Chapter 10- flashbacks
I just turned 6 a few weeks ago, me and my mother were heading threw the forest heading into town for some supplies. We were still deep in the forest when my mother stopped talking and walking then tensed up looking frantically around the forest. I had no idea what she was doing. I was still too young to shift or sense the hunters coming.
My mother dropped her baskets and shifted into a huge Bengal tiger, teeth bared and growled into the darkness. She kept moving so I was behind her, that's when I saw them. There were 8 huge men coming from the forest, they were the tallest and broadest men I had ever seen. The one I assumed was the leader walked closer to my mother with a huge grin, the rest of the men spread around us in a circle. "Well, well, well what do we have here? If it isn't Queen Saphira herself, and who is this little thing with you your highness?" my mother let out a loud roar which had the leader step back a few steps unconsciously. His face turned completely wicked and his eyes changed to a bright red. "Boys you know what to do." Everything happened so fast I couldn't keep up with it all. Several of the men were lying in pieces and my mother had been weakened so badly she changed back to her true self. She fell to the ground covered in blood; she turned to me and motioned for me to be silent, I tried to comply threw my sobs.
I tried to run to her but the leader tossed me swiftly away into a rock. "Well aren't we a feisty little one. What are we going to do with you I wonder?" I was petrified, yet livid at the same time for what he had done to my mother. "I would ask if this was your runt, but you look nothing like her. So I ask again what do we do with you? My mother was so beautiful with sun kissed hair and eyes that were so blue they were the color of the Caribbean ocean. She was tall and graceful with such delicate yet defining features. My father had similar looks, he had bright yellow hair with some darker blond highlights and deeper blue eyes, and he was very tall and extremely handsome. I on the other hand had dark mahogany hair and violet eyes. My transformation into what I am today had yet to take on any characteristics I have now. I was just a small insignificant child.
The leader bent down to my mother and stuck an onyx blade threw her heart. Her last words were, "she a human." Then the light left her eyes and she was gone. I stood by my mother's words and didn't say anything; I had to bite my tongue to not yell out mommy to her.
The remaining hunters were all laughing like it was the funniest sight in the world to see my mother dead. "Come on boys let's get out of here, I'm bored already." Some of the other men growled at him and looked to me, as to ask what are we going to do with me. "She's no concern to us, she's human. I won't tell you again, let's go." His voice was more demanding this time, leaving no trace for disobedience.
They were gone in a flash. It took several minutes to get my frozen body to move to my mother. I clung to her as tremors ran thru my body as I wept. It was very dark when I started to hear noises in the forest. They were getting closer; I started to panic and used all my strength to pull my mother's lifeless body into a bush that was close. I knew this was useless because they could still smell the blood, but I didn't care they weren't going to do anything else to her. I was different voices that I recognized but couldn't make my brain register this. I just tried to keep quiet and telling myself not to make any noise.
"Isobel, Saphira where are you. Does anyone smell that?" I wanted to jump out of the bushes and run into my father's arms after hearing him call to me, but I was still so scared and wasn't registering who was calling me. "Something is wrong I can feel it." He was getting even closer. "There is blood everywhere, oh no, no, no, no, no, please no. Honey Saphira, please answer me. Sweetie Isobel where are you? SPREAD OUT FIND THEM." He shouted the. I couldn't help the whimpers that escaped my lips. "STOP QUIET NOW, LISTEN." There was silence again; it was terrifying to think I was alone again.
I started to weep again, and threw myself over my mother's body to protect it. There was a rustling of the bush before a head popped out threw it. I screamed bloody murder and thrashed around when arms went to encompass me. "NO, NO, NO, LEAVE HER ALONE, DON'T TOUCH HER," I wailed at them.
"Oh baby girl please, its daddy. Your safe sweetie, daddy's got you. Shush, shush." He whispered into my ears as he rocked me back and forth trying to calm me down. As it started to work I let the flood gates open.
I don't remember the rest of the week after that it was like looking threw a fog, nothing seemed real. My father and older brother were very worried about me; I wouldn't talk to them about it, nothing of what I saw. It was my own private hell, no one else needed to go thru that as well.
As I started coming back to the real world I noticed everyone's somber states. My father was looking much paler with dark circles around his eyes. My brother had the same look to him as well, he was only 15. Just looking at him reminded me of my mother; he had my father's hair and my mother's eyes. As I was studying them both they seemed to notice the change in me and rushed to my side. "Isobel how are you? Please sweetie, please talk to me. Are you hungry, thirsty, do you want to go for a walk to stretch your legs?" I was confused it hadn't been that long ago since I ate but my stomach did seem extremely hungry, I was a bit thirsty as well. I also felt a little stiff.
