Futures Unseen (Chasing Titania #2)

Freedom of the Purest Forms

"What are you doing out here?" I knelt before him.

"Nothing," his heart fluttered.

"I know you're lying."

He looked up at me with pale blue eyes. Pixie eyes. Where was that lovely rich baby blue that consumed those eyes? Why did he insist on hiding it away?

"Why do they use faeries as an insult?" he opened his arms a little.

"Because faeries have a long history of being sexually fluid and promiscuous. I think it shouldn't be an insult but rather a term we embrace with pride. As fae who come from the in-between of sex, why shouldn't we express ourselves how we wish? Did someone direct that at you?"

"Yeah," he looked down the path. "As I was walking through Citadel. Oj! Do not," he smacked my hand away. "Do not take that off."

"Why do you insist on hiding yourself, Forrest?"

"Why do you desire to expose me?" his hands flew open. "I'm used to my fae dying for being true to ourselves, aren't you?"

"I used to be," I sank into the dirt. "I was a part of those imprisoned and tortured beneath the Grund. I am happy with the idea of being free to be myself now. It's what I always wanted."

"Have you considered that maybe it's not what I want?" he tried. "I want to be like everyone else."

"My Gift is called Bound in Blood," I lifted my right hand, black and scarred, to his eye level. "It was a tough Gift to grasp. I can unleash Amphisbaena, too, a trait I learned by accident. I liked knowing that I, the Splinter of Destruction, was different from all the other Splinters. However, it was also a curse that only furthered my own destruction."

Forrest inched away from my hand. The tree didn't let him move very far.

"What were you cursed with?"

"That's another thing I don't understand. Why are we cursed with our existence?"

"What is it?"

"I hate it-"

"Tell me."

"It's called Triage," he huffed. 

"Like the-"

"Yes," he rolled his eyes. "Exactly like de test of assessing pain. My father chose that bit of irony. When I touch others, I feel their pain. Past, present. Doesn't matter. I hate it."

"That's not the worst-"

"It hurts," a path of blue flowed down his cheek. "It hurts me so much. I can't love anyone like this. I can't get near to others for fear of their pain. I don't know what they've been through. I don't know if their pain could be so much, it'd kill me."

Leviathan's children were always cursed. We were fated. Our voices. Our bodies. Our skin. Our Gifts. We were the dangerous ones. 

"I've always asked why we were cursed too," I answered. "Though I have never gotten an answer. Perhaps, we weren't made to exist in this world."

"I'm not sure if I want to," Forrest's beat dampened to almost nothing. "I don't feel like I belong here."

"You haven't found where you fit quite yet, that's all," I offered. "I know I didn't for a long time. Thought I had a few times, but I was playing pretend."

"So I need to give it some time?" 

"Of course," I relaxed my rhythm nice and slow for him.

"Am I going to make it in such a savage world?" Forest whispered.