Kylaia al Jmaa
A.k.a. the Unicorn
NOTE: I don't own basically anything. Maybe I own some stuff, but it's limited.
2ND NOTE: Some parts are really disgusting, it probably added nothing to the story, and it grosses me out.
3RD NOTE: I don't know the capital of the Yamani Islands, so if you know, please tell me. I'll change my city name.
4TH NOTE: Does anyone know who the emperor of the Yamani Islands is?
PART 9-The Journey
Kylaia al Jmaa boarded the ship set to the Yamani Islands. She led Nightstar on board, and led Nightstar to the other horses. Kylaia slipped silently into her room on the ship, The Lioness. She swung her glaive in practice, and went through the usual routines. The boat started moving, and she abandoned all pride, and vomited into the water, and watched the yellow flecks sink, but more flecks took their place. Days were spent leaning on the rail, leaving to cleanse herself, then only to vomit more.
"Ye must be new to water. Ye don't have ye're sea legs," a sailor, with a heavy accent, commented. Kylaia couldn't answer, because a new wave of sickness washed over her, speckling the water once more. Soon she abandoned the rail, and touched up the fighting exercise she lost, while she was sick. She also deserted the Shang white pants and shirts, and changed into an old kimono of her mother's she had brought. The silk felt foreign, she hadn't worn one since she was five, and barely remembered how to put it on. She looked native to the Yamani Islands except that she always was pale compared to the golden skin of the Yamanis. She continued to act just like she did in the Order of Shang, drifting from the deck to her room and back again. For months she let herself become a shadow, practicing her glaive and hand to hand combat in the steerage. Gradually people came and secretly watched her, staring in awe. Kylaia tried to avoid them, and took back everything she said to Liam before she left. She didn't want people gawking, like they had nothing better to do.
"Madam, how do you do that?" a small girl asked her.
"Practice, and grace," Kylaia answered, ignoring the thought that the girl probably wanted more detail.
"What weapon is that?" a boy questioned.
"A glaive, a native weapon in the Yamani Islands," she said, and left the crowding people, to her the sanctuary of her room. She wanted to be in the Yamani Islands, but once she was there, where would she go? She wanted to go to the capitol, Osaka. Soon land was in sight, and Kylaia rejoiced, quietly. The boat docked, Kylaia again was in a large busy harbor.
"Nightstar, come," Kylaia ordered. She mounted, and rode through golden skinned people dressed just as she was. She traveled towards her parents' house, hoping she remembered how to get there. She was unsure of everything, where could she go? In a few days, well-known buildings came into view, and accustomed people said, "hello." A house stared at her, one she had seen only in dreams, in the last twelve years.
"Kylaia?" a mostly gray woman said, from inside the house.
"Mother?" she replied. Kylaia stabled Nightstar, and walked into the house, smelling in the house, its scent a mixture of exotic flowers, reeds, and silken cloth.
"Kylaia, your brother is coming home from the university tomorrow, and we have to get the house ready. Are you willing to help?" Isa questioned. Kylaia vowed to leave soon.
"Yes," Kylaia responded, and walked to her old room, again passing walls of paper. Her room was filled with schoolbooks, so she cleared her bed off. She fell asleep, tired from the long restless nights traveling. Her mother mentioned the emperor, and Kylaia fell back into her slumber. When she awoke, she went into the backyard to practice glaive fighting.
"Your technique impresses me," her brother, Mayall, said. Liam said that, three or four years ago. "But will you leave our yard?"
"I am your sister, but did you know you had one? Our parents certainly don't," retorted Kylaia. Mayall walked away in shock, and she finished the exercise. Mayall returned to the yard to light the lanterns, with magic, set around the grassy enclosure.
"So, sister, what have you been doing? You seem to be new around here," Mayall asked.
"How can you call me your sister? All you've done is taken from me, mother's thought, money, time. Never did I own anything, that wasn't yours before me," Kylaia said, and paused as she stopped and set the blade into the earth. "Am I forever a comparison? Someone to make others look good? You would look evil if I weren't standing here, being quiet and secretive. Liam will always be good, but would he be as good without me? I was his opponent, an equal match so he could practice. Am I clay, so others can mould me?"
"Kylaia, I never did anything!" her brother exclaimed.
"By doing nothing you did something," she whispered.
"Who is Liam?" questioned Mayall, trying to talk to Kylaia another way.
"The Dragon. The highest position a Shang warrior could be," Kylaia replied, shaking her long black hair off her face, and meeting Mayall's level gaze. She understood why she just explained everything that angered her. She wanted her brother to know why she hated him, more than she had ever hated anything else before, including Liam. She knew why he didn't know her, they were many years apart, and whenever he was home, Kylaia was a neglected shadow.