
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/471587.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/F, F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Original_Work
  Additional Tags:
      Prompt_Fic, Ficlet, Ficlet_Collection, Psychic_Bond, Rape, Brainwashing,
      Community:_hc_bingo, Trauma, Minor_Injuries, Transformation, Secret
      Identity, Biting, Fingerfucking, Hazing, Isolation, Sibling_Incest,
      Parent/Child_Incest, Minor_Character_Death, Fluff_and_Angst
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-07-28 Chapters: 25/25 Words: 20867
****** Nico de la Monte ******
by kkscatnip_(autohaptic)
Summary
     A collection of ficlets focused on six characters who for the most
     part live at a special school. In this world, Bonding into Pairs is
     unconscious and irreversible; it results in physical, telepathic, and
     mental/perception changes for those people who are Paired. Ficlets
     are highly character-driven and interconnected. Overall the rating is
     more toward the Teen-ish side than the explicit side; there are only
     two prompts that merit an Explicit rating.
Notes
     This is a collection of ficlets for my first hc_bingo card. It spans
     a wide range of themes/prompts so if you see any you don't like keep
     in mind that it's probably only present in one or two ficbits.
***** unwanted transformation *****
Everyone knew that when two people Bonded, one of them had to Change in order
for them to function as a proper Pair.
Well, okay, maybe everyone was an exaggeration, but Wren had known from the
time she was old enough to understand what the Change was that it would be
either she or Tanager who Changed, because they'd been stuck together like glue
since they were old enough to crawl to one another and... and she didn't want
to be the one who changed.
She liked her body the way it was. Yeah, she was a little skinny and kind of
shrimpy height-wise but it was her body and she didn't want it to Change.
The gods didn't care. They 'gifted' her with her Change the day after her
seventeenth birthday.
One minute she was leaving their room in Nico de la Monte, located in the
student quarters at the Academy, bantering with Tanager, and the next she had a
searing pain up her left side and was on the ground with Tanager leaning over
her. She looked beautiful, even with her dark eyes wide with shock and her
silky, ink-black hair falling over her shoulders to tickle Wren's face.
She couldn't feel her toes or fingers, but she felt that.
They always said that the pain was unimaginable when one Changed, but Wren
didn't find it so. The pain of her heart breaking, of the idea that she was
going to be responsible for protecting Tanager for the rest of her natural life
and not Tanager protecting her, was much greater. Tanager wanted to be the one
to Change so, so badly, and Wren could see the regret in her eyes warring with
concern just as well as she could feel the emotions warring in Tanager's mind.
As it was, she had Tanager's hands in her hair, on her cheeks and forehead, and
checking her pulse every so often. The touches were like balm, scaring the pain
off until Wren realized that she was laying there, breathing hard, and she felt
no pain at all.
Was it over?
She raised one hand and looked at it. Her dark skin—nearly as dark as Tanager's
hair—was the same as ever, but her fingernails were now sharp claws. She tensed
her fingers and they extended a little further, then straightened her fingers
and watched them retract entirely.
"They're beautiful," Tanager said, took Wren's hand in hers, and kissed each
fingertip.
Wren's breath caught, and she extracted her hand from Tanager's as carefully as
possible. "Don't pretend." She'd thought that a physical Change would be
beautiful on Tanager, would go well with her broad shoulders and muscular
frame, but they could only make Wren look a fool.
Every person's Change was different, of course. Thus, Tanager helped her up,
with some difficulty and the ripping of clothes that had been loose before and
were now suddenly tight. After that the two of them walked—or Tanager walked,
and Wren staggered, and Tanager made no comments about her leaning on Tanager
heavily while her head swam—back inside their shared room, to the mirror on the
back of their wardrobe.
"The Academy is going to love you," Tanager told her, pulling her dreadlocks
away from her face so they hung down her back instead.
Wren was fairly sure Tanager's assessment was accurate. Not only had she
undergone the fairly typical changes to her fingernails and toenails, but now
she had armored plating beneath her skin. She felt it when Tanager's hands
trailed down her back, and saw it on her front: little points on her forehead
and a craggy quality to her previously soft features.
All at once, Wren tore at her shirt, wanting to see her entire body, not just
the bits that clothes didn't cover.
"Shh, shh," Tanager said gently, grabbing Wren's wrists.
She panted, her heart rate rising, skew-eyes wild when she caught sight of
herself in the mirror. Wren forced herself to calm down, and the gentle touch
of Tanager's fingers on her inner wrists helped, as did the solid feeling of
Tanager pressed against her back.
"There," Tanager whispered into Wren's ear, which was now elongated and pointed
at the end.
Wren sucked in a few breaths and then nodded. "I'm okay. Honestly, I'm okay."
Tanager's smile was wicked as ever. "I don't believe you, but I'll help you get
out of those clothes all the same." Her hand disappeared from the mirror's
view, then reappeared with a glint of steel. With slow movements, she cut
Wren's clothes off, as there was no question of removing them normally since
they were now far too tight.
Wren's thin arms had bulked up considerably during the change, and now her
biceps rivaled Tanager's in size, with that bone plating protecting the muscle
far better than skin could ever hope to. She closed her eyes at the touch of
Tanager's fingers on her shoulder. "What's your range of motion like? Do you
think you can retract the plates?"
Where would they go? Wren wondered, but closed her eyes and tried anyway for
the remainder of the time that it took Tanager to cut off her clothes. Some of
them retracted underneath others, leaving parts of her soft while others
remained hard, but they wouldn't go away entirely.
She was well and truly Changed.
Tanager leaned over and pressed a kiss against Wren's cheek. "It'll be okay,
little bird. Is anything else different?"
Taking stock of her body in the mirror was an odd feeling. She had the bony
plates, she had the extra muscle, she had claws and fangs and long ears, but
the rest of her remained the same: small stature, tiny breasts, round hips.
Wren lifted her arms up as far as they would go—she could no longer reach
straight up—before letting them drop slowly back down, spread her legs and
squatted before rising back up and twisting at the waist. She went through the
most basic stretches and found nothing else different except for the ways that
the bone plates limited her range of motion.
