Sands And Sarah Bonding
The sound of two dirt bike motorcycles revving their engines as the pair raced across the hard-packed dirt somewhere in the middle of a Nevada desert filled the late night air. It was almost midnight, and the temperature had dropped all the way down to the low forties (farenheit), a far cry from what most who hadn’t experienced a desert at night thought it would be. Yet despite the fairly low temperature and the fact that the bikes were going rapidly enough for windchill to be a true concern for most people, the riders showed no reaction to the chill. They wore little in the way of protective equipment, largely because both were more durable than any equipment they might’ve worn, and any damage they sustained would be healed away in a matter of minutes anyway. They did, however, have helmets on. Both as a just-in-case measure, and because the visors kept the rampant amount of dust their bikes were kicking up out of their eyes.
Other than those helmets, both riders wore simple tee shirts and jeans, along with a backpack. They raced across that desert, occasionally glancing toward one another and making a hand gesture to adjust their direction or speed slightly. Ahead of them, a lonely rock outcropping sticking up in the middle of the otherwise empty bit of desert almost seemed to glow very faintly.
It was a glow that was much more distinct from the point of view of the two riders. Viewed through their helmet visors, the rock was distinctly bright blue, guiding them straight to it. Once they were near enough, the rock began to hum dangerously, a sound audible even over the dirt bike engines. Both riders simultaneously thumbed a control on the throttle of their bikes, sending an electronic signal that made the dangerous humming cease. As soon as it did, the rock stopped glowing. Or at least, most of it did. Two smaller spots on the rock remained bright blue. The first in the shape of an arrow pointing off into the distance, while the second was the number two. Both would only be visible through these visors, or by using something similar. To anyone else who might have happened to pass by out here, the rock would simply have that very faint, almost imperceptible glow that could be dismissed as reflection from the moon and stars.
One of the riders waved to the other, gesturing for them to stop before bringing their own bike to a halt just about a hundred feet beyond the rock after making that turn. As the engine idled, Sandoval Lucas reached up to tug her helmet off, holding it loosely in one hand while looking over at her identical twin sister, who had done the same. “Two more markers before we reach their camp!” she called over the engine sound. “How much further do you think that’ll be?”
Sarah’s head shook, while she turned off her own engine and stepped off the bike to stretch her legs. They had been riding for over an hour. As her sister joined her and silence fell over the surrounding desert, she replied simply, “Could be twenty miles, could be a hundred yards. They don’t want anyone to be able to know where they are. They don’t trust very easily.”
“Tell me about it,” Sands murmured while stretching her arms out over her head and going up onto her toes. “They’re kinda paranoid that way. I mean, not that I can blame them. But hey, at least we get to go on a little ride. And the scenery’s pretty cool.” She said that while turning in a circle, taking in the mostly-flat desert around them with a slight grimace. “At least, it was earlier. I’m starting to think the reason our friends have been able to stay hidden this long is because no one in their right minds would spend more than ten minutes looking around out here.”
The place they were heading for was one of several encampments similar to Wonderland. At one time, it had been thought that that place was the only American-based safe retreat for Alters away from being hunted by Boscher Heretics. But the Auberge, that (usually) untouchable hotel existed, and there were also other hidden camps. They were simply difficult to find, many consisting of only a couple dozen small families who were very good at never attracting attention. For the most part, they were left alone, consisting of civilians who were better off hiding than trying to fight. The Rebellion sometimes sent medical and food supplies when needed. Other times, they brought educational and entertainment supplies.
That was what Sands and Sarah were doing now. Their backpacks contained games, movies, puzzles, books, and other things that could help pass the time. Not solely Earth-based stuff either, there was entertainment in their bags from a couple other worlds too. The leader of this particular camp had reached out to the Fusion School to ask for help on that front, and Principal Fellows had made sure a package was put together. It might not have been a life and death situation, but they all knew very well just how bad it could be to have nothing to do.
Besides, they wanted these people to know they could be counted on to help even with the little things. They needed to build relationships. At least, that was what Principal Fellows said, and she seemed to be pretty smart. Especially when it came to working with other people.
Simply teleporting straight to the camp was out of the question, given the defenses the place kept up. Defenses they either couldn’t, or wouldn’t take down even for a limited time. Thus this little motorcycle trip. The twins knew they were probably being observed the whole way, the rightfully paranoid people they were bringing the games and movies to watching to ensure they were who they claimed to be.
“It could be worse,” Sarah noted while the two of them took in the surrounding flat land. She smiled a tiny bit while glancing sidelong toward her sister. “The company isn’t bad.”
