Title: Unrequited

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A/N: I realize this story is unfathomable beyond imagination, considering I really don't know the depth of nature behind any relationships. Bear with me, please. I'm just testing out the waters.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Even the child may not be mine, considering that the last time I checked, I can't foresee the future.

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- The Beginning -

My father... is a man who does not speak much. He keeps to himself and to his work, whichever that may be at the moment. I honestly know very little about him. We don't really talk to each other in the sense that most families do, but my family is not really the kind that engages in communication. I don't really know why this is, but it bothers me so much that I can hardly breathe at times.

My mother... is a strong-willed woman. I guess that's the only thing that make sense about her. She often relies on strength alone to word what she wants to say, and that rarely solves anything. I know that she was once a proud warrior of a distant city, her home really, but my father moved our family far away to a large kingdom. I know my mother had tried to compromise, but she has yet to adapt anywhere. She is beautiful, I know, but I have seen pictures of her when she was younger with her white-paint make-up and her full warrior dress, and she looks right at home. The most noticeable difference is that she looked happy then.

My aunt... is a patient woman. She is my father's younger sister, but she tends to act more like an older sister, though I don't think my father has ever minded that. In fact, I think he prefers it. He's always needed taking care of, I can see that now. My aunt is very beautiful, even more so than my mother though I could never admit that aloud. However, it's not really her exterior that underlines it; her heart fills the empty cracks with her love. I envy it, to be honest. She is a healer and works her hands with the water, like I've never seen before, and she seems to be skilled in it. She flows like the waves of the ocean, the currents of the river. She is so unlike my stiff father who wields the sword like a lifeline or my strong mother who wields the fan like she never held me.

My uncle... is a wise man. He is my aunt's husband, and he is very famous. They say he saved the world once when it was in grave danger, but that's hard to believe when his nose crinkles, his eyes close, and his little-boy laugh fills up the empty voids of my life. His physique does not boast any hint of strength, but my aunt had mentioned once that he is stronger and more powerful than any living man in the world. He acts so young, and he doesn't seem to be capable of holding an evil thought in his head. Understanding comes easily to him; he once sat me down and said to me in that soft way of his, "You mustn't worry too much over your father. You know he loves you." My uncle is a naiveté in every sense of the word, and no matter how wise or strong he may be, I doubt he knows my father as well as he would like to, as well as anyone would like to.

My teacher... is a stubborn woman as she is strong. She plays with the earth, and it bends to her will. She watches through her motions because her eyes had betrayed her on the moment she was conceived, but she can see all the things that any well-sighted man cannot dare to. She tries to teach me how to be like her, but she forgets at times that I was born from two people who share a connection with only their weapons and their bodies but not the natural world surrounding them. She believes my father to be weak, so she scoffs at him scornfully and constantly, and I don't blame her.

My lord... is a leader of a nation. He is strong and just, but his eyes look like they have seen too much, lived through too much. There was much dissent in his past, and his life had never been easy, not even from the beginning. I can sometimes feel his bottled-up anger trembling at the very core of the earth, raging for serenity, raging for peace. There are times when I wonder if he'll implode, but I suspect he has a very long time ago and is now just recovering from his losses. I've only seen him once in my life, and I will never forget the way he looked at me and at my parents. He had said to my uncle, "I don't understand why." And for the first time in my life that I can remember, my uncle said nothing in response to that.