Legacies of light

While I stare into her face while she is pinned to the ground, she suddenly turns her head to the side where our eyes can’t meet. While avoiding eye contact, she says, “Get off of me and give me back my mask, you utter pile of garbage.”

“If you want to be so rude, you should say such things to my face or are you too shy for that.”

“JUST GET OFF!” She screams as her tails try to attack me.

I move away in time, grabbing her basket in one hand while having her mask in another. “That wasn’t nice.”

She stands up with her back facing me and says, “You attacked me first.”

“Only because you humiliated me for no reason. Do you know the looks I get while walking around the city?”

“Don’t worry about that since your existence is embarrassing enough.”

Annoyed I say, “As punishment for your big mouth, I will eat all the food in this basket right here, right now.”

She jumps forward and tries to hit me due to my declaration. While she tries to hit me, she turns around, and I look directly into her face, which causes her to suddenly stop what she is doing and move her face out of my line of sight.

“Oh, looks like someone is shy,” I say while moving my face back in line with her face.

Moving her head away, she says, “I am not shy; I just don’t want to look at your ugly face anymore.”

“Oh, why do you blush when I stare at your face.”

“I do not,” she says as she hits me with one of her tails, sending me onto the wooden veranda around the old house, right outside one of the doors. She lunges towards me, but while she does that, our eyes meet again, and she freaks out in the air leading to the bottom of her foot hitting the wooden veranda, and she falls right on top of the porch.

Holding the bottom of her leg in pain, she says, “It hurts so much.”

While my enemy lies there writhing in pain, I think to myself; this is a good time as any to get revenge, so I sit down relatively close to her, open the basket, then say, “Look at me, potty mouth.” As she stares up at me, she sees me with her food in hand then I start eating it.

“Stop,” she says, but as she looks up at my face, she turns away. Ahh, what a wonderful feeling this is. Now I know why revenge is so coveted.

After finishing all the food in the basket, I stand up and say, “Now, where even.”

As I turn around, I see a nameplate on the house. It says Gozen. Wait, this little girl is part of the Gozen family. As I come to this realisation, I hear something coming from my back and quickly move into the house to avoid it.

After turning in the house, I see it’s the girl, but she is covering her face with her tails so she doesn’t see me. “You look stupid.”

“You bastard, I will never forgive you for that,” she says attacking me.

She is more aggressive than the last time we fought, but she is also a lot less sharp, dodging her is way more manageable. So I get a good look at the house we are in. It only has one room with necessities in it and nothing more, but it has one notable feature, which is the ridiculous amount of drawings in the house. And they are all so incredibly detailed that I swear they could all be mistaken for real things. There are some drawings of people but more of spirits, most are rather scary looking.

“Your drawings are beautiful.”

“Don’t LOOK AT THOSE?” She says while knocking me out of the house. “Now give me my mask, or I will take it from your corpse you bastard.”

Oh, so she wants this. I thought she was after my life, so holding the mask up to her, I used my legacy on my arm and say, “Behave yourself, or I will break this into a million pieces you.”

Stopping in her tracks, she says, “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I think we both know what I am capable of, so if you want this mask to stay whole, you will listen carefully.”

She growls at me like an animal, but also like an animal; she obediently does what I say. Now just to make sure I ask, “So, do you know where the Gozens are?”

“That would be me.”

“What about your parents?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“I see. Then would the drawings of those two adults in there happen to be your parents.” She goes silent at my suggestion. “If you don’t talk I will break this mask, so I suggest answering my questions.”

“What is even the point in answering these questions? I don’t see how this information helps you in any way.”

“Well, I just thought becoming your friend would be easier if I knew more about you. Since you know, you don’t have any.”

“Of course, I do. I have much more than you.”

“What an obvious lie. Do you think I would fall for that? The drawings in your room were that of someone who yearns for someone. I would know because back when I was a kid, I made lots of similar drawings.”

Letting out a giggle, she says, “Don’t make me laugh, no way a dopey-faced little boy like you could ever draw something half as good as me. There are doctors in the city, you should go get a check-up.”

I am aggravated by her words, I say, “I will show you my artistic prowess right now. I create a bunch of snow all around us, then shape it into a snow sculpture of my former house. “How do you like that. Can you see the raw artist’s beauty emanating from my sculpture.”

“If that is the best you can do, you don’t deserve to be called an artist.”

“Oh yeah, like you're much better. I bet you didn’t even draw all those pictures in them but instead passed them off as your own. So, unless you want to show me your expertise right now, shut up.”

“You want to bet scum. Well, if that’s how you want to be, I will show you how great of an artist I am, and you will kiss my feet, apologising for forgiveness.”

“Huh, bring it on. I will make you eat those words with my amazing gallery of my one hundred best sculptures. When you see them, you will feel so pathetic that you will hang up your hands as an artist.”

