Billionaire Heir?

The sun had begun to open up it's bares to the looming world below and the streets of Grandale was begining to answer to nature's favorite call - morning.

The cockcrow were a constant heralding of another busy day. This meant that the world would soon gleam and flood with pedestrians as they went about their daily tasks in business and agriculture basically as was the majority work in Grandale.

There would soon be colorful attires going about the streets in discordant yet shockingly impressive designs and patterns.

These recurring moments, as wonderful as they should always be to ordinary people; warming and engaging, were instead always exhausting for Joan on the outset of the day.

But it was not always like this for her. She was, in the time past, cheerful as a kid most especially at the reassuring moments of sunrise in her dear country of Pelubia.

She would jump about in a vast room big enough to be their entire house and Mr Cleopas's joined together.

She still faintly remembers jumping about in an expensive flower adorned night gown while deliberately letting the butler to effortlessly chase her about while she contently enjoys him wearing a face of discomfort i tiredness and exhaustion.

Abel, a name she remembers to be answerable by the butler in her memories would always beg her to stop until he could no longer mutter a word anymore but to follow her grudgingly about and wish he had never been employed to do her bidding in that way.

Joan has always had a great deal of believe in her memories which unfortunately, no one seemed to believe or give a listening ear to for even a second. To the disbelief of people regarding those stories of hers, she cared not. Even for a single moment.

She had once in the time past started by asking her mother Valentina if she was once rich or if they had been a very wealthy family in the past before they eventually lost their wealth to fate or some financial crippling event.

The begining was never clear nor was the end but the parts that were as clear as the roof of her room every morning she wakes up was were the fact that she had once had an enjoyable life, one full of the things that naturally made one happy. A dream life. Or was it literally only that?

Joan's ruminant thoughts of her so-said fantastic life were interrupted as was the case every morning in their household by her mother's roar from downstairs in the present moment.

Their house was a bit of a local compound found on the outskirts of Grandale county.

Her hometown, Grandale , was known as she has often heard over the radio to be home to the country's den of suspected rebel terrorists who had terrorized the entire country of Pelubia in the past. They started as a rebel group against the bad post colonial government under the leadership of Doctor Vasquez Antonio.

The Pelubians had in the outset of the rebellious campaign supported the Mannetii Militia but when group lost coordination and went past their mark, the Pelubians dreaded them.

The government had, in the past, tried their best to apprehend the suspected Mannetii group of armed robberies,and assassination attempts. They had in the past been a raging burning fire, a name and news that ravaged the peace of the middle and first class citizens of Pelubia until the whole band disbanded and vanished into thin air.

"Joannna!", her mother's voice ranted the whole compound once again. She pretended not to hear the second time once again.

"I'll get up there and feed you to the hyenas if you do not, in the few seconds, fetch yourself out of bed and immediately head to the pen and see to it that the cattle are in good shape enough for us to milk them in this particular moment!"

She still did not attempt to answer her mother because she knew her mother was always full of blabbing and empty threats which if we're to be truly enacted to reality would mean the end of all life on earth.

To look at these more practically , one; they never had hyenas and she had never raised her hand against the little girl as far as she could actually remember.

Joan was therefore at ease thinking that her mother would only blabber and threaten until suddenly, as one would stumble upon a sharply pointed piece of rock, a thought slapped across her mind like a big on the windshield. It was a long time past when she actually remember that particular event but this time around, the thought made her widen her eyelids and gulp down a bunch of saliva in a strain to regain her composure.

It was one fateful time of misfortune when she had fired back at the Valentina as though she was talking to a girl her age or even younger.

" You shut up too for once and let us see if that does not hurt you once like it does me all the time you shut me up because I am a little girl," she had told the mother, in a very derogatory and disrespectful tone. That was at a time when her mother did not quite really appreciate her around a bit.

The look she saw in her mother's eyes were nothing like she had ever seen in her life. The woman stood up, walked to the fence and and tore a long piece of zinc and began to make her way towards Joan. Joan stood there in sher disbelief.

What was about to happen was her very own mother trying to punish her for the first time ever.

She had never thought in her entire life that this woman she knew to be her loving mother would ever even attempt to hurt or inflict pain beyond mere emotional insensitivity as she always did towards Joan.

