A girl in disguise. An heir in hunt. A world divided.
Iris Lavera is born into the civilization of the least respected ones. The lineage where it's predicted to birth a curse. A low born who will be the downfall of an entire nation if left alive.
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He died a handsome old man. I don't know his name. Oldman. It's what I called him. It's what I remember honoring him as. He wasn't kind, neither was he cruel.
He took me in his shelter when he could've left me to perish. I reminisce, an unwanted memory of him denying that he was my father when I had asked him.
'I am not your anything. Now get going and fetch water for me'
Now that I think, it's everything he ever asked of me. Fetch this, get that, put that down and wear clothes that were for boys. He would sew them himself by the matted floor. Trimmed my hair and made impulsive efforts to present me as a boy.
Timo, he would call me. Timothee Kasper. A silly made-up name that he chose for me. It was on his death bed was when he revealed my name, tying a pastel ribbon with a imprinted letters on my wrist as I sat beside sobbing. Hungry and afraid of why the old man hadn't been barking orders around me. Dreading at the way his voice sat when he spoke or fingers trembled while he ate. His breaths were shallow and he cried in his sleep.
'It was tied to your ankle when I found you' his voice lapsed with building cough and wheeze. Lids kept drooping when he fought to stay awake, weakly. His hands found mine, they burned with fever. He was dissolving, but his gaze hardened as a whine squeaked through me.
Iris Lavera. It read. But I didn't halt to understand what it meant.
"What is happening to you old man?"
A wind of sadness passed his features before his vision goes rigid, again.
"Be happy for me. I am meeting my family"
This fumes my resentment.
"I am your family" the rage prowled like a predator in me, it was slashes of blue, green, and red that took me in. I wanted to make him hurt as i did. But when his fingers hold me by mine. I come back gasping, my conscious I back into the room, gasping for air and wondering if the rage even was mine. The old man doesn't seem to be surprised by it. Curious maybe. It's How he lived his whole life. Navigating manuscripts in the fashion he regarded me.
"I am just an old man in your world Iris" he smiles, Stunned I watched in silence to a man whose first-ever smile witnessed by me was a pool of melancholy. He might have brewed a wail in its place. But selfishly I clung onto the way he addressed my existence. Iris. Who was iris? I don't know. But in the life of Timo- this old man was his roof and fire.
"I am Timo" I retort again In passive stubbornness. He gives out a throaty laugh with a whisper "You are- just like her"
"Like who?" He frowns when I butt my nose into his solo thoughts. The fever seems to have eaten up the arrogance that keeps him iced. If there was one person who flawlessly suited along the Ivyakis atmosphere- it would be him.