Her skin did feel a little different, though. Not so sensitive as before,
though places like the insides of her arms and the backs of her hands were
still comparatively more sensitive than the rest of her skin. Maybe it was
thicker? That would come in handy in combat, if so.
It helped, she realized, to think of the changes objectively. To think of the
ways the Change had affected her in terms of what the Academy would find
useful.
Wren met her own gaze in the mirror—right eye blue-green, left eye lighter
brown than Tanager's—and nodded at herself. Change wasn't so hard; she was
strong and would deal with it well, now that the initial shock was past.
And if she didn't, well, she'd have Tanager by her side every step of the way.
***** bites *****
Tanager knew that Alethe didn't want to oblige her, but she'd lost the spar
and, well, protocol said that winner chose the consequence. She hadn't had sex
in two months—not a long time, but longer than she would've liked all the
same—so it was fair enough to grin at Alethe and say, "You have to sleep with
me."
Alethe reminded Tanager of Wren in some ways, with the short stature and wiry
muscle, but that was where the similarities ended. Wren was dark where Alethe
was light, Wren's eyes mismatched where both of Alethe's were crystal, clear
blue; and most importantly, Wren was off-limits according to the Academy, but
Alethe? Alethe was perfectly fine.
Even if she didn't want to, none of that showed in the changing room when she
crawled into Tanager's lap and pressed her lips against Tanager's. She wasn't
shy about this, not in any way, and Tanager did not feel guilty about letting
her hands slide down to rest on Alethe's round hips. Another similarity with
Wren—Alethe and Wren both had asses designed by the gods themselves. Perfect,
if such a thing existed, and Tanager had no qualms about letting her hands move
around to grip the ample curve and squeeze. It wasn't hard; they had over a
foot of size difference between them and Tanager was long-fingered even given
her height.
Breaking the kiss, Alethe whimpered, head going back, baring her neck whether
consciously or unconsciously.
At the best of times, Tanager had poor self-control. Now, mind thrumming with
arousal, squirming girl in her lap, it was even worse; she couldn't have kept
from biting if she tried. She did keep it light and on the side, so she
wouldn't do any damage to Alethe's windpipe.
White teeth sank into pale, pale skin; pale, pale skin tasted sweaty and sweet
at the same time; soft little pants escaped Alethe's lips. When she wasn't
pushed away, Tanager bit harder, until Alethe began to struggle in truth.
Tanager just wrapped her arms around Alethe's waist, preventing escape, and
pulled back to admire her handiwork.
Alethe's normally neat blonde hair was a mess, falling in those striking eyes,
and the bite mark on the side of her neck was already beginning to bruise. No
blood, which just made Tanager want to bite more, bite harder.
"Too rough," Alethe said, softly, and leaned in to press another kiss against
Tanager's lips.
Well, if she wasn't going to stop it...
Tanager kissed back, swirling their tongues together, then sucking Alethe's
tongue into her mouth, letting her teeth scrape it, biting Alethe's lip. Soft,
at first, and Tanager delighted so much in that high-pitched whine, then
harder, harder, until she tasted blood.
Alethe squeaked, squeaked, put her hands on Tanager's chest just above her
breasts, and tried to push away. Like that was going to be enough. "Not, not so
hard, please." Despite her words, she licked her bloody lip and squirmed in
Tanager's lap, beginning to grind her hips down against Tanager's.
Heat and pressure. Tanager closed her eyes, just enjoying it, enjoying Alethe's
excitement and the sharp tang of blood in the air, the metallic taste of blood
in her mouth.
"More?" she drawled, opening her eyes about the time that Alethe decided that
she wanted to return the treatment to Tanager.
Alethe bit her lip, whimpered, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. She nodded,
then.
Tanager tore off her sparring shirt, using the seam at the side. The Academy
would replace it free of charge, of course; it was hardly the first sparring
shirt that Tanager had torn off. Alethe was clearly impressed, though, eyes
wide for a moment before she let her shoulders roll back and her breasts push
forward into Tanager's hands.
"Greedy?" Tanager smiled; she liked it when they got like this.
She nodded, so Tanager pinched one nipple. Alethe leaned to that side, mouth
falling open though no sound came out. Pinching the other drew a similar
reaction, so Tanager tried both at once and Alethe nearly convulsed in
Tanager's lap, oo-oo-oooh ripping itself from her throat as blood began to drip
down her chin from the bite on her lip.
Most excellent, Tanager thought, and leaned forward to lick at the blood. It
smeared on Alethe's chin a little but the taste was like an aphrodisiac, the
best one Tanager knew of, making heat bloom and burst between her legs.
With a new plan in mind, Tanager cupped one hand under Alethe's ass and carried
her over to the wrestling mats and pressed her down against them, tearing off
the remainder of the sparring uniform and then biting one breast.
Hard. Not hard enough to bleed, but hard enough to make a bruise like the one
on Alethe's neck. She screamed, writhing, but Tanager was an expert at holding
down girls by now and it only made it better, the way she struggled. The other
breast received the same treatment, and Alethe screamed louder, back arching,
heels drumming against the wrestling mat.
"P-please, I—not so hard, I--"
Tanager leaned over Alethe, elbows on either side of her head, kissably close.
"Do you want me to stop? Truly?"
"Truly, not so hard," Alethe whispered, closing her eyes. She wasn't panting,
not precisely, but her breath came a little faster than usual. As well it
should.
"You should become accustomed to injury if you can ever hope to function in
your Pair," Tanager said, keeping her words soft as she shifted, trailing her
fingers over Alethe's body. Neck, collar bones, between her breasts, over her
ribs, her stomach.
"N-nn—" Alethe groaned as Tanager's fingers trailed over the mound of her pubic
hair and lower, ghosting over her slit as well.
She pushed one finger inside and Alethe's head rolled to the side, exposing the
bite mark, as she moaned shakily.
"Can you really withstand so little?" Tanager asked, whispering the words
against Alethe's cheek.
Alethe's hand cupped around Tanager's, pressing Tanager's finger deeper. Before
she could bite her lip, Tanager sucked it into her mouth, reveling at the
flavor of Alethe's blood as she added a second finger to the first, working
them in and out of Alethe slowly.
"Just this?" she murmured, and sucked Alethe's lip sharply.
