• • The Royal Bastards of Galagan
• December 14, 2025

The Royal Bastards of Galagan (Chapter 8)

The Royal Solitude

“Family is a lot of things. Sometimes it is who you share your pain with, but family is its best when it’s who you share your happiness with.”

Lady Renho Takeda

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Lemon Limelight

Bam!

You must be wondering, ‘did he really hit the wall again?’

Why yes, yes I did, right on my big fat nose that’s been permanently fucked up by the number of times I’ve broken it today alone.

It was night now on the roof of this zen-palace, and I couldn’t learn what was apparently the most basic technique in the book. Cal got it right off the bat, but me and Poppy still struggled.

“Can I take a break?” I asked my mentor.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Howl said, with a hand coned around his ear. He made a point of mocking me for liking that, after teleporting within arm’s length of me. It was his way of insulting me on two levels. “I could have sworn I heard someone ask for a break?”

“Yes…”

“Really? Because I could have sworn you asked for a break five minutes ago.”

“Yes…”

“And five minutes before that.”

“Yes…” 

“And five minutes before that.”

“I. Know.”

Howl tapped his temple, and closed his eyes, pretending to be in deep thought. “I’m having trouble understanding. If the same thing is occurring again and again, with no change, why are you expecting a different result? What would that be called?”

“Insanity…” I answered. People really like turning the definition of insanity into a monologue. I see it on holo-vids a lot.

“It’s stupidity,” Howl said, so yeah, he basically told me to go fuck myself.

“Gee thanks, I hadn’t noticed, I won’t ask for a break anymore,” I bemoaned my situation, planting myself on the ground, chin in hand. 

I could hear the little taps of Howl’s feet as he walked around me to bend over and put his face directly in my face. I swear, he was maybe an inch away. 

“Did you ever consider, that asking for a break isn’t the only thing you do the same over and over again?” Howl asked me, and stuff his lip in my face as he emphasized his point. “Hmmm, did ya, hmm?”

“I’m doing the technique right, what else am I supposed to do?!” I turned and snapped at him. I actually loomed over him as he bent backward. Unlike Koki, who knew Cal would never actually want to touch him, I was ready to go forehead to forehead with the Pyrie. That made him go wide-eyed.

He gestured me away with a flap of his fingers. “Excuse me, away with you, personal space and all that.”

I leaned back, arms crossed, glaring at him.

“Stop pouting,” he told me.

“I’m not pouting.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, and you’re not doing the technique right.”

I threw my hands up in the air and yelled, “Then tell me what I’m doing wrong!”

Howl shrugged, and put his hands in the pockets of his… you know, I want to say it was a gi, but it didn’t have pants… is it still a gi if it’s worn kind of like a dress or is that something different?

Suffice to say, he waddled around, talking at me. “I thought you were the smart one, couldn’t figure out yourself?”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“Well, I noticed Koki trying to help you out a bunch of times, and each time you and your little sister ignored him.” 

Oh my god, how petty could Howl be?

“Fine, I’m sorry, I’m listening now.”

“What do I care if you’re sorry?” Howl asked me with a twisted lip and befuddled expression. “You were rude to Koki, not me.”

I snapped then, flying up and over him, my cakra pulsating green from my body with every syllable I screamed, “Can you just tell me what I’m doing wrong?!” 

“Hmm,” Howl mumbled, unamused and unintimidated, and looked away from me with the power to level the city and started looking up at the night sky instead. “It is getting pretty late, and if you don’t get this you’ll fall behind your sisters.”

“Sisters?” I caught on. “Poppy figured it out?!” 

“Rather quickly after we left,” Howl told me.

“How could you know that?! You’ve been with me this entire time!” 

“True, but I sensed her elation, and unless she secretly doesn’t like you or Calcutta, I don’t see why else she would be so happy, and then sad for a moment… but then happy again! Strange range of emotions going on between her and Atolli. I’ll have to ask her about it later.”

Howl stopped talking to himself as I landed on the ground. He barely noticed how I had powered down and drifted to the tile floor of the roof, just utterly dejected. 

I was the last one to figure out what was supposed to be basic. I couldn’t be left behind like that, I — what if they both got a lot stronger than me? Then they might have to leave me behind. I can’t— I can’t go through that again.

Smack!

“What the…?” Howl was taken aback by me slapping my head.

“I need clarity,” I muttered as I tried to think back to what Koki was saying.

“Kid,” Howl called me, with his hand stretching out towards me, “you don’t have to hit—”

Smack! Smack! Smack!

“Lemon!” he yelled as he tried to grab my hand and stop me, but I already had the stinging pain I needed. I stopped listening to him after that as I did my best to remember Koki’s instruction.

Let your cakra flow and start moving as it becomes one with you. Then focus on the point you want to teleport to. I was doing that, so clearly I remembered wrong. 

I was charging it, what else could letting your cakra flow mean? If I let it flow without control then it would start bonding with my cells, and I… I’m not where I want to be, what if it stops my transition? What if everything I’ve spent so much time, energy, and using fucking drugs to make happen was undone and fucking stuck by my cakra?

 “Is it permanent?” I asked Howl as he was still looking at the red mark on my head.

“What?” he asked back, confused, without the shits and giggles.

“Is it…” I had to stop, I was shaking. I took a breath, like Poppy and Cal always told me to do if I felt my heart beating in my chest. I tried to stop the world from spinning as I asked him, “… will it stop what I’m… what I’m trying to fix or… I don’t know… I just… I’ve taken so long, spent so much time trying to make what I see in the mirror match what’s…” I struggled to find the words for Howl, tapping my chest incessantly as words failed me. 

He stopped me, grabbing my hands.

