Timely Truth II

  NIKA

  After leaving Aushen to his own devices, I made my way back to our living section where I came across Nova. The Echo of Light was the last person I thought I would see, but hell, am I glad I did. She was an eyeful, that one. An angel on a runway with her very own spotlight. Shame she’s married.

  Nova strode up to me, all imposing, and that. “Nika, sweetheart, have you seen Sablune?”

  I shrugged and leaned on the corridor wall. “The little mopey git? He’s been about, sulking in a corner somewhere, I expect.”

  She crossed her arms, a flicker of golden fury in her eyes. “Is he okay?”

  “Look, Sunshine, I’ve got enough of you lot mucking around and chattin’ about who knows what. Say we sit down, have a proper spinner, yeah?”

  She looked at me all baffled-like, as if I weren’t speaking the same sodding language. If she weren’t such a stunner, I’d have a word about that posh gaze of hers.

  “I’m sorry?” Nova offered in an equally bewildered tone.

  “Stuff it, where’s your room.”

  She led me down a few doors and took a seat on the sofa in her living space, her eyes expectant.

  I plopped down on the armchair across from her and cracked right on. “What’s gone all off in that head of yours? Lad from the Black Lagoon isn’t around and suddenly you’ve lost the plot.”

  Nova shuffled with a mix of guilt and bashfulness. “Do you think that’s a bad thing?”

  “Don’t piss yourself over what I thinks bad. You fancy him, for whatever reason that may be, so I can’t be the one to mark you looney for it.”

  “Typically,” her voice took on a professional tone, “from what I’ve observed in other clients, I would categorize this behavior as unhealthy and codependent, but it is not how I used to be. In the past I was rarely close with people, so when Sablune came along, I assumed that void was filled.”

  “Ah yeah, plugging a black hole with a cork, your mind must be as big as your arse to come up with that. Real brain queen, you are.”

  “I can admit that I may have forced that void to be filled.” She rubbed both shoulders and dropped her gaze. “I very well could still be doing that.”

  “The only reason I didn’t bloom into a top tier nutter like you, is because I had other people to turn to when Lacy died. What’d you do before Bluey showed up? Run about hitting people with pointy sticks and burning torches. I was welding doohickeys to my friends’ cars and driving them insane while you went on playing Valkyrie. Can’t stretch him to fit all of your emptiness.”

  “Who’s Lacy?”

  “My girl Lacy. Smartest lass I knew. Studied engineering, but like you, the daftest lass sometimes. You’re both LOADS bright in your own right, as well. Thought my girlfriend was the best at everything, but you’ve done numbers so far.” I gave a slight nod, affirming her efforts, despite her monumental lapse in judgement.

  Nova cracked one of her starlit smiles, like sunlight parting clouds. “It couldn’t hurt to make an effort toward relying on others. It’s just a matter of deciding who else is up for it.”

  I blinked at her with a look of bored disbelief before cutting into her again with, “mate, you’ve been sat here gumming me ear off about ‘woe is me, boo hoo where is Blu’ talk for a good half hour. I could have popped out of this at any time. You still want to ask who you can rely on?”

  “Okay, Nika, I get your point,” she said with a slight pout that conveyed little more than her natural beauty.

  “You get a lotta those with me, I make sure. Bloomin tossers would be lost without me, I tell you.”

  It was quite strange, this. One, I was playing teatime with an angel who was just as much my fan as I was hers. Two, I didn’t know how she lived with her shadow of security as her north star; though I reckon it helps that he’s never been much good at getting rid of her anyway.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Weird to think that Blu and I could be called similar, really has to be a fluke, I thought, standing to leave.

  “Are you going to continue singing when you get back home?”

  Now that one took me for a spin.

  I whirled on her, wanting to berate her, until I realised she’d actually done nothing to offend me. “What are you on about?”

