In Huck's Hands

Chapter 3: Hot Coal

"Im by your side Huck, if you abuse your power I'll just break all your bones to show you the true lesson: without structure, there is no system..." Aiko's words stuck in my mind, distant yet familiar, as the factory walls around us crumbled away. 

I blinked hard, trying to focus as the rubble and smoke were suddenly replaced by plush emerald carpets and gilded archways - a vivid memory I couldn't escape pulled me momentarily backward in time. I felt my mind retreating into the past, the way it tended to do when boredom or anxiety struck. 

Just like that, Aiko's fiery gaze blurred, her voice morphing into the nasal tone of my childhood tutor. This woman's cheeks flushed crimson, tendrils of dark hair falling across my face as she dragged the scissors close to my ear...

"I don't want to be here..." The scissors she used made my curly ebony hair uneven...these silly unending foreign rules never cease to make me look more stupid somehow. If my ancestors could see me from the afterlife they would throw up on me.

I knew what this glorified lackey they called a tutor would have something to say. "It doesn't matter what you want--You are the future monarch huck" Her azure eyes met mine as she held the scissors dangerously close to my left eye. "We both know you're full of shit." I knew she wouldn't dare to really harm me no matter who's random second cousin she was to the throne.  

Her angular face twisted scornfully. "Why can't you be like your sister?!" The woman's shrill voice always reminded me of Buriti Cacti. It had a certain nasally cadence that made the inflections of her voice unbearable. If I spent any more time having my head primped I was going to guillotine it myself.  She shuffled for a moment as she grabbed my hair by the fist full.

My jaw clenched, my words snapping from them like a common alligator. "I'm not a genius with an addiction to--" I felt a chilly shift in the room as the Svetlan delegates' eyes widened in what I assume was horror. Small sand particles flowed through beams of sunlight as I turned my face to see my father. His robe dragged on the floor...I never understood why he HAD to wear our riches like they were nothing. 

The skinny woman bowed low in some mockingly terrible display of our traditional greetings "Oh, your Highness I didn't know you were here." All the bravado left her voice now that my father was present. I felt her bony grip release my head, small black curls fell to the ground near my feet. My hair nearly disappeared in the raven-colored tiles lining the parlor room--How long must we bend our will and act as surrogates to these backward snow monkeys?!

"He is always predating the shadows..." My voice cracked causing me to rub my neck, being an adolescent was the worst time of my life. I dont scream authority slouching in a chair and getting my hair cut. Yet I knew I could say anything around him.  I stuck my tongue out teasingly to my father quickly before pretending to have something in my eye.

"Leave us...now!" He seemed to be in a fairly bad mood as the deep creases in his face made him look like an overly ornate granite statue. His regal Buriti moldavite crown hung on his head like a decoration on an old hut, a rule plagued by placation and predation of young tail..."But Huck still-" Haige began to speak but I thew her a bone, my choice made my throat tight with disdain. "I wouldn't challenge him or his depth perception even at this age...He's still a raging-" and then she threw me one, her thin flat lips parted making her trembling almost comical.

"My apologies King Vasca...The hot Buriti air is very different then the snowy stepped cliffs of my homeland. I will attempt to further his Svetlan studies in proper grace and nobility, to the best of my abilities later this evening." the delegate's blue-tasseled dress swayed as my father's command was law here in the palace. Her gate reminded me of a tamed circus animal as she attempted to make herself small passing my father. His eyes raked over her figure like a rabid hyena...