Bloodlines of Archaea I. Afira
Set Him Free

“My people,” I called, watching the large crowd of people draw closer and closer with each passing step, like the tide, you know it will reach you, but you never want to leave your wonderful station you had spent hours setting up. Now, the water drew closer, lingering ominously nearer than it had before. “Now is the time I tell you of the truth of this war, I feel it is the right time, for you have stayed under the umbrella of ignorance for far too long,” I said once the crowd had stopped just in front of the rock I stood upon.

I looked at Akuma, who nodded quietly before I continued, I then looked at Tao, who stood tall beside Akuma, towering over him. She smiled at me as I turned back to the crowd. Lastly, I looked up at the darkening sky as I spoke, “the truth is that we are fighting the warriors of Underdark,” I said, not taking my eyes from the sky, but listening to the gasps of disbelief from the crowd. Ignoring this, I continued. “Many of you are unaware of many of the reasons of certain strange events. I will do my best to explain all that I can. Feel free to ask questions-” I said, cut-off by the amount of movement in the crowd, as everyone raised their hand for me to answer their question. I raised my hand slightly so that it was just in front of my chest. “At the end,” I said, watching the disappointment on my people’s faces, but continuing anyways. “Now, I will begin with the most basic and seemingly most pressing concern at the moment, this being; ‘why is the sky growing dark?’ from what my trusted military advisor, Tao has collected from certain sources, along with island lookout posts and Intel, we have learned that the shadows are attempting to darken the sky to best stay hidden, presumably because they are beginning their attack in the summer,” I said, speaking very clearly of the situation.

“We have learned that islands just nearby are in complete darkness and many of them have been completely annihilated, leaving their citizens-missing,” I paused, taking in the weight of the situation, myself for the first time since Tao, Akuma and I had planned my speech. I listened to the frightened inhalation of my own citizens, who no doubt feared fir their own lives and the lives of their families. “Now, I will tell you what I can of our plan and the course of action we will be taking. Firstly, we will fight this first wave of shadow creatures, many of us will die, but we will die with honor,” I said pointedly. “After that, I will leave Tao here to direct things while I am away again. She will have the right to enforce laws as she sees fit,” I said, eyeing the council members.

“At such point, I will join my fellow heroes in search of the ancient weapons. The shadows will no-doubt follow us,” I said with such confidence, despite the fact that this part in our plan was so fundamentally flawed that even the slightest whisper could make it all fall down. “Back to now,” I said quietly, and then, realizing my volume, raised my voice once more. “I would advise all citizens, no matter where they are from and unless they are one with diplomatic clearance, to have a curfew of dusk. Also, when fishing, never go too far off the shores and always travel in groups, same goes for land travel,” I said. “Are we clear?” I asked, my voice filled with regality. I watch as the crowd of people nodded their heads. Pleased with this, I then asked the crowd for questions. I winced when every, single hand was raised. Akuma seemed to sense this, as he pulled me aside, asking if he should answer the questions. I hesitated for a moment, before deciding that we should each switch off answering the many questions. Once they had agreed, I turned back to the crowd and called upon a fisherman with a large hat, who had two children dangling from his neck. I had seen him before but had never cared to learn his name. He was often on the dock. Akuma and I had passed by him as he worked on the dock, gutting fish, always greeting us with a smile and a wave as we passed by. I had never imagined him to be able to show any emotion other than happiness, but now, he seemed very angry with my cautioning, which was strange for his character, as although I didn’t know his name, he had never become angry. He had always seemed to me like one of the most level-headed people I would ever meet.

“Are you trying to tell me how to live my life because of some kind of fairy tale?” he asked, his tone filled with disdain.

Although I knew there would be certain people who doubted my rule as much as I had, it still hurt to hear his thoughts for the first time, but as a queen would, I hid the pain behind a layer of inperiority. “Sir, this is very real, just as the day and night are. I am only installing these rules to protect the people of my island, as it is my job as queen,” I said, trying to quiet his suspicions before it caught on.

