Chapter Nine

*AN: Wakfu is NOT MINE! UwU*

A few days later-

"Hold the knife like this, Yugo," I say, adjusting his grip on it.

"Like this?"

"Yes, now throw it." We both watch as it hits the center of the target tree.

"I hit the tree this time!" he whoops.

He's been getting better at knife-throwing, but he's yet to put it to use. He's still haunted by that deer, so I've been hunting alone.

Adamai's really good at skinning the catch, so I let him prepare lunch. Here he comes now.

"Lunch is ready!" He's wearing my dad's old apron. It's got paint splatters all over it.

"Looking good, Adamai," I say.

"I found it in the pantry. Where did come from?"

Memories flood my mind again, of finding my dad in his art studio, helping him paint, playing tag out in the yard. He could pick me up like I was a feather. Tears fill my eyes as I whisper, "It was my dad's..."

"Ophelia...? You okay...?" Yugo asks as he faces me. He sees the expression on my face and takes my hand. "Hey..."

His touch brings back the last time I saw my Yugo, before he sacrificed himself to save his people. The last time I touched him, before he slipped away. Against my better judgement, I pull this Yugo into a hug.

I pull back after a moment, wipe my eyes, and smile. "I'm sure lunch is getting cold," I say as I get up.

"Hold up. Why were you crying?"

I sigh. "It's a long story, and besides, I bet you're hungry."

"Lunch can wait. If there's something going on, it's better if you get it off your chest," Adamai advises sagely from his place on the groud.

"Okay..." I sit back down.

"It starts when I was twelve. My mom was one of the ladies under our king, and had married a painter, my dad."

"Well, that explains the stains," Adamai interrupts, fingering the colorful splatters. Yugo shushes him.

"Thank you, Yugo. We had a lot of enemies, because those above us didn't like that my mom had married a 'lowly painter,'" I said as I begin to shake. "One of those enemies set fire to our house one night while we were sleeping. I barely made it out." The horrific night reduces my voice to a whisper. "I spent three weeks in the hospital, haunted by visions of being surrounded by fire."

I look up. Yugo has his hands over his mouth, tearing up. Adamai's softly growling.

"How fitting it is, then, that I have fire powers..." I summon a flame in my palm.

"Did they find the culprit?" Adamai gets out.

I softly laugh. "Unfortunately, no. But life got better."

"Now, let's go eat lunch."

O-O

Adamai heated up the soup again, and we ate in silence. "What did you mean by, 'Life got better?'" Yugo asks, breaking it.

I shrug. "I was taken in by my grandmother and I got a good group of friends and a best friend, Red. She's like a sister to me."

"Why do they have different colored powers then?"

I sigh. "Not all of us were born with the blue color. Some of us were born with varying degrees of dragon in us, and before Organax attacked, we were bullied for it. I was the leader of the Outliers, one of the groups that had formed out of these differently-colored Eliotropes. We were believed to be cursed, except by our parents and my grandmother, who adored us."

"But then I became queen. When I moved into the castle, I brought all my colorful friends with me. We were finally treated with respect." I smiled at the memory.

The brothers stared at me across the table. "You were queen!?"

"Yes, why is that so hard to believe?"

"You were married to the king..?"

A flush spreads across my cheeks as I realize what I'm saying too late. "Um... yes?"

A similar flush appears on both Adamai and Yugo. "You were married to... Yugo's past self?"

"Yes..."

Yugo stands up, barely whispering his next question. "You... loved him?"

"Yes..."

He storms out of the room, a flushed, hot mess. "Yugo...! Wait!" I say, but he doesn't react.

"Revalations galore today, aren't there?" Adamai sighs from across the table. "He could barely grapple with the fact that there was a past him, then you had to make it worse." He sighs again. "Does this mean you have feelings for the present Yugo?"