Φ As I approach Cyrus and Atalanta, I see a beautiful-looking woman beside him, but the thing that I notice first is the fact that this woman has one horn on the right side of her head.
Seeing this I run up to Cyrus and I ask, “Is this her!”
“O-O-Orb this is my sister.”
“Nice to meet you, my name is Paribanou, and I thank you for being one of my brother's friends, also sorry for all the stress he has caused you.”
“He hasn’t caused any stress at all in fact he has saved me multiple times.”
With a giggle, she says, “Oh really, I wouldn’t have expected such things from Cyrus.”
As she talks, I notice her heartbeat is skyrocketing, so I ask, “Is everything ok.”
“Of course, it is, I have just been reunited with my adorable brother,” She says giving Cyrus a hug.
As Scheherazade approaches, Paribanou bows and says, “Oh, lady Scheherazade what brings you here?”
“We happen to be looking for these two intruders.”
“Oh, I wanted to talk to you about that, you see this boy here is my brother.”
With a face of utter surprise, Scheherazade says, “But you never said anything?”
With a smile, she says, “It just never came up.”
Putting me in a headlock, Atalanta says, “Wasn’t this supposed to be a stealth mission, you don’t look like someone who was being stealthy!”
“What about you, I swear I heard lightning go off around here earlier. What trouble did you get in yourself.”
Hearing her heartbeat increase again, I turn back over to Cyrus’s sister who is saying, “The reason these people are here is probably for me, so they mean no harm.”
“You don’t need to say that I know already. The reason I am even here is to ask them to come stay with us at the palace.”
Letting go of me Atalanta runs up to her and says, “Really.”
Hitting her on the head, I say, “Control yourself.”
“Orb hit me again and see what happens!”
“TRY ME!”
Φ My sister turning her face towards me says, “Cyrus it seems like you got some interesting friends.”
“I do!”
Clapping her hands, Scheherazade says, “Well we have all had some fun today but now let’s head off to bed alright everyone!”
-Break-
Φ With a jolt coursing throughout my body, I jump up from my bed. Sitting up in my bed a cold sweat runs throughout my body. Suddenly I feel something rushing up from my stomach, so I run to the window in the room and throw up.
“There goes all the food Ahmed got for me today. It seems Skydust bothered me more than I thought.” The flashes of the destruction of Skydust flow throughout my mind, which causes that sickening sensation that causes me to throw up.
Falling to the floor with no energy, I look around the room we are in to check if I have woken anyone up. Looking at Cyrus, Anto, and Atalanta I notice they are all asleep, “Good I should probably go outside.”
Using my legacy, I manoeuvre myself out of the window and start to walk at the rooftops of the palace, letting all my thoughts flow through my mind.
I haven’t been able to keep my promise to Capti at all, he told me to be a good person and live a good life. But in the back of my head, all I have is worries.
Every single second all I can think is: Are the workers at Basileia ok? How long until the toxins take hold of the slaves we freed? Will we be able to find a cure? Will I be able to keep Suzuka happy? Is Morrigan okay, what are the aliens doing to him? How will I even handle the kids from Skydust? Does Gevurah know who we are? If so how will we defend ourselves? If anyone was to find out our involvement with Basileia a target would be placed on all our backs? Can I even protect everyone?
The more these thoughts flow through my head the sicker and sicker I feel, and for the third time tonight I can feel the vomit about to come out, am I so weak that I can’t even stomach my own actions.
After vomiting a third time, I lay on the ground and stare up at the skies, and say, “Look at you Orb, out here enjoying life while people are suffering due to you. You can’t ever visit a single place without leaving people in pain, what the hell is wrong with you, why do you even exist?”
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Out of rage, I grab one of my fingers then slowly start crushing it, “This pain is awful, but Orb you caused this to countless people you piece of shit!” As I scream, I completely shatter my finger.
Covering my face with my hands, I say, “What the hell is wrong with me, what did that even accomplish other than making myself feel better. I need to grow up and deal with this by myself because soon I won’t even have Avram and his family's help.”
“Orb, are you ok?”
Taking my hands away from my face, I see Anto staring at me. “You were just in a deep sleep.”
Sitting down beside me Anto says, “I have trained myself to wake up on a moment’s notice.”
“Sorry about that let’s go back to bed.” Suddenly Anto gives me a hug from my right side, “Anto, what are you doing?”
“When me and Mime were young our parents died and all they owned was taken by their siblings, so we were left with nothing and had to go live on the streets.
During the nights when we slept on the streets, someone would always try to kidnap us or Mime would start crying, so I had to train myself to wake up to protect and take care of her. And to calm her down we would hug like this.
I don’t know what is bothering you but if you can't say anything about it just hug it out with me until it gets better.”
The way Anto is taking is as if his whole demeanour has changed, “Are you really Anto?”
