J-Star:
I woke up seeing the sun was already in the sky. I stretched, seeing the two boys sleeping on either side of me under the rock cleft. I had to massage my back a little to get out the stiffness of sleeping on the ground, but I was glad I was young at that moment.
Kyle was kind of adorable when he slept. He almost had his thumb in his mouth. I grinned at him.
Kyle and Xao slowly got up after me. I yawned watching them get up.
"So you guys have a change of clothes for me?" Kyle raised an eyebrow looking at me. "What?"
"We didn't even have water bud," Xao said over my shoulder. "You're wearing what you're wearing unless you got a change."
I looked at the backpack that I had planted under the cleft with us. "I got a tent, matches, a few knives, and an inflatable raft..."
"Why a raft?"
"Figured we could sleep on it then I forgot about it," I said.
"That is- actually not a bad idea," Kyle said. He had stretched a bit more to get over his own stiffness. "Wish you had remembered."
I scrunched up my nose as the idea of not being able to change but... "We gonna fish or hunt or something?" I asked, moving on.
"We have to cook meat, which calls for fire and- well the leprechauns will be looking for smoke thanks to what you did last night. Got any food in that bag?"
"Um... not really," I admitted.
"Plantlife it is," Xao said. "I'll show you how to make potable water without a fire- off to see what I can russell up."
"You the better survivalist or Kyle?" I asked.
Xao shrugged. "For foraging? Me mostly. Kyle and Jess had to push me to remember for a few years, but the information was all up here somewhere," Xao tapped his head. "I'll be back."
Xao walked off into the woods alone.
I pulled a book out of my bag- a book was something I never left home without. "A Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens was on the mental menu for today.
After reading a few pages I looked over at Kyle. He was pouring over his notes with a pen, writing new notes again and again. He was gritting his teeth and grinding sand in his fist as he worked, clearly pretty frustrated.
I remembered how I wanted to help these guys before. Well, no time like the present. If nothing else I could be someone to talk to.
"So um... how are you holding up?" I asked.
"You really wanna know?" he looked up at me. I nodded with a genuine smile. He looked back to his notes. "Well... you never met Jessica... it's hard to explain. She and I could talk for hours... she could always make me laugh. I haven't genuinely laughed since yesterday morning. Doesn't seem so long ago but... what if it's forever?"
"You know we can do this right?" I thought that was a good thing to say- well he laughed.
"Ha! Jess is the battle strategist of the group, not me. I make toys like this wrist device, make travel plans and... I'm the leader any time we're not talking about fighting."
"Thought you said she was the funny one."
"A total goofball," he said with a grin. "She's definitely the entertainer of the group too- but we're a small group, everyone wears a couple hats. Xao is the survivalist and sometimes our muscle- ya know, cause he's bigger."
"Yeah, I noticed she wasn't much bigger than you."
"You... you saw her?" I had his full attention suddenly. His eyes went straight to looking into mine. "I mean... how's she looking now? She was a mess when Tarth took her."
"Neither me seeing her nor you handing her over was that long ago," I noted.
"Still..."
"She was..." I hesitantly looked at his eyes. "She was looking okay and..." he narrowed his eyes. "Yeah you know she's still a mess don't you?" He nodded. I sighed. "They hooked her up to some life support. If there were any wounds that were immediately life-threatening they would have fixed those, but yeah, she's not out of the woods."
"She won't be unless we pull this off either huh?"
I shook my head. "No, Tarth will let her die if you don't fulfill your deal, that's just how it works. It'll mean nothing to him to pull the plug himself."
"You're okay with that?"
"I... Look no one's life doesn't have controversy." He looked down with a sigh. "The answer is no, I just can't fix it. But hey, I'm not the one grinding sand in my fist- or who was crying the whole walk down here last night."
"You cried last night... I was kind of a jerk, sorry about that."
"Probably some stuff I needed to hear. I was being pretty arrogant." I nodded to myself.
"Doesn't mean I had to put it that way," Kyle said, biting his lip. "I know better... honestly feel like I'm changing, like I'm becoming an even worse person than who I was."
"Losing someone can bring out the worst in you," I said.
