They deserve it all.

Chapter 3.

I was supposed to die years ago ... yet I find myself standing here, facing the border, defying everything any doctor or person ever said or did.

Nothing to be scared about, I tell myself, it's your home that hides behind this border. Your real home.

I have been finding myself having to convince my own brain into thinking everything will be fine. That they just need me for business and that if everything is done, I can come back, that I won't have to stay there. But I know that's a lie, all the convincing in the world couldn't try and make me believe for only a second that they needed me for a mere moment.

"Darling," My mother comes up to me, she rests her hands on my upper arms, her smile grows more wobbly with each tear that piles on top of the other until she blinks them away. "My sweet, darling daughter."

I smile, but it's not genuine, just like this moment, it's not pure. The intention behind all of this is not pure, it's fake. We both know it. My mother isn't smiling and crying because she wants to or because she'll miss me so much, but because her poor little child won't make it out there. I won't survive a moment on my own, she knows it, believes in it strongly due to my lack of magical capabilities. It makes me sad to know she doesn't think I can, but then again, I probably won't be able to say anything about it as the first time she saw me again I was covered in blood and grime, in sweat and tears, scared and crying over what was done to me.

"I'll be back, mama. Don't worry about it."

She smiles again, but doesn't trust a word, yet she doesn't say anything about it.

"I know," She says as she strokes my cheek. "I just want what's best for you."

I nod, waiting for her to say something else. When she doesn't, I turn my back on her, my memories and my home.

But it's hard. To just go by the border I was once pushed through. I was bloody, sweating, crying, I had done horrible stuff and I knew that, but I was also just a child and I didn't completely mean to.

And when I went through the border at the age of 11, abandoning my home for a new one, I saw a woman. She looked clean, organized and appropriate for some reason. I found a lot out that day. That woman was my mother, she was there to pick me up and take care of me for what was supposed to be only a year, I stayed there for a good 6 years. He left me, his child, to rot in the Human Lands, if he only knew what happened to me.

There were days that I asked myself, would he change what he did if he knew what I had to endure? Probably not, but sometimes it feels good to think that he would, to think he loved me more than his fame, but I knew better than to lie to myself.

I also found out my mother moved on ... she mostly did. After a while she found a new person she decided was better fit for her. She also decided she no longer wanted children, they were too much of a trouble she said to me. She was a successful scientist and her new husband was one as well. They lived their happily ever after, until that letter arrived which ordered me to come back before the summer passes, and thanking her for taking care of me all this time.

Then I think of the last few months I had with my mother. After the letter my father sent in which he ordered me to come back, everything changed. She began crying again, the way she did the week before she got exiled. She got angry a lot faster and didn't know what to do.

Now don't get me wrong, she was a great mother. She loved going out with me, whether it was to shop together or just doing what we loved the most, playing intelligence games. Escape rooms were our favorite. But when that letter arrived, she couldn't help but isolate herself once again. She began to distance herself from me. I understood why she did that, but it also hurt me, to have those last few memories of us together be so coldly remembered in my heart.

"Go on." Her voice is breaking down like fractions, her hands are on my shoulders as she tries her best to lightly push me forward. "He needs you." This time I hear a sob, I feel her getting weaker, I feel her putting almost all her weight on my shoulders. She's breaking down in the presence of someone else, something she almost never does. I don't know what to do in this moment, so I just turn around again and try my best to comfort her. But she holds out her hand and waves me away.

"Don't forget what I taught you, okay?" She pushes the tension away in my shoulders the moment I take hold of the blade in my pocket. She slips her hands away from my shoulders and it trails on my back, twirls my hair one last time before I use the sharp blade and slide it across my palm. I had done this only once before, I remember how it stung when I did it and how the alcohol on the wound burned so badly, at least now the scars will match.

I watch as the blood droplets slip and slither down my palm and onto my forearm. They trickle in solitude until they don't, they begin to fuse into one big stream. I might have been staring for too long, because one big droplet falls down onto my shoe, I feel the impact, hear it rather, my mother's small gasp. So I give her one last smile, one last reassuring look before I go, making sure to keep the bloody mess in my hands out of her sight.. Whether it was reassuring is another question, but I hope it at least left a good last image.

I cup my single wounded hand to collect the blood as I use the other to put the blade back. I focus on the border, the scent of a pure blooded Anakian makes it visible, I'm not pure blooded, but I am Royal, so I wait for it to become even more visible, for the blood to fill up my hand. If I were to go through the border with merely a swipe of blood, it'd hurt much more than when you'd give a good hand filled.

"I'll miss you." I hear her say it, my body goes rigid, but I don't turn back around, I don't look at her and give her the closure she wants, I won't. Not after she spent months distancing herself from me just so she won't miss me so much, yet here she stands, trembling in pain, telling me that she'll miss me, showing the failure of our moments missed.

"I'll miss you too, mama." And I will. I'll miss her so much.

"I don't want you to go." I can hear the sorrow in her soft and quiet voice, it makes the part where I have to go much harder. It's almost like everything doesn't quite matter anymore. I want to go to Anakia for him, to be of help, but I also want to stay here, the place I started calling home. Even though it's kind of shitty, I still had friends, not many, but I had a life. There, behind that border, I won't have one. I'll have to start all over again. Some people would see that as an opportunity, but I see it as an exhausting and draining task to do once again.

I end up closing my eyes, taking a breath and pouring the blood over the border. I don't look back when stepping through, I just do. And when I'm inside, I turn around to see nothing but extra land.

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-Love, me :)