Welcome to Gaia! ::

I am the beginning of the end. Even in death I shall shape the world to my image. I am a puppet master in the dark street. I am not ashamed of what I have done, or what made me.

I was my mother's only child, a daughter of fire in a world of wealth, fighting, prestidigitation, and pulchritude. I was named Akako; it was a euonym, seeing as my eyes and hair were fiery red like my mothers. We were Ko’s, greatest of our species, and I was destined for higher things than those of my so-called friends.

The stepping-stones of my life are meaningless. My story begins at the start of my love life; the day my mother asked me if I liked any boys. I told her no. She asked me if I ever had, and then I made the biggest mistake of my life. I told her I liked girls.

She yelled and screamed at me. Then she began to get physically violent. She hit me and kicked me hard enough to bruise my skin. I would cry and tell her she was hurting me, her answer was always the same reply of, ‘Not as much as you’re hurting me.’ Lies. She didn’t care about anything other than herself. Being a center of power was too much for her ego. I don’t blame Fai for killing her. I thank her for it. Even though she was carving away my self-esteem, I still loved my mother.

I guess that makes me one of those creepy kids who loved their parents even though they beat the crap out of them.

After that, she seldom let me leave our home. I couldn’t hide from her there. She knew the labyrinth-like walls better than I did. Hiding in my room, my sanctuary, I was like a caged rat. If I left, the ‘cat’ would surely get me. If I stayed walled up I was safe. I felt that I was truly alone in the world until the summer I turned fifteen and my mother took me to the Summer Eclipse Festival. I was very excited; this would be the first festival I have ever been to. Little did I know, A bigger event would take place before I even got to there.

We stopped in a clearing. We were very wary of the puddle in the center of it; anything that steps in it instantly turns to ash. We sat down and ate our lunch. Halfway through our meal, the water began to bubble like a pot on a burner. Fearing a monster, I hide behind the rock that my mother leaned against, and leered at the water.

“Fancy trick, Fai, got anything to back it up? Something GOOD preferably.” Ruko smirked.

Water dripping off her body, I saw Fai for the first time. Blonde hair cut into a boyish style, blue eyes, around six feet tall, and a permanent looking glower with a rather erotic hint in it.
“I should say the same to you, seeing as you ran from our last fight. But I guess that’s your motto, ‘If you can’t take the cold, get out of the ice!’”

“It was a skill called douhi, the art of falling back and planning, made by the Kos and stolen by the Ais. But you Ais are too stubborn to admit it.”

“Douhi, eh? Doesn’t that translate to, ‘Oh s**t, run away!’ in your language?” Fai smirked stepping out of the puddle.
“Isn’t Fai a boys name?” Ruko asked, momentarily forgetting that her name was that of a boy as well.

“As is yours. So what brings you here, the ten cent whore convention?”

Touché, Ruko. Touché.

“Aren’t you going to the two cent whore convention?”

Burn.

“I thought you knew, seeing as you are the president, that it only meets between your sheets.”

Oh snap.

Ruko paused; Fai had won the pre-fight, catty arguments with bitchy remarks. The ostentatious Ai better be as strong as her remarks were rude or she was road kill.

“So, what are you really doing? Having one of your barbaric ritualistic sacrifices?” She asked eyeing me suspiciously.

I guess I looked like a peasant or some sort of peon to her. My dark bruised body was barely covered by my dress. I had reverted to wearing strange long sleeves that I could use to cover my body; it could have been mistaken for old, stretched fabric. I also was a tad dirty looking.

“My daughter.” Ruko said, vein pulsing in her hand. It was evident to all that she didn’t want someone like me for a daughter, subject, or even in her race. As clear as the new puddle forming under Fai, as clear as the scratch on the side of my face, and as clear as the fresh blood on my foot.

She moved closer to me, her gaze never faltering, not even for a second. Afraid of what she could possibly do, on purpose or by accident, I fell into my submissive pose, hands over my face, covering my flaws with fabricated shields.

She was dry, and very warm. She knelt down to my side and held me like I was her child. Confused I removed my hands to see a familiar look in her face. It was like mine. It was the look of a victim. Was she like me? Was she denying what she was? Even though I had only known her for a few minutes, she was like a new mother to me. I wanted her to be my mother. She was soft, warm and kind to me. I would choose her over Ruko any day.

But, I was pulled away. “She’s queer enough as it is. She doesn’t need you gaying her up.” Ruko hissed. “C’mon Akako, lets go burn your clothes.”

I didn’t want to leave Fai, and I didn’t want to burn my clothes. If I never saw her again they would be all I had left of her. She showed me compassion, and she didn’t even know me.

I felt tingly all over. I had to be in love or I had the smallpox. What scared me most about Fai were the feelings I was having for her. But I wondered if she would, or was even able to return my feelings. Who would want me? With my lack of curves, long toes, and bony fingers, who could ever love me?

