Dreaming for stars

Chapter XIX

Blood pooled around where she stood from her torso. Her skin was so unlike as it was when she was alive. It was white, pale, ghastly and stained with red and horrid brown. She had been dead for a long time.

"Murder... Murder... Murder..," she whispered and grin, her white eyes locking with mine. "I was murdered little red-head," she croaked, and short knife materializing in her hand. And before I could ask 'How?', she lunged for me.

I screamed and she froze in the air. "My lord!" echoed again, shattering the walls of my dream and waking me up. Anteia grinned one more time.

I gasped, suddenly sitting right up. My heart pounded against my chest threatening to break out, and sweat trickled down my back. Akira sighed in relief, and offered me a king smile, the sunlight pouring in from the window making her features seem angelic. Her words fell deaf to the ringing in my ears, but I swore I could hear Tsubaki as her mouth moved to utter the phrase:

"Welcome home, my lord."

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I rushed into my office as soon as I changed my clothes. The sun was barely out when I woke, and now it was barely 7 o'clock, but I needed to send this letter as soon as I can.

Grabbing a paper, some ink, and a pen, I started writing.

'Respectable Dragonlaws,' I jumped as the door opened, breaking me out of concentration.

"Good morning Miyoko," Morina greeted in her usual whisper. Her expression though, was sad. Her hair uncombed and bags weighing down her green eyes, her clouded gaze rested on me as she whispered: "Do you have time?"

"I'm in the middle of writing a letter right now. Do you mind if I finish?" the question hung in the air as I held her gaze.

"No. Not at all," she said and sat down on a sofa. Her resolve clear; she wasn't leaving until we talked.

I seriously had to hold more authority over people.

I finished faster than I wanted, slowly dripping melted wax and sealing the envelope with a stamp. "Just let me-" send this, I was about to say, but Morina snatched the letter away and it disappeared between her fingers.

"Done and done," she smiled, finally. "Now let's go eat before we talk. I can't think on an empty stomach," her smile broadened on her pale face, her usual chirpy and childish attitude returning.

She had already dragged me outside when I broke out of my thoughts. "Morina I need to have a portrait painted!" I protested but she giggled.

"Oh come on, I wouldn't want you doubling over again after eating Akira's food again," she said, and I couldn't find it in me to go back in and eat Akira's food.

So I let her drag me away.

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If Morina was anything, she was someone who controlled emotions and personalities at will.

It wasn't something I had wanted to know, I had preferred living in ignorant bliss with a powerful but innocent friend. But O'Tina forbid my life be simple. Morina, an immortal around 4000 years old, with a body dead already, was nothing but a thought.

It was something so complicated, driven from a simple question. "How old are you?" and she had giggled then. And then in her characteristic whisper she said.