He looked down, tears starting to come down. "But... but she's not really gone yet." I paused for a minute trying to think of what to say. "I mean, she isn't, she's just... it's just so bad that what you just said about finding the worst wounds makes sense and- she didn't wake up for hours in the light of the day... her face was..." he was stuttering as he talked, tears streaming down now. "If we don't do this... I'll never see her again."
"She means a lot to you, I can tell."
"You have no idea... I'm so sorry about how I acted last night. She would have been ashamed, I know it."
I marked my page and put down my book. "Ya know, maybe she would have gotten frustrated, but if she's as good as you're making her out to be, I think it would be mixed with some pride in you."
"Really?" he balked. "How so?"
"You're not just out here trying to save her. I mean who is this kid, Bart, to you?"
"Some missing kid we rescued."
"So do you even know him that well?" He shook his head to that. "That's actually pretty noble. Everything that's on the line for you and you're still risking it all for him?"
"I couldn't look her in the face if I let Bart get hurt."
"Not only that. You were rude as I'll get out last night- but I threatened to kill you both. I say that was restrained compared to what I probably deserved."
"What would you expect me to do, kill you?"
"Not sure if you would have to be a bad person to do so," I said. "I mean, self-defense and all... course not after I was knocked out and tied up..." I realized I had mixed up my terms a bit there. "But you even forced me to heal myself, because the whole time, you refused to leave me injured. After all that- you wouldn't leave till you knew I was okay." He was quiet, as was I for a while. I spoke up again. "You were harsh, and I can see it's because this is... tearing you apart."
"I can't let her down and... I can't let her down and I... can't let her down-"
"And you aren't," I said, putting a hand on his head.
Kyle seemed to just look into the distance for a few seconds. He spoke up again. "You want to know why I care so much about Bart?... It was Jessica's idea we look for missing kids. When we got to earth she just took me to a police station and picked a random missing kid off the bounty board." I sat and listened. Honestly, I really did want to know about her. "We've chased down one random kid after another now for eleven years. For so many years I had fun helping her but I didn't understand why we were doing it." He smacked his own head with his notebook. "Not sure why it took me so long to figure things out. When she was born, her parents left her. She has unusual powers so she was locked away for years because people were afraid of her. I don't know all of what happened between then and when we met- there was a trainer in there somewhere-, but I do know she was alone when we met. No parents, no friends... like she was lost. No one had any reason to come for her. No one knew her."
"So now she looks for kids she doesn't know, that she has no reason to come for... that makes... an odd sense," I said.
"That is completely how her mind works..." he gave a smile as he said that. I wasn't sure what it was for. He looked down at his notes. "She's been my friend for thirty years- with me for that whole time. I don't even know who I am without her."
"Yeah... when my dad died... hard to explain, but I didn't know who I was for a while." He looked at me on that note, almost like he was trying to say he completely identified. "He died in the Purge."
"I...." he turned and looked into the distance. "Hate to keep sounding insensitive-but that is NOT a good subject to discuss with me right now."
"I'm sure a lot of people lost someone to those monsters," I said.
"Like I said, not a good subject- I'm not a sensitive person and I don't know how to put this delicately."
"What?"
"We'll pick this up later okay? That war is not exactly what you were told."
"But then... what was it?"
"Please... this is the wrong time to tell you. I will, I promise." He looked back at his notes.
I really had no idea what that could have meant. What was the war if not what I thought? What part of it? "But if it..." he looked away as if to go back to his notes. Okay, so he was the kind of person who meant what he said. "Okay fine. So tell me, did talking help?"
He paused. He looked back. "You really think she would be proud?"
"I would be. You got flaws, but you're a good kid."
He looked back down. "Helps to think I'm not letting her down. Well... what I said last night... you do have a long way to go..." I bit my lip. "But, you did all this because you wanted to help us right?" I nodded. "I mean that was NOT the way to do things, but you've got a good heart. Don't give up on yourself. We all gotta start somewhere. Pretty sure you can do it." He punched my shoulder.
He went back to his notes. "How sure?" I asked.
"I'd say seventy percent- ninety if you leave those trickster jerks. Bad influences."
"I-I have this power, and I will use it to help people. I just need to use it right."
Kyle gave an exasperated sigh. "I wanted to be nice but... you have a long way to go girl. And I have no idea how to make it an easier trip."
