História Harley : The Plains of Judgment - Do not touch my friend - He Loves Corn!

   I took a deep breath of the chilly morning air. It had a faint whiff of spices which was normal in Mexico. The sun was brilliant in contrast to my dull mood. I hefted my large hammer and started hammering away at the smooth rocks bordering the large corn plantation. My friend, Arjen was charming the corn(yeah, you heard it....... read it right). We were suited for these menial tasks despite Arjen being a boy and me being a girl. Rocks are  easy to manipulate since I am the freaking daughter of the freaking goddess Coatlique. The Aztecs just had to be complicated because I can't even pronounce my mom's name.  Coatlique is the goddess of the earth, mom of the gods, mom of the moon, mom of the sun et cetera. In short, she gets a gazillion presents for mother's day. Normally, you would expect me to have many motherly qualities - no such luck. Before I came here, I lived with my father in a pretty rough neighborhood. Most of the time he was away at his "pepper" farm (clue:it wasn't really a pepper farm) and I stayed home alone. Definitely, I had developed some crazy tactics and habits and I seriously hate babies . My friend, Arjen, is the son of the terrifying, magnificent Cinteotl;god of maize. Cinteotl isn't the only god of corn.  They are gods for each type of corn maybe even popcorn, just don't get me started on them. The aztecs had a deity for everything. They were so many that everybody knew only a handful of them - those who were important to them. My dad would have prayed to the "pepper" god and mom. But to make matters worse, they had super hard names. 

It was normal day here at Kandue (pronounced CAN - DEWY). It's not a real place in Mexico or anywhere else because the gods separated it from the earth to make a prison for us — their children. Cheery bunch those gods. My own 'loving' mother was there when I was imprisoned and she definitely won't get the 'mom of the year' award. There was that stupid guy called Hultipotl who was a son of Tlaloc(god of rain, lightning blah blah blah)  who showed off his powers to the mortals and they started worshipping him. The gods were angered. They shaved him and threw  him to the underworld. Hair was a big deal back in Mexica.  Since they couldn't refrain from having babies every time, they imprisoned them and had them overworked by nagualli. These were some major league disgusting, shape-shifting witches who were replicas of the furies from Greece except that they were in thousands. You couldn't throw a stone without hitting one of them.  They carried whips with which they used on us. Maybe one was lying nearby in the form of a rock waiting for me to put my hammer down . Thanks alot Hultipotl!!!! 

Arjen stood up and brushed sweat from his small forehead. I looked around to make sure that the nagualli circling overhead had flown away, "you're sweating because of talking to plants?" 

Arjen looked at me with his warm,  brown eyes, " it's harder than it seems Harley. Some even ignore me."

"Yeah, right," I laughed. "How long have you been here?" 

" About a month. You?"

"Two years," I mumbled as my mood dulled even further. 

I hate to be reminded of my stay at Kandue. It was the worst place ever. As extreme as you think the earth is, the floating island of Kandue is worse. The elements are five times as bad. If it rains, it floods. The sun burnt the earth and was it not for the children of the nature gods, the place would be a desert. Dying was made easier to make more room for more demigods. Get pricked with a pin and you were in danger of bleeding out. Kandue was designed to destroy the mortal essence thus the nagualli were not affected. Arjen was the only person I knew because he was assigned to work in a zone near me. I rarely got to him because of the nagualli circling overhead as hawks but he was close enough to talk to his half-siblings. I also had half-siblings except that they weren't mortal and they included the earth, moon, gods and the sun. So I was actually breaking down my brother. Coatlique wasn't big on having mortals kids but it happened occasionally. 

Arjen had long, blonde  hair which included his eyebrows, a few hundred freckles and a thin,  wiry body frame. The only thing he lacked to pull off the geeky look was a pair of dorky spectacles.  I had become fond of his chants even though he had creeped me out on the first day. He sat down within the corn and looked at the clear sky. I continued hammering the stones while memories of my old life replayed in my mind. It all seemed so distant. I remembered Tim and me running away from the local bike gang bikers. I would fall and he would laugh and grab my hand to help me up. I remembered when I was a little girl asking dad where mom was. He would bite his lower lip and avert his gaze and then he would say that she was always with me. I remembered when nagualli broke into our house just after my thirteenth birthday. Dad killed two of them before mom appeared for the first time and cast a spell on him. He and Coatlique looked on as the nagualli took me away. I continued splitting the rocks imagining every rock had my mom's beautiful face on it. 

SNAP! The sound interfererd with the rhythm of my hammer. It was a whip. I spun round to see Arjen fall forward his grey t-shirt soaking with blood. The nagual had snuck up too quietly considering that it was in the form of an ostrich with two, large muscular arms that  might have belonged to the bikers back at home. It cackled like those witches in Scooby-Doo. "Arjen," I sputtered, "are you okay?" Normally, I didn't associate myself with other people's problems but Arjen's helplessness struck a nerve. The hammer left my hand in a blur and landed a hit on the witch's torso. Her whip left her hand as she fell in a pile of ruffled feathers . Arjen sputtered and winced in pain. I imagined pain was also magnified here.  I stomped the ground hard using it like play - doh. A fissure split the rocky terrain connecting me and the witch. She seemed more startled than hurt. She wriggled around trying to find her footing(or was it taloning? ). But apparently it was hard for a buff ostrich. She slipped into the crevice . The edges turned into sand and the crevice's walls collapsed inward into a twenty - foot wide sinkhole. I realized what I had done when l saw the horrified look on Arjen's face. I had just committed murder. I would be tried. 

Immediately, a loud alarm blared and five nagualli similar to the first came immediately. They surrounded me in a loose circle. Since I came to Kandue, I had never been whipped because I did my work which was as easy as splitting peanuts. The one behind me whipped me so hard I almost cursed. My back exploded in pain. I turned and another whipped me again I stumbled. It felt a billion times worse than when I had rubbed my eyes after touching my dad's jalapeño pepper sauce. They were toying with me and cackling like demon chicken. My vision swam and blurred. Arjen had managed to stand up. He attacked the nearest nagual with a garden trowel. Ridiculous, I thought. 

I had committed murder and the punishment for that was death right after cutting off my blonde hair. I lost sight of Arjen when two nagualli grabbed my arms and carried me away to await trail. I would have to face my horrible mom again; hurrah! I then gracefully passed out. 

Pleas