Grinning back that way, Sands held the other girl’s identical gaze for a moment before blurting, “Can you believe this? I mean, what we’re doing. We’re taking books and movies to people who… who…”
“Who we would have killed before,” Sarah continued for her, voice flat. “People we were training to kill.”
“People we watched hundreds of other Heretics get trained to kill, over the years,” Sands agreed. “Have you ever really sat there and thought about that? I mean, have you ever thought about all those people we watched get trained to kill? I guess I didn't actually consider it very much back before… before we understood any of this. But now that we do, it really is kind of… fucked up.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment before giving a short nod. “I think about it all the time. We used to sit on the roof and watch them train. Remember the game we played?”
With a visible flinch, Sands confirmed, “Yeah. We sat on that roof and guessed how many monsters each of those older kids would have killed in five years, ten years, twenty years. We watched them and made up stories about what grand heroes they’d end up being. We just… we watched how good they were and fantasized about how many evil beasts they would slay.” There was a hard lump in her throat, forcing the girl to swallow a few times before speaking again. “And then we made up stories about how we were going to kill more monsters than any of them. We thought we were gonna be so incredible.”
“We’re still killing monsters,” Sarah pointed out. “I always wanted to kill monsters. Just… the right ones. The bad ones, like that Fomorian. Whenever we watched the older kids training, I thought about what happened on the boat and wondered how long they would have lasted against that monster. I used to watch the… the really good ones and think, ‘maybe they would have lasted five seconds before he killed them.’ Even before I went through the Edge and… and remembered everything.”
“Eesh, kinda dark,” Sands noted with a grimace. “But you’re right, I get it. There are very bad things out there that need to be fought. Things normal people can’t deal with. But that doesn't change the fact that all those older kids we watched for so long were being trained to be mass murderers. And… and our dad is helping them keep doing it.” Belatedly, she amended, “He’s helping them keep doing it again. He already betrayed Flick’s mom and forced the Rebellion to go into the open before they were ready back in the old days. And now he’s helping them by playing headmaster for the school and keeping all that under control. Why won’t he listen to anyone?”
Before replying to that, Sarah reached into her pocket and tugged out a baseball. She examined the thing in her hand and let out a heavy sigh. “He's afraid. He's made too many bad choices. And they all come from one choice. He chose to betray his friends because he decided it was the right thing to do. And every single thing he's done since then has been built on that choice. His entire life is built on that. That choice is the cornerstone of his whole reality. If that was wrong, then his entire world falls apart. Some people are strong enough to handle that and move on with a better foundation. Our dad isn't.” The last part came matter-of-factly, as though it was something she had come to understand and accept quite some time ago. “He’s weak.”
Sands muttered a curse or two under her breath before jogging away from her sister with her hand raised for the ball. At the same time, she replied, “He could be stronger. People can change if they just try. He could walk away from that and be a better person whenever he wanted to. All he has to do is choose that.”
Sarah reared back to chuck the ball that way casually. “If he accepts that he was wrong, he has to accept all the bad things that came from that. If he accepts that nonhumans aren’t all monsters, he has to accept that he… that a lot of innocent people are dead because of him.”
“But that doesn’t get better the longer he lets it go on!” Sands insisted while catching the ball barehanded. “Every second he stays there, every second he keeps helping them, he's making that decision over and over again. It's not just one decision. He's making it every second of every day.” She rolled the ball between her fingers, then tossed it back. As late as it was, the desert was still illuminated by thousands of stars and the bright moon. Enough for both of them to watch the ball quite easily.
Snatching it out of the air with a quick snap of her wrist, Sarah sent it right back without missing a beat. She didn’t say anything, simply allowing her sister to continue.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
And continue the other girl did, catching the incoming ball with a sharp snap sound against her palm before sending it back with a short grunt. She threw the ball hard, too hard maybe, but Sarah still caught it, even as Sands lamented, “He's choosing this, actively choosing it. He built this rickety tower on that keystone and he just keeps going higher and higher instead of climbing down the fucking ladder that everyone keeps trying to hold up for him. There’s a ladder there, Sarah, there’s a ladder he could climb down any time he wanted to. Gaia held it out for him, Mom held it out for him, all these people keep holding up the ladder for him and he just keeps ignoring it. He could be a better person, he could choose to change. He doesn’t. He-- he doesn’t care enough. About us, about Mom, about his old friends, he’s just-- fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!”
Her scream echoed out over the desert, as she dropped to her knees with her fists clenched tightly and raised over her head. Tucking her chin down, Sands covered her head with her arms in a somewhat protective gesture. She rocked back and forth like that in the sand and dirt, feeling her sister approach.
