FFXIVWrite 2020 Prompt 15: Ache
The sound ricocheted off the walls and echoed painfully in her horns. The burn hit just after and her hand lifted to her reddened cheek in shock, eyes gone huge as tears sprung into them unbidden from the shock and pain of it. The half-Xaela woman stared at her mother, the shorter woman drawing back her hand for another strike.
“HOW COULD YOU!?” She screamed and Komyo drew back a half-step. The quiet, implacable, demure demeanor of her Raen mother, Akiko, had cracked and revealed someone she did not know underneath. “Do you have ANY idea of what you’ve done?!” Akiko continued, advancing on her daughter.
Komyo felt her own temper sliding through her veins like ice. “I did what I had to do.” she hissed back, voice softer, colder. “He would have died in there and you- you would have had me leave him!”
“Idiot child, I was arranging for him to be released! You went behind my back, you made these promises, you’ve put *everything* at risk! I expect such rashness from Akihito, but not from you. You’re smarter than this, Komyo. I raised you to be smarter than this.” The disdain in her mother’s voice cut the young woman to the heart and those tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her now-aching cheek and jaw.
“I- I had to, mama. We lost papa, I couldn’t lose Aki, too.” She protested through her tears.
Akiko dropped her head into her hands, shaking it slowly. When she lifted it, her face was calm once more and she moved to her daughter, reaching out to pull the younger woman into a hug. Komyo cried on her mother’s shoulder, the grief of her papa’s death and the fear of losing her brother still so fresh they stung more than her cheek.
Sighing, Akiko stroked Komyo’s hair and comforted her with soft sounds and gentle rocking. Yes, the girl had ruined her plans, but she had learned long ago that plans rarely last long. Contingencies are a necessity. Perhaps part of it was her own fault- she knew how deeply her daughter was devoted to her twin. If she had told the girl that she had her own ways to get her wayward son released from gaol, perhaps Komyo wouldn’t have approached the Yakuza at all.
Perhaps it would be best if she told her… No. No, the child wasn’t ready for that. She had proved it with this foolish, foolish act.
Komyo lifted her head and brushed away her tears, wincing as she felt the bruise beginning to form on her cheek. “Mama, please tell me- why are you so angry at what I did?”
Akiko shook her head, expression inscrutable. “You were rash and foolish, Komyo. That is all. The Yakuza are dangerous people to be indebted to. They will ask much of you. I worry you will regret this, that is all.”
For the first time in her life, Komyo looked into her mother’s eyes and knew without a doubt that she was being lied to. Her faith in Akiko’s infallibility was shaken to the core and along with her burning cheek, an ache started in her heart. First her papa’s death, then Akihito’s imprisonment, now her mother’s betrayal- wheels started whirring in her head as she rested her head back on Akiko’s shoulder and allowed herself to be comforted, all without saying the words that burned on the back of her eyelids.
What was her mother still hiding?
((Tagging for mention: @talesfromthegameff14 ))
