34. Trauma

My eyes were red due to crying, but I pushed myself to mop the prison hall. The servant who was with me was bewildered. I ignored him, reluctant to tell him what had happened. Once in a while, I wiped my tears rolling down my cheeks secretly.

"Tha?"

I looked up and held my tears, taking a deep breath and trying to form a smile on my lips. "Yeah?"

"Just have some rest," He suggested.

"No, thanks" I shook my head. "No servant can replace me." I continued my work.

Some time passed, and suddenly someone called my name. He was nearly two meters tall, with a scar across his left jaw. He asked me to follow him as I walked over to him.

I was taken to a room that was low and very stuffy, with no windows around, but there were several other guards. "Is it true that you attacked the main bodyguard?" He judged.

"I didn't mean to" I didn't know how to explain it. "I really didn't mean to."

"You are too dangerous to be here," he said. "With your poor emotional control, you could have killed us all" All the guards looked at me with uncomfortable looks.

"I" He was right. If I couldn't control my emotions, I could hurt a lot of people. The manjis moved on my orders, they would attack anyone without mercy. If I asked them to kill, then they would. Just like when they killed Antonie at that time, despite the fact that the man was innocent and he had actually helped me.

"I'll talk to Azalea, about your permission to stay here" He spoke again after the silence that seemed to suffocate me, under their eyes. "It's hard to say, but you must realize the reason Yon came here, was your existence. Maybe if you had never come to this place, we wouldn't have been victimized that day."

I didn't know what else to say. He was right. Father teamed up with Yon to kill me. Just because I was here, at that time resulted in the killing of a lot of Azalea's soldiers and bodyguards. They were innocent. I was the cause of everything that so many innocent people were involved in.

Then, they left me. My legs felt weak and shaky, but I still had to get back to finish my work. I couldn't forget that man's words, they were all true. I would harm them a second time if I hid here. That meant, Antonie might give the wrong idea to live in this place, but if it was not here, where else should I run?

After finishing my work, I immediately looked for Shashin. Here I couldn't call him that, Naar would be the most appropriate call here.

I managed to find him, he was seen talking to his friends in the practice room. I was afraid to greet him, also I was confused about what to say after I attacked him earlier, I just watched him silently.

"Hi?!" He greeted me once he saw my presence.

Knowing my presence, his friends left the practice room. 'One accidental mistake would make my existence here difficult,' I thought sadly.

"Come over here!" He asked me to sit beside him.

"Err, I'm so sorry, I attacked you today," He burst into laughter listening to my words. "What is so funny?!" I was offended that I felt he didn't take my words seriously.

"Did you take my apology as a joke? I said it sincerely!" He laughed even more. "Hey? Naar, what are you doing?" I was confused to see him like this.

"I'm not going to die just being tossed around like that," He said arrogantly, stifling a laugh.

He was weird, like the rarest creature I had ever met. "Maybe today the masters just threw you, but maybe one day, when I get out of control again, they'll chop off your head!" I wanted him to take my warning seriously.

Then, he stopped laughing completely, just looking at me with a smile. "Then control them so they don't cut off my head!"

"I can't" I almost gave up on controlling my trauma and fear. No matter how many pills I took, they just gave me temporary effects. How often I said 'fine' to myself, taking it as a mantra, the fear and trauma were still controlling me.

"It seems that you don't know that I have been treated for two years to heal my trauma" I confessed. "I am still taking the medicine until now" He laughed again, perhaps he found me amusing. "Yeah, I suck. I know that!"

"No, that is not the reason for my laughter," He denied, then he was silent, looking at the target of the archery practice. "You ever asked me to be an eagle, but it seems like it is us who have to be eagles. We must be brave to be free eagles and flying high in the sky, brave to overcome our fear of heights and falls, open up our wings wide as possible and dive sharply to lunge at prey."

"I" I swallowed my own words. I was too scared to be an eagle, even though I was the one who asked him to be one. My trauma was so deep that I didn't know how to heal it anymore. I was only deceiving myself, that I was healed.

"We're an eagle together!." He said looking at me, smiling warmly. He gave me confidence as if I would really be able to become an eagle.

"His name was Zie. He was Antonie's best student, a wizard too." I looked straight ahead, remembering the incident again. "Antonie gave him the task of winning my heart and trust, accompanying my difficult times and being the perfect person for me, then he had to die in front of me" Although it was too painful to remember, for some reason I wanted to share this story with him.

"Antonie was the one who initially got the task of killing him, but he couldn't do it, then my father took over and killed Zie right in front of me. Antonie made the illusion that it was him who did it and he endured all my father's mistakes so I hated him. He was too coward as a matter of fact." I said.