I relayed this information to my father, my voice seemed raspy and very quiet, and it seemed to take a lot out of me to just convey this to him. "I don't understand father, what happened? I don't think I hit my head that hard?"
The worry was etched on his face. "Sweetie, you did hit your head pretty hard. You had a large bump on the back of your head. You haven't moved a muscle in over a week. The only reason you were moved at all is when I held you and moved you, or your brother did. You wouldn't let anyone else touch you."
I was devastated for making them worry more about me; we had all been thru so much already without me adding to it. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to make you worry." Realization hit me again, "mommy's gone. I couldn't do anything to help her, I failed her." You would think by now I would be about out of tears, but that was defiantly not the case.
"Oh sweetheart, you're just a child. There wasn't anything you could have done. You did the right thing, you were a good girl. Mommy would have been very proud of you. I'm just thankful I didn't lose you as well princess. Come here." He picked me up and sat me on his lap on the floor and squeezed me close to his chest as we both let our tears fall without restraint. Thomas came down to us and we had a family hug, then we just sat there and held one another.
The following day the elves came as requested by my father. We had helped the elves when we let them freely use our spirit tree as long as they kept it concealed with their magic. In return the elves had pledged their unconditional alliance with our kind of their own accord. If my father had ordered them to do something then they were bound to obey him. My father never enforced this of course, he wasn't like that. But this was a different circumstance; it was my mother's funeral.
Our kind are buried into the mountains. The body is covered by flat rocks, and then the elves use their own magic to turn the stones into one solid clear rock. The body will never decompose or change at all. In a thousand years the body will still look as though it is sleeping. Now a day's our kinds bodies are just burned.
By the time the ceremony was over I was still staring at my mother's body, she had been cleaned and dressed in a white gown with golden trimming around the neck, arm sleeves, the bottom of the dress, and also along the belt line. Her hair had been neatly woven into her golden crown. Her arms were laid across her stomach, if I hadn't seen the horrific way she was murdered I would have thought she died peacefully.
A few months later me, my father, my brother Thomas, and a few of his guards went to a secrete retreat of my fathers. No one else knew about it apart from a handful of people. The guards were repairing some of the fences and my father was splitting some wood. He had sent me into the woods to gather wood for the fire, Thomas to open all the windows to let some air in and also to remove all the cloth over the furniture.
I had collected all I could carry and was headed back to the cabin when I saw the sky filling up with smoke. I dropped everything and sprinted towards the cabin. I was almost to the edge of the forest when someone grabbed me and covered my mouth. I tried to fight to get away but they were far stronger then I was. All I could see were my brother and my father being dragged back into the burning cabin with black swords threw there chest. Everything I had, every family member that I had left were murdered before my eyes. What more could I endure. I went limp in the guard's arms.
The guard tried to take me back to our lands. We never made it; we were ambushed on the way. Somehow I managed to get away and ran deeper into the forest. Our kingdom was dispersed; everyone tried to save themselves or their family. Most didn't make it; those that did make it went into hiding. They were hunted one by one.
They order of the shape shifters ended. I was there leader now, but what good did that do when there was no one left. I could command the elves and any other gene of shape shifter, but what was the use. Everything I loved was gone now. That's when I made a vow to work and train until they were all dead.
I was 7 when the change in me started. My hair grew faster turned a deeper mahogany with threads of white and gold (the gold was the same color as my mother's). Then I slowly started to get the tattoos. I would wake up with a nightmare and feel a burning sensation on my back. The first ones were different tribal symbols of our people. Some of them were strength, hope, shield, fire, burn, love, and time. Some meant more than others to me, some I didn't know what they meant to me at all. One night I had the worst nightmare I ever remember having, when I awoke my back burned again. When I looked at it my parents and brothers names were etched intricately in the tattoos on my back. Over time and as I grew to be able to shift more tattoos appeared on me. They started on my upper back and shoulders and have grown down the tops of my arms. It seems whenever anything of significance happens then more appear.
One night when I was ten or eleven, I was hiding in a cave for the night. I awoke with this sense that something bad was coming; I never felt this way before. As I tried to think of what it could mean it just came to, hunters. One came out of nowhere in front of the cave entrance. He just leapt into the air and almost landed on me. I was thinking of some way to shield myself when I threw my arms in front of me and the wolf smacked into an invisible wall right in front of me. He hit with such force that he knocked himself out. I quickly left after that. Over time I learned that I had a mental and physical shield. I can throw it about twenty feet all around me. It takes a great deal of energy to be able to do this and I still fell what hits my shield, but it stops after I put my shield back down.