Talyndre Ama'thas

‘We’ she’d said, and it was keeping him awake. Knuckles grazing the smooth, wooden planks beneath his bed, he lay there draped across the mattress all the same.

Talyn had come to think of Shade as a friend, or at least somebody he could be around. She was polished obsidian, the kind that made lethal, light-as-air arrowheads as well as the pretty baubles they sold in the Bazaar. And while he didn’t doubt her shiny, sharp edges, he knew her to be just as opaque. Faceted, beyond what drunken customers and tight-lipped co-workers might see.

She’d looked paler than he was used to seeing, limp and lethargic. Just a bit of blood loss and, nah, nothing to worry about at all. But it hadn’t taken much to get her talking. She had one foot caught in unconsciousness while the other tapped excitedly against the stone flooring at the prospect of something sweet on the table. 

Just a job, but there were unforeseen circumstances. Little lives unaccounted for, but that damn well would be from that point on. He hated it, could taste the scraps of her story like spoiled meat at the back of his tongue. He could spit and spit and never be rid of it. 

Fingers sought out the space between the boards, tracing along the worn seam, back and forth again. With every drag of his blunt nails catching on the edge he dug in deeper, seeking splinters where there were none. And still sleep wouldn’t come.

While he should be hung up on ‘where was he working’ and ‘who with’, it was that other word, that ‘we’ that stuck. ‘We’ got some good intel. ‘We’ took care of it. He’d never really known what ‘we’ was like, though he’d imagined it plenty of times before.

‘We’ was a strange and safe sort of thing, reserved for people who knew each other and understood. He could count exactly how many times he’d really shown his stripes to someone else, kept a tally through the years of every single one. It was something else, and he knew it.

‘We’ she’d said. And outside the wind swept up sea spray and grey drizzle, spattering wet against his window.

Talon was both less complicated and more. She was the steady sway of the old, wooden swing behind the Fairbreeze schoolhouse, the ridged bark of a favourite climbing willow, catching on his clothes and scraping up his shins as he climbed into a favourite hiding place. Rough textures and gentle comforts, unassuming even when flustered.

She was easy to be around and eager to laugh. She struggled with simple tasks like pouring drinks, and let it eat her up when it went wrong. He never would have thought to spend the morning with her like he had until he was in it, but if he hadn’t-

It was a rare and precious thing to witness someone else truly in their element. He almost never experienced it first hand, relying instead on vicarious interpretation of the world around him. Watching, always, because real connections were just that out of reach. Talon had been different then. Or maybe just more herself than he’d seen before. He, of all people could understand that.

‘We’ can see who’s fastest. ‘We’ have enough daylight left.

Talon, up to her elbows in smears of blood, dark and laughing beneath beautiful scars, as though he’d granted her the greatest day she’d experienced in ages. Maybe this was what ‘we’ meant?

(No.)

He wouldn’t have been asleep by now anyway, he decided. After all, whispers of familiar need were never truly satisfied, and he could already feel himself stretching thin to accommodate them in the meantime. A group of children thrust into the filthy hands of a monster. Of several, or so he’d gleaned before caution had caught up with him and he’d swallowed rage with another bite of cherry pie.

Now Shade had invited him to stop by and talk, worn that pointed expression she had when she knew he hadn’t eaten enough that day. Even still, it was too much risk. He was getting used to the little village, maybe even comfortable. And tomorrow he’d see Talon again, check in on his skins and maybe see if she thought they should still pull their little prank.

‘We’ll’ see about that. His words, not hers, and what did he even mean to say? 

Abruptly giving up his absent tracing of a knot in the floorboard, he finally pulled his arm away, flinging it over his face as he rolled heavily onto his back. Still sleep wouldn’t come.