“Kid,” Howl said, “I was trying not to give you the answer so you find out on your own but… it’s not going to keep you from what you want. Your cakra is akin to your soul, and your soul is who you are here,” he pressed his fingers to my temple, “and here,” and then my heart. “In all honesty, letting your cakra flow through you and bond, will likely just help you along your process.”

“Hah,” I gasped, as the world began to center, “are you for real?” 

“No, I’m a dirty liar, and my pants are clearly on fire.”

“I have no idea what that means.” I knew it was sarcasm but the joke went over my head.

“Nevermind, just something I picked up from other students I’ve had here,” he waved me off and started to float to pull me back to my feet. 

I had felt tired this whole night, but like that, I felt energized again.

“Are you ready to try again?” Howl asked me.

I nodded.

And I got back to the starting line.

I let my cakra flow, learned again that I had nothing to be afraid of. When it felt like my body was betraying me, I forswore my soul as well, but that was what always counted. To feel at peace, one with myself, I…

I knew could teleport, but I didn’t want to teleport to some strand of grass or some tile on the roof. I wanted to share this moment with someone, I wanted to teleport to someone as my first successful jump through space. 

When I started moving, I focused on her rather than something with no meaning, and with my own Blip! I teleported somewhere else.

Howl would later tell me that he was excited to congratulate me only to then start worrying that I had teleported into the moon or something. Apparently, that happened to someone.

I could sense her doing some kind of mediating with her hand to the ground, and I teleported right there in the room with another Blip!

There was buzz overlaid the sound that I noticed when I entered. It was the first thing I noticed since I could see anything. “Cal!” I called out, both excited and confused because I couldn’t see her.

Then there was this little puff of fire, coming from this white mannequin thing, and all I saw was Cal’s horrified face.

“Cal?” I said.

Just before the explosion, Cal leaped for me, screaming, “Get down!”

She tackled me to the ground as the fire erupted everywhere threatening to fill the room, but like always, she was protecting me, smothering her body with mine.

The fire was hot, and I could smell the burning tips of my hair that just barely touched the flames. I expected to see Calcutta burning, but she seemed completely immune, like the flames were repelled by her. She must have known because I felt her trying to cover up as much as me with her body as she could.

It felt like minutes, but it was really only a few seconds before the flames were gone. I felt her hand pull the strands of my hair out of my face as she looked me over. “Are you alright?! Did the flames touch you at all?”

She pulled me up to sit as I assured her, “No, I promise I’m fine.”

“You almost weren’t,” Koki said, appearing from nowhere. How did he avoid the fire?

“What was that?” I asked.

“My training,” Cal said, and suddenly she was yelling at me, “I told you we were supposed to be doing this separately. You can’t come here, those flames would have burned you whole and I can’t heal you yet!”

She clutched by my biceps, squeezing them her fingers, hurting me. “Cal, I-”

“Those were flames made from hate,” Koki interjected, “that would have more than burned you, they would have reduced you to ash in the most painful way fire can. Why would you think to come here?!”

“I just… I just wanted…” 

“You can’t just do what you want, Lemon,” Cal continued to berate me, letting me go, flinging her hands as if she was throwing me away. “This isn’t home, this isn’t just cakra control that we’re training with here.”

She didn’t… she didn’t want me here, I nearly ruined it for her. Why could she… was I wanted anywhere? 

I just recoiled into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees and hugging them to me. “I just wanted to show you,” I said, “I wanted you to be the first thing I teleported to, I… I didn’t think. I’m sorry…”

My head stayed firmly in my knees, just trying to hide from the world. Nothing I did ever seemed right in the world. I never seemed right. I was only—

Clasp.

I picked up my head a little as I felt her hand grip my shoulder. She gave a firm squeeze, as my eyes just peered over my arm to look at her. 

Cal had this hard expression on her face, with her eyes closed and her lips forming a fine line. 

“So you did it, huh?” Calcutta asked, turning to me with that smirk. She got closer and punched me on the arm and said, “Huh?”

She… she was really…?

I rubbed away whatever waste was pooling in my eyes, and said, “Yeah.” I loosened my grip on my knees, and said again,  “Yeah, I did.”

She reached over and put her hand behind my head, to bring my forehead to hers. “I’m proud of you, little nugget,” she said.

No one really said that to me all that often. It wasn’t Cal’s job to, she was my sister, not my mother, but I felt so thankful to hear her say it all the same.

She leaned back and planted her hand on my head, absolutely ruining the way my hair twisted. “Hey!” I yelled at her, “Can you not?!”

Cal ignored me and gripped my head harder, making sure I was looking at her. “Listen, I’m sorry for yelling, I get that you just wanted to make your first pop special, I’m honored, but we agreed to finish our own training. Not just to train better, but to be safe. What am I supposed to do if I hurt you?”

I didn’t have much to say, I didn’t want to do this whole ‘separation’ thing. It’s never good when I’m separated from Cal and Poppy. There’s nothing good that comes from being alone, but apparently, there’s strength? 

We’ll see.

I’ve never felt all that strong on my own. I… I don’t know how to properly be alone. So… so that would make something perfect for me.

“I won’t interrupt again,” I told Cal. She seemed rather taken aback by the new look in my eye. She was seeing what it looked like when one Lemon Limelight knew exactly what he needed to do.

“Good, again, I’ll see you—”

I had already teleported away before she finished.

I reappeared back on the roof, where I promptly spooked Howl so bad he shrieked as he spun around. 

He pointed his finger at me and warned, “Don’t be that guy, Lemon… nobody likes that guy.”

“I know what technique I need to master,” for myself. 

I didn’t say that last part.

His finger slowly lowered as he pulled back, and this devious little smile started to form on his face. “Well, well, well, what’s it going to be?”

“You’re going to teach me to multiply.”

“Sooner than Koki thought, kid, you just won me a bet.”