\n<\/p>\n
Family, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve ever understood what that word meant, truly, at least not when other people use it.<\/p>\n
\u2018Family\u2019 meant obligation when it came from the mouths of my mother and her clan. \u2018Work\u2019 when it came from my father\u2019s. \u2018Debt\u2019 when it came from my elder brother\u2019s.<\/p>\n
But for Poppy\u2026 Lemon\u2026 I\u2019d have done anything for them, they felt like family because it didn\u2019t mean any of those things.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For my brother, Kincade, I\u2026 I had done just about everything for him until I killed him. Watching him die felt freeing, yet, by definition he was family.<\/p>\n
Father was too, the old man, Kita Khan. He used his bastard children for war, and treated us like things, yet, mother said he was family.<\/p>\n
Was there ever a time when I could have called them family? Or was there just a time when I realized they weren\u2019t?<\/p>\n
I think it was slow, something I slowly came to realize. I only had two real people who fit what should have been a treasured position in my heart, but I didn\u2019t know that until just before the old man found out he was sick.<\/p>\n
We had just been sent to squash a rebellion on one of the outer planets. It was common for worlds on the outskirts, who thought we would forget about them if they were so far away. They never realized that they were the ones who were being watched the most.<\/p>\n
It was an easy mission, something troopers could have done. Father sent me and Poppy there as punishment for sticking up for Lemon when he came out. I wasn\u2019t able to find him anywhere when we got back, I wasn\u2019t sure what they would have done to him.<\/p>\n
Lemon told us to leave, to go, and I had spent so much time worrying about him that I had forgotten about the other sister right at my heels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I stalked the halls to the throne room, shoving aside a few troopers who took too long to get out of the way. None actually tried to stop me, and few spoke up. I was the Fist of the Khan, the eldest bastard, his second born. None of them were going to stop me, not until I had seen him.<\/p>\n
I remember shoving open those doors to his parliament of sycophants and stomping in. Poppy tried talking to me, trying to get me to calm down, to not go in, but I ignored her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t even care for the old coons lining the walls, or the one sitting by his throne. When I walked with the rage of a royal, I did so with my eyes white and my hands glowing with power.<\/p>\n
I had disrupted their assembly or whatever, and the first thing I noticed was the Khatun opening her mouth to have me silenced before I could speak. But my father, oh,<\/em> the old man silenced her with a finger.\u00a0<\/p>\n In my rage, I actually thought<\/em> it was because he knew better than to try and quiet me. I was halfway through my demands, \u201cWhere\u2019s Lemon?! Tell me where my brother is or I\u2019ll\u2014<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAaah!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Poppy\u2019s cry silenced me, but it was the cackling of the spineless worm that did me in.<\/p>\n I turned around to see the lecher pawing his gross little hands at my sister. He snickered as he groped her chest, chuckling with this twisted and disgusting delight, \u201cAre they getting bigger?\u201d<\/p>\n Poppy screamed as she tried to fling him away, but he let her go so she could fall after he slapped her butt for good measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kybi actively assaulted a royal, the daughter of the Khan in his own presence and the Khan didn\u2019t say a word, didn\u2019t twitch to do anything but smirk. His old jester was more important than protecting his own child.<\/p>\n The way he looked down as she had fallen, stunned by his advances, I imagine she was so filled with fear and embarrassment that she forgot she could crush him. I hope that\u2019s what he felt when he noticed me behind him.<\/p>\n He barely dodged my fist, yet he still laughed at me like a hyena even as the spot he stood turned to dust and vapor.\u00a0<\/p>\n He told me, with that high and wire-y voice, \u201cI was just touching the goods, it\u2019s not like anyone else is!\u201d<\/p>\n Kybi thought he was funny. They all did, not because he had any kind of clever sense of humor, the assembly just liked seeing a royal bastard humiliated. Well, I was going to humiliate the court with the jester\u2019s blood as I smashed the floor again and again as he barely evaded.\u00a0<\/p>\n The old witch of a Khatun laughed into her hand, mocking us both. \u201cMaybe your monster spawn will finally do the old coot in. That would be something.\u201d<\/p>\n Kybi\u2019s eyes trailed to her, the only time his lecherous mask ever came down. It went back up just as fast.<\/p>\n No, it was when he let his mocking go too far that he made his mistake. He brought his hands behind his ears and stuck his tongue out to mock me. That\u2019s when my hand wrapped around his neck, and I slammed his short stubby body into the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll kill you, lecher!<\/em>\u201d I snarled as my spit covered his face and his less than fearful expression was lit by the cakra in his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cCalcutta,<\/em><\/strong>\u201d I heard my father call. He spoke to save the lecher, not his daughter, not her dignity or her respect. He spoke for the lecher\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n His voice boomed, and it would come again. Others wouldn\u2019t dare make him raise it again\u2026 until me.<\/p>\n I raised my other fist to crush him to bits, it would be easy.<\/p>\n The old piece of scum looked up grinning, spitting towards my face, and taunting me. \u201cGo on then, princess, better than you have tried.