This is who I am now.
I'm the girl in dressed in black, saving mortals from unknown dangers.
That's what she liked to think on occasions like this. Occasions where she is faced with the prospect of facing the ones she loved again, alive and dead. Occasions where she ignores the glares she receives off of those she passes.
Because she is also the girl they hate. For years she battled with her inner demons – her inner self. She battled with the name that brought out another side of her. The name which when uttered scared the masses.
The name the psychics had nightmares about. The one everyone was worried about.
Darquesse.
Valkyrie couldn't control that side of her, she tried too but it never worked the other her would kick in and stop her. When Darquesse came out to play, Valkyrie knew that someone was going to die.
People always died.
And Valkyrie hated it.
But with that name came the memories, the memories of her friends talking about how they were going to protect themselves from her. Little did they know that the one everyone feared was sat in within their circle. She remembered when Skulduggery said that he would do anything and everything he could to protect her and her family when Darquesse finally took over. And when they finally thought of a way to keep Darquesse contained, Skulduggery said that he would sit and watch over her body while it was in the pyramid, which would keep her body alive but her mind dormant.
She loved him more then, then she ever had.
Valkyrie took a deep breath as she stood over the road from her parents house, the Umpa Lumpa sat in the driveway, the Umpa Lumpa being the orange car with green interior her mother and her father gave her for her eighteenth birthday.
She smiled at the memories that car held.
Then she frowned. She remembered the hurt her parents had gone through when she told them about the magic their family held and since she was eleven, she'd been helping Skulduggery solve cases. Including the murder of her uncle Gorgon.
She saved her father the knowledge of his brother essence being kept alive in the Echo stone. But her other side had wiped it and replaced her own essence in it, to hide from her and Skulduggery.
Walking up to the house, she noticed the changes,
On either side of the front door they had hung handing baskets, overflowing with flowers. There was now a hedge going around the front of the garden with a little gate's on the front of the drive way and the garden path.
Opening the gate, Valkyrie walked down the path towards the front door and knocked. After a couple of minutes when there was no answer she knocked again.
"Dad" she shouted hammering her fist into the door again.
"Daddy" she heard a little voice whine, Alice.
"Alice" Valkyrie asked through the door
"Daddy there's someone at the door and they know my name" her little sister cried, breaking Valkyrie's heart.
"Alice, that's your sister" Her father cooed, opening the door. "Steph" he said pulling her into a tight hug.
"Dad" she cried into his shoulder. "I missed you" over the years when she was in America she still spoke to her parents on the phone, but it had been a while since she's seen them.
"We missed you too sweetheart"
"Des, who's at the door" her mother walked into the hall from the back of the house carrying a glass of water and a beaker for Alice. When Melissa looked at her and Valkyrie looked at her mother.
"Steph" her mother cried dropping the glass and beaker on the floor and ran to embrace her.
"Hi mum" she whispered into her mother's neck. Her father moved back to pick up Alice, "Hi Alice"
"Hi Steph" she mumbled around her thumb, pulling away from her mother, Valkyrie moved forward and held her hands out for her sister.
Desmond passed his youngest daughter over,
"Woah, you got big" Valkyrie joked hoisting her sister up on to her hip.
"Your hair is long" Alice pulled a strand of her hair and threaded it through her fingers.
"So is yours" Valkyrie laughed, Alice had the same colour hair she had, just not as long.
"I like it" she sister mumbled.
"Alice do you want to show Steph your new room" her mother asked smiling, she had both of her daughters back under the same roof.
"YES" Alice screeched down Valkyrie's ear. she put her down on the floor.
"Lead the way" Valkyrie laughed.
It's been a while...
I'm sorry, I really am. Enjoy!
reviews welcome :)