Chapter 25 Margaret's Daughter

Chapter 25 Margaret's Daughter
Luna POV

The girl bore a close resemblance to me. Same face. Same hair. Same everything. But her eyes saw nothing but hatred.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Sera," the girl said. She went forward and the liberated animals drew back. Even they appeared afraid of her. "I am the daughter of Margaret. It was the daughter of an immortal and a man who was captured and metamorphosed by the same immortals whom we had just fought.

Margaret looked ashamed. Before I was captured, I gave birth to her, Margaret said to herself. "I had no choice. The immortals made me. then they took her and twisted her like they twisted the others.

So you were one of the animals, I said to Sera.

"I was," Sera said. Five hundred years and I was a weapon. A tool. A thing without choice. And I know who to hold to blame over that. She looked directly at me. "It was my mother. If she had fought harder. If she had loved me more. Had she acted in other ways, I would not have been caught up.

"That's not fair," Margaret said. She made a step for her daughter. I tried my level best to save you.

"You failed," Sera said. "And then you disappeared. And now, hundreds of years later, I discover that you have made friends with the very people who I was supposed to destroy. You were reconciled with men and werewolves. You've moved on. You've been happy. While I was suffering."

"Sera, I'm sorry," Margaret said. She wanted to rub her fingers with her daughter, but Sera withdrew.

"Don't touch me," Sera said. She lifted up her hand and there was power. Not immortal power. Something different. Something that was a mixture of immortality and humanity and something different. I had five hundred years of reflection on what I would have done, had I ever been free. I have wondered how I would have made people compensate for my pain.

"Sera, please," I said. I stepped forward slowly. It was not your fault that you were suffering. The immortals did that to you. Not your mother. Not us."

You are all of the same system, you see, said Sera. The system that I was captured by. The system which permitted my torture. And now you are all celebrating as though you are making everything out. Like peace is possible. But peace is a lie. Everything is pain and the perpetrators of the pain.

Sera raised her hand higher. The power was building. I could feel it. It was going to ruin all of it.

However, Elena did something that was counterintuitive. She interposed herself between me and Sera.

I am aware of what pain is, Elena said. Thousands of years I have been living. I've seen genocide. I've seen torture. I have witnessed the most ugly sides of immortals. And I so longed to have revenge that I made it part of me.

"Then help me," Sera said. "Help me make them pay."

"No," Elena said. "Because I learned something. Revenge does not make anything better. It only brings about suffering. It just creates more Seras. There are more individuals who have been injured and wish to injure others.

What made you quit feeling revenge? Sera asked.

"I didn't stop," Elena said. "I transformed it. I brought my anger and my pain and I took it to create something better. I used it to create peace. And now I have grandchildren that will never know what kind of a sore I had.

Sera's hand was shaking. The power was still building. But it is less stable now. Similar to her, she was unsure of using it.

What, as though I do not want to be cured? Sera asked. "What if I like being angry? But what would it be to be merely these emotions of anger that make me feel alive?

I will be similar to you, then, said Elena. You will spend hundreds of years as a captive of your anger. And nothing will ever change. And you'll see the world go round without you.

The hand of Sera dropped a little. The power diminished. I wondered whether Elena had got to her.

Then Margaret did something that was different. She walked to her daughter. It was knowledge that Sera was going to attack. Knowing that she might die. Her daughter came and embraced her as well.

Sera's power exploded. It engulfed both of them.

At the time the light went away, Margaret was on the ground. She was dying. The immortal body had been destroyed too fast by the hybrid power.

"Mom," Sera said. She was dropped on her knees by her mother. "Mom, I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Margaret said. Her voice was fading. "Be better. Be the one who opts to have peace at a time she should have resorted to violence. Be she that forgives when she might hate. Be what I always wanted you to be, the daughter.

Margaret was killed in the square. And Sera gripped her body and wept as centuries, as five hundred years, of tears had been repressed.

I knelt down next to Sera. I did not make any effort to touch her or to speak to her. I just stayed there. A witness to her grief. A thought of the fact she was not isolated.

Sera looked up at me after a long time. I do not know how to stop being angry, she said.

"None of us do," I said. "But we can try. Together. That's what we've learned. We don't have to do this alone."

Sera nodded slowly. She was still swollen with agony and indignation. But now, she seemed inclined to take it into consideration that it was possible that there was another way.

Elena helped Sera stand. You can go and spend your time in Pine Ridge, Elena said. You have a chance to know what peace is. And up to you whether or not you will be part of something new being built.

When we returned to the town through the plaza, I knew that we were not really fighting with the immortals. It was in opposition to the rage and the anxiety within every one of us. The immortals were but a symptom of disease which in the depths of being was much more.

But when I saw the human beings and the werewolves and emancipated creatures all cooperating to restore what was destroyed, I became optimistic. I even thought that we would get well. All of us.

Pine Ridge Thomas was gazing at mountains. Something I could not see was what he was looking at. And he filled his face with dread.

That was not all, he said to himself. "That was just the beginning. The immortals you had to fight to-day were puppets. There are much older beings. Much more powerful beings. And they are at last beginning to listen to what is going on in Pine Ridge.