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n My cakra pulsed as I was about to put this stain out of our lives once and for all when a hand gripped my wrist.<\/p>\n \u201cHave they now?\u201d taunted the prince who made the old man roll his eyes. I tried to pull my arm down, but this new grip was more than strong enough to hold me back. That\u2019s why I had to poison him later.<\/p>\n I turned to the face of my older brother, Kincade, with his long lion-like mane of hair. He was the Khatun\u2019s son, the heir apparent, and the only person I knew who could fight me with an arm tied behind his back.<\/p>\n \u201cCal,\u201d he said my name, as he held my shaking fist, \u201cget a grip and calm down.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n I despised him most <\/em>when he said that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Cal<\/em>,\u201d the lecher taunted me from below, \u201cyou might cut yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n I thought about how I could just blast him, get around Kincade\u2019s grip. I could have used the hand that held Kybi to finish him off. Sure, I wouldn\u2019t get to enjoy what it felt like for him to become a mere smear on my fist, but he would be dead.<\/p>\n No such luck.<\/p>\n \u201cCutta, stop\u2026\u201d I heard Poppy whisper, just as she took my other hand. \u201cIt\u2019s not worth it,\u201d she told me as tears welled up in her eyes.<\/p>\n This would get me in trouble for sure, with Kincade and father locking me up with cakra dampeners like they were surely doing to Lemon. It was hard not to look away, to squeeze a bit harder on Kybi\u2019s neck as I was held at the hand by two of my siblings.\u00a0<\/p>\n I looked away for a moment when I let Kybi go. I opened my eyes as he gave that disgusting grin of pleasure.<\/p>\n Then he went to grab Poppy again, having put herself in his reach.<\/p>\n I was going to fucking flatten him, but Kincade was faster.\u00a0<\/p>\n He had moved between Kybi and our sister and kicked the old man like a soccer ball. The old ball of shits and trash hit the stairs to my father\u2019s throne where he groaned and rubbed his head.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before Kybi could even get his bearings, Kincade was casting his large shadow over him. The muscles and longer wiry hair cast darkness large enough to consume the lecher.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father\u2019s tolerance of you is disgusting,\u201d Kincade told him, in open view of our father and our father\u2019s court. The court may have been filled with holograms, but you could see the way they gasped.<\/p>\n I could see the way some of them snickered, the few looking in my direction, as I held Poppy close in my arms. Moralless, all of them, and I would have seen them all die<\/em> if I could.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou should hope yourself dead before the position of Royal Khan is mine,\u201d Kincade threatened Kybi, \u201cbecause I will have you drawn and quartered by asteroids<\/em> before the next day is done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Kybi hee\u2019d and hoo\u2019d from his place on the ground. \u201cLucky me,\u201d he taunted the prince, \u201cI plan to be dead before you sit a single throne.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEnough,<\/strong>\u201d Kita Khan said again, this time to people who listened and promptly ended the assembly with a push of the button.<\/p>\n In the blink of an eye, all the holograms were silenced, and all who remained were royals and the Khan\u2019s jester.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cControl yourselves, the lot of you,<\/strong>\u201d he told us all from on high, letting the wife he\u2019s betrayed several times play the role of pawing at him for affections. It was enough to keep her place in the palace until Kincade could properly protect her.<\/p>\n \u201cSurely, you will punish them,\u201d the Khatun witch said.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, with more death,<\/strong>\u201d he agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you had had even half the childhood you were supposed to, you would have assumed this meant he would punish us all, but most of all his jester. Maybe not his heir who ended the spat, but definitely the jester, not just his children.<\/p>\n If you did, you expected too much from the Khan who made foreign women from across Galagan rear his bastards in the name of peace and the treaties that recorded it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have returned to leave again,<\/strong>\u201d he told us. \u201cBoth of you will take Tamiyo to the Faraday Sector, and kill any and all of the Hakai you find. You will not return until you have a hundred scalps each.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n My hands tightened the distinct lack of a punishment for the lecherous jester, but Poppy covered them with hers. She shook her head, somehow able to stay calm and collected despite being the victim.\u00a0<\/p>\n She brought us to our feet and bowed with her torso, I could barely bring myself to bow my head. \u201cWe\u2019ll leave immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll leave in the morning,<\/strong>\u201d he corrected her, and then he sat back in his chair with his chin in his hand. \u201cYour mothers would see your faces, I would not have them so\u2026 stilted for so long.<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It hadn\u2019t taken long for me to figure that when he said that, it meant they weren\u2019t as good lays, as uncaring to his pleasure as he was to everyone who wasn\u2019t his heir.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, father,\u201d she said before trying to drag me out.\u00a0<\/p>\n I could hear the grunt he made when she called him that as if he disproved of being denoted by what he was.