GUPTA EMPIRE 400 AD
AURORA
The first thing I feel is my shoulder. The pain has resolved to a low throbbing, but it's still really present.
It takes me a moment for everything to come flooding back, my brain still drunk off whatever it was that I had drunk, but when it does, my eyes flash open in panic.
The bar.
The fight
The knife
Druig.
I sit up straight, the sudden movement making my shoulder jolt in pain.
"I would be careful if I were you" Druig's voice comes from the back of the room, startling me completely.
It takes me a moment to realize this is actually not my room on the ship, it's actually his.
"Why am I in your room?" I ask, my voice coming out raspy.
He scowls, leaning up from the wall and taking a few steps towards me. He holds a glint of laughter in his eyes, his mouth arching up slightly into a smile.
"A 'thank you' would be nice? Maybe an, 'I owe you my life Druig I don't know what I would do without you' would be better" He jokes cockily, grabbing one of the chairs of the table next to the bed, where I am, and placing it beside me and taking a seat.
I scoff, running a hand through my tangled hair.
God, I must look like shit. I must smell like shit too.
When I don't reply, expecting an answer to my previously asked question, he nods to my shoulder. Strangely enough, he doesn't seem to be as stand-offish as he normally is.
If I didn't know better I would say he was... happy?
"You dislocated your shoulder. I had to pop it back into place while you were passed out" He pauses, his lips pursing. "What do you remember"
"Uhh" I look around, noticing that it's still night, but the first rays of light are coming over the mountains.
"I remember being at the bar, the man almost killing me, and then you showed up and I fainted" I explain, nodding and turning to him.
He frowns, leaning back on his chair.
"You don't remember anything else?" He asks, his tone slightly deflated.
I can see as the wall behind his eyes slides up again, concealing whatever sliver of emotion they had had a few seconds before.
I shake my head, already wanting to get out of here. Being in Druig's room uneased me. I didn't like sleeping in the same place people I hated slept in.
I stand up carefully, making sure not to put any weight on my shoulder. Druig's eyes follow me as I grab my knives, which are on the table.
He doesn't say anything as I take a look around his room, taking in everything.
It looked just like I thought it would.
Druig really seemed to like black, apparently. His headboard was black, his table was a dark mahogany color. There seemed to be an array of grays, and some deep reds, including some artifacts that he'd collected over the years.
It seemed to reflect a side of Druig I'd never seen before. I was sure no one other than him had entered his room in a loooong time, but it was still clean and... nice?
It seemed to be what I would have opted for if my room hadn't been designed the way it was.
"What are you looking at?" He asks, boredom lining his tone.
I turn to him, scowling as I walk slowly towards the exit.
"I was just looking at how ugly your room was"
"Oh yeah? Have you seen yours?" He asks, looking at me with a mean look.
I roll my eyes, deciding that now was not the time to bicker. Before I exit his room though, I turn around, offering a small smile.
"Thank you, Druig." I swallow my pride because at the end of the day he did save me. "Really"
He nods, not meeting my eyes but rather standing up and going to his desk, focusing on arranging his artifacts and random objects he had lying around.
"It was nothing, Aurora. You're welcome"
His voice comes out monotone, like he's forced himself to say them. I was accustomed to snarkyness and angriness... this was a whole other side of him I had never seen.
There was nothing. No emotion. It was void of any ounce of anger or meannes that at one time would have filled his words.
I pause for a moment, staring at his side profile, my lips pursing.
He stops moving, looking up and turning to me.
"What?" He asks, brow furrowed.
I shake my head, making a motion with my uninjured hand.
"Nothing, forget it."
I don't say anything else as I walk out of his room and close the door.
I realized several things happened that day.
One: Whatever hate-hate relationship I'd had with Druig shattered into nothingness.
It was like I had ceased to exist.
Two: I really liked Druig.
I guess Ajak had known all along what I hadn't wanted to accept, and I sort of cursed her for it.
As the days went by and he stopped talking to me, even looking at me, I realized how much I had actuall started to crave his presence.
How much I looked forward to the bickering and running into him on the hallways, the both of us sharing scowls and mean remarks about the other.
I missed the days that sometimes, when we knew we both needed a break from it all, he would join me in watching the sun set, no matter where we were.
It hit me then how much I had actually grown to like him.
And I hated myself for it.
He would never like me back. He'd talked bad about me for a reason. He was mean and cocky and would never look at me as an interest.
For gods sake, we had been fighting for centuries.
It scared me, the fact that someone I had hated for so long had so much power over me.
He had this ability to avoid that actually impressed me. No matter where I looked and how I looked I could never seem to find him– except when we were all together as a team. He made it his mission to never be alone with me, and it felt like a stab in the heart.
I hated myself for having grown fond of him when he was so clearly not fond of me.
Most of all, I hated him, for making me hate him so much I actually began to like him.
That's the thing with like and hate–love and hate. They aren't so different when you think about it.
Both are passionate emotions, that if mixed together and separated are often hard to distinguish.
They also say we often dislike the people we're alike the most.
It took me a while and few times of the team pointing out in several manners to notice that sometimes Druig and I had the same mannerisms. The same style in fighting, the same thoughts about humanity and civilization.
The more I started to like him, the more I resented myself.
Because I knew he'd never like me back.
a.n alright I decided to go with aurora's pov on this short chapter because later on we're going to see something happen and it has to do with this so! Remember this moment.
It's just a short chapter before I go to sleep since tomorrow I have two exams and i will not have time to update as much!
love you all and comment any feedback!
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