Well, that gave me pause. What were tricksters to him?
(***)
Xao eventually came back with large white mushrooms he called "puffers" and several orange ear-shaped mushrooms, along with a batch of berries were handed to each of us. He had extra and produced a small plastic bag from his pants pocket and stored it all in my backpack.
I got pretty far in my book. Into the middle of the day, Kyle volunteered to get us water. I gave him my dowsing rods.
As soon as he was gone, it was time to work on the second boy. I wasn't sure why this mattered so much to me- I had just heard their story and I wanted to at least make it a little happier.
Not that the last talk made me feel the best ever.
Still, something told me Xao would be a tougher nut to crack, so to speak. His friend wasn't in distress. Darius was gone. To make things worse, I knew all kinds of religions and... Darius was not the kind you said you were going to see again in heaven.
I looked at my book as he cleared his throat, sitting on a log. "It's kinda boring out here... you got a second one of those?"
I looked at the cover and cocked my head to the side. "I do."
"Can I-"
"Care to make a deal?"
"For a book?" he gave me a lazy eye.
"Different kind of deal," I said raising a hand to calm him down.
He raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"I heard what happened and I wanna help so- let me do that?"
"Help with what? Rescuing Jessica? You're already doing that."
"No... someone you loved is gone. Don't tell me that's not affecting you." Hearing this, he just paused looking at me. He clenched his fist and turned away.
"Never mind the book."
I put up my hand again. "Hey- I know it's not exactly my business but I heard everything and- I felt a connection and I wanna make things better." Xao laughed walking away. I quickly got up and ran around him. "So you're gonna be more stubborn than Kyle?"
"It would probably be a first but maybe."
"I can be stubborn myself. We're talking."
"You wanna try fighting again or something?" He folded his arms on that note. He was a little taller than me and- completely dominated me last time we fought... kinda intimidating.
I backed up. "I said stubborn, not stupid."
"Don't test me," he said. He started to glare.
"Right." Perhaps I felt a little unearned cockiness, but I felt I knew these two. If they were going to hurt me, I'd given them ample reason to have already done so. "If you were gonna attack someone over this, you'd have destroyed Kyle a while ago."
"He has better weapons than I do," he said, cracking a small smile.
"Is he a better fighter?"
"Never found a way to tell really. Probably not..." He shrugged and turned again, walking the other way. I just ran in front of him again. "What happened out there isn't your business. Not sure how I feel that you listened to a personal conversation as it is. Like I said this isn't your business. You only care as a passing fancy."
"Well, I mean-"
"In fact, that's what all of this is isn't it?" he turned again. "Don't get in front of me, I won't walk away just yet." I stayed put. "I did my best to stand up for you last night but- you need to understand something. You ARE me."
"I'm sorry what?" That came out of nowhere.
"Eleven years ago, you're where I was. You know how Kyle and I knew exactly how to deal with you? How we both knew you were harmless?"
"Well, not exactly harmless-" he looked back giving me a dead stare. "I- did I really do that bad?"
"Bud when you were sneaking around, we heard you."
"When?"
"You wanna sneak up on people watch out for dry leaves- we heard a lot." He turned away from me again. "Come to think of it, you're worse than me. I had SOME survival skills. When I turned away from the tricksters, I didn't know how to get my own money, because I always made a deal for money at the beginning of each week. I got food off a massive wad of cash- anything I wanted. Like you, no doubt, I lived at the trickster facility. And water came with meals at restaurants so- that's everything really." He pulled out his sword and looked at it. "This thing- made it out of boredom, it's a lightning blade that- yeah I have no idea where I went wrong and I sorta just gave up. It was too hard."
"Kyle has one."
"Jess gave him that."
"She could probably show you when she's recovered," I commented.
"Not the point, but not sure how much I want one now," he re-sheathed his weapon. "I tried to make it myself off some manuals I found and when I couldn't figure it out, I just gave up. Why not? Everything in life was so easy. I could save lives by making deals and from those I could get whatever I wanted. Half the time my life was so easy I didn't even ask for anything useful, I made deals out of charity." He shook his head. "I was so dumb. When I ran into Kyle and Jessica, I was trying to rescue a kid after a deal of mine fell short of helping everyone I wanted it to. If they weren't there, straight up, I would be dead. I guess I was brave, but the kid had been taken by an underground human trafficking ring and I was honestly stupid enough to think I didn't necessarily need to... ya know- ask for help. I only used them as tools to get to my goal, making a deal that told us where the kid was and just brought them along out of a desire for company. So yeah, just like you, heart in the right place, but lord knows where my head was."
