“Humans are inherently inconsistent in all theaters, but especially relationships. It’s why I avoid them like the plague. It’s just a happy coincidence that they treat me similarly.”
-Light Technician Lucius, most well known as the eccentric inventor of the first Light-Tech transports.
Well, this is going to be suitably awkward, isn’t it? I haven’t seen Emily since the last very uncomfortable dinner our families hosted, before they realized that the whole thing wasn’t going to work out. And wasn’t that fun, having to quietly explain to your completely understanding parents that you’d been rejected and hadn’t bothered to inform them. They were just so enthused about that.
I didn’t feel bad about it, I was still dealing with being rejected at the time, regardless of how polite Emi had been about it.
Polite rejection is still rejection. Just like getting stabbed isn’t pleasant, even if it’s ‘just’ in your forearm. Not that I’m talking from experience there or anything. It'd be crazy to force your child to deal with extreme injuries just so they might be a better warrior. I avoided thinking too hard about just who had gone through such things.
But taking a wild guess, I’m assuming that there was a reason that the three scions had been put in a group for the first time in living memory. Complaining to the headmaster that “the pretty girl doesn’t like me as much as I like her, and that’ll be awkward” doesn’t feel like a thing that’ll outweigh whatever scheming was going on in the background. Scheming is a dick like that.
So I walked past all the whispering and gossiping expected from such an announcement like I was walking to my execution, wondering if the tower above me was tall enough to be a fatal fall, or if it’d just break both my legs. Happy thoughts for a happy person.
I spot her as I finish climbing the steps, standing in a circle clearly marked with a “5” with the rest of what I figure is the rest of our group. She’s still as perfect as she was when I saw her last, and it hurt to look at her.
So I didn’t.
Very mature, I know. At least there was no particular lack of interesting sights around the courtyard we found ourselves dwelling in. The green in front of me is covered with circles, each filled with some pretty unique looking people. It reminded me of the paper I had to write on Augustus and his writings on what decides if someone becomes Awakened.
A boring project, considering my parents had insisted on me reading his collection long before that, given the whole House-Founder status thing, so explaining what was even then super basic information had been so boring. Strong personality good, stress good. Bloodline maybe-probably good. Me caveman, present on topic good. It was fun like that.
Anyways, when combining all that with the fact that Awakened tended to have physical changes and with the whole thing where our society glorifies Awakened, and you get some interesting looks. Like the girl in the group to my right, who seemed to be using Light Tech to make it seem like her hair was made of fire.
Until I saw an overly curious guy in her group pass his hand through it and pull it back as though burned. Huh. Makes me glad that only my eyes changed, reflecting the same colors as my primary Manifest.
Speaking of which, I had to keep my primary from reflexively manifesting as a voice behind me broke me out of my reverie.
“Awkward ending last time y’all met, huh” a confident, slow voice drawled out from behind me.
“Yeah. About as fun as trying to take teeth from a ‘mare. How’d you know?” I responded, trying not to betray how much he’d surprised me.
“I see connections in a more literal way.” He chuckled like he’d just told an inside joke “It’s how I know you’re in group five with me. I’m Stephen. You Jay?” he finished, extending his hand, still smiling like the cat that ate the canary.
There’s something strange about how he speaks, like he’s walking a tightrope as he talks to me, preoccupied with something only he can see. I can’t see if he has any noticeable signs of being awakened, but the black frames blocking his eyes, especially on a day as nice as this, make it obvious. His frame is otherwise thin and lanky, almost like he’d been stretched out. I instinctively start imagining how it’d benefit and hurt him in a fight as I shake his hand. Long reach, probably weaker base. Go low and tough and it’d probably be hard for him to block it.
Not that frame is that helpful when it comes to us. Manifesting does a bunch of wacky things to the body, such as noodly arms like his becoming capable of breaking stone.
“Man might get the wrong idea, you keep looking at him with eyes like that, friend.” he responded, still in that methodical drawl.
“Sorry, were they red again? I’m working on it, but old habits die hard.” I quickly apologize.
Dad would lose his mind if I had telegraphed what I was thinking that much in front of him. Well, not actually, but he would be disappointed that I was giving up an advantage. Stephen seems to notice my retreat into introspection, and points towards our group.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“You wanna go meet the rest of them? Not like the other two are gonna be as awkward to meet.” He says, clearly not understanding the depths of awkwardness I am capable of reaching. Foot-Mouth syndrome was a dear friend of mine. Also surprisingly willing to look past the whole red eyes thing, so that was neat. Probably because we both had eyes as our visible signs of Awakening.
“Not particularly, but don’t think I have much of a choice” I muse aloud, not even noticing the comfort of my primary manifesting around my ears. The music starts to play as we approach, the glowing gems embedded in the sides of the headphones glowing a grey-blue. It’s hard to get the bitter taste out of my mouth, despite knowing that it was more my fault how things went down.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHociqV8YJY&pbjreload=101)
A hand on my shoulder stops me this time, and I turn, eyes and gems flashing red. It quickly fades as I realize just who it was that was stopping me. I can’t tell if the chill in the air is just imagined, but I wasn’t about to ask the Headmaster if he was trying to make me a little chilly. It never even occurred to me that the source of the chills had nothing to do with Awakenings. I was trying to reconcile where I had seen him last with where he was now, and it kind of hurt my brain.
