16 Levian Olethea

"Manumit!"

Nolamime called out the name written on the paper. At first, he could not read it. The handwriting was an insult to writing itself. He had to collect himself and concentrate just to make out the words.

He read it out loud and nothing happened.

"Mi-sun, nothing is happening. I do not feel anything."

"What? Where you expecting something grandeur? Sparks flying everywhere?"

Mi-sun said teasingly.

"They are memories, they were not taken from you and had been always there. Just that you could not access them. Just think back to the earliest memories you have, then try to think back even further than that."

Nolamine nodded and did just that. He closed his eyes and started concentrating. The earliest memory was of him looking in a mirror with someone next to him, but it was far ahead in his early days as a child. He chose to start with the second memory he had in the parking lot, him holding Mi-sun's hand and meeting the shaman.

As he concreted, it all came back to him like a flood and he opened his eyes, wide with shock.

He remembered boarding a plane, crying that he had to leave his friend behind, being lively and playing with many other kids. He remembered always smiling, the kind and motherly women of an African village that treated him as their own, seeing Mi-sun hard at training and it was not just any other training, the woman was weaving magic spells and sometimes fighting something large with four arms seemingly made using rocks. This was in an underground area and he would dream of being as strong as she was one day.

He remembered the ritual they would have, him not being a part of it but his friend, a friend he remembered always calling him by an absurd name, 'Frogs', and him being part of the rituals like they were meant for him. As young as they were at the time, they would train together, their fights being more intense than any fight he had had after coming to South Korea until fighting the Canabris. He did not know where that strength came from and why he did not possess it now.

Through all this, he was confused, as he remembered being hungry more often than usual, him eating more than the average child his age would.

He remembered the celebrations, dances, and ceremonies. The animals that would play with them, some belonging to fairy tales then real life. Him, once being lost in the woods and being comforted by a tree-like beast that protected him and guarded him back to the village.

Finally, he remembered a waterfall, the water so powerful that no one swam in it. He would look into the water as dark as they were and he could see nothing but darkness, while also a warm and fuzzy feeling would take over him. The area was guarded and most sacred to the village. Before he and Mi-sun left, he remembered her talking to a tree downstream and bowing.

"Home."

He said as he opened his eyes. Mi-sun smiled but lifted her hand, touched his chest, and pointed at his heart again.

"No matter the memories of this place or that, I told you, this is your home from now on. That is until you are free from the burden of your blood."

She said. Nolamine sat back and looked at the ceiling.

"I wish you had never closed off such a part of me. I think I would be a different person than the one I am right now if in the five years I was here, I grew up having them."

He said in a low voice. Mi-sun sat back and looked at him.

"I am sorry."

She said, the words taking him out of the state he had fallen into. It was the first time he heard her apologize and mean it.

"I get why you did it, really, I do. I was just thinking out loud. Right now, this cold and unforgiving me might be something I need to be in order to survive, right?"

Mi-sun smiled.

"Like I said, it's in you to catch on quick."

She said as she took out a picture of someone in her pouch and gave it to him.

He looked at it and it was a picture of a pregnant woman. His eyebrows packed up as he instantly knew who she was.

She had silver hair, skin that looked so delicate you would dent it by just touching it, her face was nothing but that of innocence stealing beauty from an angle. The hump on her stomach did nothing to take away from her elegance. What finished of her looks were her eyes. They were as blue as he's and even in the picture they looked like they could pierce through his soul and see the truth. The blue silk loose dress she was wearing complimenting them.

"I can see by the way you are looking at it that you can tell who she is. It is your mother, right before I met her. It is the only picture I have of her and it took a lot to convince her to take it. She did not want anything that would reveal that she was in this world. At the time, she was three months pregnant with you."

Nolamine could not stop looking at it.

"It is the first time I showed it to you. The eyes that link her to you would always have remembered her and the memory blocking spell would never have worked."

Nolamine did not give a damn about her reasons at that point. He was just happy to see his mother's image.

"Her name was Levian Olethea."

Hearing her name for the first time, he took his eyes off of her picture and looked at Mi-sun to listen to her.

"Her name and surname as beautiful as she was. Levian meaning 'A flash of lightning' and Olethea meaning 'One who is very truthful' or 'One who searches for the truth', such where the power of her eyes."

She said. Nolamine reflexively touched his own eyes.

