There is a whole world Azora has yet to discover. That is our world.
The times have changed, humans have changed and somewhere along the way, they forgot about the magical races, forcing them to go into hiding.
Azora comes from one of those hidden r...
I turned away from Ms. Cyan but I could see her reflection in the window. Her fingers strolled through the pages only to return to the one with the picture of a girl who answered to the name Iris Cyan these days.
"Fifty-two of them taken from the kingdom that was once my home," she continued. I could not be sure whether she was talking to me or to the girl from the picture.
Her last statement brought tears to my eyes. I tried to keep them at bay, but one blink was all it took for them to trickle down my cheeks. I wrapped my arms around me and slowly turned my head in Ms. Cyan's direction.
"Fifty-two of them died by the hands of those who justified their monstrous actions with science." She paused, placed the book gently on the desk and covered her face with her palms. She didn't care about the tears soaking her gloves.
"I'm so sorry." My voice cracked from all the sorrow that filled the room. I wiped the tears to clear my blurred vision but they continued to well up.
As if the sound of my voice reminded her that there was someone else in the room, she pushed her hair back and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry too," she whispered. Stepping towards the window, she added, "I'm sorry we didn't do anything to prevent it. We could have done something. Anything. But we were so insensitive. The fifty-two were the forgotten ones. Unworthy of our attention."
I bowed my head. "I was the forgotten one," I said.
"And I was the blind one," Professor Cyan responded. "And for that I have been punished."
She lifted her head and looked at the window. Standing behind her, I could not see her face directly, but I did see her reflection in the window. Her eyes followed the raindrops as they glided down the glass.
"There was nothing you could have done," I said in a soft tone. "I mean, you were one of them as well. They wouldn't have listened to someone like you."
"Someone like me?" She turned to me and looked at me with narrowed eyes. "What makes you think that they wouldn't have listened to me? What exactly do you know about the life I once had?"
I swallowed to get rid of the lump in my throat. "I know you were a part of my story. I figured it out. And I know which name they took away from you. I know that before you became Iris Cyan, you were Sanda."
Her face remained expressionless. It depicted no emotions until I mentioned the name. "Sanda," she repeated. Her face softened and a sad smile appeared on her lips. "I miss her the most."
The fact that her demeanor changed so much, masked the true meaning of her words. It took a minute for them to sink in.
I miss her the most.
What did she mean by that? Did she miss the person she used to be? I too came to land, but it hadn't changed who I was.
"You're still the same person," I tried to lift her spirits. "You might have changed in some ways, but it's still you."
"I wonder what happened to her?" she continued with a distant look in her eyes, as if she hadn't heard a single word I just said.
"Are you trying to say that you are not Sanda?" I asked with my eyebrows furrowed and my stare glued to her.
She shook her head. "No. I'm not her."
She turned to the window again. Her stare was captured by the raindrops on their slow journey down the glass surface. They made it look like rivers of tears were streaming down her face.
"It's so ironic when you think about it," she said. "After all this time, the story is still being told over and over again."
"Of course," I replied and dared to take a few steps towards her. "It's very important to the Aquantiens. They still wonder what happened to their princess."
"Their Princess," Professor Cyan said with contempt. "She doesn't exist anymore."
"Did she die? Is that what you're trying to say?" I leaned to the side in attempt to look her in the face.
"A person can be dead in more ways than one." She turned her head and her sad eyes met mine for a moment before the rain lured them again.
"I don't understand." I shrugged my shoulders, hesitant to even admit it.
"Like I said, thirty-six years is a long time." She painfully smiled at her reflection. "First she fell into the hands of those who liked to call themselves 'doctors'. They changed her so much! And then time added to those changes. Long ago, she realized that when she looked into the mirror, there was a stranger looking back at her. She realized that the Princess they were looking for was gone forever." Her stare was still fixated to the window. As if it followed a raindrop, a tear slid down her cheek. She didn't bother to wipe it off.
"I'm still confused, Professor Cyan," I said fearfully.
"They could be looking right at me and they wouldn't even recognize me," she said to her reflection.
"Are you saying that the Princess from the story..."
"...is standing right in front of you."
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