Just Friends

Rowan

"Oh really?" I asked skeptically. "Because you just expect me to be nice to one of the people keeping me here against my will? Keeping me here so I can get tortured and then eaten afterwards? Oh, sure, I'll be nice."

Aliyah

"Good." I replied firmly. "Cause I won't put up with you being rude."

I paused for a moment, then a please smile worked its way onto my lips.

"I'm the top of my class in magic, so if you are bad then I can get you. The lady said we could punish you for bad things.. so it'd be okay."

Rowan

"I was being sarcastic," I said. "Hell no, I'm not going to be nice! Really, put yourself in my place. Someone who you thought was a friend deceived you, froze your body, tied your hands behind your back, dragged you onto a flying creature, and ripped you away from the life you'd only just started yesterday. You were forced apart from someone you care dearly about, someone you were destined to fall in love with and spend forever with. The person who abducted you then brought you to her home where you were to wait to be tortured indefinitely and then eaten alive. Now, how would that make you feel?"

Aliyah

I wrinkled my nose in thought, considering what he said then frowning a little.

"...sad."

Rowan

"Exactly," I answered. "Now you know a little of how I feel. I had my whole life ahead of me, and you starlighters are taking that away. Hell, I never even got to hit adulthood. There are so many things I'll never be able to experience now. And for what? Just so a few starlighters can have a snack. I hope you're happy."

Aliyah

I frowned a little more, glaring at it.

"Not a snack." I corrected slowly. "People are starving. We can eat other things, but that doesn't work very well. Say I eat squirrel meat, about an hour later I'll be hungry again. But say I eat a bit of fay, I don't have to eat again for almost a week, maybe longer. You say we're stealing you life, but if we didn't then where would we be? Answer that."

Blair

The fay on the other side of the door turned out to be none other than Caycee, her face fixed in a tight frown as she cast her eyes around the room till they landed on me. Practically pushing her way in the door, she didn’t even wait for any sign of an invitation as she glanced around once more.

“How’re you?” She demanded, eyes coming back to me as she spoke.”

“Fine,” I grumbled in reply, looking past her to where Liam was closing the door.

He watched her uneasily, suddenly seeming nervous as he retreated towards the hall. I almost asked him what was going on, when I realized that maybe it was Caycee herself that had him uneasy. I made a mental note to figure out why later, perhaps I could use that to my advantage.

She frowned, casting an irritated look over her shoulder at him before turning her attention back to me. At first she tilted her head, as if considering what to say then she just sighed, seeming to give up on any tact.

“You know that they won’t be doing anything to help your mate, right?”

I immediately flushed, the word reminding me of what I’d learned of the light. “That… that isn’t true.. I mean.. they have to do something.. We can’t just leave him with them.. He’ll be.. He’ll be…”

“Eaten.” Caycee finished for me, then hesitated, the look on her face softening slightly. “It’s the truth darling, they won’t even try. The council long ago decided that the loss of life when attempting a rescue wasn’t worth it.”

“But-” I cut off, having no clue what to say.

“Honey…” Caycee murmured after a moment, the hesitation on her face quite clear. “I wouldn’t try what you’re thinking. You’ll only get yourself killed… would he have wanted that?”

“Shut up!” I snapped, ignoring the shock on her face. “Don’t talk like that! He’s not dead.”

Caycee sighed, her hand messing with a curl. “You don’t know that, and it doesn’t matter… he will be soon. If you do what you’re thinking, then you will be too.”

“I…I can’t believe you.” I seethed, clinching my fists. “You can just stand there, and talk like all this doesn’t matter. It does. He’s my friend. My …soulmate. How can you just… expect me to just..stand here?”

She seemed to almost hesitate, glancing at the hall then back to me. “….I don’t.”

Rowan

"You couldn't ask to have any bodies of already-dead Fay delivered to your city?" I asked skeptically. "You couldn't ask Fay to donate just a small portion or whatever that they could get healed later? Does coexistence with the Fay simply not cross your hopelessly narrow minds?"

((I'm not sure that he was expressly told about healers, but...I dunno, maybe he found out about them while in town >.>))

Aliyah

"You try talking to them." I snapped, anger sweeping over my mind. "Try talking to a people who think you're monsters. Centuries of conflict and you expect them to do that for us? Besides.. not all of us care about this arrangement."

I paused, choosing my next words as carefully as possible.

"My nature...my kind.. are not meant to care. We were made to prey on the, made by....him to kill them. It's in our very nature to kill you. The cruelty expressed by most.. that's not them being different.. its just.. the way we were meant to be. Those who are not.. they are the ones who aren't right."

Rowan

"Centuries of conflict could've been avoided from the start," I said darkly. "And I have no idea who this 'him' is you've all been talking about, but just because he created you for some horrible purpose doesn't mean you actually have to do it. You're free-thinking beings. And by the way, this whole not showing emotions thing is one of the most ridiculous piles of horseshit I've ever heard. Why bother hiding something that everyone experiences anyway? What's the point of shunning someone for feeling sad or angry if you feel that way, too? That's like ridiculing someone for having hair. Everyone has hair."

