The very sad truth

Azalea's heart beat slowly in fear of anxiety, as she watched her mother lift her body from the bed by herself in quite a while. She looked so pale and skinny that something in Azalea's psyche, kept clamoring that her mother might not survive her sickness, even when she had tried to wade the terrible thoughts off. Hama had asked that she lifted her body herself this time, without anyone's help or assistance.

And as the saddening and painful thoughts engulfed Azalea's mind, tears began to drop from her trembling eye lids, to the heavy aching of her heart that felt like it would rip out. She loved her mother so much, that she believed her should live more years than any time in recent memory.

"My daughter," Hama's weak voice called to Azalea as she smiled at her. Azalea wished she would save the great energy she had used to smile, to the ones she would use to live longer.

She rose up from where she knelt and took a sit beside her mother, in her heart were thoughts of leaning on her mother's shoulders like she had always done. But the fear of her mother's bones snapping, even by the tiniest article interacting with body made her do otherwise.

Azalea picked a wooden stool from the corner of the room, and sat on it in a position where she could face her mother. She then placed her head in between her mother's laps, with her face turned sideways to the right, with her gaze directed towards the entryway.

Hama's hand caressed softly on the locked parts of her hair. She tried to reorganize in her head, how she was going to place the words smoothly to Azalea.

"My child, I know i have kept so many things you have wanted to hear from you. For so long, I feigned ignorance under the stand that you needed to grow up more, before I could tell you the reasons you wanted to hear. I really hope you don't resent me for waiting this long to say something," Hama paused to catch her slow breathes. She picked the bowl of water beside the bed instead and pretended to drink from it, so Azalea would not bother too much about how she was feeling.

She patted slowly on Azalea's back, before proceeding to continue her story, "Once in this kingdom, there was werewolves, witches and elves living peacefully together, on basic standard rules and systemized ruling pattern. Everything was going on fine until one tyrant king, Sethmoth during the werewolf's reign ruined everything. He refused to leave the throne for the witches who were next to rule.

It would not have been much of a problem if he was a good one, but he was terrible and merciless.

I was the most youthful witch healer in the city as at that time, and i was really good at my job because i had a very great master. When Sethmoth started ruling in his evil ways, people became miserable as they lost their daughters and wives to him. There was also no rules that favoured the sick and poor anymore.

I had to treat many people for free and spent more time in the wilderness, searching for medicinal herbs by myself. We healers, could not afford to buy them directly from stores anymore.

Out of nowhere, the witches held a secret meeting on the most proficient method to take over the throne, from evil Sethmoth who had made everyone's life tough.

The day they had prepared to launch the attack against the palace, there were many sick people and I could not just leave them like that. I was out in the wilderness gathering herbs, and was oblivious of what had started happening to the witches and everyone in the battle.

At the point when I was finished and prepared to enter the city, I could sense danger from the numerous flying arrows that were darted to kill, and people that were viciously fighting because their lives depended on it. Even the wolves that joined to fight the battle could not survive the laced arrows, even with their fast healing abilities.

In my frantic efforts to take cover back into the bush, one had hit me suddenly and i became poisoned too almost instantly. Quickly, I ran as fast as I could back into the bush to get an antidote, that would first stop the killing action of the poison while I chewed on the ones i was holding. Thankfully they could serve the purpose, so i narrowly escaped death."

Hama stopped again, to drink water for real this time, trying not to look at Azalea whose eyes were dazed in uncertainty. Hearing her mother talk about everything without being further asked really felt weird to her. But they were real realizations and past happenings that had dawned on her.

"I would wallow in tears everyday because I knew almost everyone hit with that arrow, would not survive the strong effects of it.

I had to live in the forest in pain for weeks treating the wound, because the poison was so fast in action and deadly that it never neutralized finally from the body. I started loosing my powers too as a result of the dreadful poison that could have taken my life. For months I was still in the wilderness too, sometimes trying to find my way back to the main city, but fear wouldn't let me. The state of the city was so cold and bitter, that it would take time for people to recover. But I didn't know if the king had died, so I could not risk it.

Already improving in health and fitness, I could live normally by using the resources the wild had to offer to me. Acceptance also helped me try to move on with life, for a long time up in the mountains where there was no person, aside from birds and few animals.

Not until one morning I had gone further to search for food."

As Hama continued to speak, Azalea's mind wandered to different spaces in her head, about what could happen next. Her mother had not mentioned anything about being pregnant, or the child in her belly being affected.

Did she meet a man that was most likely her father in the forest? Was he also a witch? That could mean she is certainly a witch too!

"Just down the water gushing rivers of a region far up in the mountains, I could see a still body of someone, floating up in the river with restrained movements, due to a tree blockage in the middle of the river. Almost panicking about who the dead lady could be, then I speculated that she was probably one of the witches that tried to escape too.

I couldn't just leave her there and brought her cold and rigid body out, so I could at least perform a death rites for her soul to appease. Burying her near the river was the best because, I had no strength to carry her or take her to my abode up the mountains. Just as I was contemplating on what to do and how to start, she stirred her body, coughed out water and opened her eyes slowly, bringing me to a big shock.

