Shattered Dancer

Nata is hiding her past. Akane is determined to find out who she is. both of them are trying to stop an inevitable war between the two races.

There was once a dancer, by the name of Nata. Her hair was the color of rich bronze and she had tanned skin. Nata’s right eye was the color of a green emerald. Her left eye was always bound by a bandage, but no one would ask her why she wrapped it. Even though half of her face was covered, she was still one of the most known dancers in the land. A land full of demons, and humans who scarcely got along with each other.

            She was constantly demanded to perform for noblemen both human and demon alike. One day she ended up being late for one of her performances, for a young nobleman who had just recently taken the place of his father. When she finally arrived the young nobleman was outraged by her unpunctuality that he lashed out and broke her ankle. “a dancer who can not be on time, should not be a dancer at all, now you will never dance again,” he had said, than he left the room.

            Nata just sat on the ground narrowly touching her ankle that was throbbing and starting to swell. If she couldn’t Dance, than what could she do? Her only talent was dancing, she could cook, but not well enough to cook for kings and noblemen. She could clean as well, but was bad at laundry. She did not know what she could do, or where she would end up.

            A little later one of the other noblemen in the castle that day came across her sitting on the ground. She looked up at him with her one green eye. “My, why is miss Nata sitting on the ground? That isn’t normal,” he said giving her a beaming smile. If she remembered correctly his name was sir Darin Waldson.

            “I think she’s hurt” a voice came from behind him. Nata looked at him but looked away quickly. She couldn’t afford to look in to his eyes, for he was a demon, a very strong one.

            When they realized how hurt she was, they sent for a surgeon and brought her to the infirmary. After about 4 hours of examinations, they told her that she would never be able to dance again, and she would have to rest for 6 weeks. So for those 6 weeks Nata stayed in the infirmary and brooded on what was going to happen to her after this and looked at the sliver of a moon.

            A few days before she was to be discharged from the infirmary one of sir Darin’s steward’s came to see her. “Miss Nata, I presume,” he said more like a statement than a question.

            Warily she looked at him and replied, “yes, and who may you be?”

            “No one worth concern, Miss Nata. You have been summoned to Sir Darin and Sir Akane’s castle.” He stated with no vigor what so ever. “There will be a carriage waiting for you when you are discharged.”

            “Sir Akane? Who is that?” she asked.

            “Yes, you should have met him, he was with Sir Darin when they found you,” he looked at her sarcastically as if she was completely null.  

            As promised, once she was discharged there was a carriage waiting for her. Nata stared at it for a while, but instead she just turned and walked along the sidewalk instead, she didn’t know what those two noblemen wanted but there was nothing she could give them, her life was in dancing, and now it was gone.

            As she walked she realized the carriage was following her slowly, but it surely was. Finally she stopped and turned around, and once again waited. Than eventually, to her surprise, Sir Akane came out. Nata quickly averted her eyes. Demons see too much to easily.

            “Sir Akane, is there a problem?” she said, still not making eye contact.

            He looked at her, a slight scowl on his face “Darin summoned you, he has something he would like you to do, and I also have a few questions for you,” he still stared at her but finally looked away “I suggest you answer the summon, it will benefit all three of us.” He said and quickly glanced back at her.

            She looked at the carriage and back at him a few times, than said, “fine, I have no where to go anyway.” She got into the carriage and Akane followed her.

            They sat in silence almost the whole 3 hours to the southern castle that belonged to Akane and Darin. Finally Akane spoke, “Just to let you know, that the city around the southern castle is a demon town, there are some humans living there, but not that many.”

            It was surprising; most demon villages were smaller, but for a whole city to be full of demons, that could be dangerous. No wonder Akane was a nobleman there; it was to control the lesser demons. Nata asked “and why am I going to this demon village?”

            “that’s a simple question, to help us with the animal section in the castle, our last care taker ended up disappearing.” He waited for a response, but when there was none, he continued “there are plenty of animals there, and I have a feeling you will work well with them, but first, I have a few questions for you,” he waited again. But again Nata said nothing “Nata… What are you?” and with that Nata jumped up, opened the door and jumped out of the moving carriage.

            When she landed she started running back the way they had come, he had no right to ask that, her mother had told her along time ago.

            “Nata, Nata! Come here my sweat” Nata’s sick mother called to her daughter. When Nata came, her mother held her close, and patted her hair. Nata’s Mother had long lost her sight and could not see her daughters beautiful eyes. Her mother looked so human it was hard for them; it was easier for people who looked more like a demon. Demons with there eyes that looked beautifully wild and there wings that could disappear.

            “Nata I have a request for you.” Her mother sounded tired and stressed.

