lady alvida

As quietly as she could she made her way up to the bedside and slowly sat on the bed as it took her weight. Once she was sure her dad was still deep in his sleep, she wriggled under the sheet until she was next him. As usual he was arranged like a star fish with his arms and legs out to either side. To accommodate him she curled into a ball and put herself right by his side with his arm under her head like a pillow. Like most dads she’d heard about hers slept naked, but although all the other girls who mentioned this seemed grossed out, she didn’t mind. To be fair a lot of the of the other girl’s dads weren’t as handsome as hers, or in as good shape. A few years ago, she had to put up with a few friends who couldn’t stop gushing about her dad when they came over and saw him for the first time. Although she saw all the good features about him, to her he was always just her dad. How could she think about him that way?

Seraph gripped his head, threatening to rip out his hair as tears poured from his eyes. “I am a coward, remember? I ate that plum because I wanted to escape the pain I now know I deserved. But I wish that plum really had killed me. I wish I had died that day. It would have been better than a life with no hope of redemption. Every morning, I open my eyes and remember waking up after the fight. Realizing you’re alive after trying to end it all, I never knew something could be so painful. Every breath hurt, every beat of my heart was agony, every thought in my mind felt like hot lead, and it all comes again fresh every morning. All I’ve wanted to do since then is… finish what I started.”“I know how you feel.”

Noah continued punching the bag in her place. “Since when has it ever been fair? When I was in Handent, I fought a Profane who forced me to fake my death in order to escape, and another captured me like a fly in a web. In Welindar, the battle was lost because I failed to kill Kaisen before he could transform. This is the struggle of fighting against the Profane, the struggle of being outclassed and overpowered. In this war, surviving with just a bruised ego is victory enough. You stood up to that monster, you fought, you survived.