For the first time in Joan's life, she felt a cold surge of fear.

That was no ordinary kind of fear, it was more like a dread of some absolute sort.

She felt helpless and naive immediately. The worst thing then was the fact that all these bands of negative emotions were borne of an assault by her very own mother, a woman whom she believed would always be there to protect her, her salvor, her shield and protector.

She looked about and saw her father, Mr Gonzalez, sitting in his favorite armchair and mending his perfectly normal fishing nets. He had not even looked up a second at the two ladies who were having an episode never before heard of or experienced between the mother and child.

What surprised Joan was how he paid no slight imp of attention and just sat there mending his nets.

Out of fear, Joan saw her life pass swiftly right in front of her. One could even say that she died a million times in that particular moment.

That day was not to be repeated, all through Joan's life. She wished never to see her mother in that phase again. It was absolute terror for Joan, her mother looked emotionless and just kept coming towards her as though what she was about to do would give her absolute joy.

Just before her mother would raise a hand and grapple Joan..., "thats far enough, my love", her father uttered in monotonous utterances.

He also said this without looking up a bit.

Upon the mention then, her mother paused , dropped the item I'm her hand and began to weep.

She ran up to her room and locked herself up for hours.

Joan's father, Mr Gonzalez walked after his wife, Valentina and kept on knocking at the door until she opened and he went inside to console her.

Joan was sure she heard her mother shout a few words out of anger, " I can't do this any longer! You are keeping me caged up in this life! I'l am fed up Mi amor! Let's end this and go to a fresh start where it is just peaceful, please!!. "

Just like that, without a word from the father, Joan heard her mother stop crying and just sob.

Later that day her mother called her up to the living room and apologized to her. She told her that she was in a very bad mood after a rough day in the fish market.

She also told Joan the story of the fight between her and a customer who insulted the reputation of her husband, Mr Gonzalez, saying he was fond of bringing rotten fish to the market. To Joan, that was a valid excuse enough for anyone to freakout, unleash hell and reek havoc upon mortals when pissed and pushed to their limits.

Joan knew her mother was never the type to freakout but that day ought not repeat itself. She would never try her mother's patience. Even for a bag of money.

She still laid upon her bed, booting like an old computer before the past flashed right through her memory in detailed texture as though it had only just taken place right in front of her like a movie.

She remembered the day when her mother lost her temper and almost killed her. Upon that realization, Joan jumped out of her bed and rushed down the wooden stairs.

"Good morning, mama." The mother looked up at her and shook her head in dissatisfaction but still did not answer, she only nodded at her to get on with the days task.

She did this by way of tilting her head towards the barn. After this, it always meant that her mother wasn't angry.

Joan grudgingly dragged her legs to carry her towards the barn. While at the entrance she could perceive the stench of faeces littered about by their three cows and 26 pigs they had.

It was always disgusting at first sight until one got into the barn for some moments. That was what always annoyed Joan about the morning periods, she always had to be the one to go after the dirt in the barn.

She could never say no or have an assistant do this for her. She just had to agree to that even though she disliked it the way she disliked sour milk producer by the same cows on occasions when they were such or had eaten bad grass.

She was now seventeen and she wondered if she had done this since the time she was one year old. It appeared funny how she would have pulled that off and she found herself laughing at herself by her own self.

It was always like that for her. She just walked into the barn and made sure to make the best use of her time there.

She often started off by greeting the animals as she was sure that they were listening before she proceeded to checking if they were okay.

She would always start off by asking the few chicken how they had before the pigs because the pigs were always the more talkative.

She never asked the cows because she always thought they were shy or introverted beings and she respected that trait of them.

She fetched the cow dung while squinting her eyes and closing her nose with a face mask, then went on to pour some water over them from the tap that came all the way from their inner compound.

That was the part she always enjoyed because playing with water was very fun for Joan.

It was the part of her daily routine that always made the best begining of any day for Joan.

She went out towards the compound and discovered her father was busy riding the horse as he always did in the morning.

She waved at him and he waved back. She knew he only meant to greet back but she dropped her stainless bucket and headed into the pen. Her father loved the horse and so did she.

What was to follow would be defined by a time traveller as a beautiful catastrophe to a sad story but it was still going to come anyway.