            Nata looked at her mother “yes momma, what is it?” she questioned. Nata would do anything her mother asked, for she was all she had left.

            “If anyone, at anytime, ever asks you if you are anything but human, I want you to run as fast as you can from them, and hide. Find a bran new place to live, where no one knows you, do you understand?” she stressed this point very much

            Nata looked down “Yes, but Momma-”

            Her mother cut her off “good girl, good girl, you shall grow up strong, my little dancer, my little Natisa.” Nata’s mother died later that day.

            Nata would not disobey her mother’s last words, she would go and find a new home, no matter how hard it would be. As she was running she saw a shadow of something flying above her, a dark shadow that looked like a human silhouette but with wings.

            She should have know that Akane would follow her, until he got tired of following and just drag her back to the carriage and to the castle. But instead of doing that he called out to her “Nata! Nata! Hey! For- come back!” she didn’t stop so he landed in front of her, which stopped her in her tracks. “Will you just stop!? Is it a sin or something to be curious!? Your obviously not human, your to strong to be a human, but than your also obviously not a demon either, your to human like to be one. I would know if you looked at me but you won’t!” he was angry, which was not an emotion a well off demon showed.

            She just looked down, she didn’t know what to do, she just wanted to leave, or so she thought she did, it was drilled in to her to run if someone asked if she was human or not, but she didn’t know where to go. When he saw she wasn’t going to run anymore, he escorted her back to the carriage. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

            When she got there she had a short introduction to Sir Darin and than was shown around the castle and introduced to the various animals that spanned from giant red tigers to mini palm sized elephants. At the end of the day she was shown her quarter and was told to rest and get used to the castle for a few days before she started her work.

            On the last day of her “rest” she visited the city, which was indeed a demon village, but for the most part everything was fairly calm, and most people excepted her easily and were very friendly, with an exception of a few of course.

            As she was walking back to the castle a crowd started to pile up close to the castle gates, and right when she was going to ask what was happening, the gates opened and Akane riding a beautiful Friesian stallion came out the doors and galloped of towards the western gate. Hmm apparently a lot of people like Sir Akane. She scowled.

            When she was lying in bed that night she heard one of the gates open. She looked out her window, and with no surprise she saw Akane coming in. She may have not been surprised about him coming in late, but what she was surprised about is the fact he looked at her. She didn’t understand how he could know she was there. But he did. His dark orchid colored eyes gleamed under the lonely quarter moons light.

            She had looked at his eyes just a second to long, and he knew, he knew what she was, who her father was, and how strong she actually was. When she got past the shock of him finding out she looked at him again, just in time to see him look just as shocked as she felt, than he jumped off his horse and gave it to the stable boy waiting by the stable.

            He turned back to her, and spread his black feathered wings and ascended to her window, when he got there she back away a little, and he landed. “We have to talk,” is all he said for a long time, and after an hour of him just sitting and thinking. Right when Nata was about to pass out on the little red chair in her room, he spoke “So… have you heard about the war that’s impending?”

            “War? What are you talking about? No, better question, how does finding out whom I am include a war?!” she said, a little frustrated.

            “Because,” he said “the war is over you, the long lost half demon child of the Demon emperor, the emperor thinks that the humans have locked you away somewhere trying to control you!”

            “And why would he think that!? What reason does he have to think that? Why does he even care? He left my mom shortly after I was born!” Nata had started to raise her voice a little, and had woken a cat that had somehow hidden itself under her bed.

            Akane sighed and leaned back in his chair “apparently he went back to where he had last seen you and your mother, and when he got there, the whole town was torched, and there were soldiers everywhere. You may not know this but he visited you and your mother whenever he could, he wasn’t aloud to meet you, but he knew you were growing up well and strong.” He was tired and he didn’t know what he could do to stop this war without hurting Nata in the process, you could tell that she wasn’t one to be controlled or put on a short leash like she would be if she were to go and live in the emperor’s castle.

            He looked at Nata curled up in the little red chair half asleep, but you could see it in her eye, that she was worried about the coming war as well. Than it dawned on him “your left eye-” he cut himself off when she looked at him. He couldn’t get over the greenness of her right eye, that he wondered about her other eye.

            With a fluid movement she pulled at the bandages and they fell off, revealing the most exotic demon eye he had ever seen. It looked as if it was made out of gold. The pupil was so black you could see what was reflected perfectly, where most demon eyes didn’t show anything at all. Her iris was a beautiful gold color that was neither dark nor light, and it had slightly darker lines and patterns trough it.

            Nata suddenly said, “You’re staring a little too much.” She gave him a slight scowl but than laughed a little “you should have seen your face, it’s like you have never seen a demon eye before.” She didn’t realize how beautiful her demon eye actually was.

