I'm posting early, guys.
Why?
My sis reads the story and she pestered me XD
So even though I was going to keep to my schedule of every Monday, I decided to post every three days. Things are speeding up, gents.
When the pale-faced man approached her, she kept her younglings close. This was the man who'd as good as murdered her sister. Her sister. She used to be so happy, so light with words. Now she raged in fevers while the bastard beat her to a pulp and stole her gold, did unspeakable things and killed her people. Screams of pain and hatred were all her sister could say now, and curses.
She didn't want her sons to be treated like that. She wouldn't let this man lay a single finger on them.
He said strange things in a language sharp and fast, but the meaning was clear; he gestured to the south, and smiled at her, then pointed at Helaku.
He wanted her child. He would do the same thing to her as he had to her sister if she didn't give him up.
Kajika was atop a white bear that had affixed itself to him a few winters ago in the northlands. He and it were not to be parted and Matoskah could talk, besides. Now she bent low and placed a hand on Helaku's shoulder. She whispered to them both.
"When I leap at him, run and hide. Double back to me. I will hold him."
Helaku looked at his mother and was about to say something, but she shushed him.
"Matoskah, look after my two sons."
The bear nodded. She took Kajika and Helaku into her arms and kissed them both, tears streaming down her cheeks. She slowly straightened and glared at the pale-face. She noted with disgust that his eyes were green like leaves. He wasn't natural. Only devils could do the sorts of things that he did.
Slowly, she made as if to push Helaku forward. Then she sprang at the man and spat in his face, and punched him hard, taking out her dagger and screaming "RUN!" to her children and the bear.
"This is for my sister!" she spat, and was viciously pleased to see that he was completely unprepared for her attack. He fumbled for his sword, but she cut through the belt and the sword and a silver stick fell to the ground. She didn't have time to look back to see if Matoskah was keeping his promise, but instead sliced at the foreigner furiously, snarling and hissing. He danced out of her way, blood dripping from a wound in his arm, leg, face-she lost herself to rage and was brought back when he slammed her against a tree trunk, a knife she had not seen against her throat.
He had cold eyes, she saw. Green ice. He kicked her stomach viciously and she gasped, sinking to the ground and coughing. Pain exploded in white bursts under her eyes.
He said something. She looked at him from watery eyes, still hateful. If he was only going to do that, she could try and look through her haze of pain and-
He kicked her in the ribs with steel-toed boots, and she felt one crack. She lay on the ground, gasping and hacking up blood. She wanted to scream at the agony but she kept silent, knowing that the man would glory in her cries. Tears she couldn't keep back traveled down her cheeks. Black lapped at the edges of her vision, threatening to pull her under.
Uncaringly, he sliced her arm with his knife as if to mark her for later, and marched off to find her children. She clutched her wound and screamed obscenities at the man.
"You'll never find them! They will never be yours! I will kill you before that happens!"she sobbed, and finally succumbed to the blackness.
When she woke, her boys were with her. They were frightened. Kajika was trying hard not to cry. Her wound was bandaged with their clothes. Matoskah had their back to them, checking for the man.
"My sons…" she whispered. "My sons…"
Helaku's eyes burned. He and Kajika had heard her cries after the man.
"I'll kill him for you. I will." Helaku turned to Kajika. "Won't we?"
Kajika gulped, but nodded. "We'll kill him."
Gaho almost wanted to cry, from pride and despair. Proud of her braves, that they would go and kill this evil man for her. Despair, that they were turned from innocence to hatred so quickly.
A few weeks after the man had kicked her, and her ribs had healed (she'd always been a fast healer), she was swept away in the night to see a man land on her shores. He strode up to her, another pale man with light brown hair. He seemed to come to an assumption of sorts, and took her hand. He shook it, and walked back to where his men were unloading. Then Gaho was back with her children. Shivering, she lay down beside the boys and decided to say nothing.
She couldn't traipse around her land anymore. Now she settled Helaku and Kajika down near the north-eastern coast, far from the child-snatching bastard, only to realize that that was where the mysterious man had settled down. But it was either him or the one who'd silenced her sister. The man over there had such a puny slice of territory, so she decided that he wasn't as bloodthirsty as his other palefaced brother. She didn't need to apprehend him yet.
Gaho left the twins alone longer and longer, using her newfound ability to suddenly arrive at her destination, trusting Matoskah to keep them hidden. She tried to contact her tribes and give them hope, but more often she was the one who was beaten down. Diseases spread throughout the places the devil had taken and she was weaker than usual.
It was a few years of relative quiet as the novelty of having a demon in her lands wore off and her rage dulled into a seething hate.
In time, another came to conquer her lands-a man with blonde hair and even paler than the devil down south. She made the boys stay back at the hideout this time and planted herself in front of him, glaring at the man. She unconsciously rubbed the scar where the demon had sliced her and the motion was not lost on the moonface. He swept to his knees and dramatically caught her hand, placing his lips on it.
She looked blankly at him. What was the meaning of kissing her hand? Did this moonface do it just before he killed someone? Was he going to poison her somehow? Could he possibly want to bite it? She racked her brains trying to think of why in the world a moonface would do that, when he laughed and drew himself up, then opened his mouth to speak.
He had a very smooth, rolling language, she noticed. It was almost melodious. She had a tiny smile on her face as she listened to the lulling tongue-
Then jerked herself back awake. He was a snake. His tongue may be coated in silver but it was still forked, she reminded herself. She pointed firmly back to his canoe with wings.
He sighed, almost saddened, and to her surprise, went back in!
She saw him sail down the river and almost thought that he wasn't as bad as the other palefaces. After all, his eyes were gentler and as blue as the summer sky, just like Helaku.
She then realized that was wrong. He'd claimed a slab of her land from near the pole all the way down to the part of the land where she had first heard of palefaces, and sent people to live there. He was a bastard, through and through. However, when she went down to see what he had done, she heard that he had battled over the land with the demon and lost.
What worried her was Kajika and Helaku. As the years passed and the silver-tongued one waxed stronger on her lands, they…changed.
It started with Helaku. His beautiful black hair had a thread of gold running through it. She had dismissed it as wheat and tried to pluck it out, to discover that it was attached to his scalp. He'd yowled and clasped his hand over his hair, and looked up her quizzically.
"What was that for?" he questioned.
"Oh, I thought I saw…never mind." She took his hands off his scalp and kissed where she had tried to pluck out that hateful hair.
"Do you feel any better?" she asked him.
"A little!" he laughed, and kissed her on the cheek and ran off to vault onto Matohska's back. Kajika came silently, as was his way, and tugged on her sleeve.
"What is it little one?" she asked him. He looked up at her with frightened eyes.
"I-I'm scared, Gaho." he whispered. She took him in her arms and smoothed back his hair. It was still black, but his skin was lightening. He buried his face into her neck and grabbed her clothes with his chubby hands.
They hadn't grown yet. Not at all. They were still toddlers. Toddlers that had words of hate slip from their baby lips.
She wanted a different life for them than this.
I actually wanted to cry writing this. I feel horrible for making Gaho go through this.