Akamu did. He cared about me even those I ripped his heart to shreds over and over again. Did he feel the same way about me as I felt for Fai? He knew my love for Fai was forbidden; yet he stuck by me. If anyone found out it would have a drastic effect on the status of his noble family. We where schooled together, so we became the best of friends. I was short but I had a deadly temper, and he was tall and frightening, yet he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

“Hey Akamu, what'd you do this weekend? “ I asked one day.

“Well, Friday night I stood outside your window - in the pouring rain - screaming your name for several hours. And then I spent all of Saturday and Sunday making you this great "Akako I've Been Desperately Trying To Tell You That I Am Madly In Love With You" ummmm... Mix Tape for your birthday.”

“That wasn’t my window. It was my moms. She thinks you’re a malformation or something along those lines.” I paused looking up at Akamu’s twitching face. “You don’t have a thing for my mom, do you?”

“Your mother scares me beyond all reason.”

My passage into true adulthood did come. Akamu did give me the said ‘mix tape’; my mother gave me some bookends from some dead dynasty. Normally the bookends would be a venerable gift, but a gift from an unknown character drew my attention. It was a black mirror. In the center was simple, traditional, and boring glass. The outside was black wood crafted into an elaborate design by someone with very nimble fingers. There was a note attached.

Little Akako,
I got this mirror when my mother, Rai, supposedly passed away. I thought it would fit your fancy, despite the fact we have only met once.

Then there was a kiss mark made by blue lipstick.

I did some research and I found that Rai was the last active Ai. She was assumed missing, but many, including Fai, believed my Grandmother killed her in revenge for killing her mother. Something didn’t fit. My mother obviously knew this and she had seen the note. Why didn’t she take it away? I don’t think she cared if Fai was whispering sweet nothings into my ear. As long as Fai was away from her she didn’t care.

I didn’t tell anyone how I felt about the note. It was nothing as far as Ruko was concerned. She knew Fai, much longer than I had, and so, this must be her teasing me.

Once again, Fai was scaring me. I had built an invisible wall around myself. No one could get in unless I wanted them to. I had lowered my defenses for Akamu. Ruko had been the epidemic that built the walls, and Fai was the angry villager breaking the walls down.

When I looked into the mirror, I felt like I wasn’t looking at myself. My complexion was less pale. My smile didn’t seem crooked. Every little bit of me seemed perfect.

‘Beauty is skin deep.’ I reminded myself putting the mirror down one night. I went to sleep as it if where any other night.

If you where to address a large group of people and ask then what first comes to mind when you say beauty they may think of a huge blend of everything they think is beautiful, not just one specific thing.

I woke up that night to the sound of something dripping on the floor. It was that or the windowpanes flapping open and shut. Rousing to silence them the pale moonlight shone onto the mirror, covered with blood.

Forgetting about the window I moved to the mirror. Blood had drenched several books and an entire passage from one about the Siberian Fireball that I had never seen.

"In 1908 hundreds of square miles of Siberian forest were flattened and burned by a mysterious fireball. Only now, nearly nine decades later, are we learning what really happened--and not a minute too soon a vast fireball raced through the dawn sky over Siberia, and then exploded with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. The heat incinerated herds of reindeer and charred tens of thousands of evergreens across hundreds of square miles. For many days, for thousands of miles around the sky remained bright with an eerie orange glow--as far away as Western Europe people were able to read newspapers at night without a lamp. The effect was much like that of a great volcanic eruption, yet there had been no eruption. The only objective indication of the extraordinary event was a quiver on seismographs in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, indicating a moderate quake some 1,000 miles north in a remote region called Tunguska."

Moving the book I stared at the mirror puzzled. Shifting my weight, about 102 pounds, I saw the hidden message. ‘Firewalker, meet me at the stream a few miles away.
Dowsing Queen’

I was offended. A book I had read a few hours before called fire walking "the act of walking barefoot over a bed of hot coals. This feat appears to defy the laws of nature—one would expect to burn one's feet—but according to physicists it is perfectly explainable by application of natural laws; the supernatural is not involved nor need be posited in explanation. This is ipso facto substantiated by the fact that anyone can perform fire walking without any 'mind over matter' preparation." It was an insult. Ignoring the message I put away the books. The one on Fire Walkers and, to my surprise, an article was opened on dowsing.

"(Also called divining or Water witching) is a generic term for a set of practices which water demons and close relatives claim empower them to find water, metals, gem stones, and hidden objects usually by fluctuations of some apparatus (typically a rod, rods, or pendulum) over a piece of land or a map. Some claim to need no apparatus at all but to 'feel' reactions. Repeated tests under controlled conditions have not supported these claims, but they continue to be believed by many people."

I knelt onto the floor. It was if all my prayers had been answered. If dowsing was an act of Waterlings, and Fai was the Ai, Fai must be the person who did this!

Throwing my caution to the wind I ran. I ran until my legs gave out. Luckily, I was in the right place.

“You came.”

Surprise. It was her. She was the one. She had called me. I had come. If I were to die at that moment, I would die happy.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Sexuality is a tricky thing.”

I sat there, dumbfounded. Did she know?