            The next few months went by fast, Nata and Akane barely saw each other. Nata had her duties with the animals and had to learn all about that different backgrounds of them. While Akane tried to stop the war without getting Nata involved. But Nata already knew what she had to do to stop this war. She didn’t want all of the people she had come to know in the past few months to die or suffer.

            She had visited the demon town a lot recently, even though she wasn’t full demon she still wanted to learn about the other half of her as much as she could. She already knew a lot about demons, but it was different when you are with them. Plus she loved looking at the stands that had strikingly gorgeous jewelry in them.

            She was walking to the next stall when a familiar presence came up behind her. Nata said “if you keep going into town like this people are going to recognize you and you will never be able to get away from your fans.” She turned and looked up at the black haired demon who had this ‘who, me?’ look on his face

            She laughed “yes you, sir Akane, you really shouldn’t just throw on a cape, call it a disguise and come out into the market.” She turned and looked at the next set of jewelry. She spotted this beautiful circlet. The golden wire was curved and curled into beautiful delicate spirals and had small golden leaves attached to it. In the center of the circlet there was this beautiful emerald that was the exact same color as Nata’s human eye. She looked at it for awhile but than left it, she couldn’t afford it and what would she need I for anyways?

            Later that night she walked through the castle trying to figure out how she was going to get to the emperors castle, but it really wasn’t that hard of a question. So when she was calm again she went to her room and fell asleep on her bed almost immediately. 

            She went through her day normally, like every other day, checking the animal’s health, playing with them, giving medicine to the ones that need it and then finally puting them to sleep.  Right when she was about to go up to her room she heard this beautiful flute music coming from the green house. But when she reached the green house, she couldn’t find anyone there, but the music was still playing.

            It made her want to dance again, she had longed to dance, but when ever she tried, either the emotion of it stopped her, or the weakness and pain in her ankle did. She danced anyway, she had been slowly practicing and trying to strengthen her leg but, it had not helped much. Even though it was weak, she could still dance amazingly. But she missed doing all of the jumps and spins she could do before

            She went to attempt a spin and her one leg gave out from under her and she fell to the ground, sat there for a second than laid down and gave a big sigh. The music had stopped, though she didn’t know when. “You ok?” Akane popped out from behind a tree.

            Nata looked at him and said “what are you a stalker now?” she smiled at him

            “Hey I was here before you,” he replied quickly than said again. “Are you ok?”

            Nata laughed a little “yes I’m fine, just a little tired

            He looked at her and than looked at her ankle and said, “I can fix it, your ankle I mean; my healing ability is very strong.”  

            She looked at him and said “normally I would say yes, but at this point and time I’m just not ready to dance again.”

            “Well you wouldn’t know it the way you were dancing a minute ago.” He stated. Nata just laughed and stood up. She looked at him and then saw the flute in his hand then smiled and turned to go.       

            Early in the morning Nata got up, grabbed her cloak and when she turned to her desk she saw the circlet she had been eyeing the other day. The one with the green emerald in the middle. She slowly walked to it and picked it up, and for the first time in years she started to cry.

           

            The war never happened, because the emperor found his half breed daughter, and presented her to the rest of the world. She had wowed the world with her beauty and her intelligence of both the humans and the demons. There was another thing that stood out about her; she was never seen without, a golden circlet that had an emerald in the middle.

            She was loved by all just like her father the emperor. They called her Natisa the dancing princess, though she didn’t do any jumps or spins she was still thought of as the most beautiful dancer around.

            It had been one year since the princess had been found, and threw out the last year; the people and Natisa’s father had noticed that she was slowly losing vigor, and the love to dance. There was also a rumor that she had left the one she loved to save everyone from the destruction of war, and this made a lot of the people sad.

            So one day the emperor set out to the southern castle where Natisa claimed she had been staying the months before she showed up in front of the emperor.  Everyone kept this a secret from Natisa, saying, “Your father is of on a business trip.”  Or “he is currently talking with the governors of other lands.”

            She did not believe anything they said, but was to tired to question it, until one day she was summoned down to the great hall. While she was walking there, the servants, lords and the ladies were gossiping like crazy and Natisa wanted to know why, but she had something more important to do.

            When she got to the doors to the great hall the guards did not open it right away, instead they stood there and waited for awhile until they felt satisfied that they were ready inside. When the doors were open Natisa saw that her father was sitting on the thrown and there was a dark shape standing beside him. He had raven black hair, black wings, and when he looked at her with his dark orchid eyes, she knew.

            “Nata,” he said. She started to cry, and ran to him with the half moon high above them all. 

Author's Note

I know there are probably some grammar mistakes, but at this point and time, i really don't feel like fixing them, I will fix them eventually.