Chapter 100Remembrance

As a little girl I had always the strange gift of acceptance. No matter what happened, what I was taught or what someone told me. I would see it all as true. Even if the values, rules or laws where contradicting they were true. One of the results of this was a lot of people around played tricks on me, telling me lies and laughing as I believed them, laughing more at my surprise of their laughter.

But I never changed. I still trusted people easily and only disbelieved them when wrongness was felt.

It made books so much more real. I felt the stories as they happened, believed in the worlds, the monsters and the heroes. I knew that somewhere they had to exist as part of the universe. Science, religion and spirituality were no more and no less to me then the fantasies I read in books. I believed them and defended them, but could counterpoint them as well.

Who was to say what was true?

Yet, I held a great value to truth. It was better to tell the truth then to fabricate a lie. It was a lesson I never learned properly. Society is not made on truth, it is made on lies. If someone asks you how their clothes look, they don't want the truth. Not the simple, honest truth unless it's positive.

As a little girl I was often confused. Why did people tell lies, deceive and hurt others when it was so much easier and more effective to tell the truth. It was an enigma until I found out that a lot of people didn't want the truth. They hid from it and passed their hiding on, parents telling their children not to tell anyone about those dark desires. Sex and violence, greed and jealousy. All hidden away and ignored.

Despite my lack of experience in a lot of those dark fields, I was not ignorant because I ignored. I knew my dark thoughts, felt the need to steal, hurt and lie sometimes for the betterment of my own existence. But I was aware of them without shame or need to act. The only lesson I had learned was not to tell the truth without being asked. Give people the choice of denial and don't enforce your truth. As your truth may very well be different from theirs.

It was a hard lesson to learn.

Thinking back on how much I had experienced since my change I understood how Valerie, Khuna and Kai sometimes acted surprised at my ease of thought. Sometimes they even openly wondered how I could go on so effortlessly.

But the answer was laughingly simple. I just accepted things at they are and do the best with them I can. If life made me a vampire, so be it. If my parents vanished, don't linger and sulk but try and find them. Yet there was an important difference between me and those that are in total control of their emotions. The people without a heart, the cold ones.

Acceptance meant you still feel the surprise, fear, anger and joy at all that happens. But the feelings don't hold you back, they just offer more perspectives.

It doesn't mean I will sit still and let it all pass by. It has happened and now it is so, but something else could happen to make it different. And why should I not make things happen? Even though I feel an observer through most of my adventures, reader of the story that I live, my path is mine to choose.

Never did the feeling of choice feel as strong as then, when I was saving the children. I was invincible, deciding and thinking on what would be the best path with an intricacy that was uncommon for me. It all worked out too, despite a little surprise.

Yet sometimes, taking control would be misformed by those who crave and enforce the change. Like Kryss. They bend and break the rules as they see fit, wanting nothing but more control. Taking it all they can. There is nothing worse for those then to lose control or having someone take it from them. It made me wonder, was Afentis the maker of Kryss? And did Kryss ever try and turn on his maker, to get the strength and power he so greatly desired.

Perhaps his love for Khuna was nothing more but a wish to obtain what he couldn't have. She did love him, but she was also strong enough to refuse his morals. Refuse him until he bettered himself.

As a little girl I never chose to fight, never chose to hurt if it could be avoided. Troubled as I was by the things happening around me I could do nothing more but simple accept them, believe them for what they were. Only warned by my feelings when things were not to be trusted.

Boys had tried to give me attention, girls had tried to give me friendship. While I always replied politely I never felt part of their world as their strong beliefs and addictions to 'image' were of no importance to me. Only a few real friends I made during the time of my earlier life and I lost contact with all of them as they moved to another school or town. But I didn't mind, my friendship was forever, even now if they ever needed or called on me I would be there.

Despite everything I know I still am that little girl, surprised and fascinated by everything around her. The light of the moon, the scent of the rain, the sound of the wind. The only difference is that I am now responsible for my actions.

But I never grew up.

I am still me.