“Sexuality refers to the expression of sexual sensation and related intimacy between human beings, as well as the expression of identity through sex and as influenced by or based on sex. There are a great many forms of human sexuality. The sexuality of beings comprises a broad range of behavior and processes, including the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, and spiritual or religious aspects of sex and sexual behavior.”

“I knew that. So you know…”

“Your mom made it very clear. Besides, I always recognize my own.”

“So, you too then.”

“Yes. So, how’d you find out?”

“I don’t know. It was always there. I always knew I was different. Not because I’m a Ko and all. I was just, different.”

“Life is to short to go unnoticed.”

“Are you suggesting I’m faking it?!”

After all the pain I went though I had to be homosexual. I had never considered it my identity. It was just a small trait.

Then it hit me. She was faking it. It was too much of her identity to be natural.

“I know what your thinking.” With that she cupped my face in her hands. I closed my eyes. It all went so fast. The press of her lips against mine, soft flesh, a feeling out of this world.

And that was just a kiss.

“As for me… C’est une histiore sordide.” She paused, “That means…”

“It’s a sordid story. I speak your language.”

“Intelligent. I like that.” She brushed something out of my face. “Someone harder to control, someone who might fight back…”

“So whats your story?” I blushed changing the topic.

“Meh,” Fai shrugged off the comment like she had my mothers. She was truly untouchable. “I made Rai bald. She got pissed and sent me to live with these women who lived really, and I mean really, far away. They were so far from our bastion… You know what that is, right?”

I nodded an affirmative “Same thing as citadel.”

“Alright, good. Now these women were gay. Openly. Y’see, they lived so frikken’ far away, my mom had no effect on them, or any of them.”

“So you caught the gay?”

“Maybe. Maybe it was in me all along. Now I’m a badass butch.” She shrugged. "Or something along those lines."

“So gay is like an epidemic.”

“Really? Can I call in sick on it? Can’t kill Ruko today. Still queer!” She paused for a moment, “Sorry, I forgot who I was with.”

“It’s nothing. C’était cas de légitime defense.”

“It was a case of legitimate defense. “ Fai translated.

I nodded. “So...Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” Fai asked raising a eyebrow.

“This!” I exclaimed spreading my arms “You! Me! Here! Just us!”

“I was lucky enough to have friends I could talk to, y’know, about girl stuff?”

That was the straw that breaks the camels back.

I rose to my feet in a jolt “So what if Akamu’s a guy! He listens to me! He’s the best friend I could ever ask for!”

“So what, your best friends a guy that loves you to death. Your mom hates your guts and wishes you were dead. You’re homosexual.” She spit out that lat word like a rotten seed. “It’s frikken’ tearing you apart. You can’t love him back, no matter how much you want to, you want your mom to like you, but she doesn’t. “ She paused, perhaps thinking. “You can come out Ruko.”

Ruko. Mom. I was so screwed.

“You may have completed the first part of your penance, but it's far from over/”

Ruko, having stepped out in all her fiery glory glared.

“You changed a sickly child doomed to a life of mental retardation to a genius by sacrificing yourself. But, when it comes to brains, personality or anything else, what do you have to give?”

That was it. Ruko was all over Fai like leaves on an autumn ground.

It was intense, the clash of elements. Homosexual versus Heterosexual. A Clash of Titans.

I forget what happened next. Other than the fact that somehow I fell unconscious and woke up four days later in my room surrounded by my loved ones.

“Leave us. I need to talk with my daughter.” Ruko. She was alive. And she was calling me her daughter? She always referred to me as her heir.

The people poured out. Akamu gave me a grim salute. I winked.

The door shut. I was in Ruko’s world now.

She knelt by my bedside and lowered her gaze. “I’ve been a bad mother.”

“No you haven’t…” I lied.

“Don’t lie to me, Akako, it’s the truth, four days ago, with Fai. I saw the error of my ways.”

I was silent.

“She was a much better mother than I am.”

Silence by shock.

“I killed her child. A child she had suffered for so long. All the pain she under went. And I killed Kai.”

“Why?”

“I-I-I don’t know.” She was clenching my sheets, crying blood red tears. “I was jealous. Such a perfect baby. Small but not to big. Loud, yet quiet. And she showed so much potential.”

“But you had a baby too. Small, too small. Always quiet. Always watching.”

“That child could have destroyed us all if I hadn’t stopped it.”

“But it feels so wrong doesn’t it?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “I realized I was doing the same thing to you as I did to Kai. I was killing you. If I had been a better mother you wouldn’t have run off to Fai.”

“It’s hard for you,” I replied.

“I have to stay strong. I have to obey the rules. And that means I can’t tolerate your sexuality. I’m sorry.” She stood up. “I have to stay strong until Kaysou comes home.”

“Dad’s not coming home Ma; he’s dead.”

Ruko passed through the door ignoring my words and returned to being the homophobic b***h I knew and loved. I felt that, for the first time ever, I had met my Mother. And I was proud of her.

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©2006 ~Tei-rei

I wanna read it
But its so long
gonk