<\/p>\n That was supposed to be my family in there, but they were pitiful. They were apathetic stains who couldn\u2019t be helped to protect their youngest. It was their honor and their annoyance that mattered most to them.<\/p>\n How easy they made it to watch them all die.<\/em><\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n \u201cTo learn the power of healing, you must have empathy, Calcutta Sha,\u201d the old Pyrie told me as I placed my hand upon their doll.<\/p>\n It was supposed to be featureless, a Terran without even a face. This matte white thing was supposed to be something that could be dealt wounds I could heal. It\u2019s exterior and interior stitched itself together like flesh under Koki\u2019s touch.\u00a0<\/p>\n Under my touch, it remained inflamed. It didn\u2019t look different from anybody I had reduced to an ashen corpse, at least in any way that mattered. It was more smooth than fluttery, but who cared about that?<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have empathy?\u201d he asked me, after I had tried and failed to do as he instructed. I had placed my hand upon the doll, I had let my cakra flow through me as I had when I teleported, and let it flow into the doll.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rather than heal even the most minor of scratches, as it was supposed to, I filled it with apathy. When I did that, the wounds grew worse, with minor scratches tearing into open wounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Well, at least I learned another way to kill a man.<\/p>\n Koki paced around me, staring. I\u2019m sure he was less than enthused by how unresponsive I was to his questions. I\u2019m sure previous students of his would answer his questions immediately, trying to spew some nonsense about how they\u2019re more empathetic than anyone else.<\/p>\n Me? I admired my handiwork more than he could stand, I\u2019m sure. I looked at my hand, covered in a mix of ash and flittery rubber from the doll. If I failed to learn healing, I could pride myself on learning how to kill someone with a touch.\u00a0<\/p>\n I wondered what the limits were of this new technique\u2026 Did I have to be calm? Was apathy the key or any negative emotion good? I had to admit, being apathetic in a real fight was difficult, even if the fight isn\u2019t all that difficult.<\/p>\n Koki interrupted my flagitious thoughts. \u201cHas anyone ever had it for you so you could know? Someone other than your brother and sister I mean.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n I only tilted my head at him in response. He knew the answer to that.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n He looked away to grumble to himself about my answer. Not sure where he was looking in this dark square box of a room. There weren\u2019t even trinkets on the wall, nor dirt. It was a firebox, meant to snuff flames and pull out the oxygen at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n It was nice to know I wasn\u2019t the only one who apparently had this\u2026 \u2018problem.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I guess not,\u201d he said to himself, stopping midway through his pacing, his eyes staring at some empty corner of the room. \u201cYou were just a bastard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A part of my face twitched. I don\u2019t know how he noticed, but I knew he did. He continued to pace around me again, and when he opened his mouth I steeled myself. I wasn\u2019t going to let him get under my skin again.<\/p>\n \u201cA royal one, but a bastard nonetheless,\u201d he repeated, \u201cand that meant you were a weapon. What is a weapon when it is not being used?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s useless,\u201d I answered, the first time in a while that I had.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOr maybe it\u2019s actually a person,\u201d he said, with a point of his finger towards me, \u201cand was never a weapon in the first place. Maybe<\/em> you deserved better, and you never should have been told you were a weapon. Never called a thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Oh, this was the route he was going to take? Show some empathy for me so I knew what it looked like? I knew what empathy looked like first by seeing how nobody had it and then seeing how Lemon and Poppy had it for me. This healing won\u2019t work on people or things I can\u2019t empathize with, but that\u2019s alright, I only planned to use it for two people in my life anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cIt won\u2019t work that way,\u201d he said as if reading my thoughts. I narrowed my eyes on him as he gave me this uncanny answer. \u201cIf you can\u2019t learn empathy for everyone, or even anyone, you won\u2019t be able to heal your brother and sister when they\u2019re hurt. You need to understand empathy as much as you need to give it, or else you\u2019ll always let a bit of your apathy in.<\/p>\n \u201cThen their pain will be because of you.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked away, my own expression and emotions fighting against me. I was ready to snarl, but he couldn\u2019t see that. It was too much for him to know how to get to me. I had to be steel.<\/em><\/p>\n I acted as if he hadn\u2019t said anything after he stopped talking in metaphors. \u201cBeing a person is not much better than being a weapon,\u201d I said, as I place my hand on the half-burnt doll.\u00a0<\/p>\n I let my cakra flow through me, everything I am and everything that I could stand to become melded with my cells. Then I let it flow into the doll, as I told Koki about that which he didn\u2019t know. \u201cA weapon is a thing, sure, but people are fodder.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Under my hand, the doll burst into flames entirely, and Koki had to turned away to protect his eyes. But he still watched me. There was this little corner in the crease of his eye that read my lips.\u201cThey\u2019re fodder who be ash\u2026 or kneeling<\/em> at my feet.\u201d<\/p>\nLike this:<\/h3>\n