Morph

The entire kitchen can hear Aisha as she yells about the donuts she’s eating. I can’t believe she’s never heard of donuts, I know they have plenty of different foods here but wow, doughnuts are a food of the future and now a food of many words. Her mouth is stuffed with another one but she still continues her rant despite it, crumbs of fried bread and icing fall from the sides of her mouth. “Humans are so delicious!” She tilts her head trying to find the wrong turn she took with her words so she can fix them and I try to hold back a giggle.

“Human foods, human foods are so delicious.” Someone corrects her, before I can get a good look at the man Aisha hugs him tightly letting crumbs fall on his clothing. “Yes, hi love.” He says softly.

“Bayn!” She yells in the mans face abruptly pushing him back. “You have to try this doorknob, humans- human foods, are so good.” Her eyes roll to the back of her head and she picks up a filled doughnut, this can’t be healthy and my laugh can’t be suppressed this time at her miss name of the desert.

The man’s attention turns to me, I can finally get a good look at this man that Aisha seems so smitten over. A dark head of hair covers his scalp, stopping at his pointed ears, they seem greenish at the top and his eyes are almost transparent though you can tell they are green as well. But he is handsome nonetheless, and looks like he’s found his place in the world as he stands next to Aisha. “Morpher.” He says dully, a long green tongue slither’s from his mouth and his nearly see through eyes glow red as he scowls at me.

“Bayn please, she is my friend.” Aisha says dramatically, pushing the man.

“I’ll see you later love.” He smooths out her wild hair in an adoring way before turning back to me and having an instant mood change. “I’m a snake, I know you were wondering. You shouldn’t trust me, its in my nature to device.” He spits. “I am a threat.” His tongue slithers out again before he turns on his heel and leaves. But he lies, he is no threat. Its becoming easier for me to tell.

“Excuse Bayn.” Aisha pouts. “He is amazing once you get to know him he’s just, not one for morphers.” Its obvious that her words are carefully chosen. “A morpher killed his father.”

I gasp suddenly having no appetite for the unnamed breakfast Aisha had prepared for me, I should have learned my lesson with unnamed foods around here already. “I thought morphers couldn’t kill.” I whisper scream.

A shudder visibly runs through her body. “They can do much worst than kill you.” Her doughnut is sitting down now, her eyes staring blankly at it. “She,” Aisha stops and ponders over her next words before changing the way she started her story, “It, said off with his fathers tongue. Then, it was off with his head completely. It wasn’t over until he was without any limbs and when he transformed into a snake to stop the endless pain he was feeling he- he was barely a snake. Bayn had to watch it all.” A tear falls from here eyes for Bayn.

Anyone can tell she loves him, my heart hurts for what he had to go through. “Aisha I am so sorry-” She raises her hand to silence me, and wipes the lone tear that she shed for her love.

“Its ancient history now, has nothing to do with you.” She forces a smile and I miss her cheery side. “He was a threat, morphers won’t tolerate threats. Lets go shall we?” She’s up before I can answer and I get up behind her.

The walk is quiet, I follow her without question even though she has yet to tell me where we’re going, I trust her. It isn’t long before we stand in what looks like a mini Colosseum. The walls are steel, but their black and I mentally laugh at how everything here even steel has traded its usual color for black. Bleachers make a circle around the place and the sign for Gemini is engraved in the wall that doesn’t have bleachers covering it, and the symbol for Libra is on the wall opposite to it.

Aisha walks to the wall with the Gemini sign and the same voice from the front door sounds through it. “Speak.” It draws out.

“General Aisha.” Aisha speaks. It seems odd that she would be a general, but she does have this demand to her personality that is hard to miss. So I can see her being one. The wall slides to the side and all I can say is, weapons.

Plenty of weapons, all sleek black but all varying in sizes and shapes, pointy ones and ones that don’t need points to do damage. Aisha turns back with two swords in her hand. She hands me one and I examine it.

