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I started this and expected it to be short, like all the other ones are short.

Nope.

Of course I've also been plotting this one for quite a while. Took almost two hours to write, but that's what happens when you go into the details and have to look up past images. etc.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




Mik walked into his apartment to find Lillow and Taln hunched over the table, flipping through a magazine. He got almost to the nest room before he realised that magazines weren’t part of standard program reading. The program tended to try and keep magazines and the gossip columns out of the hands of Sidhe and their partners. Just in case the gossip column started trashing partners.

“What are you two looking at?”

“They’re publishing our pictures in a few days and they sent a hard copy for us to look over and okay,” Taln responded without looking up.

Lillow glanced up and immediately looked back down at the book. A move that Mik was quickly learning meant that she was doing something that she didn’t want him involved in, the type of something a parent was supposed to be involved in. Which brought Mik to the table to look over Taln’s shoulder at the images.

“Those are us.”

“Who else would they be of?” Taln asked, “there’s also a ten page spread on the farm, did you want to see that?”

He never wanted to see that ever again. Instead he reached over Taln’s shoulder and pulled the magazine from between the two. He sat at the kitchen table and started at the beginning.

The beginning was that first day, after the conference and after they had been told about the terrorist group. Mik was sitting on a couch, head turned slightly away and down from Paw. His eyes were on something that were not in the photograph, even his torso was turned away from Paw, like he and the Sidhe were not talking. Paw was looking down, seemingly at the carpet by the coffee table. There was something about Paw’s expression that just broke Mik’s heart. A hopelessness and despair and grief.

The emotions that people said Sidhe didn’t have. He had never seen Paw look that way, and he felt the fool. Paw had just lost his teacher and his mentor and no longer had someone else to turn to, to ask questions and to solve the problems. He was blundering his way through a war with no idea how to stop or start either side. Paw had no idea how much power it took to move a man to action, or to stop a people’s hand. He was over using power because he was desperate to get it done and not understanding how little it took to influence a people.

In the image Paw’s shoulders were hunched and hands clasped before him, almost in prayer.

Mik turned his attention to the next picture.

His lips on Paw’s temple. Paw looked confused, downward still, and Mik looked like he had set his problems aside for the greater purpose. The next image was overlapping the second.

Paw’s entire face was lit up as he realised what and who was touching him. The despair was replaced by a small smile, but the grief was still there in Paw’s eyes as he turned towards Mik. Their noses had almost touched, Mik recalled that. And if Taln and Lillow had not been there, he might have kissed Paw again.

Over the next two pages were images of their conversation. Mik hadn’t realised how much he gestured until he saw those pictures. Paw seemed dismissing on the topic, like he didn’t care because there was no point in caring, because he was the only one who would have cared. Mik had more energy and was the opposite end of the spectrum, blaming it entirely on the reporters. It read in every line of his body that he was upset and annoyed yet Paw’s smile, in the last photo at the end of the group, seemed to tell the onlooker that Mik was not saying this about Paw.

Would everyone else understand the significance? Of that smile, of Paw looking out at Mik from under his eyelashes as the hands loosened? Mik turned the page and there they were sitting on the couch still, like an old couple. Hips touching, Mik’s arm around Paw. Not on the back of the couch like most people did when they sat on a couch, but around Paw’s shoulders, one finger resting lightly on Paw’s neck. Paw was looking down at his hands, sitting on his lap limply.

Through the entire conversation, Paw had never used his hands. The next two pages were of the next part of the conversation. Of the conspiratorial smiles and Mik drawing Paw out of his shell. Of the moment when Paw was out of his shell and the lust on Mik’s face as he kissed Paw’s cheek that last time.

And then the trio of images.

Paw poking Mik’s nose as one finger pointed towards the camera. Mik’s glance out the corner of his eye and the crooked shot the camera had taken as it had bounced about in Taln’s hands. Mik startled and Paw with one hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh.

Mik turned the page and glanced over what must have been a hastily made spread.

The first image was as the elevator opened and Mik seemed to have aged so much since the last pictures, despite the fact that there had been so little time between the two. His hands were in his pockets and he seemed to be bracing himself against an unseen wind. Souse stood beside him, something that might have been pity on his face as he looked at Mik.

Pity. But Souse had still done it. Because it had to be done to keep the tribe together and balanced.

The next image was Souse off the elevator and Mik just stepping off as the elevator doors closed. An image of Paw, sitting atop his pillow, head turned just slightly towards the elevator. Of an un-powered tribe member startled into the air from the invisible something that hovered around the Sidhe when he worked so hard at his power. The next was the beginning of the conversation.

Paw was annoyed and frustrated. Annoyed because he had been bothered, frustrated because he couldn’t reach whoever it was that he was trying to reach. Violet stood well behind him, every line in her body reading sympathy as she spoke.

Taln or Lillow must have turned the camera to Mik, for the next image was of Mik, a small frown creased on his brow as a blur stretched towards him. Mik recognised it as Paw only because the blur had a hand and Paw had been the only one moving at the time. The next image was Paw in front of Mik and Mik pressed very firmly against the elevator, fear and surprise playing across his features. There were several images of the conversation, Mik afraid that he’d say something stupid and Paw annoyed.

Then Paw hung his head and sighed. The next image was both of them looking over Paw’s shoulder at Souse. Both thoroughly confused and not understanding what Souse’s comment had to do with the conversation.

The last two images brought a huff out of Mik’s mouth. The first of the two was Mik falling backwards as the elevator doors opened. Surprise on his face as he reached for Paw and Paw reached to catch Mik. The Sideh must have just missed Mik’s hand. Or maybe not, Paw’s other hand was bent around and behind his back, obviously making a hand motion to the others.

