldn't remember a time feeling so content.

Bored, but content. Stomach wise.

And after she started to regularly take the medicine that Dr. Myer had prescribed, she noticed that her mood swings had lessened and she became, well, less impulsive.

Other than that, she was tempted to start tearing this room apart. See if she could get a rise out of that glacier of a man.

Thinking about his cold eyes and his bloody sword, she thought otherwise for some reason.

Sitting there, plucking feathers out of the pillows on the couch, Kayda was musing on what to do for the rest of the day when suddenly there was a knock on the window.

Glancing up, she didn't see anything so she went back to plucking out a few more feathers.

Another knock echoed in the room.

Standing up, she went to the window and looked down.

Standing below the window was Micheal. He was in comfortable attire with a sword hanging from his hip.

Every now and then, he would look up at the window to see if she had noticed. When they met eyes, he looked away and leaned against the tree planted below her window.

He was waiting for her.

Kayda contemplated for a while before she decided to hide her form.

Looking at the newly installed locks, Kayda didn't bat an eye as she expertly broke them once again and opened the window.

Micheal waited for a few minutes before he heard a rustle of the leaves.

Kayda dropped from the tree to land right in front of him.

It took him a second to realize it was her.

Her horns and tail were gone and now, she looked like an ordinary human being.

"Hi." Was the only word Micheal could get out.

He stood there, feeling awkward. He couldn't help raising his hand to scratch the back of his head.

Kayda didn't say a word, letting him sink into the awkwardness he had created between them.

Both of them were too stubborn to let up. But when Micheal started to feel a cold sweat form on his forehead, he knew he couldn't keep this up.

"Kayda, we need to talk."

When he finally spoke, Kayda looked him in the eye but didn't make a move.

The man before her was Micheal. A grown man who had long matured with the world. Who had lived a life she could not even imagine being a part of. He was now a soldier, a knight.

That thin little boy with the awkward squinted smile and the two missing front teeth didn't overlap at all with this man before her.

He was now someone she didn't know. A stranger she had just met.

But to that little boy that lived in her thoughts, she owed him an explanation. But nothing more.

So with a nod, she sat down on a patch of grass as Micheal followed.

They sat there. Ponding on what to say first.

"Trix," Micheal was the first to speak, but after saying that name, he paused slightly.

"You said that Trix, had the Angor Plague?" He finally spoke the words he had wished to ask.

Kayda didn't look to him. Bowing her head, she looked at her callused fingers, intertwining them in front of her.

"Yes." Her lone word made Micheal squeeze his eyes shut.

The Angor Plague.

It was such a vicious disease. He couldn't imagine his head strong sister ever falling victim to such a clamidy.

At first, he didn't want to believe it. He wished Kayda was lying. After all, the Angor plague was not spread through the air but through touch.

'How could Trix be stupid enough to catch such a thing?' he asked himself at first.

But he knew. She was exactly the type of person to idiotically catch such a thing.

"Do you, know how she," he couldn't finish his sentence as the words refused to release themselves from his lips.

But Kayda knew. She herself asked that question a million times a day for months after she had done such an atrocious thing before she found something else to occupy her mind entirely.

Looking to the sky, she seemed to be searching for the words that she had rehearsed over and over again to tell Micheal what happened.

But the words escaped her. They escaped her at that moment.

Her eyes seemed to bleed in pain. What was meant as words of consolation transfigured into words of blunt force. Clenching her heart like a vice.

"It was my fault." A mutter, only a mutter. But those words traveled between them.

Transferring from her to him.

He looked at her. Waiting. He didn't burst into a rage like he did before. But he waited.

She stayed silent. Opening her lips, she told him the story.

"I, I was stuffed into a cage. A cage full of children. They needed to make room for a new shipment of slaves. We were small, so they stuffed us all in the same cage." She swallowed.

She watched as the clouds drifted across the sky. Not at all focused on the white fluff floating away.

Her mind on a scene replaying behind her eyes.

"One of the kids got sick. So sick. His skin had turned almost transparent. I could see his veins. His veins." Pausing, images flashing across her mind.

"His veins were pressed so tightly against his skin that they burst with a single touch. I couldn't just sit there and watch as all the other children isolated him from themselves. I had no clue why, so, I stayed with him.

I held him in my arms. His eyes slowly started to deflate into his skull while his bowels inflated to the point that his stomach looked as if it had been pumped full of air. I was so scared. I didn't know what was happening. Then, one night, he started screaming.

I woke up with him writhing in my arms. He was sweating so much. He wouldn't stop throwing up. But even though he was so wet, his skin kept shrinking, his bones cracked under my grasp." Her vacant eyes moved forward to look at nothing but memories replaying themselves inside a world only she could see.

"I went hysterical. I don't know why. I had already seen so much death. But this little boy, he was my limit.

Not being able to do anything, listening to his screams, his pleas for help, I just, lost it. So, like a beast covered in that little boy's blood, I lashed out.

I hurt anything I could." She turned her eye to Micheal. His eyes were filled with horror. He knew. He just knew what happened next.

"Trix grabbed me to stop myself from hurting anyone. I was covered in that kid's blood. Covered in it for days. But I didn't catch it. I didn't contract the plague." The next words she didn't have to say. They both knew.

But Beatrix did.

Micheal clenched his fists. His nails piercing into his skin like razors. But the pain was like a nonexistent touch.

Kayda continued. But her voice had become weak. It was as if the memory itself had drained her. "Her only request, was to kill her before the plague took her."

"She didn't want to die like that kid did Micheal. I didn't want to see her go through that pain. So we both decided, I would be the one to take her. Not another slave, not the plague. Me."

When she had nothing left to say, silence fell over them like a veil.

They sat there. The quiet consuming a bit of their souls every second. Until finally, Micheal couldn't stand it any long.

"Take off the charm Kayda." Standing up, drew his sword. His fist clenched around the hilt in a death grip. Like it was the only thing grounding him to the world of the living.

Standing up, Kayda looked at him. "Micheal-"

"I said take it off!" His shout reverberated throughout the air.

"Just fight me Kayda! What I'm feeling, what I'm experiencing right now has nowhere to go. If I don't get it out of my system, I don't know what will happen." His eyes blazed. They pleaded with her.

Looking at him, his eyes melded into her. Reaching up, she undid the charm. Her tail and horns out in the open for the world to see.

"Don't hold back." He commanded.

She nodded. Both got into their stances. Both staring each other down with emotions dancing to a heart-rending song.