"Ahhh!" Alethe's back arched, her breasts pressing against Tanager's sparring
shirt for a moment, legs spreading wider.
An invitation, if Tanager ever saw one. She shifted downward, sucking one
nipple and then the other as she continued to fuck Alethe with her fingers,
very pointedly not paying any attention to Alethe's clit. She squirmed, gasped,
tried to beg, but could never get enough breath for proper words.
Just the way Tanager liked it. "And now, what? You want me to finish you?"
Tanager spoke against Alethe's nipple, biting it as soon as the words were out.
Predictably, Alethe just writhed and moaned.
"Or should I just continue like this? Fucking you but not truly pleasing you."
"P-plllahhhh." Alethe closed her legs, trapping Tanager's hand, probably in an
attempt to get her to stop.
She could curl her fingers, even if she couldn't move them in and out, and she
did that, just rubbing Alethe's insides. Curl, curl, curl. Slowly, though.
"You think this can stop me?" Tanager knew her voice was getting breathy, but
she didn't care. She was probably soaked straight through the sparring pants;
the smell of cunt was heavy in the air and completely delicious, as good as the
scent of blood.
Alethe's back arched until it was just her shoulders and ass against the
ground, chest heaving with every breath, breathing matching the motion of
Tanager's fingers. Slow, slow. Faster. Slower.
Tanager's hand started to cramp, but she pushed through it. No pain, no gain,
right? She couldn't let something like a little hand cramp keep her from
completely dominating Alethe, from destroying her in the best way possible.
Mind over matter; her hand was fine. Just fine.
One of Alethe's hands gripped Tanager's arm, fingernails digging in
painfully—deliciously, if Tanager was going to be honest—while the other curled
into a fist, held just barely off of the mat and beginning to shake.
The moans grew into quiet, breathless pants, and Tanager thought, now. She sped
up all at once, curlcurlcurl, and Alethe's eyes snapped open as she gasped for
breath and moaned at the same time. Ah-gasp-hh-gasp-ooh-nngh—the most beautiful
sound in the world to Tanager: the sound of a woman coming.
Alethe thrashed around even more when Tanager kept going straight through the
orgasm, spreading her legs, pushing herself away—or trying to. Tanager gripped
one of Alethe's shoulders and kept going, resuming thrusting now, and the high-
pitched sounds that Alethe made were just—beautiful. So gorgeous.
She lost count of the number of orgasms that Alethe had, but she kept going
until tears streamed down Alethe's face and she begged for Tanager to stop.
"Please, I can't, please, gods, please, no, I can't."
And yet she groaned and pressed her hands over her cunt the second that Tanager
withdrew her fingers.
They were both all-over sweat. Didn't matter. Tanager unbuttoned the sparring
pants enough to slide her hand in—the other hand—and rub her clit. It took less
than ten seconds and Tanager was the one with her face pressed against the mat,
all but screaming as she shook through her own orgasm.
In the aftermath, Tanager licked her own fingers off and then moved over to
Alethe's face to press their lips together one last time.
Blood and come were the best cocktail in the known world, so far as Tanager was
concerned. Now if she could just find people to fuck her without having to beat
them in an unofficial spar first.
***** combat *****
Wren had never liked straight-up combat; the Change didn't affect that one
little bit. She still felt impatient as ever, imagining all the ways she might
outsmart her opponent as the instructor demanded that she do this or that.
Why should she face someone head-on when they were a head and a half taller
than her and nearly twice her pre-Change body weight? It was stupid since she
wasn't in any way going to show advantage in a head-on fight against someone
like that.
The bone plates meant that she could take a lot more pummeling than before, but
they also meant that she got slowed down because she wasn't used to carrying
them around and they were heavy and oh, how she hated the way that they told
her she needed to do more strength training.
"Why won't they just let me speed train?" she asked Tanager one day. Tanager
didn't question anything that the Academy recommended, ever, so she had no idea
why she was questioning it. It was just that nobody else understood. All her
friends who had sided with her before because she was shrimpy and really not
much use at fighting thought she was crazy for still wanting to stick to speed
and stealth training.
Tanager lifted her head, then tilted it, her brows furrowed. "Little bird, I
don't know if you realize it or not, but you'd be a real force to be reckoned
with if you'd do half the training that they tell you to. Why do you think they
keep telling you to do more and more? It's since their current regimens—which
you're supposed to be following, by the way, they're not suggestions--are
clearly not having the intended results. If you just--"
"Maybe I don't want to be bigger and stronger than everyone else," Wren
snapped, and immediately felt awful for it. Any form of fighting with Tanager
always made her feel sick to the core.
"You're never going to be bigger than everyone else, but there's tons of
different kinds of stronger. We're supposed to be balanced, aren't we? Equal in
all regards. Maybe the Change--"
Wren closed her eyes tight. "Don't say it."
As usual, Tanager had selective hearing. Or selective obedience. "Maybe the
Change is meant to put you at my level physically."
There was a mean response to that and a nice response to that, and Wren was
just upset enough to go for the former rather than the latter. "So what's the
universe going to do to put you up to my level, mentally?"
Tanager rolled her eyes. "That's why I get Metamorphosis and you get Change."
It just meant that Tanager's change would be slower, over a span of months if
not years, in stages rather than all at once, her mind and body evolving in
response to the way Wren dealt with her Change. The idea was that they'd stay
suited to one another no matter what happened. "Let me have a little whining,
all right?"
"I've let you have a little whining already. It's been nearly a month, little
bird. You can't hide behind the Change forever; sooner or later you're going to
have to do what the Academy wants."
"Unless we leave," Wren said softly.
Tanager said nothing, but Wren heard the soft shift of a page being turned. Not
an argument Tanager wanted to have tonight, but fuck it, Tanager always got her
way. Wren stripped off her sparring clothes and the sweaty underclothes beneath
it, walked over to Tanager and pulled the book out of her hands.
Then she straddled Tanager's lap and caught her gaze and held it. "Look. We're
miserable here, right? We came in late, we don't like to train the way they
want us to train. Why in the world are we staying here?"
"For all of the free tail?" Tanager said, with a ghost of her usual predatory
look.
