Half-Light
A/N: Some exploration I do intend to write for a later chapter in the novel. In which Emil muses on the strange twists of fate his passions have brought him to. Some activist angst, a bit of Emil/Marce, and inevitably introspection.
Half-Light
It was far too cold, even for February. Yet Emil knew that there was no way he and his friends would move from where they were stationed at the university entrance. "It's a welcome they want, it's a welcome we're going to give them," he reminded himself as he shrugged on his long jacket. In the dim light from the nearby streetlamps, he could barely see the banners and pennants of his group, waving slightly in the wind. Here and there some students hastily put together placards, while in one corner a few others scrounged around for whatever could serve as their midnight snack. For the most part though, people were dozing, mustering up strength for the conflagration that was sure to come with morning.
He blinked as someone walked up to him. "It's going to be rough later, Emil," Chito's grave voice said by way of greeting. "You know already what we will tell the candidates when they come?"
"All too well," Emil replied, rubbing at his eyes. He had heard all of these terms and slogans before, from his history books and even from his own recent experiences. "Always a repetition of the same old theme, but we wouldn't have to repeat ourselves if they actually listened to us," he mused as he regarded his comrade’s haggard face. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but he could already detect white hairs on Chito’s head.
He wouldn’t be surprised if he himself found a gray strand or two on his own scalp. This crusade had been going on far too long; the fury that had colored the past two years was starting to cool down. Yet the gnawing questions of truth and gaping voids of credibility still remained, and Emil knew he could not allow himself to fall silent, like so many had done. “We have to stay awake and look for solutions---or at least ask the powers that be for them,” he thought.
He sat down against a post and closed his eyes, not to rest, but rather to try to see beyond the darkness. Perhaps he could see his fellow students as they would be a few years down the road; the new faces in up and coming companies, rising names in the government circles, or maybe, just maybe, sinking into the comfort of obscurity. There were a few though like Chito who were probably not destined for the quiet life. Already he could imagine his friend tearing up the debate floor in some non-government organization, or heaven forbid, Congress.
As for him, what was there? In a few months, he would be graduating (rumor had it that he was in running for magna cum laude). He was already accepted in the best law school in the country. “Then after that, will you do what you swore to do?” he asked himself. Already he knew of the whispers, of the offers that would surely come his way once he passed the bar examinations. But that had not been his reason for going down this path; if he wanted the easy life, he would have changed his ambitions a long time ago.
The sound of footsteps approaching made him open his eyes again. “You should be asleep, Marce,” he said to the red-clad waif standing in front of him.
“I’m used to standing these sorts of watches,” she replied simply. “What about you?”
“The usual insomnia.”
“Oh.” She sat down next to him and let out a deep sigh. “Too much thinking Emil.”
“On the contrary, I’ve never been better,” he replied. He wished there had been more light, so he could see her face, even the scar that so defined her right jaw. Yet even in the darkness he knew, or rather dreamt of, the blackness of her hair and the deepness of her eyes.
“Even without those, she’d still compel me,” he realized. It had been her fire, her dead-on purpose that had intrigued him, made him want to challenge her and cut her down to size. He had no idea that she would be the spark to his kindling, and that perhaps he would exceed her in passion.
If tomorrow’s confrontation would go badly, he knew his one regret would be not letting her know of what was on his mind.
She seemed lost in thought even as she inched closer to him. “It will go fine, Emil,” she whispered. “It’s only a sit-in.”
“Yep,” he said, though he knew that somehow this was the beginning to the rest of the world.