Page 136 of To Free a Soul
Taken aback by his request, it rendered her silent. She never expected him to ask for something so simple or selfless.
It didn’t erase the fact that he was a violent psychopath who targeted her and her children when it suited him. It didn’t even make her see him in a new light. It just revealed he could be cunningly benevolent, and often just chosenotto be.
“How should I give it?” she asked.
“I will have a box made. You will leave an item in it for each time you enter, and I’ll share your contributions with those who would enjoy them the most.”
“And you’ll inform the occupants to leave me be when I work? Some do try to catch or attack me.”
“That sounds like a you problem.” When she gave him a glare, he rolled his eyes and let out a big sigh, like she’d asked him for the moon or something. “Fine.”
Then, Jabez teleported right in front of her. Lindiwe looked up at him, meeting his glare head on, but was ready to change forms if needed.
“But outside of this place, only hostility exists between us – unless Weldir drops his ward. I can be forgiving, Lindiwe.”
“I have no interest in being your friend, even if given the opportunity.”
She finally gave in and kicked him in the shin and then turned incorporeal before he could do anything about it. As he growled and held his shin while hopping on one leg, she poked her tongue out at him and let her intangible form sink to the ground.
We should have had this discussion years ago.
June 8th, 2014
“Weldir!” Lindiwe shouted, her hands shaking while maintaining a viewing disc. “Oh god.Pleasebe awake! Weldir!”
“I’m here, Lindiwe,”he answered calmly.“I’ve been awake for quite some time.”
He didn’t tell me?A cold sadness dripped against her chest, even if... that was what she’d wanted – distance between them.Wait.She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head.That’s not important right now.
“I can’t see Leonidas.” Sherefusedto call him Kitty. When she’d learned of this name, she’d tried to explain to him what his actual name was.
He didn’t want it. Apparently Kitty was more suitable to him.
She’d been considering teaching him his name nearly two decades ago, as he’d become rather intelligent, but Lindiwe had grown...tiredof trying. Her children didn’t want her, and she was always failing with them, so... she stepped back.
She needed to shield her heart from them as much as Weldir, and she’d completely stopped trying to connect with them. Shewas the Witch Owl, a strange being that created unease in them, and she’d long ago learned that’s all she’d be.
In doing so, she became colder, more resilient to their dislike, and... deadened inside. She’d shifted beyond what her humanity could handle, and fully accepted that she was different, a Phantom, not only in species but to the world.
She didn’t need a place to exist, except within herself.
She gave them names, but they only existed to her and Weldir, as they’d inevitably gain their own. It had become a recurring thing.
Sometimes they found each other, and the older ones helped the younger ones, like Fennec and Orpheus. Or Merikh with the twins, who had discovered him and didn’t seem to understand he wanted to be left alone. Or Ari with Fisi, the hyena-skulled Duskwalker, and Kambarah, the crocodile-skulled Duskwalker.
“I cannot see Leonidas either,”Weldir eventually answered.“The image is murky and indecipherable.”
She hated how calm he sounded when she was so panicked.
“Then where is he? Why can’t we see him?” And how long had it been since he’d gone missing?
I’ve been so busy with Auberon for the past week that I only checked on everyone today,she lamented. None of them usually needed her.
She surveyed the cave she was resting in somewhere high in the mountains of Pyrssia where Auberon, a second bear-skulled Duskwalker, lived.
“We both know the answer to that question, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
Lindiwe said she wouldn’t interfere, except if their lives were in danger. It didn’t matter that she was halfway across the world.
