Night and Day: 1st Book: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Girl who Stares at Walls

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The corridors were quiet as I walked through them. The only sound was my heels clicking on the foyer. I steeled myself to be ready for the chaos that I would meet once I reached my destination.

I wouldn't think of the blood I had coughed up until later. I already knew it was very stupid to not tell anyone about it, especially since as far as I knew this hadn't happened to any other Royal before, but the twins' birthdays were so important to me. I had already missed more than I wished to have and I wasn't going to dare mess up one (and therefore, in my own mind, missing it).

I paused at the door I was supposed to go through. A small business meeting could last a while and I had stupidly forgotten to ask Cassandra who the meeting was with. I could only hope that it wasn't the Greek or Egyptian Gods, or even the Christian or Catholic God.

I jinxed myself, I realized, as I opened the door. The Greek and Egyptian Gods were here as were the Christian and Catholic God. Why I had dared to think of just them I had no idea. Why couldn't Budha be here? He tended to side for peace. The room was the opposite of calm.

Arguments and insults were being lashed out at each other from all sides and a handful of some members of my Family were just sitting quietly at the front of the room. My Aunt Regina motioned me forward, to sit by her.

"What is happening?" I asked her warily. "Rather, why are they all in the same meeting?"

"Well," she answered, "It started with the Greek Gods and Egyptian Gods. They have been fighting over letting Set come to the party. It seems he has been going over to their world and purposely causing chaos, especially in Nyx and Erebus's realm. Of course, despite the fact that Set has problems with his family, the Egyptian Gods are backing him up. And knowing that, the Greeks are mad about the fact that they're actually backing him up, which in turn leads to them coming to the conclusion that the Egyptians are being unfair to them." She took a deep breath, and watched the Gods argue for a bit longer.

"How do the Christian and Catholic Gods come into play?" I asked her after a while of her not answering. The Christian and Catholic Gods had a tendency to be close because they had the most similarities in their religion, so it wasn't odd seeing them together rather seeing them in the room fighting with the other religions was.

Regina hesitated, deciding her words carefully before continuing, "Well, at first they came to help."  

I scoffed. All of them together only caused problems.

She continued, "But then you know how they all are. Zeus and Osiris starting going off on them, talking about how God is always acting so high and mighty; how he thinks he is so much better than they are."

I sighed, "And of course the angels would back up the Christian and Catholic God."

She nodded sweetly, "Precisely."

I laughed drily, "So, now what are we doing?"

"We, Su, are merely watching the whole thing play out," Patrick said with his fist holding his chin up.

I crossed my legs and held myself at an angle, my head on my palm, and I watched for as long as I could stand it. Soon enough I got tired of the overly loud voices. The words they were all yelling were starting to echo in my head.

I turned to Patrick, "Remind me again why we aren't doing anything."

He gave me a look, "We are not doing anything because it seems pointless. Their very conversation is pointless and the consequences of telling them something they don't want to hear could be drastic." He looked at the fighting Gods with something close to disdain.

I exhaled and pushed myself up and off the chair.

"Sunny, you are not to do anything," Cassandra glanced my way. I looked back at her.

"Are we to do nothing will they argue themselves hoarse?"

She turned to fully stare at me. "There would be no point in trying to talk to them. This problem has been going on for years, and I highly doubt that a teenager, even a Royal teenager, could solve a problem as easily as you seem to think." A challenge, oh goodness, I loved it when someone pissed me off with a challenge.

A lot of my family members turned to look at us, forgetting the meeting.

"Now, Cassandra, doesn't that seem to have been said a bit harshly?" Regina squeaked.

"It hardly seems fair to say such a thing, Cassandra," uncle Rolo stated.

They looked away from Cassandra's forceful gaze.

"No matter," I reassured, "I will at least attempt to try to fix things. They cannot continue to fight forever." I slowly walked myself to the middle of the table. A few Gods and Angels turned to look at me, curious, but the majority ignored me.

I pursed my lips. This would not do. Right on time I heard a high whistle sound behind me, and I almost smiled. I threw a quick grateful look at my Rolo and turned back to those who needed my attention.

All of the Gods in the room were looking at me, some in fury – although not directed toward myself – and some in boredom. There were so many of them that for a moment I wavered. Would I be able to bring at least a temporary agreement between all of them? It was highly doubtful, but the idea of being looked down at by Cassandra pissed me off.

