1109. Blessing & curse, 5
(Armylè)
The next year went by.
Elyne continued to go to high school without real motivation. A part of her psyche was still stuck and nothing was amusing or exciting to her currently. It was hard, but surviving was a good start.
She had very few friends and this didn’t grow any better over time.
Beside the regular visit to her sister who never replied, what kept her alive and well, was sport.
She did a lot of physical activities, usually to finish the day. She went to see her sister, did her homework around there where it was calm and with a feeling of presence, even if scarce.
And then or instead, as much and as long as she could, she went to unleash into a gymnasium or another, mostly training for that fighting style.
But she had lost a lot of the pleasure there too unfortunately. She couldn’t get the pleasure of seeing herself progress anymore. So it was more a form of maintenance and keeping herself physically worked out to handle everything else slightly better, rather than real pleasure.
She looked cold, her face locked with a stern expressionless wait. This unapproachable face didn’t help her making new friends, both in school and in sport. Over time this spoiled into some animosity toward her, and she replied unfortunately in kind generally, with contempt, and in worse cases aggressively.
Her natural talent for fight, along with her unnatural strength, made her a champion rapidly, but without much merit. The kind easily hated.
So sadly, here and there, now the problem child had some brawls. This was all too childish, but sometimes she snapped. She got a few pointless hits, and retorted with savagery, really hurting some kids and childish adults.
Thank goodness she still listened to me when I scolded her...
Deep down she was still just kind but hurt. That did not heal. I held her head against my chest and comforted her, which could help relieve some stress and tears at times. But I knew this wasn’t the answer. I was her mother, and she was still struggling to find her reliable stability for her own self.
Since I didn’t have much power left to guide her, I was thankful she was still docile and respectful enough to obey the words of her kind mother. She remained a good girl at home at the very least, even though she struggled controlling herself outside.
Sport wasn’t enough. And I was afraid to know what could be the only answer.
One way or another, struggling to make her own way, she was always looking beside for the other side of her. She missed Prume too much and time continued to separate them further. Elyne moved on, in pain, losing her as slowly as a torture. Fortunately and unfortunately, Prume was also refusing to die all this time.
As peaceful and warm as our home could be, I was limited in how much I could help Elyne grow forward. And just even to smile. Whatever we did together, something was missing. The rare smiles were shallow.
Elyne spent her time through these weaved new times with varying ups and downs to her mood. Sometimes she came out better, more confident and liberated. Sometimes she could breathe.
And in the darkest times, she was contemplating death, for herself or Prume.
I didn’t beg her to live. I reminded her that I believed in her, and that she had a promise to fulfil. That worked, just enough to hold on until another day. That was one little tie amongst others.
When she was spending time next to her sleeping sister, sometimes the pain was too much, and she felt more violent urges. In the darkest moments, she felt these morbid desires flowing.
She clenched her teeth, and thankfully never acted against Prume or herself. She would return to a gymnasium and unleash until exhaustion and hurting herself only that way. I would pamper her as much as she would let me when she returned home.
And naturally, time did not care.
~
Néphéline one day went to Elyne’s high school with a group of students. It was a day were middle school students were visiting in a semi open day, seeing all sorts of activities soon available to them.
Néphéline hadn’t been picked in that group of girls, but put there by their teacher. She was terrifying the other children, more than Elyne ever did. The young Néphéline was casting an undecipherable aura of terror around her, against which the instinct of most living animal and human was oddly reactive and affected.
They didn’t need to see her, but in her vicinity, they felt the spook. And now she was seen as a terrifying child for some unclear reason, making her comrades rather unwilling to get anywhere near her. Not that she cared much, she was a lone wolf since the beginning of her life.
She ditched the group and class to go her own way around.
One of her rarest friends of her age was attempting clumsily as best she could to follow her through the crowds, between clubs, classrooms for various activities and experiments.
Something was pulling Néphéline forward toward a specific place. She had an intuition, and she needed to see.
She found her way to the heights of the school gymnasium. There were terraces circling around the whole space, a high level above the main floor, for spectators in events such as then.
Far below on the mattresses, some high schoolers were doing various sports, including mock fighting.
Néphéline quickly found and recognised the one teenager with a horn, and the attitude of a murderess. Néphéline had an aura to her, and Elyne another.
My girl had been selected for the demonstrations. She had gotten that honorific role given to her against her will, and this brought her a little more animosity again.
But she wasn’t trying to refuse as much as she might have otherwise. She tried to flow along with it.
And for now she would simply have destroyed anything trying to go against the fragile balance or sense of justice she held upon.
I was around up there, looking at her as well. I saw Néphéline and her glare. Hard to miss as well.
Funnily, maybe Elyne felt that killing glare upon her back, because for a moment she was distracted, and turned around to look at her. Néphéline and Elyne glared at each other in an unexpectedly hostile way. I didn’t get why they seemed to hate each other so much. Néphéline looked like she was about to spit on the floor. Elyne looked intense, but I think she was just surprise to see that younger friend around, not with any special animosity.
Elyne was hit strongly in her blind angle and shoved to the ground. Of course her opponent took the chance offered by her distraction. But Elyne didn’t like that. She stood up, and punched the girl she was sparing with perhaps one too many times and a little too strong... Please be kinder. There’s no reason to get angry.
She won through sweat and continued to perform as requested. She was awake, but she did not smile.
Looking up, I saw how Néphéline was leaving, and how her little friend was trying to keep up with her.
Elyne was joyless but surviving. And Néphéline was possibly just as painfully affected. Only now, I didn’t think it would be useful to try having them play together.
Néphéline was feeling sick after seeing Elyne fighting a bit. She wasn’t faking it. She just left the place and made her way home even though the day wasn’t over yet.
Her friend who had followed her clumsily so far stopped at the main gate and looked at her disappearing with some sorrow.
~
Elyne walked further, still unclear and unsteady.
She got bored from the teachings of her martial art and quit the club. The gymnasiums remaining in free access, she would still go there to work on her own, and occasionally spar with random people looking for so. She still was renown so this could often happen. She might have opened her own club really; but she wasn’t in such mood yet and still a little young for that.
I kept painting, unwavering. I changed none of my habits, nor my traditional clothing. I still wore endlessly my heavy long white boots. Elyne was still grinning a little when she saw me wearing them outside. Only I was wearing such style. That was a small island of stability in her universe. She could doubt everything when she was feeling down, except that her mother would wear these enormous white boots that rose up to the knees. She would recognise their sound when I approach, and find me along soon after. Always.
Nothing was hopeless, even if things were in winter moods currently. We had little things like that to keep things light, and tie up some hope together to build ourselves further.
As for I, I could doubt everything, except that Elyne was a force of nature. And I meant that not just physically.
It was shy and hard to see these days, but occasionally, I could see it gleam again through the pain. That beginning of a smile on her face and a sharp gaze. Something indomitable that wanted to run, and climb, and face everything and anything, just for the fun to prevail.
When a hint of challenging adventure was presented to her, in one form or another, that part of Elyne always smiled in reaction. Elyne would do a fist pump with that charming grin before she knew it.
She could never prevent that innate part of her from answering. The sorrow in her life was just the toughest challenge yet.
And as I knew Prume would always defy the odds, I knew Elyne would always prevail.
~
