Heir Ascending

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice -Robert Frost

"Happy Anniversary," Oliver simpered with a rare smile.

"Our Anniversary is tomorrow," I muttered.

"No, we met at the anointing ceremony today a few months ago."

"I know that," I drawl, "I thought you thought it was the next day."

"Ah-ha, sure," he hesitated.

"I hated you the second I met you. I was-"

"A jackass," I suggested. "Whatever, I was just as bad. Although I hated you because you were so alluring, probably the whole cliche 'defy my parents to date the bad-boy trope'-"

"Probably," he interjects nonchalantly, twirling a piece of my hair on his finger.

"You said that day that we were going to die out here," I said solemnly.

"I was wrong," he spoke sharply.

While I had my eyes shut, I could tell how close our faces lay next to each other simply by the force of his breath against my forehead.

"We made it all the way here."

"Not all of us," I whispered.

"No, not all of us."

"Do you think we're going to die tomorrow," I ask nervously, burying my head into his chest? I knew he would be mad at my question, but with Scott and my abilities taking their time on vacation, I couldn't rely on premonition. I needed his word.

"Why would you ask that?" he asks in a scarily calm voice.

"These last few sins have pushed us above our limits. We've already lost one of our own. This one is going to be harder than anything we've faced before. Face it, Scott is practically worthless in human form, and Drax and I have a good understanding - at best - of using a blade. You are the only one who received professional training and even then it's taken you years to be as good as you are-"

"But Eden-"

"Plus," I continued through him, "you're going to be covering all our asses, you'll lose focus for a split second and that's how you'll die."

"Eden we're not going to die," he deadpans.

"Okay," I take his word lightly as my brain begs to be shut down for the night.

But before I completely lost consciousness, or perhaps it was just a dream, Oliver whispered almost inaudibly, "I'm not going to let you die."

"Training?" Scott scoffs. "I'm gonna have to pass on being told what to do by a kid nearly 100 years my junior."

"You mean you've had 118 years to practise fighting, and you're still this shit?" Oliver says impassively and shoves Kim's gun into his chest.

Stupak Park wasn't anything flashy. There weren't skyscraper tsunamis that loomed over us or an overload of hieroglyphs from the Old World. But in a way, I kind of liked it better. Things were simpler before Vegas. People were alive, relationships not yet tested with poison. Stupak Park felt oddly comfortable. It was dilapidated in the sued sense, not forgotten like many of the sites we pass.

It has character and because of that withstood the horror inflicted on everything beautiful. I don't think I could be that strong. I don't think I could just slide back into my government life after this and move on from everything that has happened the same as I was before.

If I went back as I had left I would vacillate on the verge of insanity and hopelessness, there is a swing we ride out here we are banned from riding in the zones. We get pushed forward on the swing whether we like it or not, but it is always our choice how high and when and where he dismounted. There, you can't even get your ass in the seat. Locked behind a guided coloured cage treated with the same, but converted respect of a monkey behind bars.