"You all need to calm down immediately," my voice came out even and with a leading note. "We are here to establish certain… accord between all of you. This cannot happen with all of you misbehaving and acting like children." A few Gods bristled at my words, but I held my hand up to them. "I am not saying you all act like children rather that the moment has brought out an unattractive childish side you should not want others to see.

We must at least try to listen to each other in order to get what we want, no?"

I looked toward the Zeus, the King of the Greek Gods. "Since the reason we are all gathered here today in the first place is because of the problems between the Greek and Egyptian Gods we shall start with them." Everyone remained quiet, and I knew I was carefully being watched by my Family. "Zeus, if you will begin with what has been ailing your family." I nodded at him.

Zeus stood with an air of self-importance; it annoyed me somewhat but I dismissed my irritation.

"Thank you, your highness," he bowed and I shifted on my feet awkwardly, the kiss up. "Set has been causing problems within the Greek Dimension for years now, but it is just now that we are putting our foot down, miss."

"Why now?" I asked him, sitting in a chair beside me. I crossed my legs.  He looked at me confused. "Why are you bringing this to our attention now, and today of all days?"

"Sunny, behave yourself," Cassandra hissed. I ignored her.

Zeus glanced at Cassandra quickly, and the Gods shifted with the tension between us. I smiled convincingly at them for comfort, and they all relaxed.

"Zeus, why did you finally choose to come forth with your accusation that the Egyptian Gods are being unfair?"

"Well, your highness, the Egyptians," he said Egyptians like it was dirty, "have always been, how would you say in the most polite way… barbaric." He glared at them, and Osiris the King God of the Egyptians started to curse at him.

Everyone began to get riled up. I considered using magic to shut them all up, but the consequences would be dire. The only place a Royal was allowed to use magic freely was in his or her own home. Using magic anywhere else would affect the world in a way no one would be able to control. It could be bad or it could be good, but you never knew; which was why Royals needed Guards and Protectors.

So instead of silencing them with magic, which went against my principles either way, I created a gavel out of thin air and banged it on my chair. Loudly.

"That is enough! You will all behave and sit down. You want to get this over with don't you?" Behind me my Family remained the observers, testing me. I rubbed my hand on the side of my chin. "Zeus, sit." He sat. I nodded to Hestia, who happened to be the sweetest of the Gods. She was after all the Hearth of a home. "Hestia, if you would please explain." Zeus huffed in anger.

She smiled sweetly at me, warming my heart. "Of course, miss." Another reason I liked her, she didn't insist on calling me 'your highness' on a daily basis. "It began with Set coming over to our world without our permission or the permission of the Royals. At first the majority of the Olympians chose to ignore it because he wasn't specifically causing any problems and we didn't want any problems to arise with the simple reason that we were annoyed.

It wasn't until last week that he did something that affected us all viciously."

I looked at Set and his face, which was the head of a Typhon. "What did Set do that made you all decide to take action?" I didn't look away from him and he shifted in his seat, silent.

"Well, to put simply, he almost killed Erebus," her voice got quiet at the end, and the room grew so quiet that a pin dropping would have sounded like thunder.

The blood drained from my face. "What? How?" I inquired, my voice taking a dangerous note.

Every single God in the room stayed silent, as did my Family. Set knew he was in trouble, whether I inflicted his punishment or another Royal did. He had almost killed the Greek God of Darkness.

Set gulped as Hestia continued to speak, this time with more care than before, "He was honestly just playing around…"

"Hestia!" Nyx, Goddess of the Night and Erebus's wife, hissed. "Don't try to make things easier for him."

"Nyx, let Hestia explain things as she wishes to," Cassandra commanded.

"I just don't think that Set should be punished too harshly, he was just playing around," Hestia spoke in voice hardly above a whisper.

"However we judge him will be fair," I told her calmly.

"I don't need your help," Set snapped at her.

"Silence, Set! You have no right to speak to her cruelly," my voice cracked across the room.

Fury crossed his animalistic face in defiance. "I don't need the help of a bratty, minor God!" he shot back at me before he realized his mistake. As soon as he did, he paled (which was odd because his lightly furred face was black). "I mean… I mean…"

My eyes froze him into a stuttering idiot.

"I do believe we should let Hestia finish. Don't you, Sunny?" Regina's voice came out cold, completely unlike her usual self.

"No. Erebus, stand and explain," my voice came out without any emotion. I winced.

Erebus and Hestia glanced at each other as she slowly sat and he slowly rose. Here is when doubt entered my mind. Was I being too cruel? I just wanted to make sure everything ended with a good outcome. Couldn't I make everyone happy? Couldn't I?