I run my fingers over it, its smooth, the Gemini sign shines just like the clashing ones on Aisha’s jumpsuit from yesterday, and the one she’s wearing today. “Battle.” Her voice booms and bounces off every wall, there’s not a hint off the bubbly person I met yesterday in it. “There will be times, when even a morpher needs a weapon, a time when everyone will need the art of battle.” She points her sword to my chest.

“Just like any art, battle may not be so simple, but you will learn to stroke blood with this.” Aisha points to the sword. In the blink of an eye I’m in a chock hold. Staring down at the sleeves of Aisha’s suit, but more so at the shining black blade pressed up against my throat. I can’t move, I can’t think of escape plans because I know she’s not a threat, I feel handicapped and its a vile feeling. “One move and every drop of blood in your body will began to gush from your neck.”

Chills run down my spine at the harsh and cold tone of her voice. Her hand never falters as she holds the blade to me. “Aisha.” I don’t know what to say, what I’m suppose to say.

“Training needs to feel real.” She lets me go and I grip my neck tightly, feeling a slight ring around it from the pressure she applied, I know its red. “Your guard needs to be up.” The point of her sword is at my chest again. “Your world needs to revolve around your opponent.” Aisha flips over me, I turn quickly to meet her, this time ducking the blade she tries to point at my chest.

“Good.” Her praise has no warmness to it but I can tell its authentic. She’s at my throat again. “Never let anything distract you, live in the battle field.” She walks away from me. “Flip.” She commands. I look around as if to find someone else with us, she has to be telling someone else to flip, she can’t really be telling me to flip.

“You need to flip, backwards and forward, cartwheel and back handspring. You need to have ways out and flipping is one of those ways.” Aisha hits three back flips in a row until she’s face to face with me and the blade is yet again against my throat.

For another hour Aisha ruthlessly teaches me how to flip. I’m scared out of my body at the possibility of breaking my neck at first, but she doesn’t pity me, and she doesn’t lower her voice, or her sword, until I hit a front flip. I land on the ground, that isn’t good enough for her, so another hour passes until I learn to land on my feet.

Thirty more minutes and I’ve got a cartwheel down packed, two more hours and I’ve successfully hit a back flip and landed on my feet in one piece. My body is sore, very sore, but still Aisha doesn’t pity me. Not until she places the swords back until their places does her hard face and cold tone go away, like she flipped a switch. “In battle, you need to put emotions in your pocket, I’m the general because butterflies are ruthless. Our emotion are in the palm of our hands and its possible to put them in our pocket, literally.” She explains her cold demeanor.

“What was all that for?” I ask, half out of breath.

“Gemini asked me to train you, we’ll do this at least three time a week.” She laughs at my face, its good to see her smile instead of her scowl. The ready for war Aisha is ruthless, not a drop of remorse in her. “It won’t be so bad, it’ll be horrible, but not so bad.”

Her wings pop out and she floats above the ground, she looks so happy. So free. “The lord requests your presence, we have to leave in a few minutes.” She says looking down at me.

“Which one?”

“The lord Libra, he’s the only one I call the lord. He has a real temper.” She laughs at the thought. “Trust me when I say you wouldn’t want to be on the other end of it.” She hits a flip in mid air, its fun to see her this way.

“What are they lords of?” It feels good to ask that.

“Why the lords of Depths of course.” Aisha says like its the most obvious thing, falling smoothly from her fly.

“Yes girl, every species has a ruler.” Aisha walks to the entrance, and I trail behind her trying to ignore the burn in my veins from all the twisting and turning I’ve done.

“So who is the morpher ruler?” I ask.

“The morphers had a queen.” She responds in a low voice as we make our way down the hall. “She is dead now.”

“But they have an heir I’m sure?” I urge her to continue.

“The heir has long been lost in lands far from here.” She says in a final tone, I let it go. There’s all the time in the world to find out more about this I don’t want to pester her. We walk for a little while until we get into a room I saw yesterday. Its a simple room with only two sofas, a table in between them and nothing other than that really.

Libra is seated in the corner of one of the sofas, his attention on some type of newspaper.