Chapter Four: The Memory

The Memory

 

 "Kath? What are doing in here?" Danani jumped off her bed and stormed over to where her brother was standing, a proud grin on his face. 

"Oh, I was just walking by, heard you crying like an infant, and decided to see if you were alright." Danani grabbed her brother's arm and jerked him inside, almost throwing him across the room. Bolting the door, again, the fuming Princess turned to Kath who now looked less smug, his grin gone, and sitting on her bed. She breathed deeply, and tried very hard not to be an only child in that moment. That wouldn't help my case with mother and father any if I killed him.

Squinting her eyes at him, Danani walked slowly, almost robotic, over to the vanity, pulled the chair to across the floor to face Kath and sat down gingerly. 

"Alright, how much did you hear?" She tried to keep her voice even, trying not to lash out at her brother for eavesdropping on her. He normally didn't do things like this, though there was never really any time to. Nothing had happened to the point that she had to keep secrets from her parents, but she just wasn't ready to tell them the truth, not yet. And if Kath blabbed, her world could shake beyond the point of return. 

 

Kath sat there on his big sister's bed, his short legs not even able to touch the stone floor. He could see that she was upset and him overhearing her had not been her plan. He had felt in control of her at first, but now seeing how angry she was, he felt bad for picking her lock and listening to her tearful confession. Oh, great, what did I actually hear?

"Um, well I heard...," the boy's eyes flicked to his sister's unflinching stare. He was nervous about what he had thought he heard. That what she had said out loud, for what seemed like the first time the words had escaped her mind. "That you killed someone," he said this in a whisper so light that Danani had almost not heard him. 

But she did. The girl's green eyes grew to the size of saucers and her breathing started getting ragged, like it was hard for her to catch a breath. Kath quickly became concerned. He jumped off the bed and went to his sister's side, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Danani, are you alright?" 

Danani stayed still for a moment, caught inside her mangled thoughts. Her breathing returned to normal though she still stared off for a few moments more. Than she returned to the present. 

She jumped out of her chair, grabbing Kath's arms within each, gripping hand and pinned him to her wall, both of their eyes enlarged with alarm.

"Danani?" The young Prince looked at his sister with a scared, pleading look, which made her anger with her brother diminish, though she retained her grip on him. 

"Kath...listen to me! DO NOT tell mother or father what you heard, okay?" Kath blinked and gulped before he spoke a quiet, inquisitive "Why?" 

Danani huffed in frustration but calmly remained in control, letting his arms go, knowing there were likely dark bruises under his shirt know where her hands had been. "Yes, I killed someone today. Well, actually three men." Kath's bright eyes once again grew, but Danani ignored his reaction, continuing her explanation. 

"I was in the woods. Some villagers came by and......they attacked me." Tears started to fall down her face, her cheeks turning red as she became upset at reliving the situation, again. Kath returned to sit on Danani's bed as she paced around the room, running her hands through her hair. "I don't know what to do, Kath! My powers went out of control before things went too far and it was like I was outside of my body, just watching the men get punish and die by this....this woman of fire." Danani then fell against the wall and slumped to the floor, holding her knees to her chest. 

Kath, hesitantly, walked over to this sister, sat beside her, and put a warm hand on her knee, comforting her. She peered at him through her hair and a small smile formed on her lips. 

"It will be okay Danani," Kath said, smiling back to her. "Mother and father will understand. Just tell them exactly what happened, what you just told me. If anything, they will be happy to hear of the mens's' demise." 

Danani's smile disappeared from her face in an instant, her eyes becoming cold. "No they will not understand, Kath." She stood up and started to pace again, leaving the Prince kneeling on the floor. 

"Father built this entire kingdom with his powers. He helps all the plants and trees grow brighter and fuller than they would otherwise. And mother, she brings the crisp, cool air that everyone feels here. They heal and grow things, Kath. But not me. I just destroy with fire. Things burn and charr, people get hurt and die." 

Kath sighed, then stood up, and looked serious at Danani. Enough so, that she came to stand right in front of him. 

"Danani, though things burn with fire, you also warm things and keep people alive. Don't you know that! If it wasn't for you, everyone would always be cold and freezing. Without your Fire, our food would always be raw and uncooked." His tone became harder, more stern. "You help us stay alive, Danani. You are the Princess of Telvion. And whether or not you have killed someone, who in my opinion, probably deserved it, you are still my sister." 

Danani's face grew brighter, the light in her eyes coming back to their normal brilliance. She loved her brother. Though he was three years younger than her, just fourteen years old, he had the intelligence and the wisdom that was far beyond his years.

She looked at the young Prince from head to toe, and tried to swallow his words down and understand them, and at the same time, try to acknowledge them as truth. She knew he spoke what he really thought, Kath was not one to lie or skirt around his feelings or thoughts. However, for some reason, she still felt a wall around her mind, somehow blocking his words from sinking in.