Wren had seen it enough to not be impressed. "We can find people for you to
fuck, if that's the only thing keeping us here."
"They also pay our room and board and will find someone to buy our contract
once we're fully trained," Tanager said, her voice soft. "If I'm remembering
correctly, you were the one who wanted to attend somewhere that had a bit of a
longer-term solution than the pre-Change schools."
Damn her for remembering. Wren sighed, leaning her forehead forward and resting
it against Tanager's. It was a normal thing, but Tanager winced back, and at
the last moment Wren remembered the tiny little horns that were now poking
through the skin. She felt her cheeks go red and climbed off of Tanager
quickly.
"Little bird," Tanager said, fingers on her forehead, where two bright points
of blood marred her caramel skin, "please be careful with your new body."
Wren was already scooping up her sweaty underclothes and wiping at the blood
gingerly. "Sorry, sorry. I still forget they're there."
"Mmm, well, you know me and the scent of blood. Might as well finish the job,
right?" She cupped one hand around Wren's ass, not gently.
If Wren had felt anything for Tanager once upon a time, the Academy's rules
about not sleeping with one's Bonded had killed it. She just rolled her eyes.
"I don't think that's a good idea, especially now."
"Now that you're actively disregarding the Academy's instructions, you mean?"
Damn her for being astute. If only she'd actually be as stupid as she liked to
act sometimes, their relationship would be so much less complicated. "I'm going
to join an expedition to the peak next week," she said, simply. "It'll give me
a chance to do more of the endurance work that they want me to do."
"Oh, so all it takes to get you to do what you don't want to do is for me to
hit on you? Good to know."
Wren scowled. "You just love to think that you're the center of my world, don't
you?"
Tanager smiled, the kind of smile that had melted Wren's insides when they were
both on the beginning edge of puberty. "Well, yeah. You're the center of mine."
"You're impossible," Wren mumbled, pulled a sleeping shirt out of their
wardrobe, and pulled it on as she walked out the door. A nice walk in the night
air would make her sleepy, and the coolness of it would douse the fire in her
belly.
Stupid Tanager.
***** hazing *****
Every person who's Bonded hears the stories growing up about the hazing
practices at various schools. Some check to make sure you're not attracted to
your partner, others are more focused on the things you would do in extenuating
circumstances, but the ones at the Nest sounded like the easiest of the lot:
all you had to do in order to pass your unofficially official probationary
period was not sleep for a week.
Wren had always thought it something of a joke that they let people get in for
so little effort because, really, how hard could staying awake for seven days
really be?
"Your eyes are shut," Corella, her current babysitter, said.
"They hurt," Wren said, not meaning to sound worn-out but doing a good job of
it anyway. She sighed, one hand coming up to rub them without opening them up.
It truly felt like someone had punched her square on in both eyes. "I'm resting
them, okay? I'm not sleeping. Do you want me to talk to you the whole time so
that you know I'm not asleep?"
Corella snorted. "I'll trust you. It's not even three whole days yet, you
know—your eyes are going to hurt a lot more if you really want to come here."
What had made Wren think this was a good idea? The promise of training and the
Nest—that was, of the Academy, rather—finding them a contract and the rest of
their lives lived out in peace and solace.
She and Tanager didn't come from money; their parents hadn't wanted to part
with them, even so, and refused to send them off to school until they were old
enough to make their own decisions.
Which was now: they were fifteen. And way behind. Way, way behind.
If only Wren could get some sleep, she might...
"Little bird," Tanager whispered, her lips near Wren's ear. "You can't sleep."
Wren blinked her eyes open and yawned widely. Their plain dorm room was the
same as she'd left it, dusty in the corners and with Corella sitting in a chair
in the middle of the room. She resisted the urge to rub her eyes this time. "I
wasn't sleeping. I just lost track of my thoughts, that's all."
Tanager hummed, sighed, and pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Look,
this is torture, innit? Not letting us sleep."
Corella crossed her arms over her chest. "It's not torture if you're the one
who said you'd do it."
It wasn't easy to sit up, swing her legs over the bed, and walk—stumble,
really—over to Tanager, but Wren did it anyway. "So let's exercise s'more."
The look Tanager gave her said better than words that this was entirely Wren's
fault, and Wren couldn't even argue with it; she'd been the one who wanted to
come here in the first place.
Never again would she think, Oh, not sleeping for a week would be easy.
*
Around the fourth day, Tanager started hallucinating. Wren could tell by the
way Tanager kept looking at empty space with a confused expression, then making
herself look away.
Well, she couldn't tell right away. At first she wondered what in the seven
worlds was wrong with her partner, but then a couple hours before they hit day
five she started having hallucinations too and it was only too obvious what
Tanager had been looking at.
The patterns on the carpet moved beneath her feet and she tried very hard not
to watch them, because it made her feel vaguely nauseous, but the movement was
as captivating as it was sickening and she couldn't look away. She threw up
only a couple hours after the hallucinations started.
"It's okay," Tanager told her gently, but didn't try to touch Wren at all.
Wren wondered if Tanager was seeing Wren's dreadlocks as something other than
hair, but didn't want to alert their current babysitter, Martin, if she was.
Everyone knew that the Academy used the no-sleep hazing as a litmus test for
what kind of reactions Pairs had to mental strain and she was deathly afraid
that if she alerted anyone official to the hallucinations that they'd get
expelled before they really even began attending classes.
Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Did they really want to go to a school that
encouraged students to essentially torture other students?
"Don't tell," Tanager whispered in Wren's ear, then gave her a hard look and
pulled away.
Wren closed her eyes against the swirling patterns and didn't say anything.
*
By the time they only had an hour left to go, both she and Tanager felt like
they'd been pummeled by strong fists on every inch of their body. They'd made a
game of cataloging their injuries for the last half-hour and they were
beginning to run out of places that hurt, something that Wren had never
imagined would happen.
"Yeah, well, my eyelashes hurt," Tanager said, and then giggled.
Tanager didn't really do much in the way of giggling. The only laughter she
engaged in was either full-throated or quick snorts delivered with the shake of
her head, so it made Wren giggle that she was giggling. "My vocal cords hurt."
There was Tanager's outright laugh, the one Wren cherished. "And my toenails
feel like someone's cut them apart and glued them back on my toes—what of it?"
