Shade of Exposure (Three)

Eleven

Eleven:

Walking back into the sight of Skylar hovering over my bedside, lurking in what could almost be considered a fearful concern, was hardly the image I expected to walk in upon.

“Sweet baby Jesus, what happened?!”

I exclaimed, and Sky looked at me wide-eyed and she shook her head slightly.

“I…we…the torment, it was so much more than anything I could have began to fathom. Nadia… well, she remembered a lot of things all at once.”

Sky said, and for the first time since I met her, besides the very first day, she seemed vulnerable, fearful. She beheld Nadia with a sort of reverence, something so queer to the loathing of before my departure.

“Sky, what happened? What did you see?”

I asked, and she shook her head wide and said, “I promised her not to divulge what I saw. You’re going to have to wait and ask her yourself.”

She told me, and I blanched at her and sighed.

“Well, can I assume you’re going to retract your claws at least?”

I asked her in a terse tone, and she looked up at me and gave me a slightly bemused smile.

“Sure, claws officially retracted. Hannah, you were right to believe in her, that’s all I can say for now.”

Sky said in a sincere tone that made my curiosity only double from its already massive level.

“So, you are not at liberty to say anything, but you can toss me unbearably large teasers. You are your mother’s daughter after all.”

I joked to Sky, and she frowned at me and murmured, “I am my other’s daughter, what of it?”

I snorted and shook my head and said, “Nuffin.”

She gave me a deeply dubious look and rolled her eyes as if her tolerance for my shenanigans had run thin. Her eyes were softer than normal, and her mood was gentler, nurturing. Sky usually did not do gentle or nurturing, and yet she was fussing over my sort-of new girlfriend as if she were a beloved relative in a coma. Though, I was hoping against the coma part fiercely.

“Is she going to be ok?”

I asked her, and Sky gave me a confirming nod and she said, “I cannot imagine this mind dive is going to kill her considering how resilient her physiology is.”

Her air of confidence was only slightly reassuring, the rest of it was perturbing because of how much more she seemed to know about Nadia than I did now. Not that I was jealous or anything, just trying to compute this strange new emotional dynamic between two former bitter enemies.

Nadia’s past and her reputation never made much sense to me, considering the person I met when I was sixteen. She was tender, mysterious, but also deeply defensive. She did not at all behave like the leader of an army of automaton-like psycho killers. She also did not appear to have a hateful or malice bone in her body towards the Hidden species she was supposed to be hunting to extinction. Therefore, nothing about her had been right, given the givens.

“I’m going to get her a clean hot towel, to mop up all this sweat, assuming you are not going to revert to homicidal tendencies in my absence.”

I sassed to Sky, who slit her blue eyes and gave me a mild look and scoffed.

“No promises, I am my mother’s daughter, right?”

She said, tossing my line back at me, and I shook my head and trot off murmuring my annoyance with sassy dragon females.

***

Kerry appeared every bit as shocked as I was with Skylar’s change in behavior. She seemed to eye her apex tending to the homunculus woman tenderly as if this were a trap of some sort.

“Can we be certain Skylark was not somehow mind-controlled?”

She inquired of me, and I shrugged and waved my hands around wildly.

“Don’t look at me, I’m not privy to this whole mind jumping thingie.”

I said, and Kerry corrected, “Mind dive.”

I nodded and said, “Yeah, that thing, whatever it is.”

She huffed tersely and said, “It is the ultimate form of sharing only an apex or alpha of considerable power could perform. The technique is fiercely guarded with the apex lines. Only a hand full of beings are left in existence that know how to perform this technique.”

She informed me, and I felt my mind spin further with the possibilities. Sky seemed to carry a lot of burdens of knowledge, duty, and her heritage. There was little wonder why she felt so worried about how her people would receive her romantic interest being an evolved human, not a nix male. The not-so-subtle pressure on her to keep the pure dragon line, pure, was not very well hidden.

“Look, it’s freaky, but I guess we just have to accept that Sky was more than satisfied with whatever it was she experienced inside Nadia’s mind. She’s not one to joke or play about such serious matters. My gut is telling me that Nadia is the decent person I always felt I knew her to be. Sky at least is not trying to kill her now that she’s put her in a near coma, so there is that as well.”