Sarah didn’t say anything. She just dropped the ball nearby and knelt next to the other girl, then wrapped her arms around her. As she did, Sands moved her own arms out of the way before grabbing on. The two sat there together, hugging one another for a minute in silence before Sands murmured, “I miss Dad. I don’t wanna hate him. I don’t want to hate him, Sarah.” Her voice cracked through that, the tears falling freely. “I want him to be better. I want him to come back. I want…. I want…” She shivered, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t change.”
“Probably not,” Sarah agreed, “but it still matters. He’s our dad. It’s okay to miss him. It’s okay to wish he was here. It’s okay to want him back. We just… can’t let that control what we do. He does what he does, makes the choices he makes, because he wants everything to stay the way he thought it was. He cares more about the fantasy than the reality. We can’t be like that. We have to live with what is.”
Sandoval exhaled heavily, feeling a slight shudder run through her as she clung to her sister. “I know. We can’t control him, or what he does. He has to make his own choices. His own stupid, stupid choices. But Sarah, if it comes down to it, if we had to fight our dad, could you… hurt him?”
Sarah’s voice came without the slightest hesitation. “Yes. If he was trying to stop us from helping people, if he was trying to lock us up, trying to force us to be what he wants us to be? I could hurt him. He makes his choice every second, like you said. And I’ve made mine. If it comes down to it, I could hurt him.”
The two sat there together like that for another minute or so, before Sands started to push herself up. “Okay, let’s get back on those bikes.
“We’ve got a bunch of Alter kids to play Santa Claus for.”
*********
Aylen Stuck In The Past
Something was wrong. That much had been clear from the moment Aylen woke up over a thousand years in the past, of course. But it had become even more apparent over the following two weeks. Two weeks in which nothing had changed. No one had shown up to take her back to the present. No one had come to tell her what was going on or why she had ended up here. For two weeks she had been spending her days in the village where the boy who would grow up to be King Arthur, and his sister, who would become Morgan Le Fay and eventually Gaia Sinclaire, lived.
She had spent almost every moment of those days magically disguised. Which, to be fair, she had also been disguised throughout her time at Crossroads, but this was an even more extreme case. Right now, right here, she couldn’t be Native American or have her natural blue hair. It was imperative, whatever else was going on, that no one in this place knew who she really was, or when and where she had come from. She was, as far as she knew, completely alone here.
Maybe an explanation would come in time. Maybe this had something to do with the idea that she was supposed to wake up Arthur someday. Maybe it was related to her Reaper grandfather. Maybe maybe maybe. There were so many maybes, and almost nothing in the way of answers. For now, and for the foreseeable future (which, in Aylen’s case, was rather extensive), she was flying almost entirely blind as far as that went. Other than blending in and not going around telling everyone that she was from the future, the girl had no idea what she was supposed to do here.
“Ganieda!” Speaking of having no idea what she was supposed to do here, Aylen jumped at the sound of her future headmistress calling her pseudonym. A pseudonym she had chosen simply because she had read so many stories about the future-seeing sister of Merlin that it had felt like an inside joke to herself in that moment. But she was growing increasingly concerned that there might be a bootstrap situation going on here, the longer she remained stuck in this time period.
“Huh?” Turning, she looked toward the girl. And seeing Gaia as a little girl, even younger than Ganieda--Aylen herself, was… a lot. Every time Aylen looked at this scruffy young girl with dirt on her face and in her dyed hair, this gangly child with limbs that seemed awkwardly long and scrawny, and compared that to the mental image of Gaia Sinclaire, it made her smile inwardly. Morgana, as she was known right now, truly had no idea how much her life would change.
Unfortunately, there were also bad things coming with those changes. Things Aylen couldn’t warn her about any more than she could warn Arthur about everything that was coming his way. She couldn’t help, couldn’t prepare them for what they were going to become or the lives they would lead. And the better she got to know the two of them, the harder that thought became.
For now, Aylen pushed those thoughts down and focused on what was actually happening. Namely, the fact that Morgana was staring at her, obviously wondering why her new friend had been standing in place staring at nothing for the past… however long it had been, while she was supposed to be feeding the chickens in the fenced-in area behind the house. Even the chickens were clearly getting annoyed by the delay. “Sorry, I guess I zoned out for a moment there.”
Morgana, for her part, blinked uncertainly that way, head tilting with a curious look. “You have such a peculiar way of speaking, Ganieda. What is this… zoned? And why have you been out of it?”