He stomped his foot. I looked down at it as he said, "That's a habit I got from Kyle somehow-despite myself I don't think it ever helps anything. I look at you and I am angry- and I... I want to help you because you're right where I was. I'm frustrated because I have to remember YOU have to make the choice."
"Choice to what?" I asked.
"LEAVE THE TRICKSTERS!" He stepped away a few times. He turned and looked at me once again. This time he had a glare. "They're monsters!"
"I'm not a monster!" I glared back and pointed at myself. "Look, I'm not perfect but every time you say something bad about them it applies to me." I looked down. I then turned my finger to him. "It also applies to you. You say that, you mean YOU were a monster."
"Who says I wasn't?"
"Oh please, who did you EVER hurt? You were about to throw down with Kyle because he hurt my feelings. What, did you blow up an orphanage?"
He sighed. "I tried to save lives with my powers. I used them to get by too but mostly tried to avoid hurting anyone. Not that I knew anyone I dealt with."
I spread my arms. "Such a monster!" I pointed at myself. "You're the one screwed up right now, don't try to save me!"
"You think you got a good handle on reality?" he asked back. "Hey genius, ever hear of the Purge?"
"Yeah, my dad died in it."
He gritted his teeth. "I... never mind," he moved to turn around but-
"Oh no, you don't. Say it! What don't I know about the Purge?" I demanded.
"It was a trick," Xao said. "Our people heard that the gargoyles, mutant human creations of the leprechauns, were moving to conquer the world. Our people descended on the planet to save it. They didn't understand what was really going on, they never got to know the gargoyles."
"So what?"
"They committed mass murder." my nostrils flared hearing that. He looked down, swallowed, and continued. "The gargoyles... everything your parents told you about them, everything everyone told you about them... some of them were bad, others weren't. They were just like everyone else. We stopped the bad gargoyles trying to take the world- and then hunted down innocent families and even children. They were all hunted regardless. Our people didn't bother to ask questions. They didn't get to know people, they loaded up, thought they knew what was best, and descended ready to enforce their will- I've made friends with some of the gargoyles that survived. All of them have broken hearts and they live in fear of our people returning to finish them off. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a nine-year-old child living on the run in so much poverty he has said goodbye to more friends than he hasn't?"
"You've made friends with gargoyles?"
"They're not the monsters we were taught." He looked down. "That's just a sample of what happens when you don't learn before you act when you don't do the work to figure out what you're doing. There's a line bud- if you don't take the time, you have no idea where it is."
I just stood there. "My dad didn't... you have to be lying."
"I'm not, but I don't know how to convince you otherwise- that scares me because for some reason I care about you now."
I stepped back. "I don't think I believe you. Those things were monsters, my dad told me what they did- you think trying to take over a planet is bloodless? Monsters..." I looked into his eyes. "But... you believe it don't you?" I sighed. "I don't know what convinced you... whatever it is- have you turned on your own people?"
"Kyle and I still consider ourselves part of Triad." He looked into the sky. "Kyle had to disown his own father. Me? I knew for a while our people were in the wrong, not like I ever dreamed I could convince them of that. Never bothered me too much I guess, just a fact I learned to get over. Course then I watched Darius get corrupted- just happened despite me. Yesterday I watched Kyle kill someone and not even feel anything- who knows where that leads. I have no idea if we can pull this thing off to save Jessica, we're kinda winging it. Now I'm looking at you trying to save you from the tricksters and- that's not gonna happen... just... is there any way I can get you to walk away?"
"Well... no..." We both walked back to camp and sat, me under the cleft, Xao some fifteen feet away at the tree line.
I tried to read, my eyes continuing to leave the page and see him, gritting his teeth and trying not to look at me. Finally, I got up, took out my second book, and offered it to him.
"Thanks."
"I'm not giving up on you," I said.
He took the book and smiled. "Nor I you bud."