Chapter Ten

*AN: Wakfu is NOT MINE! Also, I'm lazy, so yeah... -_-'*

An even larger flush seeps into my cheeks "I've known him for a month!"

"I'd say you've known him far longer than that."

He had a point. "From what I've heard, every Yugo is different. This one reminds me of a younger him, that's all."

Adamai is silent for a minute, evidently trying to figure something out. "If you were married to... your Yugo, how old were you?"

"Twenty-two," I say.

"So why aren't you 22 now?"

"A good question that I don't have a good answer to. All I know is that somehow my magic reacted badly with the void magic, and I aged backward a few years. I went back to the age I was when my house was attacked, which was 12."

"Ok, that makes sense. Anything else you would like to share?"

"Actually, a lot. But I don't want to confuse Yugo any more than he is already."

"Ok, but why can't you just tell me?"

Another good point. I didn't want to do this this soon, but this is the least of my worries right now. "Just don't laugh... I have a Shu-Shu inside of me."

"Wait, what?!"

"You don't believe me?"

"No, I do believe you, but I want to believe you're joking."

"I wish I was. My family was so low on the king's list because we had a tendency to come home with a Shu-shu inside our bodies somehow. My grandfather went to war and came back with one inside of him, but being the frail thing he was, the Shu-shu looked for a stronger being to take over. When my grandfather met me, the Shu-shu infected me, but found that my power was too strong to be useful and became stuck there. She's been asleep for some time, but when I escaped, she woke up. Here she is now..." I let the darkness take over my body and drift away for a few seconds. In that time, I hear Cleo growl, "Hello Adamai," before I wrest control of my body back from her.

I open my eyes to find a terrified Adamai. "What... just happened!?" he whispers.

"That was my Shu-shu, Cleopatra," I say.

Just then, a bang echoes across the room as the door to the kitchen flies open. "Anything else you would like to say, Ophelia?" growls Yugo, glaring at me.
"You told Adamai that you had a Shu-Shu inside you, but you were going to keep it a secret from me?"

Adamai answers for me before I can open my mouth, "You told me you were still coming to terms with there being multiple versions of you-"

"-I didn't want to make you more confused than you already were!" I finish.

"That was two years ago, Adamai, before I knew I was king, before I fought Qilby! I've come to terms with that! I was mad because Ophelia had been keeping secrets from us, and now I'm being excluded even more!"

The tension that was started by my recollection of the fire grows as I watch the only two people in this world that trust me fight. I know I started this, and the guilt finally breaks something inside me. "I'm sorry I just wanted someone to trust me for once! I'm sorry that if I tell someone that I'm harboring a Shu-Shu right off the bat, they immediately think I'm possessed! This is something I haven't even told Red, my closest friend, because I don't trust that our relationship won't fall apart! Do you think I want this?! I have to deal with it anyway...!'" I scream at them until my voice is almost gone. "This is exactly why I don't tell people these things. Their trust immediately falls away..." My voice is a whisper now. "I know you don't trust me anymore, Yugo, and you're right that you shouldn't. I'm going to leave until we all calm down and I can begin to win back your trust. Both of yours." I get up and move towards the door. "Please take care of my haven bag, okay? There's something very precious to me in the back room." I start to cry as I step out of the haven bag. "I'm sorry..."

The brothers follow me out to the edge of the clearing and watch as I begin to shift into my wolf form. The sun had begun to set at this time, and I streak into the twilight, leaving Yugo and Adamai behind.