“You may want to take those off for a moment, young man. I doubt she will appreciate the results any more than you will.” He stated, as if it was an inviolable fact. “I appreciate the difficulty of this moment, and if you really don’t think it’ll work I’ll move you. Just know that demonstrating self-control and pushing through without too much incident would be…. appreciated by many” He then was gone as fast as he’d appeared, leaving me with words that were as packed with implication as they were ominous.
It told me a lot about why we’d been placed together, but also implied unpleasant consequences if I couldn’t make it work. Goody, I just loved hanging swords above my neck. Not that my stubborn nature or slight obsession was going to let me try anything else, but it was still good to know.
Speaking of my obsession, there she was. And she smiled as she saw me standing next to the frozen Stephen, nearly making me forget everything that had happened. Emi has this way of smiling that makes people drop their guard, like the whole rest of the world was falling out of focus for a brief, ethereal moment. It certainly made me feel that way for a second, as she brushed the blonde hair back from in front of her eyes as she approached. I kept my eyes from going any lower than that, but I had spent enough time staring at her to know what frame rested beneath those piercing ice blue eyes.
It sounds super creepy I know, but you only have one first love ok? I recognize now it was more puppy love, but still. This is a person that’s super important to me, and someone I used to have a very close connection to, in years past. I slip off my headphones as she closes, letting the music and its dreary sound fade.
So when she stopped in front of me, inspecting me for a second, as if she was checking for wounds, it felt like slipping into a blanket from my childhood. Warm, comforting, but a reminder of how much had changed since, how growth had permanently alienated me from the person I had been before.
And then she slapped me.
----------------------------------------
I’ve been slapped before, don’t get me wrong, but never so unexpectedly. The fact that she started nearly screaming at me after didn’t help. I didn’t catch the beginning, gaping at her like, well, she had just slapped me for no reason.
“Leaving the City! LEAVING?!” She hissed “They barely let trained soldiers and Awakened do that, and you just decide to WALTZ OUT THERE like its Festival night? You promised me you were done with shit like that Jay, and I’ve never known you to break a promise, but HERE WE ARE.”
She paused for a moment, and I thought she was done, but then she awkwardly hit me in the chest as she continued not-yelling at me.
“What the FUCK were you thinking? You didn’t even bring a weapon! What were you gonna do, punch a ‘mare to death? Poke them with a stick!?” She ranted on, justifiably angry.
I continued gaping. Clearly she had talked to my parents, if she knew that much about what had happened during my ‘vacation’. Not even some of the closer branch families knew that much. Not that, that was going to last with Emi yelling about it in front of this many people, but that wasn’t really something I cared about. I had never seen Emi this angry before.
The time I tried to kill myself hadn’t even made her this mad. That was the promise she was referencing, incidentally. That I wouldn’t try again as long as she lived. It was a promise that had gotten me through some dark times, before I had decided that living was worthwhile. It wasn't an exaggeration to say she was a significant reason for my continued toiling along this mortal coil.
So when the red haired girl behind her started, like she was going to grab Emi to keep her from hitting me(which I only just now realized she was still hitting me with each breath. It kinda hurt, she was combat trained as long as I had been, after all., I was surprised to see Stephen grab her wrist and shake his head at her.
“Get the feeling this has been long coming, might wanna let them sort it out” he said, still stating things he had no right knowing. He gestured to our fifth, and they moved out of hearing distance.
Not that it’d help if Emi kept yelling, or if everyone and their dreams kept staring at us. That’s when I made the fatal mistake, the one every reasonable human has tried with someone who’s upset, and literally never succeeded.
“Emi, you need to calm down, you’re kinda making a scene” I sedately uttered, forgetting that those words have literally never achieved their purpose. While doing that, I tried deflecting the hand she was hitting me with.
I did not succeed. At all. At any of the objectives. I’m here to report that she immediately put me on my ass. Hard.
“CALM DOWN. You want me to calm down. She yells, and I wince. “You try committing death by Nightmare, and you want me to calm down?!” I notice some people around us wince as she says that, surprised she’s willing to commit such a faux pas in public. She’s never cared much about it in private, but I’d be surprised if she didn’t end up hearing about it from her parents.
“Would it help if I say I wasn’t trying to kill myself?” I desperately query, as she stands over me, looking perfectly willing to complement what I assume will be a bruised sternum with bruised ribs. I’d be offended if we weren’t both intimately aware of how fast Awakened can heal.
To my great surprise, it actually does. She tilts her head at me, and a rebellious lock of hair framed her jaw is a way that was so perfect it felt like my heart was getting shanked.
“I just wanted to see if I could get past the border, and got caught by an Exis. Not my fault” I quickly got out, before her great and holy mercy eventually inevitably ran out and she hit me again.
And then I wince again, realizing that bringing up an Exis might not have been the best idea if I was trying to calm her down. She freezes as she looks at me.
“An Exis? You fought an Exis? Without me? And lived?” She bombards me with questions as she helps me up. While still hitting me in the chest, I should mention. She’s multi talented like that.
“Well, fought is a strong word. More ran real fast for as long as it took a strike team to find me.” I admit. But then I drop the bait that I hope will move us past the whole ‘hit Jay a lot’ part of the conversation that I wasn’t super enjoying.
“I did get to see the Will ‘o the Wisp fight it though. That was pretty cool.” I say nonchalantly, hoping that bringing up her hero will get me out of trouble.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.” She glares at me as I try to remain casual. “But tell me everything.” she says enthusiasm leaking from her every pore.
So I did.