Heart for Hate

Lesson Eight: Shadows Lay Ahead at Every Path You Take

            I head into my room after a short warm shower, drying my hair with a second towel while the first is wrapped around my body. The scent of citrus surrounds me in a pleasant aura thanks to the wash. I head to the window to close the drapes but a movement catches my eye. Someone stands in the garden, looking up into my room. The moonlight beams down and I can see the outline of the person’s vaguely familiar features.

            I draw the curtains and quickly dress into a pair of baggy sweatpants and a tank top, throwing on a zip-up hoodie before quietly descending the stairs and stepping outside. I silently lock the door behind me, heading to the figure pacing the star formation inside the circular garden.

     “What are you doing here?” I ask as I approach the man leaning over the lilies.

     “I had promised I would come see you when we were alone, didn’t I?” he reminds me of his words in La Luna Belle. His dirty blonde hair looks even darker in the night; he’s pulled it back into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck rather than having it hang loose as he had in the shop. The same jacket he had worn is open revealing a plain shirt and a chain around his neck with a small medallion hooked onto it. His jeans are faded at the knees, holes starting to appear at the lighter blue areas.

     “Who are you?” I question him. He slowly stands up into a straight stance, his silver eyes watching me.

     “Since I am going to be teaching you things, you can know me as Teacher,” he tells me.

     “What is your birth name?” I inquire a little more frustratingly.

     “That is irrelevant,” he states.

     “If I can’t know a proper name, then I won’t call you anything,” I say in return with a firm tone.

     “Then let that be the case, Miss Locetsun,” he nods in understanding.

     “What is it you want with me,” I respond with more of a statement than another question.

     “I’m here to teach you,” he answers simply.

     “Teach me what exactly?” I cross my arms.

     “Everything you need to know to survive, Miss Locetsun. You are the last of your kind,” he replies. “That is why those that know the truth of the legends are coming for you.”

     “What legends? And who are coming for me?” I scoff.

     “The legends of the God in the physical world. There is a being that is able to bend the universe to its will and has power over anything that is imaginable. And not. A locetsun,” he relays the tale.

     “And those that are after me?” I raise a brow.

     “Are the ones that come to kill you. They are damickrel. Bounty hunters.” We are silent for a moment and an owl suddenly flies overhead, hooting when it is directly behind me. I almost jump at the sound. The man laughs lowly at my tensed reaction. “If a lone owl can scare you, then you are in for a surprise when you are faced with much more horrific beasts.”

     “It only startled me,” I frown at him. “There’s a difference between being scared and being startled. I’m sure those horrific beings won’t be half as bad to deal with as what I’ve already been through,” I tell him.

     “If you are speaking of the deaths that you say you’ve witnessed, then you are wrong. There are much worse things to encounter than the small passings of people who you looked up to or the lie of a lover.”