"Erebus, go ahead and tell me what happened," my voice came out softer, and he looked into my eyes with something close to understanding.

"I can say with a high level of certainty that Set meant no deadly harm," Erebus glanced at Set who was giving him a dirty look. "It was a simple prank, and he even said that I was not a part of the plan. I shouldn't have been in Olympus that day, but I had been. It wasn't dangerous for the other Gods, just for me. You see, he bombarded Olympus with magic Light. He was quite panicked at discovering I was amidst the chaos." This time the glance he threw at Set had amusement.

"Set isn't evil, and he is the God of Darkness, just as I am. He would not hurt me because that would be, in a way, a sign of him hurting himself," Erebus stated calmly, ice blue eyes that reminded me of the twins,' twinkling. He was one of my favorite Gods for a reason.

And then Ares spoke up, "That still doesn't justify what he did!"

"Wow, wasn't that a big word for Ares? Justify. Have you expanded your vocabulary?" Sekhmet, the Egyptian Goddess of War, scoffed.

Ares snarled, "Seeing as we're both Gods of the same thing, I think we're pretty equal in smartness."

"Oh my, I hope not," Sekhmet smiled, "I do believe you've suffered many head injuries from war if you are to believe that."

"Oh for goodness sakes, would you two stop. You're getting on my last damn nerves." Poseidon mumbled loud enough for us all to hear.

"Oh, and I bet you think you're just so great, don't you? The mighty Poseidon, God of the Sea. Hah, please. Change mighty to weak, and the title would be correct," Nun scoffed at him.

"Oh please, Nun, we basically do the same thing, though your domain is, I dare say, very much smaller than my own. We at least know who the more powerful sea God is here," Poseidon hissed haughtily.

I watched them, disappointed in their inability to behave themselves properly, and without any respect.

I pursed my lips and some of the Gods shifted uncomfortably. My voice took on a quite quality that immediately caught the room's attention. "What is the point in all of this?"

The Gods looked away shamefully.

"Okay then, let's start with this; we need to forget everything you have ever done to each other because arguing will do absolutely nothing," my voice was soft, and as beautiful as it once was. A wave of melancholy flew threw me, but there were more important things to discuss. "Do anyone one of you believe that we will accomplish something by arguing and fighting with each other? By all means, raise your had if so. It would be your opinion and I would have in no right to be angry with you."
Nyx huffed in anger, "It's not that we want to fight! We want to be heard and we want them to stop bothering us!"

"In order to be heard you have to listen first. In no way will you make friends if you don't understand them, and to understand them you must listen to what they feel."

"I believe that we can speak for all of us when I say that we do not want to make friends with each other," Ares mumbled.

"That's perfect," an angel snickered, "wonderful influences you lot are."

I looked at him, "You stay out of this. As far as I am concerned, this has nothing to do with you.

The angel name Michael spoke to me, "Is it so bad if we angels state our opinions?"

"If they're not going to be helpful, I prefer that you wouldn't." We were going in circles with this meeting! "The topic for this evening is about the Greek and Egyptian Gods. If you have any problems then we'll get to that afterwards. We need to finish with this though! It has been centuries since you two groups have been able to cooperate without trying to kill each other and that isn't exactly adequate, especially seeing as your job is protecting and observing your own world and being able to properly care for it. You cannot do so if you are fighting with one another, so please by all means, if you desire to keep killing yourselves with arguments that will get you nowhere continue!"

Silence; and I could feel a mixture of disapproval and curiosity coming from behind me.

"How do you expect us all to get along, your highness? How do you think that is even possible?" Hera, the Queen of Greek Gods, asked me incredulously.

"Once upon a time you were able to get along. Why not now? I find it hard to believe that times have changed so much." I smirked. "You all have to face the fact that you have to 'live' with each other. All of you are of equal importance, and with a good reason. If it weren't so then all of you would have a reason to fight.

You seem to forget that we Royals are here for a reason, not only because we created you, but because you all are a part of us; you are a part of each other. Does it really feel so wonderful to insult each other? You're only hurting yourselves and hurting us. Arguing does no good for your worlds. Life would be so much lovelier if it were filled with love."

"Cheers to that," Aphrodite giggled.