  “When you went on hiatus a little after the Celestial War, it was a time of change for me. I had Sablune in my life, I was living in a new country, and I had gotten my degrees and certifications for counselling,” she recalled with a glint of nostalgia in her eyes. “Your absence was a very obvious sign that you played a part in my life, simply by the hole it left behind.”

  “I went on hiatus because those wronguns blew up my girlfriend.”

  “Oh my.” Her hand came up to her chest in either condolence or surprise. I couldn’t tell which. And it didn’t really matter.

  “How’s this for you,” I perked up, putting more life into my words, “I’ll sing when we get back, provided I don’t also get blown up.”

  The Light Lady frowned with concern, then went on to say, “Does it scare you? The thought of them reaching you again.”

  “Is it that obvious?” I smirked.

  “For others, maybe not. For me: Child’s play.”

  “I wonder if they know that some of us are afraid.”

  “Who is ‘they?’” Nova sat up straight, intrigued.

  “I couldn’t tell you; there’s so many buggers that want us dead. Apparently more than they want other normies to live if that’s what it takes to snuff us out.”

  “There were a lot of ‘they’s’ out there for us.” Nova nodded, digging through a slew of painful memories, no doubt. “The UN, the Crimson Flag, the Silent Church, and probably some others I don’t know or can’t call to name. Either way, regardless of which group did what to us, they’re still each an enemy.”

  “Including those AID fellows, don’t even try and hide it here. At least back home they went through policies, even if they were quite lenient about the legalities. But there are no ‘civil rights’ in a foreign dimension.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. Their hatred stems from the fact that we are powerful, I know that much. That power makes them jealous and fearful of their own transience in the world.”

  I pursed my lips at that. Who cares how they feel if it hurts us?

  “Are you justifying their actions?”

  She shook her head. “Just simplifying how they see us. Echoes as a cancer and death as a treatment. It’s more about what we CAN do, rather than what we HAVE done.”

  It’s like they haven’t noticed the cycle of resentment that occurs from these actions. How can we trust normies in power if they can’t even trust us with ours? It’s rubbish logic considering that our power is one of nature and not one given by the people around them.

  Come to think of it, we would outlast them in nature. They are weaker than us…

  My fists clenched involuntarily, pulverizing the thought beginning to form. Not that rabbit hole. Not yet anyway.

  “If we had somewhere that put us separate from the normies, where we could live and mingle amongst ourselves…”

  “Sweetie, that’s how they put people in concentration camps,” her tone took on a sad, defeated twinge. “The high school the other four went to ended up separating them from the normie students. It’s part of how they got singled out for the Silent Civilization Experiment.”

  “What if we willingly put ourselves apart from them?”

  “Labelled as rebellion or conspiratorial treason.”

  “Is there a way out at all?” I huffed, struggling to keep the desperation out of my voice.

  “The best way is to just live your life. Don’t let anyone try and stop you. It’s what my husband does and it works surprisingly well.” Nova’s face took on that look of faint admiration.

  “So just sit and wait until they decide they want to drop another plane on us?”

  “I- I didn’t mean-”

  I stabbed a finger at her. “You understand the depths of hatred more than anyone here. You should know that if we don’t escape the source of it, we and everyone that matters to us will drown in it.”

  “You’re right,” she said with a shrug. “It makes the most sense to fight back, and who would they be to blame us? Turning the other cheek has never worked in the past, so let’s just kill everyone once we leave Verestia. All your normie friends: dead. Unascended family: dead. Nika, sweetie, I wish there was an easy answer, but I haven’t found that myself yet.”

  “Little pissants have us in checkmate,” I laughed with a palm pressed to my forehead. “Maybe Blu and I are the same. Surely you’ve heard all this and more from him.”

  “I have. Only he doesn’t care what they do to other echoes, only his friends. Speaking of which, where is he? You didn’t give me a straight answer last time.”

  “Looking for Aerix,” I diverted. “Down in the basement somewhere.”

  “You mean the one that’s off limits because of high demoryn presence.”

  My eyes trailed the floor. Guilty. “Yeah, might be that one.”