My Little Bird | Blue Eyes (Under minor grammatical editing)

Chapter 23

-----One month later-----

Things had been moving along well. The colony was starting to move back into the flow of things, little by little. Blue Eyes told me about his conversation with Cornelia, and I couldn't be more happy about it. Cornelia was turning into a bit of a second mother to me, and I was very glad when she didn't treat me any differently than she had before. Blue Eyes also had a talk with king Caesar, and he said he had known about us as well. That left Blue Eyes and I a bit floored. Ash had seen, both of Blue Eyes' parents had seen, who else could see?

The fact that we were treated just the same helped soothe our anxieties about the colony finding out. I had underestimated this colony's empathy several times, and while I didn't want to do so again, this situation was just a little different than the others. I was afraid of being banished, I was afraid of leaving behind everything I had grown to love so dearly. But, as Blue Eyes had said to me, nothing had happened yet, and we would deal with everything as is comes. At the moment, we were riding with Caesar and his council to see my father again. Ash was coming along as well, saying he wanted to meet my brother officially. Naturally, I couldn't wait to see how that would pan out.

This time, we were meeting at the end of the old firetruck road, where they had left their trucks when they were here the first time. They waited inside the truck this time, but this time there were two vehicles. One had my family inside its cab, inside the other were some important members of the human colony. This meeting wasn't to stay in touch, it was to discuss the peace treaty. I happily greeted Dad and Alex and Aunt Ellie, and I reluctantly let myself be introduced to the two men and women who had accompanied them. Alex, Ash, Blue Eyes and I were told to just hang out nearby, since we were still young. All of us protested, we were all very close to full grown age, I had no idea what month it was, so I was between eighteen and nineteen years old, which, legally, counted as adulthood. Ash and Blue Eyes were particularly upset by this, seeing as they had always been allowed and even encouraged to sit in on council meetings. But not this time.

We had no real choice, so we complied and retreated to a fallen log to talk. I introduced Ash, and Alex looked at me. "Ash? I thought you said that was the name of someone who..?"

I smiled and bounced on the balls of my feet for a moment. "Yeahh, about that..." I trailed off with a bright smile.

"Oh shit, wow, that's awesome." Alex said, looking to Ash.

"They would have, missed me too much." Ash said, gesturing to Blue Eyes and I. His voice was gruff, slightly accented, but it also had a note of natural humor. Blue Eyes tried to hide his chuckle, but I didn't.

Alex laughed too. "It's good to see you again."

"You too." Ash said, clearing his throat after it got a little gravely.

I sat with my back against the log and played around with two pebbles. Then a third pebble was tossed at me, and I paused to look at where it now lay by my foot. Without moving my head, I looked up at Blue Eyes and arched my brow at him. I smirked and tossed the pebble back at him. It hit his arm and dropped with a muted bounce onto the spongy moss. He picked it up and tossed it back, and this time it hit my upper arm. I picked it up and got ready to toss it but Ash grabbed my wrist before I could flick it.

"I think, we all know, how this will end. For your safety, but, mostly for our safety," Ash gestured to Alex and himself. "I feel, implored to ask you. To stop. Right now."

I laughed. "I surrender."

"I don't."

With that, Blue Eyes pulled me down and started tickling me. I gasped and immediately started writhing around, smiling widely as I tried to free myself from his fingers. But that became increasingly hard when Ash and Alex decided to put themselves to work. I had to work very hard with trying to stifle my laughter as I was attacked by soft grazes to my skin.