Quickly shaking her head, not wanting the other girl to focus too much on that given the fear of how it would stick out in her memory, Aylen replied, “Sorry, it just means I was thinking about other things when I should have been focusing.” An aggravated series of clucks from the occupants of the nearby pen reinforced that point even more effectively than her own words.
Morgana offered to take the feed bag for the chickens, but Aylen assured her that she was perfectly fine doing the work. After all, their family had--well, not exactly welcomed her into their home, given how small it was, but they had at least allowed her to spend her nights in the shed behind the house, a place where she could have a roof and enclosed walls around her. And they shared their food, allowing her to eat with them. The least she could do was help out with the chores here and there.
After feeding the chickens (most of them anyway), Aylen straightened up and looked back to Morgana. “Given I can only count five chickens in there, I assume the sixth one is--”
“With Chadwick,” the other girl confirmed with a slight smirk and roll of her eyes while looking toward the nearby cottage where the sounds of proud clucking and squeals of childish delight could be heard. “That boy loves his chicken more than he loves pears. And he truly loves pears.”
Aylen grimaced. “Yeah, he was trying to climb up onto the counter a couple days ago to get at the bowl up there. The fool would have fallen if your mother hadn’t noticed just in time to yank him off of it. I didn’t even see him leave the corner where he was playing until she was there. He is… very quick and quiet when he wants to be.” She paused before adding, “Isn’t he, Arthur?”
“Hells,” the boy himself muttered while standing directly behind her, where he had been about to poke Aylen to startle her. “She gave you a signal or something, didn’t she? I know she did.”
Morgana raised a hand as though swearing an oath. “I gave no signal. She just knew.” A tiny smile found its way to her face then before she added, “She always knows, Arthur.”
The boy shook his head when Aylen turned to look that way. “One of these days, mark my words, I will take you by surprise. I'm going to figure out how you keep noticing me and get around it.”
Lifting her chin, Aylen casually replied, “Perhaps you simply need to find a way to prevent someone else from sending me a message.” Even as she said that, the girl raised an arm and allowed Sovereign, who was still disguised as an ordinary hawk, to land on it. Though his name was Socrates as far as Morgana and Arthur were concerned. Yes, it was very unlikely that the future Gaia would remember the name Sovereign and connect it back to the girl who spent some time with her, using that to somehow realize Aylen was a time traveler, but still. It was better to be safe than sorry. Even if Sovereign did bristle somewhat whenever she used the name. He was certainly not a fan.
Arthur, after giving the proud bird a good scritching, insisted, “No, it's not him. We have an understanding, don't we, boy? He wouldn't betray me like that. Besides, the other day you knew exactly where I was even though we were inside. You're doing something else to cheat.”
Aylen gave him a purposefully enigmatic smile. “The secret is that it's all done with reflections. I saw you standing there in the reflection of Morgana’s eye.” That was nonsense of course, but it was enough to make the boy stop to consider before he started sputtering in disbelief. Which made Morgana snicker, with Aylen joining her a moment later.
Shortly after that, the other two were called inside by their mother. Which left Aylen standing by the chicken coop listening to them cluck for a moment. Two weeks of this, and nothing had changed, no one had come for her. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t continue to stay here, eventually the dragon would come and everything would change. Then she would truly be changing history.
Unless she truly was the original Ganieda , and was supposed to be here the entire time.
Lost as she was in those thoughts, Aylen very nearly missed the sound of a chicken cluck from elsewhere, not next to her in the pen. Turning, she spotted Chickee pecking at the dirt across the road. And right there in the lot behind the next door cottage was Chadwick. The boy had escaped his home and was trying to climb the tree that those pears had come from. This time, he had gone from climbing the counter to get to the bowl to trying to climb up the tree itself. This despite the fact that he was only about two years old.
The boy was going to fall. Aylen could feel that. He was going to fall and… and die. Her death sense was going off. If she didn’t move, if she didn’t rush over there and catch him, he would die.
There was no hesitation in that moment. She didn’t consider the consequences, didn’t think about the what-ifs or the ramifications of time travel. She simply reacted, moving that way faster than anyone in the village could possibly have moved. With a blur of motion, the girl rocketed across the pathway, leaping off the ground just in time to extend her arms as the toddler fell backward off the tree, his skull headed straight for a pointed rock.
But Aylen caught him landing smoothly with the boy in her arms.
“Ganny!” he cheered, reaching up to poke her in the nose. “Gain-gain! Do ‘gain, Ganny!”
Giving a heavy sigh as she slowly set the boy down, Aylen shook her head. “Dude, I don’t know what happens to you in the future, but I’ll tell you one thing.
“You better have a pear tree.”