Danani had always been reluctant about her powers, but only after training them, had she just recently been welcoming her Fire. She had always used her powers for meager things, like drying and warming things, and creating fires in the fireplaces. Beyond that, she hadn't felt comfortable in seeing what her powers could really do. Now that she knew what kind of raw power she held, it only made her sad and scared.

Before this incidence she had already hurt someone, someone much closer to her. But everyone had blamed that on inexperience and moved passed it like it was nothing. Looking at her brother now, standing their with his bright blond, disheveled hair and bright, knowing hazel eyes, she felt that terrible memory creep from the dark depths of her mind, where she had thought she could keep it there, locked away, forever. Her eyes came to the small scar on his right wrist that she knew was there, though none of them ever paid attention to it anymore, and the memory became clear as crystal once more.

 

Kath had received the scar several years before, when he was nine years old, and Danani was twelve. It had started out as a wonderful day. The weather had been especially beautiful, the sky bright blue with few white, puffy clouds overhead.

Danani remembered that they had been behind the castle, in the largest of their stone courtyards,  completely surrounded by tall, dense hedges for privacy. This was the most common place that the Element Rulers came to train with their powers, out of the watchful eyes of the villagers and workers in the castle.

The high hedge walls created a dome like arena for them to train in. So high in fact that even from the highest rooms in the castle, one could not see but the inside of the far wall of the dome. This arena was was still used a great amount each day by all of the royal family to hone their gifts. Covered by cobblestones, the purpose of this area was to have a safe, private area for them to use their powers. Aside from a few stone benches and several targets, the arena was quite bare. 

This day, Danani recalled that she had been out in the courtyard with her father, with the Queen and Kath sitting on the sidelines, watching intently. Danani was just coming into her powers and the King felt that this was the most crucial time to learn how to control them. For several hours a day, nearly everyday for the first couple of years with their gifts, King Dwoven had trained his children relentlessly, so they would be fully prepared to use them, without going out of control. That was the plan anyway. 

On this day, Danani had stood at one end of the courtyard, the King opposite her on the other end. Looking at her father thirty feet away, she had already been training for a few weeks. Having learned to first feel it inside her, and release it, she was now learning how to focus and harness her gift to do what she needed to do with the flames that she created. 

"Okay Danani," her father yelled over the distance to her, in the loud, commanding voice he always used in training. He placed three targets in different spots in the courtyard, at varying distance, angle and height. This was one of the more common practices Danani had to deal with, and she actually enjoyed it very much. She loved spending time with her family, her father especially and his prideful looks when she did something well always made her feel good. 

"Alright. Are you ready Danani? I want to only hit the target I tell you to, when I tell you." The twelve year old stood in a ready stance, her knees bent, her wrists loose, her eyes attentive. She had braided her long, dark hair behind her back and made sure it was still held tight. Danani nodded to her father that she was ready and target practice began. 

 

"Target one!" A bail of hay ten feet away from Danani held a round, painted target in the center of it. The goal was to burn the center of the target, without causing the entire bail to burn. The target was just below her eye level. "An easy one," Danani let escape as she smiled. She felt the now familiar warm, tingling sensation she always felt when using Fire, and let it increase in heat, the feeling moving from the pit of her stomach, up her body, then down her arms, until balls of flame erupted in her hands. She forced the fireball in her right hand forward as she straightened her arm, her hand facing the direction she wanted the flame to go. 

The ball flew through the air, a small trail of fire behind it, and it went straight through the target, and out the other side of the bail of hay, the fire ball disappearing quickly afterwards. Dwoven assessed the target from where he stood, off to the side along with his son and wife, and grinned wickedly.

"Target two!" This was a stone vase standing a top a fifteen foot block of compacted earth that Dwoven had created. It was about eighteen feet away from Danani's focused form, and her mission was to send a ball of fire into the top of the vase, then increase the heat of flame until the piece of pottery cracked open. 

The second ball of flame she held, in her left hand, shot out from her with force and she was able to control the speed and direction of it with more ease each time she did this exercise. The flame went inside the vase as planned, then Danani worked on increasing the fire's heat. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the fire. The King, Queen and Kath noticed the soft glow that had started in the vase was getting brighter and brighter each second, until with a loud CRACK! the stone vase broke open with hundreds of pieces, the light of the flames dissipating into wisps of smoke. 

Nine year old Kath cheered for his sister from the bench he sat on, his mother joining in. Danani saw her father look proud, but as always kept his accolades until after training was done.

"Target three!" Danani's attention immediately went to large bush that was hidden behind two stone walls. One wall was twenty feet from her, the other seven feet behind that. The bush was placed at the back of the arena, almost thirty feet from where she stood. The bush was circular in shape and was about eight feet in diameter, with three small, three-inch holes in the foliage that went straight through the bush to the other side.

Danani was going to have to focus hard on this one, she knew. She was supposed to send three spear-like flames around the first stone wall, then the second and through the holes, all at the same time. This was the one target that she had had the most difficulty with in earlier sessions. She was determined to do this one correct this time. 

