Sequel

Huh.

What was in that tea?

I enjoyed this, though I know you all are wondering what Ashun realised. When I realised it myself I stopped (mid shower no less) and tripped, nearly whacking my head on a wall, it startled me so much. It's one of those things that's been weaved through the entire story and yet somehow I missed it utterly.

Cookie if you guess what she guessed.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





Rel set his teacup down on the table, “but. No one ever wants to hear about my world.”

“I do,” Ashun gave him her full attention.

“I wouldn’t even know where to-”

“The beginning. What’s it look like.”

“It’s,” Rel’s hands spun in the air, the tea made him more lax, made … things come easier, “a world. The land is alive, there are mountains and waters and once a year when the summer solstice hits, the whole sky turns to all shades of purple as the sun sets over the Antwen mountains.”

“Wow.”

“There’s no technology so once the sun sets, the sky lights up with the moon and the stars and there aren’t any Sidhe, there are only the… people. Not us as people, but the people who I made to live there,” Ashun grinned at him, “and I grew up in this little village off the beaten path and we’re right by this lake. My father was a mason and my mother a seamstress and I was the younger of two sons. My older brother took over my father’s business and I became a scribe and wandered the world,” Rel couldn’t help but smile at the thought, “for five years I wandered and then my father died. I returned home and there were new faces everywhere. Immigrants.”

“One of them became your lover?”

“Yes,” Rel nodded, “I tried to date his sister, thinking that that was what I liked. It’s what every boy thinks, but he kept catching my eye more and more and all of a sudden we were by the quarry and he was kissing me and I thought. This is … it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Your eyes are huge,” Violet leaned closer and peered at Rel’s eyes, “I can’t see iris any more. He didn’t give you a pain killer, Muan you cheat.”

Muan’s head was down on the kitchen table.

“What?”

Ashun frowned and looked down, “healers can’t do that. Rel… is he poking inside your head?”

“Nothing’s inside my head,” Rel paused a moment then laughed, “nothing inside my head, philosophy states that if you can’t see it, you can’t know it exists. I mean, even the imaging of a CAT scan is nothing really, nothing at all, the machine could just be putting out a random image and because we’re told this is our brain, we react to the image according to what the scan tells us.”

“Wow. That is very. Strange,” Ashun muttered.

“What did he give me?”

“Uhm… a hallucinogenic…” Ashun said calmly, “mixed with a power inducing something and a pain killer. Type of thing.”

“He just gave me speed for power users, didn’t he?” Rel groaned, “I don’t want power. Take it back.” he sounded like a whiny little child but couldn’t seem to stop himself as he continued, “there’s no point to it in today’s day and age and it’s bad.”

“Why is it bad?” Ashun asked.

“Because… it is. It is and it is and it is.”

“What makes you so afraid to use your powers?”

He be beaten again. Rel glared at Ashun, sipped his cool tea and said, “what keeps you from using your powers openly?”

“Galt,” Ashun responded without skipping a beat, “your powers, the powers of the other Sidhe, can be dismissed as … coincidences. Mine is a bit hard to ignore. And while Muan and Essuan have their applications in hospitals. My applications are… No. He’d hurt me and then I’d have to kill him.”

“If you knew using your powers would save the world, would you?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it would get you killed?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Would you use them to kill another to save the world?”

“In a heart beat. I’d kill you, even, if it would save the world, but then, my beliefs tell me that while I end this life for you, I can never end you, so yes, I would kill you in an instant.”

Rel had several questions he wanted to ask. He looked at the tea and tried to order them. Order them inside his head, how could he ask the two questions without diverging from the…

“I have several questions so the next couple of minutes might bounce about,” Rel said, holding up a finger in Ashun’s direction, “and I don’t think the questions will run into each other nicely so. If you would kill someone, anyone to save the world, would use your powers, even, to kill another person to save the world. How do you know that not using your powers is turning the world to the bad, what if you using your powers openly could save the world and now the world is going to be lost because you can’t bring yourself to use your powers openly?”

“It’s something to think on,” Ashun muttered, opening the teapot and sniffing at it, “what the hell did he put in this?”

“You aren’t listening to me,” He had to ask again, as if not asking wouldn’t get the point across, “what if you have to use your powers openly to save the world? Will you?”

“Well…” Ashun shook her head, “it’s impossible, it-”

“If you can use your powers to kill someone, then you should use them to put Galt in his place, not to hide from him and quiver in fear of the big male. You would hand any male in the tribe his ass for breakfast but Galt you avoid?”

“Paw said we shouldn’t try Galt.”

“Paw did, or Whisper did?”

Ashun paused, “Paw did. Actually. Before he became Whisper.”

“Ah, and what has Whisper said about Galt?”

“That he should mind his own business.”

Rel made a small hand motion as if asking Ashun to connect the dots.

“Thus,” Ashun nodded, “if it was to save the world, I should use my powers and thusly would.”

Rel dropped his head to the kitchen table with a thump. That wasn’t what he meant, damn it. He sighed, sat up again and sipped his tea, “let’s try this again. What if you need to use your powers to save the world and thusly you not using your powers is hurting the world? I’m asking you Ashun, do you know for certain that your lack of power use is not hurting the world?”

Ashun blinked at him, turning it over and over in her mind. Finally she lowered her eyes, “I can’t. Power never hurts the world when wielded properly and thus not using power could do the opposite. But,” She pinned him with her gaze, “the same could be applied to you.”

“I’ll use my powers, when you use yours,” Rel growled.

“The other questions?”

“Uhm…” Rel forgot them all and instead sipped his tea. He felt the tingle down his throat and heard a woman’s voice whispering to him as he opened his mouth and repeated the words she said, “if you had to kill Mik to save the world, would you? If you had to stand to the side and let him die, would you?”

“No. Fuck the world, the world can die, wait. But that would kill Mik.”

“Why?”

“Because the world would be- you meant why not kill Mik, didn’t you?” Ashun sighed, “I don’t know. There’s something about Mik that’s just so. Mmmm. He’s people and I don’t normally like people but I just want to pet him all the time.”

“Pet me instead.”

“You don’t like people touching you. And. Mik is different.” Ashun paused and thought for a moment, “it’s just. No. We don’t.”

“We? We don’t? What happens if someone hurts him?”

“No one would hurt him.”

“Okay… let’s say a people takes out a gun and shoots him. What then?”

“Catch him and tear him apart, starting with his toes, bit by bit rending him apart. Have a healer there to keep him alive and when you hit the hips, start on the fingers and work towards the chest. Then heal him all up and leave him there with no arms or legs and let the bastard die of slow starvation.”

Rel stared at Ashun, surprised at the hostility in her voice. The young woman watched him and then something dawned on her.

“Oh.”

Good thing it had dawned on Ashun, because Rel had no idea what that meant. Voices whispered to him and tugged at him begging him away even as a strong feminine voice insisted that he stay where he was, that he not give in to Him, whoever him was.

He’s my payment, you can’t keep him from me forever.

Maybe not forever the female voice hissed, but I never said you could keep him for good. He’s my piece, not yours.

There was a fluttering, a battering, and then wonderful, sweet silence. All that was left was a tingle through his head and a floating, gentle feeling. Marvellous.



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