Wren just giggled harder. "I think whoever got your toenails got my
fingernails. And my hair."
"Hey, that was two, that's cheating, little bird."
The nickname made Wren's giggles cut off abruptly. Tears prickled in her eyes
and she shut her eyes tight against them; Tanager always felt so flustered and
confused about what to do when Wren got upset.
Tanager's manic little giggle crept back up, after a few moments of silence.
"My giggles hurt, you know. I'm going to blame you."
"Of course giggling hurts," Wren murmured, and hoped that Tanager took the lack
of volume of her voice for weariness and not emotion.
"No, I mean the giggles hurt. Like the giggles themselves are all, you know,
pained. Not happy giggles. Giggles because I don't think this is ever going to
end."
Maybe it wouldn't. Wren opened her eyes and looked at Iora, who was looking out
the window at the sun rising. It hadn't peeked over the not-so-distant peaks of
the other mountains, yet, but the sky was lightening; navy had turned to grey
when they started their game, but now the grey turned yellow.
"Just a little bit longer," Iora said. "You can go to sleep as soon as the
sun's up. You guys did really good—most people start to do the giggles thing
when they start hallucinating halfway between the fifth and sixth days."
Wren could hardly believe it was going to end. Tanager's slid shut, so Wren
shut hers too.
She never heard Iora tell them that they'd passed, but when she woke up the
first person in to visit them was the head of the school, welcoming them after
their adjustment period.
Tanager said nothing, just rolled back over and pulled her pillow over her
head. Wren followed suit happily.
***** major illness *****
When Tanager was ten, daddy came home one night from the mines with a cough.
"It's nothing," he told mommy, even though in Tanager's memory he'd never
coughed before at all ever.
She tried her best not to hope, not to read anything into it, and it was easy
to do that when daddy kept being not-sick enough to go to work every day.
Maybe it really was nothing, she thought, but mommy did look worried, and why
would mommy look worried if it wasn't nothing?
Tanager said prayers every night, now, ones that she should've regretted but
didn't. Couldn't.
*
It took a year for daddy to get sick enough that he stopped going to the mines,
and by then the coughing was almost constant. Take a bite, cough. Smile, cough.
He panted for breath when doing nothing more than sitting in his chair in front
of the fire.
He didn't stop being an awful daddy, of course. Why would he stop being an
awful daddy? He just was an awful daddy a little differently than he was an
awful daddy before that.
Tanager couldn't understand it, why the gods were answering her prayers now
when they'd never cared before, but she was thankful all the same. Even if she
did kind of blame them for not doing anything sooner. And not hurrying up with
it, either, now that daddy was sick.
*
She found out when she was twelve what was wrong with daddy, from overhearing
Wren's mommy and her mommy talking. Tanager didn't usually sit and listen—mommy
talk was so boring, even if Wren thought it was interesting—but they were
talking about daddy so she couldn't not listen.
Mom said something about it getting worse, and Wren's mom said, "It always
does. You should've never let him go down into the mines."
"It wasn't her decision," Tanager shouted, jumping out from behind the
partition she'd been using as cover. "Daddy said--"
"Tanager," Mommy hissed, grabbing Tanager's arm and shaking her. "What did I
tell you about eavesdropping?"
"That the gods would make sure somebody found out and then I'd get punished but
mommy I wasn't bad! I was just walking by," Tanager squealed, squirming, trying
to pull away. It was almost the truth.
"And what your daddy tell you about lying, hmm?"
She fell still, the breath dying in her chest. It took a few moments before she
could make herself whisper, "That he'd find out about it and punish me."
"That's right. Now go to your room; I'm going to tell him what you did."
Tanager didn't even think of disobeying, but she did sit on her bed and pray
that he was too sick to punish her.
She wasn't so lucky; she'd probably used up her luck on daddy getting sick in
the first place. Stupid gods.
*
He died the summer after that, when Tanager and Wren were newly thirteen.
Wren's daddy had said that he would marry Tanager's mommy when daddy quit being
able to work, and so he did.
Wren's daddy was a much better daddy than Tanager's was.
***** rape/non-con *****
Tanager couldn't even remember how old she was the first time, though she
remembered that she was a lot smaller then than she was now. She could sit in
daddy's lap easily, without him needing to shift to accommodate her weight.
He told her how big she was getting, but he always said that. Every time.
It was the sign that it was starting and she got to where she hated those
words, hated what they meant, hated daddy saying them, hated all of it. Because
that was how it started.
"You're getting to be such a big girl, Tanager."
Not big enough, she thought, now. Years later, as he had to sit on the bed and
tell her to get into his lap, panting for breath between every word. Maybe he
would die before she got big enough. She wished he would, and she wished he
wouldn't.
And she cried at night because she didn't know which thing she really wanted,
though it seemed like the gods were going to make the decision for her now.
She wanted to yell at him, to have mommy come in and catch them, but she could
never make a single sound come out.
"Look at these," he said, one hand coming up to cup around her growing breasts.
It was still so much bigger than her hands. "Pretty soon you're going to be a
big girl in every way. Are you a good girl, too?"
Tanager blinked away tears and nodded. If she tried to shake her head, tried to
say she was bad, he would sit and talk to her until he convinced her that she
was good, that she did want to let him do this.
Daddy licked his lips. "I thought so. I thought, my beautiful daughter, she's
such a good girl, she won't mind doing her daddy a favor. And you won't, will
you?"
This time she shook her head. No, she wouldn't mind. It was the only answer she
could give, the only one that would make this end as quickly as possible.
"Good, good. Now, I can't really do what we used to do—I know you're sad, baby,
but don't cry, okay? You know I hate it when you cry—so you need to help your
daddy out some. Do you think you can do that?"
She swallowed around the lump in her throat and nodded again.
"Mmm. So do you think you can get down on your knees and take care of your
daddy with your mouth? I know it's not what you really want, but your daddy's
not well enough for anything else."
The way he said it made her think that maybe one day daddy wouldn't be well
enough even for this. She wasn't sure what she'd do, then. Wordlessly she
slipped off of his lap and got down between his legs.