“Just wait,” we both say in unison as we start on are sculptures. In complete concentration, I put my all into this. Back when I was a kid Capti said my sculptures and art were amazing, so without a doubt, I will be able to do this.

When I finish, I look at my work and think this is my best work yet, but when I turn around, I see something that fills me with despair. Her sculptures are giant in size and incredibly detailed, nothing like my slushy sculptures.

I fall to my knees in defeat. I thought I was good at art, but I am not sure after this. Capti used to say my art was fantastic. Was all that just a lie? Thinking back on it, he had this pitiful look on his face when I would sculpt anything. Was he lying to me to protect my feelings? That caring bastard, all that has done is embarrass me.

While on the ground feeling defeated, I feel a foot on the top of my head. “Now, what was that about my skills as an artist, because from looking at your sculptures it seems we are not even anywhere close in skill. How pitiful,” she says while laughing, “To think it took us the same amount of time to finish, this is too funny.”

Pushing my head against her feet, I stand and say to her, “What are you talking about? Don’t tell me those mushy lumps of snow are your sculptures because if they were, that would be too pitiful for me even to laugh.”

“What are you talking about she says as she turns her head?” When she turns around, she sees that I have turned all her detailed sculptures into mushy lumps of snow using my legacy. I apologise to art everywhere for what I have done, but I couldn’t let this smug girl insult me like this.

Turning around, she says, “Bastard, what did you do.” But when her head fully faces my direction, she is hit with a snowball.

“Making excuses and accusations now that you lost. How embarrassing you should learn to have some honour in defeat.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you, drop dead asshole,” she says while throwing a snowball in my direction. Dodging the ball, I move to the right and throw more snowballs at her, which starts a full-on snow battle.

The snow flies from side to side as we try to hit each other. After a while, I forget why we were even doing this, and I just enjoy the game I am playing with her, and judging by the smile on her face so did she.

I lay on the ground, out of exhaustion, and the girl says to me while in the same position, “Do you surrender?”

“No, but let’s make the next hit the last.”

“Ok then, you bastard, you’re on.”

As we prepare to get up, I say to her, “You can look at me without your mask now,” as she realises she has been staring into my face without her mask, she starts to freak out, and at that moment, I hit her with a snowball to the front.

“Looks like it is my victory.”

I see the rage build up on her face as she jumps at me and takes the mask from my body. After she puts it on, she says, “Get out of here right now, Bastard.”

“Well, I have been here long enough guess I’ll leave.”

“Huh, wait!”

“What do you want me to stay here with you?”

“No, get out of here and never come back.”

“Ok, well my name is Orb I will be back tomorrow,” I say as I start walking away.

“I don’t give a shit about your name, and don’t come back.”

“I will probably bring a friend tomorrow bye.”

“I said don’t come back.”

As I walk far enough away, I hear in a shallow voice, “Bye,” she probably thinks I didn’t see her here.

As I walk out of the forest, I run into a familiar face. “Hey Cyrus, how did everything go.”

“Wonderfully, I placed an order for the medicine, and it should be ready in a week.”

He did it. Honestly, I was worried about how it would go, but everything went all right. “Hey, how much did it cost, Cyrus.”

“About this much”, with his hands making a curved motion.

“No, Cyrus, give me a numerical amount.”

“I didn’t count. I gave him this money, and he was happy.”

Face palming, I say, “Cyrus, when we get back to the inn, I will teach you some arithmetic.”

“Ok, I always wanted to learn,” Cyrus says eagerly.

As we walk back to the inn, we see a large crowd of people talking to members of the twinstar corps. “I wonder what this is about,” I say as me and Cyrus head over to find out.

As we approached the crowd, we heard them complain.

“When are you guys going to do something about the ever-increasing minuses?”

“They’re hurting my business.”

“They’re also attacking people and ships, so fewer end up coming here.”

“This is your job.”

“Didn’t they dispatch a commander here from the capital? Why hasn’t he done anything.”

One of the twinstar members says, “Please give us the time we still haven’t figured it out.”

“We have given you years, but the situation has only worsened.”

“Why are you guys even here?”

“It must be that child’s fault.”

The crowd’s complaints increase until one man wearing the same uniform as the twinstars but with a long coat, appears.

“Commander,” one of the twin stars says.

“So, you’re the commander.”

Yes, I am now. Why are you all making a ruckus during my sleeping hours.”

“Can you stop being so lax and get to work? We have been waiting for you to fix this issue for years.”

“It has been affecting our work and our livelihoods.”

“We are all working our hardest, so why don’t you guys try as well.”

Letting out a giant laugh, the young man said, “Every member of the twinstar risks their lives to fight countless minuses every year while also putting up with the shit they receive from you people. But since we are so lazy and our job is easy, why don’t you all try it and risk your life against minuses day and night.”

The whole crowd goes silent. “I thought so, but if you guys want to help, shut up, go home and have some faith because all those negative emotions are only causing us more issues now bye,” and begrudgingly, the crowd disperses.