I began to step down, having answered his question, but he shouted something again. I could hear the gasp in the crowd before his words had fully been absorbed by my sleepy brain, but I eventually knew what he had said, as it was this, “but you are just a child,” he had called. “My neice is as old as you and could do a better job as queen. You act like you have the authority over us, saying you are here to protect us because it is your job. But the truth is, you left us. You have about as much care for us as those ‘shadow creatures,’ do,” he said loudly as he moved his pointer and middle fingers around the words shadow and creatures, signaling how little he cared about them, or even how little he thought.

I was shocked at his words, as I just stood there for a moment, but before I could speak, Tao stepped up, ordering him to come closer. He did as he was told, a smug look on his face. I was unsure what she was going to do next, but watched carefully, still. “Come closer,” she said, as he stopped a few feet in front of her, his children beginning to wake. When she was pleased with the distance he was from her, she looked into his eyes. I realized they had grown nervous in the few moments he had stood there. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice commanding and imperious. She nodded at me and I stepped closer, only slightly taller than the fisherman.

He laughed. “I beg your pardon?”

I hardened my face, repeating, Tao’s words. “Who are you?” I asked.

His eyes grew terrified as if he fought the urge to run. I knew what was going to happen. I remembered the spies like him from when we had encountered our own shapeshifters. He groaned, looking up at the sky. “My name is Tuitei,” he said quietly.

I looked down at the children around his neck. “And who are they?” I asked, gesturing towards the newborn children who still sat there, strapped to his chest just as they began to moan wearily.

He looked down towards them, his face becoming pale as he looked up. “Shh,” Tuitei cautioned, “you’ll wake them!”

Unsure of whether he was lying or not, I paused for just a moment and in that second-long pause, Tao had stepped closer, menacingly towering over the both of us. “You haven’t answered the queen’s question, yet,” she said. I realized Akuma had come closer and was standing next to me, now, a look of great fear seeping from his soul and onto his face.

“They are the demons of the ancient world,” he whispered, staring down at their stirring faces. I realized they were not quite shaped correctly, both with their legs sticking out too far in both directions. The sight was awful to think of them as regular children. Then it hit me, I had seen the real versions of these children before. They were the offspring of the real fisherman, and I had apparently not seen them for a little while.

“What did you do with the innocent family in which you now impersonate?” I asked quietly, trying to seem unfazed by the name he had called the deformed children.

He sighed, fiddling with the strap of seaweed which held what he called the demons. “I watched them cry for the gods to help them as they were ripped to shreds,” he spat, mockingly. I winced at the thought of the beautiful family who’s souls would never be set free, as they lied, trapped in their bodies forever. I wished I had bothered to learn their names before they were killed. Now there was no way for their names to live on, because I couldn’t be bothered to ask a simple question. So absorbed in my own life to take the time to appreciate them, I had walked briskly past them, not paying them anything more than a simple absent-minded smile, wave, or even nod, to show the fact that I had heard their polite words and seen their kind smiles. The worst part was, they always knew my name, whether or not I deserved it. I looked down at my hands, realizing I had a flame in my palm. I noticed that Tuitei also watched my flame, anxiety in his eyes which darted from place to place.

I smiled nefariously at him, feeling something new inside of me, knowing well it was something which could lead me down a path of evil, but I chose to ignore this, allowing myself to move into the possibility of changing in this way, considering fully what may happen if I were to kill something other than a shadow, whose souls are not their own. I knew just how easy it would be to burn him to the ground, giving him the same pain of the family he now impersonated. I didn’t care how many people would watch me kill him, just that I wanted him gone, whatever that meant. I knew these thoughts were dangerous, but I hadn’t ever allowed the evil inside myself to peak out from the shadows. Akuma looked at me, he seemed to be trying to hide the fear in his face. It was as if he could think every thought I did, knowing what I was considering. He had stolen my eyes away from Tuitei and now kept them imprisoned, locked in his steel-like gaze. To this day, I know that if it weren’t for Akuma, time and time again, saving me from the dark path Sombra had gone, Afi would be long gone. I do most sincerely believe that this is where Sombra had first gone wrong, as she had never allowed anyone close enough to her to see when she was beginning to fade, not even Tamoe, the one she loved. She seemed to have thought it best to keep her burdens to herself alone, where they would tear at her slowly. Akuma had kept me who I was, never allowing me to kill anyone, whose souls were their own and their bodies more than a puppet for evil.