She'd just have to keep praying. One day the gods would answer her prayers; it
was what they were there for, wasn't it?
***** nervous breakdown *****
If their mother had told Eider, "Son, I think you're going to spend most of
your time at Nico de la Monte coaxing Petrel down from self-injury because he
thinks he's failed all the time," he wouldn't have believed her.
Well, maybe he would have, thanks to the fact that Petrel kind of had this
habit of pushing himself too far even before they came here, but he woudn't
have thought it would be this bad.
"Pet," Eider said, kneeling next to his younger brother and touching that
straight, sleek, fiery hair that was his brother's trademark. "You're really
going to fail if you just spend the whole day in bed—I know that part without a
doubt."
Petrel sniffed and wiped his snotty nose with the back of one hand. "But they
must all think that I'm such a weakling. I can't even do ten pull-ups! And I'm
the slowest every time we race. And I heard this girl named Kestrel saying that
she's seen faster five-year-olds!"
Eider quietly marked Kestrel down as someone who needed a talking to in the
very near future. If someone was going to make fun of his brother, it was going
to be Eider, not some person that neither of them even knew yet. People they
didn't know didn't get making-fun-of rights. "She's just jealous that you're so
handsome and she's gonna do the Metamorphosis thing instead of the Change
thing. You got the Change, so I'm sure there's going to be a ton of people who
are envious."
"I guess," Petrel whispered, and rolled from his back onto his side to face
Eider. "It's just hard! I'm not used to being so small and everything. It's
like there was no point to all the training I did before."
"Don't believe that," Eider said, just as softly. "Never believe that what came
before is pointless, brother-mine. What came before was to get you ready up
here." He touched Petrel's temple lightly.
There was the smile that Eider pretty much lived for. He sighed a little at the
sight of it, even with Petrel's face all splotchy from crying.
"Hey, I have a rag, if you want to clean up."
"What makes you think I'm done?" Petrel's voice said that he was done; if he
was teasing, there wasn't going to be any more crying tonight unless Eider
fucked up massively.
Again, a tiny voice in Eider's mind reminded him. A tiny, completely
unimportant and utterly pointless voice that he was going to studiously ignore,
damn it. "Maybe the fact that you're not crying anymore? Or maybe--" but Eider
didn't finish the sentence, instead going in for tickles.
Fourteen and twelve wasn't too old for tickles, was it? He hoped not.
Petrel managed to stiffly pay no attention to Eider's hands for all of a
minute, and then he broke out in a high-pitched squeal and started to squirm
and laugh at the same time, giggling whenever he wasn't letting out full-
throated laughter.
"Forfeit!" Eider said, still tickling mercilessly.
"Nooooo," Petrel howled, though he seemed somewhat short of breath. "Der-der,
you gotta stop, I'm gonna piss my pants!"
If this weren't the reaction that Petrel had every time Eider tickled him, he
might have stopped. As it was, he just crawled on top of his brother,
straddling his stomach and facing away from him, and reached down to tickle the
bottoms of his feet.
The volume of the laughter intensified, now interspersed with gasping breaths
and pleas for Eider to stop.
"Forfeit," Eider said, looking over his shoulder.
Red-faced and shaking with laughter, Petrel shook his head even as he said, "I
give, I give—I'll, I'll do the, the forfeit, if, if you, stop, please, stop,
Der-der."
It was the pet name from when Petrel was too young to say Eider's full name. He
cherished it just as much as he hated for other people to hear it. But Petrel
knew that; he only used it when they were alone, unless he was bent on making
Eider angry, which was pretty rare.
Petrel still panted beneath him and he was struck at how intimate the touch
was. He wouldn't, hadn't, thought anything of the closeness a year ago, but
Eider was on the tail end of puberty and now Petrel—two years younger than
Eider's—was finally starting to change too.
He couldn't help the sudden heat in his cheeks as he scrambled off of his
brother, off of the bed entirely to stand next to it and look down at Petrel.
Who, ever-innocent, just smiled at Eider. "So, what's my forfeit, hmm?"
"Don't let the others get to you when they say bad things," Eider said, voice
decisive despite the pubescent cracking. "I love you and you love me; nothing
they say will change that and as long as we're a Pair they can't kick us out."
Petrel grinned widely. "You sound like Dad, you know."
"Somebody has to do it, right?" Eider grinned, too.
"Right!" Petrel sat up all at once, the grin still playing his lips. "Help me
with my astronomy work?"
Eider tilted his head. "The stars mystify you?" he teased, not wanting to miss
an opportunity for the best kind of brother-to-brother interactions. Also
stalling; Petrel probably didn't want to get to work right away, based on
Eider's past experience.
But Petrel just shrugged, looking down at his blankets. "A little."
Another sore subject. Eider was going to have to start keeping a list, ever
since the Change; he leaned down and wrapped Petrel up in a brief hug. "I'll
help you, then."
For once Petrel didn't seem to want to delay, though. He leaned over and pulled
his book out from under the bed and looked expectantly up at Eider.
Trying not to seem uncomfortable, Eider sat down next to his brother. Not,
however, as close as he once would've. There was no need to taint Petrel's
purity of heart and mind with Eider's feelings.
***** difficult pregnancy *****
In the winter before the summer when Wren and Tanager were set to leave for
Nico de la Monte, Wren's mom got pregnant.
The youngest child in Wren's family was also the only boy; he was six years old
and Wren's mom hadn't exactly had an easy time with him. She wasn't completely
past childbearing years now—obviously, Wren guessed—but she was past her prime
and had already borne four kids besides.
So it wasn't an optimal time to get pregnant, and on top of it she was
violently ill what seemed like every minute of the day. It was so bad that
Wren, the eldest, had to take over household chores, and the doula who came to
visit said that they should do everything they could to make her comfortable
and keep her off her feet.
It was well and great that this baby wanted to come along and be difficult
about it, Wren supposed, but it wasn't fair in the least. She was going to be
fifteen soon and she and Tanager were supposed to leave for Nico soon and—well,
life wasn't fair.
"Do you think it's, you know, okay for her to be like this?" Tanager asked one
night as she wrapped her arms around Wren and hugged her tightly.