Yeah...ordinarily, I would never swear in front of a child, but I was so beyond caring about anything by now... I guess I was just too...bitter.

Aliyah

"Well..." I sputtered, trying to figure out what to say. "You're... you're just.. being mean. I told you not to be mean. If Auntie finds out you're gonna be in trouble."

Rowan

"I'm being mean?" I asked with a strange mix of incredulity and a touch of developing hysteria. "I'm being mean?! Oh, that's just brilliant. Freaking fantastic. Sarcasm again, by the way. You really are something, you know that? And you can go ahead and tell her. I don't even freaking care anymore. If it weren't for the single shred of hope I have now, the infinitesimal drive to wait because maybe someone will come for me, I'd explode my own life and kill myself right here, right now."

...Okay, maybe I was going a little insane from all this. But what did it matter? Nothing mattered anymore.

Aliyah

......

"You're loud too." I informed him after a moment. "And killing yourself wouldn't be good at all. Dead things aren't fun to eat."

Rowan

My palm met my forehead with a resounding smack.

"I give up..." I muttered. "I just give up. And I'll inform you, when the time comes for me to be eaten, I will kill myself. Consider it a last, personal 'Eff you and go to hell' from me."

Aliyah

I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms angrily. "Well, that's just no fair."

Pulling myself out of the chair I glanced around the room, eyes settling on the bookcase. Smiling a little suddenly, I ran over and searched till I found the one Auntie read to me yesterday, then ran over to the fay.

"Can you read this too me?"

Rowan

"Give me one good reason why I should," I practically growled. I was just...not in the mood for this. Hell, I was going to die. I wasn't in the mood for anything.

Aliyah

"Cause...Cause..." I mumbled, trying to think of one. "Cause I can't read yet.... and Auntie read it to me yesterday when I finally got to come home from the dark place after the changing..."

Rowan

"I mean one reason I should read to someone who's making sure I stay put while I wait to be slaughtered," I said, still in that practically growling voice. "Why should I do anything nice for you?"

Aliyah

"Cause...." I sniffed, lowering the book from where I'd been holding it up for it. "Cause... you're not mean like a lot of people. You're not mean... but... that's okay I guess. I'm not supposed to pout..."

The last sentence was mostly to myself, and I turned to go and put it back on the shelf, then hesitated and changed directions, pulling myself up into Auntie's chair again and flipping to the first page of the book.

"........"

Rowan

I was silent for a moment, then sighed.

"Fine..." I muttered. "I'll read you the godsdamned book. And I thought you said I was mean."

Why was I doing this...? Oh, right, I'd lost it. That explained a lot.

Aliyah

I looked up surprised, then grinned, hopping down from the chair and running back over to him.

"You're only mean sometimes." I explained, bouncing on my heels as I held out the book to him. You're mean when you say bad things about what my Mama taught me, but you're nice too. I can tell it...."

I nodded slowly, deciding that was right. My instincts were slightly stronger than most of those around me, as was my connections with minds. Mama told me that was probably my skill, and I guess that was okay. It wasn't as cool as some of the starlighers I knew, but I guess it keeps me from getting assigned somewhere away from home like Auntie was.

Rowan

"There's a difference between being mean and being bitter, you know," I said flatly as I took the book. "And being condemned to death can make anyone bitter." I let out a quiet breath. Not really a sigh, but reaching one. "...Now, let's see here..."

And I started reading it to her, tracing my index finger under the words so she could see what they were as I was saying them. For a moment, I had to keep myself from faltering; I realized...I'd been reading like this to Danae right before we were murdered. I attempted to shove the thought aside, trying also to keep my voice and my hands from shaking.

Aliyah

For a little while I just listened to him read, but this little nagging feeling pulled at my thoughts. I tried ignoring it but it didn't work that well, making it hard for me to focus on the story at all.

"You're upset." I grumbled finally. "You weren't this user before. Why now?"

Blair

“What?”

First she says I’ll die if I go, and now she’s said that she doesn’t expect me to just… stand here. So what exactly does she mean? Does she mean I’m free to go die? Somehow… that didn’t exactly sound right..

"I said..." she murmured slowly. "That I don't expect you to just sit here. You can't just go racing off either. I..I can get you there, and tell you how to get in, but after that it would be up to you. If you got yourself killed....it'd be your fault."

Her tone was blunt..but behind the words there was a softness, some kind of vulnerably that made me wonder how many people had this happened to before. How many had watched their friends be taken away, and been told there was no chance of helping them. Gritting my teeth I decided that had to change. These people were going to see that it wasn't impossible.

When I saved Peter, they'd see.

Rowan

"Because," I said tonelessly, "remember the part about being taken away from the person I'm meant to fall in love with and spend forever with? Because of the place she came from, she never learned to read very well. The day we were murdered as humans and reborn as Fay...right before it happened, I'd been reading to her exactly like this."