I said, trying to make light of the situation, but I was worried for Nadia. She had risked her mind and soul to show Skylar whatever it was that reversed her perception so drastically. To say I was curious was the world's most enormous understatement of the century! A girl likes to know what is transpiring between her little sis and her mysterious and ancient new girlfriend. Some lives truly don’t need more mysteries in them. However, I could hardly turn her upside down and demand answers, though the illustrated version of that idea in my mind just now was a nice amusing distraction from my endless bag of worry.

“So, we’re no longer planning to dispose of Nadia’s lifeless body then, boss?”

Kerry asked in a mildly cheeky tone and Sky snorted and shrugged casually.

“I am the apex, I reserve the right to reverse my decision without the need of explaining anything to anyone, even my nosey besties.”

She said, and Clarke picked this moment to walk in.

“Wow, it smells like some freak flags have been flying in here!”

He commented, and I blushed. The afternoon musky smell had not dissipated yet. Sky hitched her thumb at me, and said, “That would be the horny shade’s handiwork. She christened the apartment while we were all at class.”

My mouth flapped open wide in a flabbergasted expression, and Clarke sniggered and said, “Not often you get that look on Hannah’s face, kudos.”

He praised Sky and he prowled closer to her, and Kerry pretended not to notice. To her credit, she kept her opinions of Sky’s budding romance to herself.

“And suddenly this room has begun to shrink.”

I said casually, and Sky rolled her eyes at me, and I stuck my tongue out in retaliation. We were in rare form today, and we could mount a camera in the common rooms and start our own little immortal reality show. Think the Real World and Survivor mixed into one perfect blend of challenge, danger, and late-teen drama. (Or at least I am told those two old shows captured the genres best, but I’ve hardly managed to sit down and watch them extensively.)

“Naw, that’s just your imagination running wild again Hannah.”

Clarke disagreed and I scoffed, and I gave a little theatrical wave of my fingers, and I dipped into a very nearly perfect curtsy towards Sky.

“Milady, I bid thee good marrow.”

Sky dipped into a slight curtsey of her own and quipped in return, “It’s good eve, marrow would be morning.”

I thickened the faux-courtesan accentuation and I lavished praise on Sky, “Of course the once and future queen would know all these genteel phrases! I thank you for your tolerance to my ill-bred behavior!”

Clarke looked to Kerry and asked, “You know, I don’t even get them half the damn time. It’s almost as if they are on a different phase or dimension for half of this skit because it all seems at random from where I’m standing.”

Kerry nodded in agreement and conspiratorially leaned in and said, “I’m worried I am going to wake up to them mid-duo of the entire Hamlet play some morning. Since that is what we are all studying in our classic literature right now.”

Clarke sniggered and shook his head and said, “Naw, I got my money on The Twelfth Night. That is more their speed if you ask me.”

Clarke snapped his fingers together and made a very wide gesture of faux disappointment with his fist. Kerry laughed openly, and Sky and I looked at her in shock, since it was a very new development.

“Sky, go get the thermometer, I am worried our alpha nix has a fever, she’s laughing like a loopy fool.”

I said in a faux-serious tone, and Sky trots off and obliged, returning soon, and popped the thermometer in Kerry’s mouth. To her credit, Kerry managed not to bite Sky’s hand, since that was still a possible death sentence in the nix world.

We’d had so much tension building; it was a little wonder we were now resorting to jokes and blowing off this steam that had built to a boiling point.

“You lot are certainly cheerful, considering we almost crossed that mythical river the old Greeks loved to talk about.”

Nadia said, pushing herself up, and yawning like a lazy kitten.

“It’s alive!”

I exclaimed, and Sky snorted and Nadia looked up at me, as I extended a helping hand to get her back off the ground where Sky had been allowing her to calm down and recover on her strength.

“Nadia, are you ok? Like we were debating on dropping you off at a local ER, but then I realized the gaping hole in that innovative idea.”

I said, and she gave a breathy laugh of true amusement at this thought.

“Nothing I won’t bounce back from. Thanks to Skylark’s technique, it jarred free a lot of contextual memories which answer a lot of questions I have wondered since the time of the exodus and the rift closing.”

She said, and I waited for her to elaborate, and she shook her head and added, “Sorry, I promise, I’ll tell you more later. I just need a little time to properly grieve and process the things I have remembered. I never had that luxury before, not in over four-thousand-years.”

She said, and my eyes went bug wide and I looked over to Skylar, and she nodded in confirmation.

“That was a shock for us all, and well, I lived every single one of those years with her in her mind, hence the recalling her history suddenly and seizing from the mental shock.”

My lips were in a wide-O shape and I snipped, “Oh, is that all you two were doing, now?!”