Above All

-Seventy-Three-

Enduring water

Tiny joys across the seas

Slumber of refuge

Layton:

         "Remember Layton, you have to make your granddad proud. Be the strong responsible man I raised you to be. Don't let the words of others effect you. When you love... love completely and wholesomely. The one that stands by your side, will be your crutch and you must fight with everything in you to protect her and your legacies."

            Grandad always told me things like that when I was young. "Carry yourself like a man!" and things like, "Appearance is everything if you want to lure in a beautiful woman". None of that mattered to me at the time because I was young and just tossed it away as simple adult nagging. But the older I got... the day I lost grandad......

            It all started to make sense.

            I didn't want to believe it though. So, for a very long time, I drowned myself in a world that could care less for me, because I stopped caring for it. Anytime I did something out of my own character, I felt as if were shaming my grandfather; I thought of how disappointed he would be in me, if he had seen me in this state, what would he think?

            Now, I wonder to myself if he would be proud of where I am today?

            How much I've changed because I wanted that not only for myself but for....

            Amani.

            I wanted to hate her. I really did, she was a nagging bug in my ear constantly buzzing until I did what she demanded. But if there was one thing she did well during our first encounters, it was listening; for once someone had actually listened to me. But I would cover up the feelings of delight I got whenever she took notes of things I enjoyed and detested and bantered with her instead. I thought if I annoyed her enough, she would come to despise me like many had done previously, that way I wouldn't have to reveal my true self to her. But those plans were futile, slowly and slowly as we spoke more and more to each other off the clock, I began to realize there was more to this impeccably dressed, demanding, cunning, absolutely breathtaking woman.

            She was normal.

            Well, as normal as one could be without the knowledge of being from a royal bloodline that has spanned for centuries. Her aura was something of an angel, so pure and wise but if angered would simply send a shock through you that rippled like the roaring sea. She didn't anger easily, but when she did, there would be hell to pay.

            But even when her slim eyebrows were furrowed and her eyes narrowed and pointed at me, I still couldn't help but fall in love with every inch of her. Every fiber-being of her substance that I could only dream of becoming one with. I would kill to be by her side, in fact I was hungry for it, as hungry as a lion starved for weeks, watching a lone gazelle grazing on a tree shrub.

            It was maddening.

            "What do you mean Tinashe knows of your true lineage?" There it was. Her PR voice had come out; if she were in a cartoon, I could only imagine her dark brown eyes would have lit up like lasers threatening to shoot down whoever was in her path. Amani calmly sat beside me on the cozy bench located behind Ardaral castle; the garden itself was absolutely breathtaking and featured dozens of plants and vegetation as well as calm and flowing pond that made you feel as if you were in some secret hidden space.