The last was Mik screaming and Wern screaming as she leaped backwards and attempted to cover herself with her skirt.

Mik pointed to the second to last image and looked at Lillow. The girl shrugged and looked away. Mik took it as meaning that Paw had been motioning his intentions but that she wasn’t willing to get into the fray with Mik and Paw.

The next few pages were images of the ‘empty’ floor where the Sidhe had all but moved into.

“We’re going to get them to move that before the images of … the board stepping off the elevator.”

“They’re letting you publish them?”

“They found out that we had those as well and wanted to pay us double what they’re paying us for all the other photos, for that section of photos. It shows Paw dropping the board with a flick of his hand, you included, and then the end result… basically. It’s still with them. But basically when you dropped Paw blurred again and caught you before you hit the ground. He and Souse have words and they aren’t pretty because Paw actually put you down and attacked Souse. Apparently you weren’t supposed to be caught in whatever happened.

“Souse pins Paw and in the background you twitch. The moment you move both of them stop and go immediately to your side. Then you woke up…”

“They… didn’t pull me out of it?”

“Couldn’t have,” Lillow muttered, looking away and down as she spoke, “not possible to pull only one out. One can escape, but not be pulled out.”

“But I don’t have power.”

“Power can be used by any,” Lillow shrugged, “can be controlled by any. If one knows how. Or gets lucky.”

“I got lucky.”

“Or someone more powerful than all of us yanked you out,” Lillow muttered, studying her hands.

The Sidhe had no idea what had happened, which very likely was why they hadn’t spoken to him about the event. They knew as much as he did.

Mik made a sound at the back of his throat and turned the page, wondering how much it affected the Sidhe to not know how or why something happened. They seemed to know everything, could guess how things worked and those few things that were new and a curiosity, they tore apart to figure out how all the bits worked.

He skimmed over the images of the farm, not wanting to go back to that place, not wanting to think about it. At the end was a small notation. One survivor.

The words sent a chill down Mik’s spine. One survivor of the destruction there. What would happen when Mm came back to himself? Could a Sidhe who was mortally wounded even function?

“Yes,” Lillow responded calmly.

Mik’s head snapped up from the page, “what?”

“You… do realise you were talking out loud, right?” Taln said.

“Oh.”

“Nax survived a people war. Felt very…” she made a hand motion, “so history tells us. He was nearly killed by people, but he was also very good at killing people. There are many others, but Nax was the only one from tribe history who survived. He …” another hand motion, “for nearly a century.”

“What is,” Mik made the second hand motion.

“It is to fall into a deep sleep and not wake for many days or weeks or months or years or centuries.”

“Centuries?”

“There’s a Sidhe up in the mountains who looks about my age and he’s been,” hand motion, “since he was old enough to and he’s old enough to have met Shey-har and Harella-shay and have been there for Rahl-ta and Tahl-ra’s birth. He’s… ehm… it doesn’t translate…”

“Biding his time because of destiny?”

“Perhaps it does translate,” Lillow muttered in an annoyed tone, “none of us seem to be able to do the sleep any more and so like the power, we’ve lost the word to time. We once were able to tell the people that we are doing this and then we would go and do it. But without it we used to live no longer than a people, maybe and now we have longer lives.”

“But who does it more? Those with power or without?” Taln asked, “Power has been declining in Sidhe and people alike for centuries.”

“Whispers do it all the time. The one in the mountains is a Whisper.”

“People hadn’t crossed with Sidhe at that time.”

“Harella-shay can do whatever she damned well pleases with her people and any man, male or boy who thinks otherwise can be ass raped by Rahl-ta’s shadow daemon until there is nothing left of their body, soul or mind. Thank you very much.”

Taln and Mik both stared at Lillow, mouths hanging open.

“Uhm. He’s going to be awake again soon and I can alter what I see based on what I plan to do so I planned to ask him exactly that and… it’s a bit like … uhm. But I don‘t have to go now, so it‘s all good.”

“Did you just paradox yourself?”

“Paradox…”

“Time paradox. You go back in time and kill your own grandfather so you were never born. Except if you were never born, you couldn’t go back and kill him which means you go back and kill him except you weren’t born so… you get the idea.”

“No… I don’t…” Lillow shook her head, “this isn’t going back in time, this is going forward in time in search of information. It’s quite easy to do, once you get a hang of it.”

“So. You could go forward in time, find out how we’re going to die and then come back and alter it?”

“What do you think Souse has been doing for the past twelve years?” Lillow asked, giving Mik a look, “you saw it when the males challenged his dominance. There was almost no way for that to end without Essuan losing the babies. Except losing the babies wasn’t an option.”

“Why not? I mean. Besides it being bad, why is it not an option? Are Sidhe anti-abortion?”

“Abortion, something only people could make. Our numbers are low as it is. Babies have been lost or murdered by a rival before, but no. I. Told him it was not an option, no acceptation. Souse could see the immediate future, but he couldn’t see the far future like I can.”

“Why wasn’t it an option?” Mik asked once more.

The mesa toddled out of the living room, giggling to itself as it fell against Mik’s chair leg. The imp climbed up the chair and right onto the table where it immediately laid down and seemed to fall right asleep.

Lillow looked at Mik and was silent. Silent in such a way that Mik knew he had to drop the conversation. Or, at the very least, not carry it on while the mesa was in the room.

Mik sighed, “you should move the farm between the two group shots, it would explain why I look so haggard and older than I did only a few days before. As for the board. Well. Put it into its right place, time wise is the best I can offer.”


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