~The Beast Woman~

~Liliana Rosalyn~ 

I wake up to a stone wall in front of me. The bed is hard. I groan as I gather my thoughts in a drowsy head. "Woah. Fuck." I curse. 

When you're in a bitter world as mine, you'd curse quicker than you'd answer to your name. 

My legs are recovering from flaccidity. The room is dark, cramped, cold, quiescent—nasty smell and stench of mess here and there—then it clicks. I'm in a cage. 

Oh, shit. Mrs Rogue compelled me... I... I fainted... Lord Lucas took me... The ship wreck... He compulsed me to sleep... And... And I'm here. 

"Where the fuck is this?" I spew as adrenaline heads me to the iron bar of the cage. "Let me out!" I pray one Viatore would come and kill me off right now. I just want to die. Nothing more. 

"It wouldn't bulge, little bird." An eerie tone comes from the shadows. 

"Who's there?" 

"What is your name?" 

"Why the fuck would I tell you that?" For all I know, humans don't act this way. While humans and benders look the same in the absence of their bending, trust me, I can still identify a human. 

"I'm much stronger than you. I have tried to bend the metal. It wouldn't bulge. A human cannot do any better." A woman dips her face into the ray of light, giving me a glimpse. She's beautiful—strange because she lacks nutrients. She has no fat on her face and the skin is dirty. Her light blonde hair is matted. 

I go akimbo. "I don't care who you are. Stay there and rot. I have a better option."

She laughs. A crackling one so I add. "For someone who claims to be stronger, you sure let these leeches drain you. Pity. I'm a weakling yet I look healthier. Pathetic." 

Instantly, her smile fades. Yes, bitch, clock that! Certainly, those leeches would give me a bender cellmate. I mean, she doesn't look human which makes me wonder why they'd lock another bender in here.

She stands up, her face locked on mine. I seem to have pissed her off. Scrap that, she may as well be carrying fire on her head. "Usually, I would have extinguished a human if they said this, but you, you are different." 

She steps into the light. Completely. Her figure is worsened. Her skin is covered with a torn gown, half naked. A thin bony figure in appearance, malnourished. Her blue eyes breaks not the contact.

Her eyes searches mine for something mysterious, lost in the realisation she seems to be having, squinting, muttering incoherent words. A tension rises in the air.

It is until she is closer that I noticed a collar attached to a iron leash and built into the wall on her neck. 

"Hey, stay back."

"Could it—could it be you?" She whispers to herself. I can barely make out her sentences. "How old are you, human?"

I'm frowning. "Get the fuck out of my face. You are scaring me." I manage to threaten. For some reason, I know she's stronger than me even in this condition of hers, but I wouldn't show that. 

"Could you be...?" She counts her fingers. "18?" 

"What?" My surprise gives me away. No bender has ever made my stomach crumble and chills sent to my spine like she does. 

"It is you, the one..." 

I gasp when a metal ball hit her around the left eye but the strange woman doesn't flinch. "Quit the talking, both of you." The guard's voice echos.

When she raises her face, I see blood sliding down only for her to wipe off the spot and her skin has no cut. The blood stopped. 

"She healed herself!" My mind shrilled.

"I will be back for you, daughter of Amelia." 

"Wait, did you just...?" Did I hear her correctly? "That's my mother's..." My words fail me.

I haven't factored my thoughts when she tears the collar like it's a piece of paper and then she blows the air at the guard's face, sending him off into the distance. 

The guard is still recovering himself when her body starts to break. First, it was cracks. In these cracks of her skin and bones, a stream of light reflects, exposing the magic that flows through her. 

"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck! Open the gate now! Let me out." I scream to the top of my lungs as my cellmate glow and tear into a new being. 

The bender runs towards us just in time that the beast grows a magical shield and use it to cut the bars down, instantly attacking the bender. They both wrestle to the ground. The Viatore, an air bender, and the beast woman, whatever she is. 

I ramble onto the ground as I crawl to my feet. Before I erect, I make a run for it. 

I run past the hallway putting my admiring spirit in a pit into a large ball room. There's a red-carpet whirl stair to the east. Don't curse me, but I run towards there.

The rail is cold and smooth, luxurious but at the same time, my heart is thudding heavily in my chest. Almost getting to a huge golden door, a strong yet silky hand grab me from behind. My stomach is locked against his hard torso, sweeping my feet off the ground. The air brushes my hair lightly—a different sort of strange sensation overwhelms me right in that moment.

My jaw drops when I turn to face him. I've never seen such handsomeness before. Benders are striking creatures whom you can't look once but twice but this man is different. I am whipped and drooling. Deep black hair. Young features possessed with a moustache that links with a little hair on his jaw. He looks young but carries an older aura, antique if possible, but his unlined, warm ivory skin is hale and clean. Then, his hypnotising hazel eyes. I have never paid attention like this before. I'm in a trance. A momentary one. He smells woody amongst exquisite scents—dry cedar, ginger, and citrus note. He breaths into my skin...no!

I yank myself off of him. "No!" I spit out. "What did you do to me?" 

"Your thoughts also linger within me. It's symbiotic." Then he adds. "You aren't afraid of me, no?"

"I'm not afraid of any Viatore. What will you do? Do your bending thing and kill me. Do that. I dare you." He looks amused instead, a ghosty smile included. 

A crash came from downstairs. My attention is now drawn again to the beast woman. She glitters in the glory of her power. This is no bender, not a Viatore. In the echoes, I hear the hooting of an owl.

"Rosalyn, get away from him."

"She knows my name?" I say in self-questioning, entirely bewildered. The Viatore next to me seem to share my distressful lack of comprehension.

With an inhuman speed, she races towards us. Her eyes hold hatred, but it isn't for me. Just as she is about to strike the man with a glowing sword that sprouted out of her hand, he weaves past the slash and land a blow against the beast woman's rib. 

Hurled away, she hits the wall in the distance. In a flash, she's up again. She is about to grab me when the land shifts and I find myself on a different ground. The collar of my cloth is torn in the hand of the beast woman.

"What do you want with her?" 

"Away from you. I thought you worthy. I lost it all because of the prophecy but your heart drifted to the shadow." She growls.

The man disappears into thin air before he reappears behind her and weaves the air into splinters that freezes the beast woman in place. His hand dances in the air to bring her to her knees right before he hovers closer. A hand placed on her head to bring her face to him from behind. 

His voice is lethal. "You have never spoken before. I'm surprised, but I achieved my goal." 

Raising his hands as his fingers make unusual motion, the air leaves a low whirling sound. His feet touches the ground as the air comes to wrap around her neck and then with a kick of his pinky finger, her neck snaps.

And she drops. 

Dead?

"She's dead." I stagger backwards. "You killed her."

He stops and frowns. "You didn't care for her, did you?"

"You... Fucking..." 

"I'd chose my next words carefully if I were you." His tone has changed for the venomous. "You stand in front of the Rex, the King of all Benders, but I suppose you don't know that. Explains much why you failed all your studies and why Lucas gifted you to me."

The Rex? Like, the actual Rex?! Of all Viatore, I am gifted to the worst of them all? The most powerful and barbaric of them all?

His distance flashes and he's right in front of me. Somehow, my eyes feels heavy and fluffy and the last thing I see is him, erect and smiling at me.