The Little Crow

Chapter Twenty - [Broken Trust]

Aari watched as Luana chugged down the beer from the bottle, tilting her head all the way back to get every last drop of it. They were at his place, in his relatively large living quarters in the heart of the Screeching Crow, getting drunk together. Though the two got drunk together a lot, Aari found this night to be a little different from the rest as he was concerned with how upset she was about her argument with Thea.

It seemed like Luana was really worrying herself over it.

Though to be honest, Aari was a little worried too.

What Luana had told him... that didn't seem like something Thea would say, though of course, the Thea he knew was from years ago... sweet, with big eyes, a warm heart and a smile that made everyone who saw it happy. It was that smile that pulled him away from his own troubles as a child, and though he had only caught a few glimpses of her here and there, it was enough to know that she never wore that smile much anymore.

That made it clear to him that frankly, whether he liked to admit it or not, he didn't really know her at all anymore. He was in no place to assume she would act one way or another.

"Would you have done it?" Luana asked. Her eyes were drooping, probably from all the alcohol as well as the exhaustion from a full week of work. "Would you have gone behind Niall's back to help a Crow?"

Aari frowned before drinking some of his own beer. "No," he said. "I wouldn't go behind the General's back."

Luana nodded, looking a little relieved.

They sat there quietly for some time before she got up and walked over to the old refrigerator that worked only half the time, opening it up and grabbing another beer. "Luana, that's five," Aari said. "I'm cutting you off."

"Shuttup," was her response as she popped off the cap.

Aari let out a deep breath and watched as she drank some more. Then, when she pulled the bottle away from her lips, she looked back at him. "Would you want your family to know?"

Aari sighed and looked down at his own bottle. "I don't have a family."

"Yes you do," she responded, returning to her seat across from him on the dining room table. "You have a mom and dad in Abureth. You can hate them or whatever, but that's family. Would you want them to know... when you were suffering... would you have wanted them to know you were alive? Even now... even though you're okay... would you want them to know you're alive?"

Aari didn't look at her.

He never really had a good relationship with his parents, even as a kid. Rich and stuck up and expecting perfection from him from the moment he could identify the difference between yes and no, his parents had pushed him to the brink of insanity way more than once. That was why he so quickly became so close to Thea– she wanted nothing from him. Instead... all she ever wanted to do was give... to give him her friendship, her love, her attention. When he first met her, he wasn't used to that.

Of course, though they were close, she wasn't the 'family' that Luana was referring to, and so his mind returned to the face of his parents... people he cared so little for. He couldn't care less whether the knew that he died or lived or anything for that matter.

But there was his sister, and though she was gone, it was his sister that he was close to. So in his head, he rephrased her question for her. Would he have wanted his sister to know... when he was rotting in on his own before the General came and saved him... would he have wanted her to know he was alive?

Or even Thea? He had left her behind too, after all. Would he have wanted her to know he was alive?

"No."