"Well, as you can see, looking at her was like a flash of lightning and anyone would be taken by her. I have to wonder how your father managed to score such a beauty. The first time I saw her was like..."

"Mi-sun.... stop simping on my mom."

Nolamine said, stopping her monologue.

"You scrawny little butt worm"

She said, taking one of her heels.

"Who, the, hell, is, a, simp!"

She said as she beat his ass up while he tried to run away from her, the apartment too small for him to get away.

"You know what, I am a simp. If there is anyone I would simp for it would be your mother."

She said as she sat back down after a beat down.

"Not with those anger issues."

He said in a low voice as he too set down.

"What did you say!"

"Nothing,"

He said, putting his guard up. Mi-sun sighed.

"Anyways, sit back down so I can continue."

She gathered herself and continued.

"I do not know when she had gotten to the village but I was taken there by a nurse after many doctors did not know what was wrong with me. My parents at that time had died, them going through some of the symptoms I was going through and dying with terror in their eyes. At that point, I was suffering from one that would have put me in a mental institution before I died."

The story was already intriguing.

"The nurse took me to see a witch doctor, as she was sure I was bewitched. She did not have to convince me as I was desperate at that point. When we got to the village, they explained to me that a curse had been put upon my family and the only reason I was still alive was because I had a strong natural resistance to curses."

Nolamine was impressed.

"As the witch doctor was explaining this to me, your mother came in. Like her name, it was like lightning...."

She stopped herself as she did not want Nolamine to call her a simp once again.

"Anyways, at that point, she was interested in this world's curses and she asked to expel it form me. She did and for something so threatening to my life, for her, it was as simple as touching her wand to my solar plexus."

'Her wand?'

Nomaline thought, thinking about the broken wand the old woman had in the shell.

I did not know at the time, but the curse would have jumped on to whoever tried to exorcise it if they were weak, with it attacking anyone who would try, it rebounded and attacked the Dark Witch and the person who had cast the curse upon my family. Such was her power. She had increased its potency when sending it back and it had killed everyone in that person's family. It was my father's business partner."

"What?"

"Yep, as angelic as she was, her dark side was as merciless as her innocence."

Nolamine looked at her picture and could not picture her killing anyone.

"She took me in after that. The villagers were not well-traveled and her being new to the world, she loved my stories of the outside world. After making a deal for her to train me and in exchange for me to look after you and take you away from the village if something happened, I started my training. She was concerned for the villages as having you there would put them in danger if they ever found you."

Nolamine accepted the reasoning. After meeting the old witch, he had to accept that if he had been in the village, many might had died with her killing everyone to get to him.

"At the time, I did not know that she was preparing something. Them finding you was the least of her worries."

Mi-sun stopped for a bit to gather herself and then continued.

"When you were about to be born, she drew a meticulous pentagram with a circle on the outside and inside of the drawing on the floor of her room. The lines were made of runes and words of a language I do not know till this day. At each point of the pentagram, she put beast cores the size of my first, and that looked to have come from powerful beasts. On top of the pentagram, she wrote a long spell in that same language using her wand."

Nolamine had a bad feeling at that point.

"She sat in the center and with help from the Grand Witch of the village and the nurse that had brought me there, she gave birth to you. You cried as soon as you came out, so much so that you would not stop. Trying to calm you down as the Grand Witch attended to your mother, you grabbed the finger of the nurse and instantly broke and crushed it as you cried louder. Your mother knew what was going on but we did not. She made us go out of the room as she cuddled you and gave you milk, you sulking on it like you were more than hungry."

Nolamine did not know what to think.

"We had her talk and casting a spell in another language as the room lit up as it became so bright that even the light escaping from the door blinded us. After it vanished, we went into the room with a dust of light entering your body, you sleeping peacefully and your mother gone. She had sacrificed herself."

The words sent sadness into his heart.

"The Grand Witch explained that she had been concerned about which eyes you were going to be born with, hers or your father's. Since you were in this world, being born with your father's eyes would be a death sentence for you as there are things needed to help you suppress them when you are young. They were not able to get what was needed when they were on the run. It seemed the worse outcome had happened and you were born with them. She sacrificed herself by giving you her eyes to suppress the ones you had."

Hearing it was shocking and unexpected at the same time.

"So you mean?"

"Yes, you have both your father and mother's eyes."