Folktails✔️

23•

F O L K T A I L S
•Coward•
Darkness; nothing else but pitch blackness.

He felt trapped as if in a cage with all four walls the shade of coal. All that surrounded him bled on in dark blotches that he could not decipher their meaning or reasoning for existence.

His senses hobbled around all jumbled up, like they were confused in their workings that for a split second he was not sure if his eyes would work. They were too heavy to move and he did not try to force them open either.

A growl of pain forced its way out of his chest against Ikenna's wishes as he painstakingly lifted his legs and then arms, taking note whether they were broken or not. They weren't.

"You really love her Maduka." Amobi's words were loud and clear-sounding. I do, do I not? Ikenna mused as he welcomed the harsh rays of light flooding through his eyes.

She was the first face he saw, with her wide, brown eyes so softly beautiful and her lips slightly parted. She said something but he wondered why he couldn't hear her.

The pad of her hand pressed warm against his face and he revelled in the feeling of being so close to her. He wished she would kiss him.

As if reading his thoughts, her eyes fell on his mouth and she dragged a finger across the upper ridge of his chapped lip. His breath soon quickened as the edges of the world around her thickened into a blur.

"If you really are not on Nwakaozo's side, then why have you not taken the truth you have knowledge of to the council?" Amobi asked, snapping Ikenna out of his world of pleasure, causing him to immediately embark on a journey of struggles–with his body–in order to sit up while straining and grunting under the effort. "Answer me!" Amobi was on the verge of yelling after an agonisingly long moment of shaking and shuffling on Ikenna's side.

Why did I not tell the truth? Ikenna thought sombrely. He dissected those few words repeatedly in his head hoping to get an answer. Yet no matter what he did, the answer was "I have no reason."

Amobi's grin was slow and mocking, his eyes darting back and forth between Ikemdili and the hunter in love with her. "You have no reason?" He asked and Ikenna kept mute leaving him to answer his own question. "Well, thankfully I am here to help you. In this pitiful event where you are unsure of yourself, I will show you what you need to know Maduka. You have a reason and I happen to know what that reason is."

"And what would that be?" Ikenna questioned as the neurones in his brain began to fit the temporarily dis-functioning pieces of his coordination together.

"You are a coward."

She quickly held him back, soothing him with small touches as his muscles coiled in response to the insult. Ikenna wanted to sock Amobi in the jaw and maybe misplace a few teeth, but he did not need a seer to tell him that his wish was close to impossible, not also forgetting the fact that he was not yet fully in control of his body.

"Do you believe him?" Ikenna's eyes held hers. Her opinion was all that mattered and he desperately wanted to know what it was–good or bad.

In response her lips touched the swollen bump on the side of his head pressing against the sore areas and numbing the pain that troubled him. Then he heard her lulling voice whisper. "I already know you are everything but that my Lord."

"Have you heard what I said Maduka?" Amobi asked and it was obvious he enjoyed provoking Ikenna on purpose as he wanted a reaction to his antics.

"Even a deaf man could hear your words." Ikenna's upper lip twitched uncontrollably. "Since you have chosen to hurl scalding words at me, I will not forget them but I blatantly refuse to trade insults with you."