Partner

Head. Hurts. Going to bed.

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All slept in Mik and Paw’s living room. Mik and Paw slept in the middle of the room, on the biggest mound of blankets and pillows and cushions. Lillow slept between Mik and the mesa. The mesa between Lillow and Paw. The tribe woke as one, at dawn. Lillow prodded Mik awake and so Mik rose with the rest of them. The tribe stretched, yawned and cracked joints.

Hohi yawned as he stretched and cracked his joints before looking about the room, confused. A frown creased the male’s brow. His eyes eventually fell on Paw.

“Auh?” Hohi cocked his head to the side.

Perhaps it had finally clicked in Hohi’s mind. Koln was sitting in the doorway to the kitchen, keeping a careful watch over the Sidhe. Watching Mik, Koln stood and motioned the man over. Mik carefully picked his way over bedding and around still waking Sidhe. Koln handed Mik a warm coffee mug.

“Been up for a few hours but that’s hardly the start. While you slept, Mari was up plotting with her family and Galt. We’re going on the early morning show. We need Paw active and proper. Do you think that is possible? Taking another Sidhe on the show. We’d need another partner. The board wants you.”

“Me?” Mik responded to Koln, confused.

“Your lecture yesterday was more than enough to demonstrate to the board why you are our golden boy, Mik. They want you teaching the new partners and when it came down to picking out a boyo for the pictures and the shows and the front boy? They were more than happy to pick you. Your brother paired with your capability got you this spot. Please accept it.”

Koln saying please? Mik sipped his coffee and turned around to Paw. Paw slipped through the tribe members and sighed at Mik. The Sidhe bent over and sniffed at the cup, grimacing at it all.

“Wassuhh?” Paw mumbled.

“We’re going public,” Mik murmured in response.

“Who journalist person?” Paw asked Koln, rubbing at his eyes.

“Ell, the one who broke the Sidhe story in the first place,” Koln responded, “can we walk and talk? Morning show is supposed to start in an hour and a half. Half an hour to get there, hour to get used to Ell. Trust me, you’re going to want the time. Get Paw adjusted, get you adjusted. Smiles and happy, Mik. Nice stuff. None of your, the military is selling off tech to other countries bullshit.”

They walked out of the apartment. Paw snatched up a couple of apples and began munching on them as the trio walked towards the elevator. Koln snapped open a cell phone and began talking into it. By the time they were in the car, Koln was done talking and tucked the phone away once more.

“They’re waiting for us there. Mari is with them. We’ve had to send them back for new cameras because of Sidhe bone in the ones that the news crew were using. Topics we can discuss. How long the program has been running…” Koln began listing off what Mik could and could not talk about and Mik nodded along and, when necessary, repeated back to Koln the list. Paw was told that he could talk about whatever he wanted, because Sidhe were not controlled by the military.

Through traffic, they moved to the news station’s building. The place was practically empty. Or. Emptied. Up the elevator, they moved across a silent floor and into an interview room. Ell was pacing. Her camera men looked almost bored and the slew of people manning the technical side of things were all too busy to notice the three of them.

Mari was the one who turned and greeted them. Then everyone else in the room turned.

Ell moved past Mari and stopped out of arms reach of Mik, her eyes locked on Paw, “I know a Sidhe when I see one. How exactly do we go about this?”

Paw craned his neck over Mik’s shoulder, “Mi, Ell, Ell, Mi. This one Paw. This one hungry.”

“We have all kinds of food and drinks,” Ell motioned to the table even as Mari moved to the door and grabbed a bag from by the door.

Mari flipped open the bag and handed Paw a bottle of water and a brown paper bag of apples, “Just for now Paw. I don’t know where their food has been, you recall being sick on the water before?”

“Right,” Paw opened the bag and pulled out an apple. The Sidhe munched on it as he wandered about the room, poking at the chairs and the background.

Mik knew that eventually Paw’s attention would turn to the cameras and the Sidhe would be curious as to those as well. The cameras reminded Mik of the MRI. He wondered why they had never tried to pull Paw back in for more tests. How he had managed to forget about it, even. Was it possible that the Sidhe had done something to stop the people from being concerned with it?

“Uh,” Mik made a motion after Paw, “his name is Paw, my name is Mik. I’m his partner, paired with him for one on one care. You’ve been told the basics, so you don’t need to know about the program. As per Paw. He seems to like you, only journalist he hasn’t ended up screaming at through the television. He’s smart and he speaks our language better than most people my age. Most of the time he prefers people to pretend he doesn’t exist, he’ll step in when he likes.”

Ell watched Paw move from the seats, over to the cameras, “he’s a curious fellow.”

“Yes, he is.”

Both watched as Paw opened his mouth wide and peered sideways at the screen that one of the cameramen held up for him. Paw giggled and tried to keep his mouth open at the same time. When he bored of seeing the inside of his mouth, Paw began peering into the little video lens thing and turned his head this way and that to see how the camera caught the details.

“Could we sit?” Ell motioned to the chairs and moved towards one of them. Mik sat in the other, “the interview has to start soon. I realise that Paw is a Sidhe and Sidhe will be Sidhe, but we do need the cameras up and running properly.”

“Oh,” Mik turned to Paw, still amusing himself with the camera, “Paw. Paw? Could you come over here please? We need to start… Paw?”

The Sidhe moved reluctantly away from the camera and settled in the seat beside Mik, leaning this way and that way as if looking for entertainment. It was too early to tell if Paw would act differently now that he was Whisper. If it was no change, then Paw was playing Ell and the cameramen, purposefully acting like that to disarm the strangers in the room.

As Ell made her introduction to the camera, Mik watched Paw, increasingly concerned with how flighty the Sidhe seemed to be. Paw’s fingers drummed on the armrest, his feet bounced about on the floor. Eyes flowed all over the place.

“And. Mik?”

“Hmm?” Mik turned to Ell and cleared his throat, “Uh, sorry, I was watching Paw. He seems flightier than normal, not a good sign.”

“I was just telling our viewers about the program you work for. Would you care to explain about the Sidhe?”

“Explain what, exactly? I began with the basic knowledge that they are similar to us but as it turns out the similarities end at the physical. Paw’s lifespan is at least twice that of my own. As you can tell he is taller than I am and he will likely grow taller before he is fully grown. When he came to my care, he was the same height as me. The Sidhe can survive amazing circumstances. And our Sidhe have been abused and damaged by people and have survived.”

“Paw has teeth!” Paw bore his teeth and tapped them quickly.

Ell’s eyes flicked to Paw for a moment and the woman managed to mask her horror quite well before looking back at Mik, the person she actually wanted to talk to.

Mik frowned and looked at Paw. The Sidhe had that look, that told Mik that Paw had seen the look and was unhappy about it. Paw shifted in his seat for just a moment and a warning tap to the Sidhe’s hand from Mik made Paw slouch down in his chair. Better to be the creature that was unhappy rather than being something that the people cannot understand or might be frightened of.

Mik went through the interview with Ell, answering he questions as politely as he could. Once the interview was over, Mik and Paw got back into the car and drove back to the apartment in silence. Mik didn’t like how still Paw had become, how he walked into the apartment like Hohi when he was mad.

Following close behind, Mik walked into the apartment and quickly ducked, barely avoiding the piece of countertop that flew over his head and embedded itself in the wall.

“THAT STUPID CANIVING FUCKING BITCH,” Paw screamed at nothing in particular.


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