Rubbing his hand against the back of his head. Anto says, “Usually I am just putting on an act, my sister loves to feel like she is in charge and the protector, so I act like a fool to allow her to be the alpha twin, it makes her rather happy.”
“Can’t she hear and see through your body?”
“She is currently asleep now, so I can actually talk about this.”
Patting his head, I say, “You’re a good brother.”
“Thank you Orb.”
“But if it is all an act then why did you act like a brat, all throughout yesterday?”
Turning his head away from me, Anto says, “Even I want to be spoiled every now and then.”
“I see,” I say tickling his body.
“Orb, please, stop!!”
“Ok, ok.” Picking Anto up I say, “We should probably try and get some sleep now.”
“Oki doki!”
As I walk away from the rooftops with Anto in my arms, I take a good look at Jedidiah and say, “This place really is beautiful.
-Break-
Φ I remember the day as clearly as my reflection in glass. It was hot and dry, as I went out to play with the other kids. We always went to play in the same area day after day, it was a straight path west from our village then we took a left turn after five minutes of walking.
But one day, all the kids decided it would be more fun to take a right turn instead, and I followed them like always. The area to the right was almost no different than the area to the left, but for some reason, all the kids were extremely excited.
So, we all played throughout that day, and I eventually fell asleep due to tiredness. When I awoke later that day, I was still in the area that we played in, but I noticed that all the other kids were gone.
Seeing how dark it was I realised they had all probably gone home, so I decided to just sit around and wait. I knew that if I did, eventually she would come for me.
After two days, I saw that my sister had arrived. “Pari!”
Without saying a word, she picked me up and we walked home. In my sister's arms, I always felt comfy and had no worries in the world. She will always be here to rescue me to guide me, no matter what.
Feeling a strange sensation, I jump out of bed and laugh. “Get up Cyrus or I won’t stop the tickling.”
Φ Seeing Cyrus wakes up I stop and say, “You really are hard to wake up, I was punching you in the face and you didn’t even move a little bit.”
“What are you guys d-d-d-d-doing?”
“Getting dressed, we were told to go meet Ahmed after we woke up. Look they even brought us some fun clothes.”
As we all continue to get dressed, I notice Atalanta staring at me so I say, “Is there some kind of issue, or are you just staring like a perv?”
“Your toenails are perfectly fine.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
“What do you mean, they were broken off when we were fighting the giant wonderbeast, how are they healed it hasn’t even been 24 hours .”
“I always heal really quickly like this. I broke my arm when I fought Willow the 2nd for the first time, and it healed in just a few hours.” It seems my finger has healed as well.
“That’s not normal.”
“I guess I am just built differently then.”
Hearing a knock on the door I walk over and open it while saying, “Hello.”
Seeing Cyrus’s sister I say, “Exquisite.” For the love of god, she is beautiful, this can’t be normal for dragons because if it is I need to go to that continent.
“You guys really aren’t good at spotting beauty,” Pari says.
Over in her side of the room, Atalanta mutters, “More like your idea of what is ugly and what is not is completely broken.”
Walking past me into the room, Pari says, “Cyrus are you ready?”
“Y-Y-Yes sister.”
“What going on?”
“Oh, I just decided to take Cyrus around the city, to look around.”
“Well, that should be fine, I guess.”
“Come on Cyrus let's go.”
Walking up to Cyrus, I rub my head in his hair. “O-O-Orb wha-a-a-at are you doing?”
“I am just recharging my beautiful meter, so just hold still for a few moments.” Pulling my face away, I say, “Ok fully charged.”
As Cyrus and his sister start to walk out of the room, I say, “You’re doing a lot better today Pari.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Your heartbeat is a lot calmer than it was yesterday, you see I can hear it.”
Pausing for a moment Pari says, “Well I do feel more relaxed than before, maybe it is because I get to go around with my handsome little brother.” Grabbing Cyrus by the hand, she leads him out saying, “We will be on our way!”
As they leave, I place Anto on my shoulders and say, “Let's go!” As we also leave the room with Atalanta right beside us.
Name: Anathematized Cobra
Height: 235cm
Type: Carnivore
Description: An animal almost identical to a Cobra. It has swirly patterns throughout its body, which it uses to put its prey to sleep.
Fact: It commonly shows up after other animals and wonderbeasts have exhausted their stamina, then it puts them to sleep while and takes their prey.
Name: Karkadann
Height: 215cm
Type: Wonderbeast, Herbivore
Description: A white wonderbeast with a massive body and four stumpy legs. Its skin at the front has two pieces of hardened golden skin in front that serve the beast as armour. On its back, it has numerous holes that pull in moister and rain to create water for it in the desert. But most noticeable is the giant blue horn that it uses to create water for attacks.
Fact: The tiritrex of Jedidiah adapted it blue horns from this wonderbeast