If I had observed well by looking at her body, it would have already been two days since she had been inside water. She looked so bloated, weak and strained, that I wondered if she would ever survive the pain she was in. But I took her up anyways, and we went up after so much efforts to where I lived.

That was when I first made those sharpened needles to relieve her pain, since she could not take in the medicinal herbs orally. But I could use the needles to awaken the fainting nerves in her body, by a specific technique I had learnt and studied from my master.

Her name was Alaina and a good fighter amongst the best of fighting witches. She had also witnessed and fought in the entire battle too. She was the one that brought down the head of the evil werewolf king.She was beautiful, capable and fearless and such a very sweet person.

Alaina was still weak with the poison that had gone into her body, through the arrow pushed into her back. It was someone who had saved her, the first time the arrow had almost paralyzed her whole body when she escaped into the wilderness.

She was saved by a powerful wizard who had also escaped the blood bath, and fought his way living in the father part of the forest too. He summoned out the poison from her body, but it still had some leaving effects in her body. It wasn't easy to control the effects, so they had to manage it. She had to live with him to stay okay and amidst everything, she fell in love with the man and got pregnant.

Alaina's pains increased because of the child she was carrying, which had to share the limited energy she had in her body. But she endured the pain for her unborn child, even when her supposed lover advised to get rid of the child for her happiness. It was when she continued to be stubborn about keeping the baby, he had voiced out his anger about the plans he had, and the baby being a stumbling block.

Coupled with her knowledge of his evil plans to wreak the kingdom, and achieving it by using her grudge against them and also his persistence to get rid of the child, she knew she had to run for her life.

She had pretended to be okay by everything and that she would yield to his bidding, and absconded when he had gone into the forest one morning. Her pains were too much as she ran from where they lived, to where she knew not and had fallen from a cliff into the river where I picked her from...."

"Did she survive it?" Azalea's voice came this time, after long minutes of silence and mulling. The new tale she was hearing was more deep and sad.

"Her body could not handle the poison effects and the foetus anymore, so she became unable to move her body freely. But, she could still make little conversations and smile stiffly. The baby also stayed much longer in her womb too, than it should have because of her constitution....."

"Was the baby me?" Azalea asked fearfully, scared to confirm the thoughts she was having, and the point Hama was trying to arrive at.

"Yes my child. You are Alaina's daughter," Hama said slowly and smiled.

Azalea's mind went blank for seconds trying to accept that her mother had just said, the one person who had loved her and cared for her so much. Who had guided her with jealousy, and made sure she was not in anyway harmed was not her biological mother. She wondered how her birth mother would have looked like, and what she would have said to her, if she could even understand those words as a baby.

How could that even be possible?

"But as weeks went by, Alaina kept telling me we had to move into the deeper parts of the forest. That her lover could barge in on us anytime, because of his heightened sense of smell. That he would certainly look for her, for betraying his trust to do his will.

Though, it was hard to do that especially in her weak condition, but we were able to move due to her tenacity, successfully. And that brought me to start concocting herbs, that we could successfully use to hide our scents from him. I was not able to move deep into the wilderness as I did, so I had to use everything nearby to make something work. She was really a strong woman.

It was time for Alaina to give birth to you, and the scent hiding potion was not readily effective by then. You could die as a baby if she wouldn't breath well when pushing, and I was also scared that she was too weak to born you. Still she wanted to make it work by birthing you, even when she knew that the birth would bring her lover's sense of smell to our abode....."

"Did he find you?" Azalea asked again, with pain and anxiety written over her. She was barely trying to stop herself from releasing the flood of tears, that laced glassy around her eye balls.

"He did, he certainly did," Hama smiled bitterly, cleaning the tears that dripped slowly from her face. The painful memories she felt had long faded, had come clearly to her again in full view.

"I had wrapped you in a thick woven cloth and held her to walk as fast as I could, but she was losing breath and staggering as we hastened. She could feel his presence get more near, as we tried to get away so fast.

Then, she told me to go ahead with you while she stayed back to fight back. I refused to leave her go, but she begged me to save her child and make sure she would be fine. I had no choice but to leave Alaina to save you, as we painfully parted and that was the last time I saw her.

Days after that I went back to the spot, I found nothing to trace her to me. I searched frantically for her after months but I couldn't even hear ....." Hama said painfully, sobbing badly and coughing at the same time. The memories of the past was too much for her too handle, because she could not get Alaina off her mind those years. Her pretty face, smiles and the jokes she made. The fact that she was supposed to still be alive, if she had met her first and not her supposed lover.

Soon, her breath began to cease, and she began to gasp making Azalea jump in fear alert. She rushed to do everything she could, to make Hama stable as she could not bear to lose her mother for any reason.

As tears dropped uncontrollably from her eyes, she inserted into Hama with the needles, using the skills she had learnt. Her heart tore even more than ever, because of the sad and tragic story she had just heard. It was so heartbreaking.