Focusing her energy like her father had taught her, Danani once again channelled her powers in her stomach, let them build, then release the force down her arms and out of her hands. Three blazing balls of fire initially shot out of her small, delicate hands. Danani concentrated them mid-flight and changed them to traditional arrows, just made of fire. The fire arrows sped through the air towards the first stone wall. 

With just her mind and will, Danani controlled the flight pattern of the arrows, forcing them to the far right to move pass the wall. Beyond this wall, her view of things were blocked from sight, so Danani had to go by memory of where things were placed, then maneuvered the fiery projectiles through the air, to the far left of the second wall to bend it and aimed them towards the target. 

Kath and the Queen were off to the left side, now standing excitedly, along with Dwoven, who was starting to smile at the success of this session. Lining the arrows up with the target as they approached, Danani used more energy then she ever had in such a short amount of time, but she was determined to get this target, this time. 

Beads of sweat formed on her forehead from the strength and energy she was using, and a splitting headache abruptly formed, causing Danani to cry out. 

"Are you alright, Danani?" Her father called out to her, but she didn't respond, she just shook it off and continued to force the arrows towards their intended destination. The arrows were zooming towards the three holes in the bush, lined up perfectly, and Kath wandered closer to the target, wanting to see them go through it. Dwoven and Savina were also watching intently, 

Danani's head was pounding from exhaustion, she was using too much, concentrating too hard, but she could sense the arrows in front of their target; she had to send them through and with a final push of energy, sent the arrows, one...two...three through the holes cleanly. Cheers from her proud family erupted, the flaming arrows quickly evaporating into thin air, and Kath ran up to his sister with a big smile on his face. 

Although she had done the target correctly and had stopped channelling Fire, her head throbbed to the point Danani fell to her knees, grabbing her head and grimacing at the pain. Kath yelled for his parents as Danani cried out as it felt fire was burning her skull, more energy trying to force it's way out of her, until it came to a boiling point and had to be released.

Feeling the energy overload her body, Danani released the massive power fighting to get out of her, unfortunately it was just when Kath got in range of her. 

A flood of flame spiraled out of her and Kath, fifteen feet away, was caught in the midst of the inferno. The boy's eyes grew huge as he noticed the burning energy coming towards him and all he had time to do was hold his arms up as a shield, before he was hit by the red energy pulse with a shrill scream.

After the rush of energy exploded out of her, Danani's headache had disappeared, though it had left her very weak and lightheaded. She had only seen her parents leaning over Kath's crumpled body before she had passed out, the scene turning dark. 

 

Standing before her, Kath was alive and well, but Danani never forgave herself for hurting Kath that day. Though he had the scar on his right wrist, as well as a couple of others on his side and his right leg, Kath's control of Water saved him that day, to which everyone had been grateful. Though it had been meager, the boy hadn't yet come into his powers, the desperate need at the time allowed Kath to put up a shield, a flimsy one but a shield nonetheless, of water in just the nick of time, and that thankfully took the brunt of the force. 

Kath didn't remember much of the events that happened that day, but Danani knew every sight and sound from it, a haunting memory that made her even more terrified of what could happen if she really did release all of her power at once. Or worse, what if she actually tuned into that kind of power and used it? What kind of person would she be, if she was still even a person, with that much power?

Danani didn't want to think about. 

Author's Note

Alright, this was kind of a quickly put together chapter. What do you like? I hadn't intended to include the memory when I started this chapter, but then my hands took on a life of their own and well....here you go with the results.

If things don't make sense, or go off topic or something, please let me know so I can alter things a bit. Don't forget to Vote while you're at it. -Thanks!

Reviews

[dw817]

⊰ℛℛ⊱
It's nice her sister, Kath, is not so shocked by what she did and suggests that she tells her parents. You are a little misconstrued however about the fire. Unless these are supra-primitive times (and I don't think they are), fire can be created with a tinder box.

While it is 'convenient' that she keeps things heated, long ago people did invent ways of keeping warm and warming their food by harnessing the power of natural fire. What she did was unnatural. While I can understand her saying, "she lost control," it would do well for her to tell her parents, and clear her conscience if nothing else.

Loving and caring that they are, I believe they would understand. And while we want to go with the notion and try and convince ourselves that it was a 'necessary death' for the trio of criminals.

And, it is not unseen although is rare for a child or teenager to inadvertently kill someone, perfectly accidentally, yet - it often does weigh on their conscience throughout their lives.

In a court of law, penalties would be levied ... This story can be a fanciful one, an exciting tale perhaps, but consequences, neglected or not, are there and direct nonetheless.

Can I ask how old Danani is ?

[Cory Firestine]

She is around 17. I believe I put it in somewhere, but can't remember where. I thought I had anyways. :-)
Thanks for your insights. Much appreciated. Have a great day!

[dw817]

I am curious to see how Danani will resolve this. While I have a murderess in my own story, she is psychotic, does not repent, nor are the deaths accidental, and she works for a corrupt organization.

Nonetheless you have a greater will and bravado than my own, Cory, to write this in as really - I would have no clue myself how to proceed with unintentional homicide ...