Chapter 3

His daughter did not give time to process whatever his mind was working it's way around. She half-dragged, half-jogged him from the balcony pavilion that led through his bed chambers, into the hallway to her room. Instead of the pink streak of hair that went through his father's hair, Pink-White's entire head was ashen pink in color, in his eye sockets sat glassy eyes with golden irises stricken with a few black lines. He had a limp in his step that could easily be missed because of how straight his back stood on his thick thighs.

Evalene, his wife had given him the gift of five daughters, each older than the other by one year. The youngest of which was dragging him right now across the hallway, her name Shinja. She was twenty years old. Their eldest Shinka was twenty years old. They had chosen to have them spaced like that because of the mortal state of their mother Evalene Green. Marrying into a cursed family of immortals had costed her life, she died earlier than she would have if she had married a mortal being.

The Gipus Curse had robbed her of life because of it she faded away each passing day. In other days without the curse, Evalene would have gained immortality from her union with Pink-White Green. Unfortunately, for her, she married him after the curse had been cast upon the land. It was for love that she did it, choosing the love of her life over death. The days she would have spent with her husband, Pink-White, she decided to birth him five beautiful girls. She did not have a lot of time to nurture them but she tried her level best to ensure that they felt her presence for the few moments she was with them. She died while they were mere toddlers.

Pink-White was lost in thought when they finally made it into Shinja's room. The other sisters were jittery, pacing up and down, throwing clothes here and there. They did not notice Shinja enter with their father. She nudged her father onto the soft cushion by the window, he hit it with a plop, she turned to her closet pulling out a gown and placed it over her body.

"So, what do you think of this one papa?" she faced him expectantly, twirling with excitement that she could not contain. Her father was staring far away into the mirror like he saw something there and he had traveled to whatever it was. He worried his lower lip with his front teeth evidently inattentive to his daughter's fussiness.

"Papa come on!" she urged her father with a crestfallen expression on her face bothered by his i attention. Abruptly, Pink-White regained his composure back to what his daughter was showing him, eyebrows lifting to his hairline as if he was adjusting his eyes to what was standing before him.

"What? What? Oh yes, yes honey you look well... very beautiful, I must say. Splendid indeed!" He stared on blankly with a ghost smile plastered on his worn-out face. The scattered hairs on his brow gave away his exhaustion. Raising five girls on his own had taken a toll on him. He would never admit it to anyone how much it had taken out of him to raise them because he loved his daughters with every ounce of his old battered heart.

He had seen worse days; the death of his wife, father and disappearance of his mother, all of this in one lifetime. It seemed like an eternity. His girls gave him reason to keep going. Had it been a pigment of his imagination that his mother had come to him a while ago? But he was so sure that he had seen her, they had talked. She had been unclear though whatever it had been he would cogitate on her comments during the affair before it passed. She had said 'calm before a storm'.

An eerie thought swept across his mind that today was the calm, when the storm would break only time would tell. His daughters meant a lot to him, a time like this when they were preparing for a banquet that was so significant in their lives, made him think back to the times the girls spent with their grandmother, Terese-White. The girls had not been allowed to attend former celebrations of the Elixir of Life because they had been considered young and not ready for what came with such celebrations. Their fascination about one particular tale that their grandmother had told them had convinced Pink-White that this time around he would let them attend the celebrations.

At times he would listen in on the tales Terese used to tell the girls. His mind drove back to one time he had eavesdropped at the door while she narrated this aforementioned tale to his daughters. He had not stayed for long but he enjoyed the engagement from the little ones as his started.

Flashback

An aeon not far from now...

Four little bundles huddled close to each other, fidgeting under the plush beddings.

"Scoot Shimi," Shimki squeaked.

"No, I am good here." Shimi shot back using her small fingers to whisk away the wispy strands of hair that had fallen in her face.

"But your hair, it's in my fac..." Shimki did not complete her complaint.

Shinja interrupted their banter. She was the youngest of them all and the most eager to listen to the tale that their grandmother was about to tell them.

"Shush you two! Grandma wants to start." She stepped over her sisters who had covered themselves up earning herself muffled groans from each one of them. She would excuse herself to the loo before joining the rest for story time. She never wanted anything or anyone to get in the way of her enjoyment of the tales, that included peeing. She grimaced her apologies to them but kept on her mission until she dropped like a pile on the side closest to the lampstand. That was her favorite spot during story time because she was close to her grandmother and every word fell directly into her eager ears before it was interrupted by banter or snores from her sisters.