Notice Me
Notice Me
Kira envied her parents. It was a strange thing to do, she suspected most people never envied their own mothers and fathers. But, then again, most people's parents were terrible. They were kind, loving, intelligent, willing to help whenever they were asked, and to go away whenever they weren't. Yes, Kira's parents were like a dream.
Kira envied her brothers, too, and that little sister. It was strange, but not as strange. Other people envied their siblings, after all. Wasn't that the basis of sibling rivallry? But, Kira had never really fought with any of them. Their ages, their personalities, were too varied. They didn't even look like siblings. Jacob, and his honey caramel hair, big brown eyes, was already twenty. Kira's own short, round body topped in crystal black locks was barely fourteen. And then, the twins, who looked as little like twins as possible, only six. They couldn't fight, they were far too different to even interact. And still, she envied them.
She envied her mother for her father, her father for her mother. She envied Jacob for his Hannah. She envied Abby for his Nef, and Nef for her Abby. She wished, every day, to wake up and find someone so perfect. She had dated a few boys, in her life, but compared to her early-soul-mated family... Her parents had met at nine, her brother and Hannah had gone to primary together, and then twins... they were twins, even if you excepted that little foreign girl they'd started dragging around. And here she was, five years past the latest date of comparison. Sometimes, they would congratulate her on living a normal life.
Mostly, though, they left her alone, and she almost preferred that. Just herself, and her un deniable envy.
Sometimes, she liked to imagine that tomorrow morning, a sad, scared boy would transfer into her class at school, and they would see eachother, and know.
But, of course, she'd tried that trick once before. He'd turned out to be gay.
Still, she could dream, and hope, and pray to a god she knew existed whether her family believed it or not. She never prayed for love, that would be disrespectful. She prayed that she would live happily ever after, until she found the one for her.
Maybe, in the end, that was why she was blessed enough to die first, unloved, unnoticed, and unbroken.
Forgive Me
Every time he woke from that unnecessary addiction of sleep, Athima would turn to the nearest window, and stare dead faced over his fields, glistening and dancing in the heat of his home. The great palms, so unlike the paltry counterparts they had sewn on that little planet. The grasses, blue as they world's little sky had been, but not as blue as they could be. He had been ignoring them, lately. He was old enough to know, this mood of his would pass, in time. Until then, he was forced to stare upon waking, until immortal eyes watered in the glare, and he remembered himself.
And when he stared, he saw, within green grass and tiny palms, the face of a young boy, a face so like his mothers, but with a chin that matched his own. By now, that face was probably long dead, buried, withered to dust.
Athima had his own sons, strong, healthy, powerful. Two still in children's chains, and fourteen others, powerful, prime adults. He had his daughters as well.
But, when the dredges of sleep clung to his eyes, all he saw in their faces was his ancient betrayal. Who could leave their first born to die?
Come With Me
"I... Take me home, Mael. I want you to take me home." Julian begged, in the dark of their shared quarters upon the Arjuna. The plea came from only silence, abrupt and pained. The cries of a mortal man, taken from a world that barely counted as civilized. To call him out of his element would be nothing short of cruel. There weren't words in the average man's vocabluary for the sort of psychological reworking that Julian must have been undergoing.
Mael gritted his teeth. Julian was a mage, if nothing else. Mages had no business being trapped on backwards worlds hell bent on enslaving and eventually killing them. He would not go back to that place, not until so much time had passed that it wouldn't matter anymore. He rolled away from the shivering body of his mortal companion, callous disregard radiating from his every movement. He had heard of abductions similar to what he was doing now, and the easiest, fastest way for the little, confused native to snap back to themselves was to surround them with unfathomable things until they nearly drowned, and offer no help. That was the virtue of being alive, the ability to adapt.
Julian would be fine, soon. "Please, Mael, please..."
Leave Me Alone
Arisa had seen that expression before, on the faces of a handful of weird folk. Secret keepers and taunters all in one.
"I can smell it on you. You stink of it. How is it possible that your little friends do not know, I wonder?" Aramina asked, her voice filled with the pompous pride of a Djinn among those so soon destined to die. "What do you call ourselves, you who sell godhood for a night?"
"Vendit Raptas." Arisa replied, her voice clinically cold. From what she had heard, "the" Aramina, god among mortals, took pleasure from being alone. That was a habit Arisa could understand easily enough. So, why was the woman following her around?
"Ah yes. Merchants of Rapture, that was it. I always appreciated that name. How many uncivilized worlds called their destruction the Rapture? Poets and murderers make strange bedfellows." Arisa resisted the urge to lash out against the woman. She could be killed as easily as a fly, after all. Probably, the ignorant god didn't even realize what a pain she was being.
"Oh, I know. I am testing you, precious little beast. You do, after all, protect lives hundreds of times more important that your own, Marissa." Before she knew what had happened, Arisa's webbed hand had lashed out against the idiot woman who dared use her most intimate name. And that hand was now being crushed in a grip tighter than iron, and her water was gone, all around her only gravity and dry, unbreathable air. "My little Marissa." Even suffocating, the name made Arisa flinch. "You try so hard to be better than you are."
She was flying through the air now, and her back cracked against the hard wall. Three things snapped, but she did not know what they were. She only knew the pain radiating from her every cell. She was broken, she was bleeding, she was being crushed by magic not her own, and she couldn't even breathe.
And then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. The fractures remained, but the magic, the suffocation, all at once it disappeared. One eye opened, searching for the face of her attacker. But, Aramina was gone as well.
And, from that moment onwards, though they occasionally passed by eachother, never another word was spoken.
Hate Me
TBC
Love Me
TBC
Say GoodBye to Me.TBC