Time Begets Change

Seven years later.

There is a saying that with time comes the face of change. Even if time brings about change, the amount of change is interchangeable. The change of one's ability is easily changeable, but a person's character is not so comparable in that aspect.

Trying to change who you are as a person is to change your nature. Some people would rather change the world than change themselves, something that is not easily feasible. The world isn't easily changeable, and so, I can't stay like this for the rest of my life, I have to change if the world refuses to.

The only thing that I could change without much risk is my attitude. I thought I could live without much risk, but someone tried to kill me when I went out for an extended time, on our property even. Yet even though I was nearly killed I thought all would be well if I just did my best to always be guarded or to simply stay in the house.

But that was a flawed mindset as well, if someone attempted to kill you once what makes you think they won't do it a second time, a third time, a fourth time even. You can't predict the future but you can still figure out the probability of history repeating itself. This is something I didn't do, throughout these seven years there have been a total of three other assassination attempts in my life, though the risk was much lower than the first one due to security increasing it was a risk no less.

I couldn't leave my room without fearing for my life, so I had to change. Isolation was the change and choice, it might seem foolish that I chose to limit my freedom even more than it already was.

Was the change negative or positive is the question and answer was that that was subjective. Some may say that I had lost my freedom, but freedom in itself is subjective. I can have everything I want or need, except for friends, I can't leave the house and I can't put my trust in the new servants and workers.

A year after the incident people from what's called the Noval Clan came to work in the house, they were all tall and pale-skinned, and many of them had features of fish somewhere on their bodies. The person in charge of them had the. pale head of a creature resembling an Orca that had two sets of fins falling off the back of his head.

The man walked around dressed like a mob boss and addressed everyone in the Noval Clan as family, calling all of them his children, Tilikum, he was given the position of head of security. and would patrol the house all day long with the vigilance as if he was constantly being watched. Because he was, by me that is. Ever since they've arrived, though my range of movement is small I've always tried to keep an eye on them, I didn't want to risk letting them take advantage of me letting my guard down.

That was what I wanted and that's what I did, but I wasn't careful the entire time, I slipped up. It had been a year since the Noval Clan joined the house and my vigilance was beginning to wane, after watching them for quite a while I couldn't see anything to suspect.

I didn't allow them to guard, or get anywhere near me but I stopped focusing on them, and it seemed that they also noticed this because a few days after three of them snuck into my art studio as I was alone there, at least that's what they were led to believe.

Grandmother, who had a much more watchful gaze than me was watching for them in the corner of the room. The three that snuck in were the three that had three sets of sharp tentacles sprawling from their backs, they used their chromatophores to have their bodies camouflage with their surroundings.

Before sitting in my studio grandma gave me a pair of goggles and told me to not turn around, at all. I don't know why I was told to do that but I could feel the room light up behind me, so I guessed it was some sort of flashbang.

I was told that those men were mercenaries but that was the extent of what I was informed of. Even though they weren't all involved, the Noval Clan was punished for not keeping their people under control. They understood Grandmother's reasoning and took all the blame for the situation, gracefully accepting the punishment.

That was the second assassination attempt, the third and fourth attempts were a sniping attempts and a suicide bomber. They tried to snub me through my bedroom window and when I happened to finally leave the house for a rehabilitating stroll a man popped up from the ground and attempted to pull me into a bear hug.

They weren't as dangerous as the first attempt because I was now being protected twenty-four-seven, well actually seventy-two-seven, the days are seventy-two hours long, most of the days are spent in daylight, forty-eight hours of daylight, and twenty-four hours of nightfall and the nights are unpleasantly dark.

There is a schedule to how the hours are spent, but most adults and elders are busy throughout the first twenty-four hours and the second twenty-four hours are used to make sure everything would be safe and secure by nightfall.

Other than that most of my time was spent studying, as suggested by Malto, and letting my creative ingenuity flow through the strokes of my pencils and brushes.

I drew a family portrait and a self-portrait at one point and my family all loved both of them so much that they hung them both up in the main hall of the house, with my permission of course.

On the day of my tenth cycle, we didn't do anything to celebrate it, but my mom personally made me something that I would appreciate for the rest of my life. She made me a brace that was made up of varying small sizes of hexagonal metal plates.

She told me it would support and assist me in walking, it couldn't be used for all seventy-two hours of the day but it could be used for at least thirty-eight of them. She said she was in the middle of making a brace for my back and arm too, these braces could expand, meaning a new one needn't be made when I grow bigger.

It seemed that it was taking her some time to make these things to support me because our people usually weren't fragile enough to warrant such care, I think it has to do with my hair as well since it seemed to not be a common thing either, it's just that the hair was an out in the air to be seen by all.

It couldn't be cut completely off or burnt off, I know from trying myself. Even though mom tried several times to cut and shave it off when I was a small child, I tried to cut off myself and unfortunately got the same results. I also tried to burn it off when I was in a moment of great confusion, much to my mother's dismay.

Just seeing how much my mother cared for me just warmed my heart, I felt like It was going to melt. So I promised myself that I would never try to harm myself, no matter how horrible it gets, just for mom, I can't have her deal with that.

...

It was now three months after I turned into my tenth cycle. I woke to the sound of lots of people moving around and shouting orders and whatnot.

- "Ugh, why aren't these walls soundproof, it's loud what's going on," climbing out of bed and into my wheelchair I looked to the wall that used to contain a wide window and rolled myself to the door.

I grew in height by a good amount but the doctor told me I shouldn't expect to grow too much anymore, I'm happy just not being below five feet, but I don't even want to grow anymore the growing pains already ruin everything.

Anyways when the door in front of me slid open my eyes met an overly shiny hallway, that had decorations scattered around the hall.

Noval tribe members were moving throughout the hall at hastened speeds carrying a variety of different objects. Rolling over to the stairs, I saw mom and grandpa talking to different people as they were organizing some sort of an event. Seeing how there were a few strangers present, I quickly rolled out of sight and headed toward my studio. While wheeling there I heard footsteps behind, then heard the beautiful voice of my mother.

- "You're up Lulu? Are you going to go straight to working on some art? Would you like me to bring you some food? You should eat some more, you look too thin, you need more meat on your bones dear."

Mom asked me some simple questions before she once again started worrying about my health, this always brought a smile to my face.

- "Please, I would love some food mom, I'll try to eat more, ok," I answered her before asking her what I was curious about. "Oh mom, you guys looked busy. What was it you were preparing for?"

- "Oh that, we're preparing for a ball and banquet."