Wren closed her eyes and leaned into the touch. Now they were getting older and
destined for Nico de la Monte, otherwise known as the Academy, this kind of
touch was becoming more and more rare. She shook her head to the question, not
being any kind of authority on childbearing; she had less than no interest in
bearing or raising children. "I don't know," she whispered, hating how she
sounded like a frightened little girl. She felt like it too, scared of what
could happen to her mom, and dreaded most of all Tanager finding out about the
weakness.
Tanager petted Wren's dreadlocks, tugging one gently, a playful, affectionate
motion from when they were young. "I don't, either. Do you... should we delay
going to Nico de la Monte, you think?"
Wren hoped not; the last thing she wanted was to delay their entrance to the
Academy when they were already five years older than when most of the students
started attending.
She should've been a little more careful what she wished for.
*
Wren's mom guessed that she got pregnant sometime around the New Year—Wren had
a feeling there were more details here, but didn't want to ask because parents
having sex eww--and so by the spring equinox a couple weeks into Novo she was
showing and the being-ill-all-the-time thing was fading. Some.
Now she just got faint whenever she stood up and started having contractions,
too; the baby wanted to come out whether or not it was ready.
Every time it happened, Wren's heart was in her throat until mom said that the
contractions had stopped.
She was pretty sure that mom was lying sometimes and there were still
contractions, but what was she going to say to that? 'Quit lying to me so I can
worry even more' didn't seem like something that mom would respond well to.
"You should go," mom said, about the time that Wren was working herself up to
asking.
But she hadn't even asked yet. "How did you--"
"I'm your mother, Wren. Your sisters can take care of me; they're old enough
now and I don't want to see this hold you back."
Wren hugged her mom, probably a little too tight, burying her face against her
mom's shoulder to hide her tears. Tanager wasn't around—out doing errands—so it
didn't really matter, but Wren hid them anyway.
"Shh, shh. It's okay. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me; I've done this a few
times before, remember?" She smiled at Wren.
"I love you mom," Wren whispered, and hugged her mom again.
*
She went into labor the next day and into the night. The doula came as fast as
she could, and Wren had helped with birthings before but this one wasn't going
right; there was blood. Too much blood. And mom wasn't open enough and--
"Quit hovering and get me some clean rags!" the doula snapped. Mom screamed.
Wren obeyed.
*
Wren's mom died in the middle of the night on 15 Novo 3.23.2.
She and Tanager left for Nico de la Monte the next day, just the way they'd
meant to all along.
***** fire *****
In the middle of summer there's nowhere to go to get away from the heat,
especially now, eight years into the drought that began the same year Eider was
born: 31.22.2. Thirty-first year of the twenty-second cycle in the second
wheel. It was now the fortieth year of the cycle and the land cried for rain
and the crops didn't grow, except in the beds that Eider and Petrel had put in
down by the creek.
Everything was dry. Everything. This year had been cooler than the ones that
Eider could remember, save for the last week or so, but no wetter; even the
creek was starting to dry up, easy to get over in a step instead of the jumps
from when Eider was little.
They went to sleep that night with the scent of rain in the air; Eider and
Petrel prayed for rain before bed, mom and dad kissed them and hugged them and
wished them to sleep well and the next thing Eider knew, Petrel was screaming
his name.
"Der-der! Eider! Eiiiider!" As he screamed, panic making his tone even higher
than usual, he shook Eider, Eider who had always been difficult to wake up even
when it wasn't so hot.
Eider coughed, eyes snapping open and going wide as soon as they did.
The house was on fire. Their house, the house mom and dad helped to build, it
was on fire and the only thing Eider could think to do was grab Petrel, grab
some clothes off the floor and put it over his nose and mouth, and try to make
their way out.
The uncomplicated country house made it a little easier, but it was hard to see
with all that smoke even if the fire did give off plenty light. Eider found the
front door and opened it and didn't even get a chance to take a step before a
burst of flame pushed them out of the door, nearly knocking them off of their
feet. They both stumbled and Eider grabbed the collar of Petrel's night-shirt,
crawling on his hands and knees away from the terrible heat of the fire, barely
even registering the drenching rain following around them.
The fire made the heat of the day seem like nothing, he thought as he sat there
on hands and knees coughing, light-headed from the smoke.
Only then did Eider think to look around for their parents, and obviously
Petrel had the same idea at the same time because he got up and staggered back
toward the front door, back toward the inferno that was their house as the
world lit up for a moment and then crash of thunder sounded directly above
them, seeming to roll out on all sides.
Eider staggered after his brother. "Pet!"
Petrel's hair was plastered to his head, his nightshirt nearly transparent
thanks to the rain. Eider caught the tail of it and jerked hard; fabric ripped,
but Petrel ended up on the ground, where Eider could slide one arm under
Petrel's arms, around his chest, and drag him back.
"Mom and dad are in there! We have to help them!" Petrel went on and on,
screaming at Eider now, his voice breaking every so often, but Eider didn't let
him go, just wrapping both arms and legs around him and closing his eyes and
burying his face in the back of Petrel's neck.
The fire spread to the trees around the house in spite of the rain, and after a
while they couldn't stay anymore.
Eider didn't really have to hold Petrel down anymore, as he was screamed out
and just crying helplessly now, but he liked to have his arms around Pet. It
was just to reassure himself that his brother, the other half of the Pair they
made even if they weren't old enough to Bond yet, was still there. Still
breathing, still alive.
Not burnt up in the fire.
"My back hurts, Der-der," Petrel said thickly while they trudged away from the
growing fire.
Eider's did, too, come to think of it. He examined the back of one leg and
realized that it was blistered—not badly, but definitely burnt.
The fire gave off enough light for Eider to have a look at Petrel's too, which
was likewise blistered. "It was the fire." Eider's voice was scratchy.
"It hurts," Petrel whispered, looking at Eider with his big brown eyes.
"We'll see if Mama Osprey will help us out," he murmured in return. She was the
local healer, and lucky for them only lived about a mile away. They could walk
that in less than an hour.
What they would do after that was anyone's guess.
***** septicemia/infected wounds *****
Petrel's burns were somehow worse than Eider's. Maybe it was that he was
smaller, so the same burns hurt more, or something like that—Eider didn't
really know and Mama Osprey didn't share—but his ended up getting infected and
a couple weeks later he was sick with fever from the burns.
