Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5583506-20160410190841/@comment-29559990-20160508011811

Kasi grimly looked on at the overturned table and sighed. She knew this would happen. She figured that if that boy had any Akato in him, this was precisely how he would react. And sure enough, he did.

Footsteps were soon heard, and she looked up to see Ja'Keil standing there with a stoic expression. However, she could almost feel the grief deep within him. Call it maternal instincts or a hunch feeling, but she could feel it.

"You have your fathers eyes..." Kasi said, chuckling lightly and looking off into space. "I always joked with him that his eyes were gold because of all the coin he drew in...." She smiled warmly.

"They were beautiful eyes..."

Ja'Keil stood silent for another moment, feeling a burning sensation in this throat. "Have you... Did they tell you about him?"

"Yes..." Kasi replied, frowning. "Was he truly... convicted of such a crime?"

The beast slayer stood next to her on the wall now. "Yes.. but he was innocent..."

Kasi turned her head slightly, with raised eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Ja'Keil looked to the ground. "The city itself fell on hard times. The main storage was low on funds and food. Beast attacks had become more frequent and further depleted the city. People were getting angry and irritated with these hard times..."

He swallowed. "And they took their anger out on anyone who had found success."

"And since... Akato was among the wealthiest-"

"They got him first," Ja'Keil said. "Accused him of stealing from the city's supplies. Banished both of us..."

Kasi balled up her fists. "After everything he did for that city...."

Ja'Keil nodded. "They still persecuted him..."

There was a silence between them. Both contemplated the loss of Akato, and the circumstances surrounding his conviction and banishment.

"Why did you leave with Athorian?" Ja'Keil asked.

"I told you, he fell on hard time. We fell on hard times..."

"The city was always in need of labor, father told me..."

"Work that would not have sufficed," Kasi explained. "All the jobs were low paying. Degrading. Jobs that simply could not support a family with child..."

"There had to be some alternative..."

Kasi turned her head towards him. "Ja'Keil, if there was an alternative, I would have taken it in a heartbeat..."

She took a deep breath to calm herself. "I have never made a harder decision in all my life, then when I decided to leave with Athorian. I cried the night before I had to leave, you know. I cried because I knew I wouldn't see Akato for years. And because I knew that I would not have the opportunity to raise you, or to care for you, or watch you grow up into the man you are now. I almost just called it off and stayed..."

Ja'Keil looked up at her, his eyes welling up now with tears and his breathing started to pick up. "Then what convinced you to go?" He asked shakily. "Did Athorian persuade you into it?"

"Actually, no..." She shook her head. "It was Mongo who persuaded me into it."

Mongo?

"I told him I was on the fence about this..." Kasi explained. "I told him, I couldn't leave Akato and you alone in this city."

"And he convinced you otherwise?" Ja'Keil stammered, not believing a word of it. Athorian, he could see tearing bonds apart for monetary gains, but he could not fathom Mongo stooping to that level.

"Yes, but not in the way you may think," Kasi said. "He put things in perspective. He told me, that staying behind wouldn't be smart. If I stayed behind, I would just watch a child grow in poverty and suffer in a world that was already wretched enough..."

She sighed. "He said there could be no victory without sacrafice. And so to ensure yours and Akato's future, I needed to make that sacrafice..."

"And so you did," Ja'Keil finished for her.

Kasi nodded. "If I hadn't, Akato might not have gotten back up on his feet..."

A single tear was strolling down Ja'Keil's cheek as she spoke. "I made a necessary sacrafice, Ja'Keil. To ensure that you could have had the best life I could give. And I did all I could until..."

She roller her shoulder up to demonstate her wooden arm. "Until the damn beasts took it."

Ja'Keil looked on at her arm, only know realizing that it was not the arm she had been born with. She had payed a price for her time even greater than Ja'Keil had previously thought. A husband lost, a son never seen, and an arm taken. All of that she had to endure, just to see him have a happy life.

''All of this... for me...''

With that thought, Ja'Keil moved forward and hugged her. The tear fell to the floor as she moved her one functioning arm to return the hug.

"I love you," She murmured quietly. And now, Ja'Keil was sure of that statement.