I nodded at Akuma, showing my submittance, but kept the flame in my hand, growing it just barely, giving extra fear to Tuitei. “Why are you here?” I asked quietly.

He looked up, surprised. I could clearly see the fear in his eyes as he hesitated to tell me his reason. Eventually, he glanced at the dark sky and began to explain. “They’re here,” he said. “They sent me down to make sure you weren’t going to attack before they could-” his voice caught in his throat. There was an awful moment of silence when his eyes had caught mine before they turned themselves around in his skull. He began screaming and kicking wildly, utter and horrid pain filling his voice, seeming to drown him in his own agony. The children began to make gurgling noises as I realized they were one of the sources of his suffering. They had clawed through his shirt and were now digging into his stomach, seeming to enjoy the feeling of his blood. I gasped as he fell to the ground, still wiggling and kicking as if trying to keep the jaws of death farther from him. I watched his skin melt away, revealing the scales of his species, but what surprised me was that unlike many of the lizard creatures we had seen, who had green scales, his were an extremely dark purple, almost reaching black. He tried to yell, but nothing but a short-lived wheeze could escape his gates of life. Seeming to decide that this death was far too awful, even for a murderer, I dove towards him and began to tear at the strap which held the children to his chest, trying not to care that their long claw-like nails dug into my arms and hands. Finally removing the children from the man who gasped for air, I stared at the children who now sat dazed after I had thrown them off. Akuma and Tao jumped into action, quickly pinning the creatures, allowing me to turn them to dust with a nearby torch which had already burned. The creatures never made a sound as I was doing this, as if they knew that death awaited the, but needed to fulfill their mission, before disappearing from existence. Both Akuma and Tao looked at me with confused faces, but I couldn’t bare explain to them what I had thoughts, so I instead shifted by attention to Tuitei, who had begun to cough up blood. I winced at the sight of his wound, taking it in fully for the first time. His entrails were spread out across the beach, bleeding out horribly. His blood had soaked into the sand like an ancient crimson red tide. His eyes circled around inside of his skull, as if searching for a way out of the pain. I bent down. He seemed to perk up after seeing me, his strange excitement digging into my soul. He smiled up at me, almost happy to be leaving this world. “I’m sorry,” he whispered through shuddering breaths. Akuma bent down beside me, followed by Tao, who watched distantly. Tuitei stared into my eyes. “I can go on living for quite a while,” he said. I nodded. “I don’t want to,” he wheezed. “I know you have no reason to take pity on me, but I… I need to die. I want to see my wife and kids again. My whole family is waiting for me with the gods,” he said. “They need their Daddy, so all I ask of you,” he shed a tear. I watched it roll down his cheek, leaving a dark trail where it had seeped into his skin. “All I want is for you to let me have them again, please.”

Tao scoffed. “After what you have done, you murderous little spy do you really think our queen will take pity on you?” she asked. “You would be lucky if she didn’t heal you just so that you can die more slowly than you are now-” I put my hand up, silencing her rampage and allowing myself to speak.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked quietly, hoping to the gods he didn’t know what I thought he did.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I watched both Tao and Tuitei look at me, surprised, as if expecting me to leave him where he lied. Tuitei shook his surprise off and gave me a look as if to say, “I think you know.”

I winced at the idea. “Why can’t you doe another way?” I asked, gesturing towards the torches which now sat farther away, in the sand and still lit.

“Because,” he said weakly. “I am a chief, our scales are different from a normal lizard and one of the few ways to actually kill us is by the strongest of fires,” he explained, his eyes growing impatient as they awaited death. I groaned at the thought of doing what he asked me to, but his pleads became unbearable.

“Fine,” I said, “and I will make it as fast and painless as possible.”

His face looked relieved. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for setting me free.”