"I know that you all won't change with such simple words, but use tonight as a night of truce; a night where you all talk to each other with modesty and the propriety that exists within each of you. If you don't want to become emotionally attached then look at this as a business. You have to make your connections in order to win in your business.
Today isn't really the best of days to get into this, but use it. Start new, and with no one trying to kill each other." I rose from my chair and headed to the door. "I dearly hope you consider my words with all urgency." I said them because I loved the idiotic Gods. "As for you, Christian and Catholic Gods, I am grateful that you wished to help but next time leave it to the Royals, darlings. You do a good enough job in your worlds, and seeing as you have hardly anything in common with the others it would be best if you kept your opinions with each other. You cannot understand them, and they cannot understand you."

"And where are you going?" Cassandra asked me, seemingly astonished.

"I, darling Aunt," I smirked as she jumped from the pet name, "am going to help my siblings prepare for their grand day."

Tiny smile flitted onto the faces of the Gods surrounding me, and I knew with all certainty that they were going to listen to my words; attempt to get along. After all, we Royals did create them to listen to us.

I began walking to the corridors, not minding where I was going, and looking out the windows to watch the rose bushes sway with the wind. It was going to be a beautiful day, and I would not allow my thoughts to intrude on it just to take away the image of perfection.

I really wanted to get out of these clothes though – that's what I was thinking when I ran into someone. I wasn't a clumsy person; occasionally, I just wouldn't watch where I was going.

The person who fell opposite to me was woman. A woman who looked very pissed off, but face she made at me reminded me very much of that of a cat; a pissed off cat. I inwardly smiled in amusement. The lady was dressed as a castle maid, or as I preferred to call them, a Helper. A new one, obviously. I had never seen her before and everyone knew to watch their step and take care of where they went. With the twins and the whole Family, the castle easily became chaotic.

I stood up with a single movement, pulling her up along with me. Her astonished glance made my lips curl up wryly. She didn't act like other Helpers. Actually, after a quick perusal, I realized that with another set of clothes she would have looked quite deadly.
Her dark brown bangs slashed above her eyebrows perfectly and without a single hair out of place. Eyes that matched her hair stared at me without blinking, as though she were waiting for an explosion. They were angled somewhat oddly, tilting up at the corners very much like a feline's.

And somewhere, in the back of my mind, I recalled a similar situation, on a night I refused to remember.

"Forgive me, I wasn't watching where I was going," I said softly, my eyes never leaving hers. My lips curled into a cold, untrusting smile.  "If you don't mind my asking, what is a Sicarius doing in my home?" Once upon a time, I had been a subtle person; but not now.

Cat lady paled before quickly composing herself. It was amusing, the way she looked at me. It was as though she thought I had done something I shouldn't have; revealing what she was even if it was just between the both of us.

"You could always start with your name," I hinted and snickered lightly. Already, I had a pretty good idea of who she was. She said nothing.

I turned and walked away, and by some silent agreement she followed. I walked into my suite and summoned some clothes. She looked to be around the same size as I was. The clothes should fit her, seeing as I like to wear my clothes a bit loosely. I held them out to her and her glare returned.

Her voice was strong and lovely, "I will not wear a Royal's hand-me-downs."

My lip curled in the version of my smile, "So this should be fine, seeing as they are not hand-me-downs. I simply cannot stand seeing you in that maid outfit."

She stuck her nose up in the air, and this time I smiled. I let it stayed there. Her eyes seemed to daze off, and I started to frown. She recovered her mask. "What? Are you not pleased with my apparel, your majesty?" The voice was too sarcastic.

"It's actually your highness," I said drily, and I waved my hands making her outerwear disappear. Her shrieks made me turn away, still holding the clothes toward her, though it was at an awkward angle for my arm.

"How dare you?" The clothes were swiped from my hand.

For a second, I wondered what I was feeling and why I was tormenting her. I did not trust Sicarius, but this lady looked and acted like the animal I so loved. Independent, haughty, but easily lovable.

"How dare I what?" I asked, turning back to face her before she decided to find something sharp and stab me in the back.

"Are all Royals as terrible as I believe them to be?" It was an odd question, and it made me smirk.

I shrugged, "I'm just not as kind as the others."

She scoffed as she finished dressing. "What was the point in dressing me? I am not a doll."

I looked at her blankly. "The clothes in no way suited you. And today, you will not spy on my family as a Sicarius dressed like a maid, but as my friend."

She gave me a look that obviously meant she thought I was insane. She sniffed and looked away. "I am not here to spy as a Sicarius."

I raised my eyebrows.

"I am here as a mother."

My lip twitched in renewed amusement. "Your name?"

She sighed, and gave it to me without much of a fight. "Meelie Pierce."

I felt my eyes widen and a shiver run through my spine. "Huh," I murmured.  And I walked toward the door. She followed.