Scar
I faintly trace the scar that is on my shoulder.
The two points that show.
Saint laid curled in a ball in front of the fire, her head resting in my lap, as my other hand played with her long golden hair.
I was fascinated with the color.
I honestly couldn't remember the exact color my hair had been before the Moon had painted it.
Had it been blond also?
Maybe a light brown.
There were no mirrors for me to look into.
No reflective surfaces for me to know what my features were like at that time.
I had been a little girl then, and had no knowledge of the Moon and her powers before that. I had not been taught within her teachings and ways, nor had I undergone the intense training and rigorous studying of the Temple.
I had been ignorant.
I had been blissfully, peacefully and wholly unaware.
I wish that could still be the case.
"Why do you think she chose you?"
I hear the faint whisper of Saint. I look down to see her blank eyes staring into the fire, taking in the flames.
I wonder if the brightness did not burn her sight.
But she never looked away.
"I don't know," I admit.
"She knew you could do it," Saint said, a faint trace of fierceness in her voice, "she knew."
I stare at her and think over the words.
"Maybe. I have every chance of failing though."
"But you won't."
I sigh at the added pressure that fixed itself to me. But the Temple had trained me for this. Put me through various stressors because they knew that one day, I would be put under the ultimate test.
We had all been ignorant though, about the true nature of what this test would entail.
"I was raised in a home that was four stories high."
I don't feel surprised by Saint's words. Everything about her mannerisms, her actions, words, and dialect- even her two-worded name- showed that she came from high breeding.
"And I thought that so long as the darkness didn't touch me I was okay. I didn't want to see the infection in people because I didn't want to feel the guilt over what I had that they didn't."
"Some are just better off than others," I whisper silently.
"Maybe," Saint says.
We sit in silence for several more minutes before she speaks again, "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"What was your house like."
"The Temple?"
She gives a slight shake of her head in my lap. "Not the Temple. Didn't you have a home before that?"
I stay silent.
My lack of response has her looking up at me with curiosity.
"Well?"
"The Temple is the only home I've known," I answer.
Saint laughs, "That bad?"
She gives another small shake of her head.
I hold up a strand of her golden hair, looking at how the colored played within the light of the fire.
"It was....I don't remember much....But it was painful. I remember feeling pain constantly in my stomach. And my parents...."
I drop the hair and stare into the fire, "Another mouth to feed was one too many."
Saint sits up then, her eyes blazing with anger, "So they left you?"
"What?"
"What I'm getting from this is that they abandoned you?" She spits out.
I stare at her rigid face in silence as she fumes in front of me, her eyes seething out in hatred for people she has never met.
"You think they made the wrong choice?"
"They fucking abandoned you," she hisses.
I smile at how innocent Saint still was to the workings of the world.
"But that pain...that pain in my stomach...it left the moment they left me at the Temple."
She grows silent her eyes stormy blue as she takes me in.
"You're still angry?"
"You should never abandon your child."
I keep my face neutral but blanch on the inside.
How ignorant, I want to point out to her. It would be no better if Saint had been hissing in my ear, "you should never let your child starve." The world was too cruel for the workings of our mind. And the world did not pause to let you have time to pick yourself back up.
"Why do you think the Moon lets this happen," Saint said, her face still livid in anger.
I feel my eyes widen as I slowly shake my head, "No Saint...no...the Moon...How can you say that? Why would she want her children to suffer? She is good. Holy. Pure. Evil does not come from her and the Mother Asundra. It comes from the Darkness."
"Why doesn't she stop it then?"
I had never expected to be sitting calmly with Saint, talking to her about the religion of the Moon and the practice of the Light.
"She tries. But you also must understand that we are our own mind. We choose our own path. She gives us the choice to create light, but we still have the option to instill evil into the world. Where do you think goodness comes from? It comes from the same place as Evil," I reach over and softly point to Saint's heart, "from here. Evil is bred from those who walk the earth. Fire is not spontaneously made Saint. There must be someone there to create the spark."
Her eyes are wide as I finish my words.
"Did the Temple teach you this?"
I nod.
She leans back and silently thinks.
We stay like that for the rest of the day.
I watch her carefully, waiting for her to ask another question or blaze up in impatient anger again.
But she never does.
What happens instead, is the arrival of the King.
"Ladies."
He enters so silently and suddenly that we jump at the sound, turning in surprise to the noise.
He looks at me, those red eyes blazing down.
"Little Star. Have you thought about another answer to my offer?"
"Give it a rest," Saint says, "You've been offed. Rejected. Turned down."
His eyes widen in anger.
I feel fear run through me at Saint's bold actions.
Maybe she thought that my presence here would protect her. She would soon found out what a mistake that was to believe in.
"Mmmmhhh," the King comes closer.
Saint doesn't move. She doesn't fight back as he grabs her arm and starts to drag her towards the door.
"Wait."
I stand, cautious and with my arm raised to halt him.
He smiles at me, his attention diverted.
"Not her," I whisper.
Saint laughs and struggles against his grip, "Jealous bitch. He's mine."
The King looks on in amusement at Saint, "Oh? Have you two been fighting?"
Saint flashes a feral grin, "Get me away from her. She's so boring. Preaching and giving me sermons and lectures. I want fun. I want you," her last words come out as a soft purr.
She had mastered the art of seduction.
The King stares at her for a few seconds before shrugging, and tossing Saint in his room, "Later."
Saint gets up from the floor, her golden hair in a beautiful disarray, "What?"
I see the first flash of fear in her eyes as she looks at me.
But the King ignores it as he slowly closes the door to her stricken face, "I can smell my Little Star's blood. And I'm thirsty."