Beneath The Tree

Her and the sister she was closest in age to-Princess Aiyana Sol Rey Ross-played with the daughter of a young Soldier their father entertained. Her and Aiyana played with the young girl, teaching her how to dance to the music that played in the background. Their father smoked joints and drank brown liqour on red leather couches while listening to the stories of the Titan Kingdom.

She kept finding reasons to glance at him. He was beautiful to her. Unblemished bronze skin. Long, wavy hair braided in plaits. Tattoos all over his lean frame. She never seen anyone like him.

The Soldier's daughter was around her age, but the Soldier couldn't have been much older than her brother. She was presented a conundrum that she couldn't comprehend. A little voice knocked her out of her reverie.

"Why do you keep looking at my Daddy?"

Her eyes bulged as she turned toward the night brown little girl staring up at her with golden flakes sparkling in a voluminous fro on top of a small skull. She looked like the spiritual embodiment of a nocturnal lioness. The little girl's bright stare caught prey in sights.

Aiyana added to her baby sister's discomfort. "Yeah, Forever, why do you keep staring at Victoria's daddy?"

Forever blushed and turned away. "Shut up, Rey!" It was the last time she saw Aiyana.

Bullets blast through the near-wall size windows installed into the brick of their home. Father's sprinted toward daughters. Their shares uncle, Spitta, ducked and searched for cover. Aiyana was struck a few times before crashing on to the hardwood floor, unconscious. Victoria emitted a golden light when she cried out for her father, gold flames licking the air all around her. Forever was left standing all alone watching as her father's body was rocked by bullets. He was a large man. Girth covered in the finest threads. Diamonds and gold chains and pendants. It took a storm of bullets to take his life.

She cried out for her father, ran to him only to be picked up and pulled away by the Soldier with a raspy roar. "Spitta! Come get her! I'll hold them here!"

The Soldier started to glow, blue and silver flames rising all around him. Her tears stopped. The bullets kept flying but the Soldier stood as if unaware and cognizant of where every bullet was going to go. It wasn't until she looked closer, watched the shifting of dust trying to settle beside his Jordans that she realized he was moving faster than she could comprehend. Tiny explosions rippled throughout the once glass enclosed the velvet smoking room. She couldn't even tell what was carpet and what was blood. Lead dust sifted through the air.

"Now Spitta."

Forever heard the storms in her mother's voice.

She turned and saw her oldest siblings standing next to their mother. Her oldest sister, Princess Taiyana Midnight Ross, and her only brother, Prince Saint Reverie Ross. They all stepped alongside the Soldier. Their blades were sheathed. Their mother wore two blades holstered to her waist. Forever wasn't old enough to get her own blade. Neither her or Rey were Sword Saints. But they were. Her family.

"We'll handle it from here," Reverie said with boots crushing the glass underneath the soles of his off-white Chelsea boots. He wore fitting ripped jeans and a creme sweater. Midnight wore brown UGGs and some pajama pants rubbing her eyes sleepily with her blade sheathed on her back. Her curls were hidden by the hood of her hoodie. She woke up to this. Reverie was supposed to be present with this Soldier, sharing stories with their father. They all walked into her nightmare.

Spitta raced behind the family holding the royal line and scooped Forever into his arms. Even Victori got to stay with her father. But not Forever. She cried out for her family. Spitta never looked back. Her family never looked away from the coming battle, bullets exploding all around them. She wanted to believe everything would be okay.

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There was a war all throughout her Kingdom. She was the youngest Princess of Saints sitting in the backseat of Spitta's purple '63 Chevy Impala, ghost flames painted on the side of the antique, watching it all burn down.

Smoke hung over everything. There were parked vehicles set on fire. Citizens of Society were killed in the streets for retaliation; every Society member for every dead Soldier slaughtered in the blitz.

Citizens of the Saint Kingdom ran into local corner stores snatching supplies off of shelves. No one was prepared for the war that came.

Soldiers shot at the Knights that killed so many already. One Knight was but a boy that descended from the sky. Bullets bounced off of him. Chipped at his clothes. He hovered above them unbothered before ripping through Soldiers as though they were nothing. He was around her age on a front line of his own.

"I don't know what that 'bout," Spitta said airily in the front seat. He wouldn't look at Forever in the rearview mirror. She heard him sniffling. "Forever..." He stopped short, but she knew what he was going to say. "I'm sorry about your family." It warmed her to hear him say it anyway.

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Fifteen years later, Forever was in a room in the Kimpton Hotel. It was six o' clock in the morning. She smoked a vape marijuana pen with the sun rising over her shoulder, bathing her in light and shadow. As she scrolled through Twitter, the trending topic was Tri-Star Fire. The second was The Lost Prince Lost. She clicked on both. In one video, she saw a massive hospital in flames before a flash of white light destroyed the video feed coming from the drones from the sky. The latter was of the fight on the roof of the hospital between a light-skinned woman with red curls and her brother. Forever watched the woman draw her pistol, aim it at Reverie's chest, and fired. Her brother fell.

At first, there was a great celebration had on the social media platform. People were praising his killer until the hospital caught ablaze. Smoke filled the skies. People panicked on the Internet.

My sister's in there!!! #Tri-StarFire

I just delivered food to a hot ass nurse. I hope she's okay. #Tri-StarFire

A tragic turn of events that cartoonist, Justin Richburg, and a few of the voices from his hit series, Dream Little Boy, were caught in the #TriStarFire and are pronounced dead. Our prayers are with all the families of loved ones that were lost in this already catastrophic event.

There was no sympathy for her brother. One of the comments asked were, if Prince is dead, how come there are still attacks, but her questions were washed away by conspiracy theories detailing how Prince was involved with The Empire. More questions about the whereabouts of the Titan Queen. More rumors. More questions. No answers. All Forever knew was that she had lost her brother fifteen years ago in a massacre, tracked down his ghost, found her lost brother only to have to watch him for die. Forever understood. She held her face in her hand and cried.