The fire had—thankfully—got put out when the rain didn't stop for a few hours
and so nobody else got burnt up by it. Just Eider and Petrel's mom and dad.
It wasn't fair and Mama Osprey said that life was like that sometimes but it
was just, so silly, mom and dad died and he and Petrel stayed alive.
For a little while, anyway. Judging by the looks Mama Osprey was giving
Petrel's legs she didn't know if she could save him.
Eider at least knew that she was supposed to be paid, but when he brought it up
one day she shook her head. "I know you boys don't have any money; don't worry
about paying me."
So he didn't worry. But he did worry. And he didn't want to seem ungrateful but
Petrel was getting sicker and why wasn't Mama Osprey healing him? She'd healed
Eider up just fine!
It was long ago that Eider lost count of how many days since the fire, how many
more days left until he turned nine, and so he didn't know how long it was
before a guy all dressed in military clothes showed up. He looked really sharp,
really nice, but his face was stern until he looked at Eider.
He smiled then. "Hello. You're Eider, I assume?"
How did this guy know Eider's name? "I might be."
"I'm General Batis, from Nico de la Monte."
That was the school that was built way up in the mountains—a nest in the
mountains—that trained Pairs. But Pairs had to be Bonded and he and Petrel
weren't bonded and anyway Petrel might die so, "What do you want?"
Batis smiled. "I want to bring you boys back to Nico de la Monte with me. The
way I hear it, your parents are dead and your brother could use better medical
attention than you can afford."
Eider's eyes prickled with tears; his hands curled into fists. "Don't you talk
about them like that! Pet's not gonna die, either, so you just be quiet about
it."
At least he looked a little abashed, looking down at his shiny shoes and then
over his shoulder at Mama Osprey, who nodded and made a go-ahead motion. "I
know it's hard to think about, Eider, but we want to take care of you. Do you
know how odd it is for your brother to be the one you're destined to Bond
with?"
Nobody talked much about Pairs and Bonding out here until Pet and Eider started
showing signs that they were gonna be like that—shared emotions and thoughts
and the like. "Is it really weird?" Eider didn't want to be weird.
"Having someone you're two years apart from be your Bonded is very out of the
ordinary. Not weird, just unusual."
Eider nodded. "So you want us to come with you? Just like that?" He looked at
Mama Osprey and addressed his next question to her: "Is it really okay?"
"It's very okay," she said, offering a warm smile with her words. "I sent them
a letter explaining your circumstances and they agreed to take you in."
But-- "Petrel's sick, though."
"He'll get care," Batis said, in that no-nonsense grown-up voice. "And we'll
take care of the both of you until you're old enough for your contracts to get
bought by someone. Does that sound okay?"
"Petrel will get better?" It was the only thing that mattered right now.
Batis nodded. "I swear it on my life: he will heal up just fine."
"Okay," Eider said, softly. Then, louder, "Okay. I—we, I mean—will do it."
Batis smiled. "Excellent. You won't be disappointed."
***** ostracized from society *****
Everybody knew that when you were half of a Pair, as soon as you got formally
bonded by the priests at the New Year ceremony when you were nine you were then
supposed to go off and join a school.
There was the biggest one, Nico de la Monte, which Kiwi's mom said was a
depressing hole and she'd never send any child of hers there. It wasn't that
they were a bad school, mom said, it was just that they kind of brainwashed
kids into believing all that a Pair could do was give themselves in service to
their country. In service to the great Empire of Lima, blah blah blah... Kiwi
stopped listening when her mom got on the subject of the Academy because mom
can and had gone on for hours about it before.
Anyway, the point was that some kind of service to one's country wasn't all a
Pair could do. Not by a long shot, according to Rook's mommy—who was Kiwi's
mom's bonded; they made a Pair together—so there was no sense at all in
sentencing Kiwi and Rook to a fate that they might not really want.
Rook thought the idea of serving his country would be fun, but Kiwi was pretty
sure he just liked the uniforms and wanted to be one of the Emperor's personal
guard or something. She had no desire to go off and get killed in the name of
serving the country, herself, and Rook usually listened to her so there was no
way they were going to the Academy.
Another one was Prado Ciclo, which despite its name didn't train its students
for the full fifty years of a cycle. Why they named it that, she had no clue
(Nico de la Monte was at least named correctly, because it was pretty much a
castle sitting way up in the mountains, carved into a cliff face) but it was in
the middle of the southern grasslands where nobody lived.
Maybe that was just something that schools were supposed to be: situated in the
middle of nowhere. Kind of stupid, but whatever, Kiwi wasn't someone who wanted
to start a school so maybe it wasn't supposed to make sense to her.
Prado Ciclo at least taught things other than fighting and survival, but they
only taught Pairs pre-Change, so that was right out too because they didn't
want to have to leave after a year if whichever of them Changed happen to do it
early.
There were even more schools: Da Academia das Estrelas, where they were
completely superstitious and based everything on astronomy; Academia em Brasa,
located on Ilha em Brasa where the volcano was almost always erupting; and
schools in the few major cities that allowed them: Itatí, Lima do Sul, Rio de
Brejo, and Jardim.
Mom and mommy (and dad and daddy, even if they liked to leave Kiwi and Rook's
education to their other halves) made sure Rook and Kiwi were part of the whole
process, so Kiwi knew pretty much everything there was to know about all of the
schools in all of Lima.
And, as far as she was concerned, they were all crap.
So after the New Year, mom and mommy decided that since Kiwi and Rook didn't
want to go to any of the schools, they were going to teach Kiwi and Rook at
home. Dad and daddy had attended two different schools and mom and mommy had
attended Nico de la Monte so between the four of them they knew everything
there was to know pretty much. And they had other Pairs who were friends who
could come teach too.
The very first thing Kiwi's friend, Martin, told her when she told him about
their plan for schooling was "You're so weird, Kiwi."
"Hey!" Rook said, coming to Kiwi's defense the same way she did for him.
"Kiwi's not weird just because she doesn't want to go to any of the normal
schools."
Martin rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Both of you are freaks of nature anyway—who
in their right mind wants to be a Pair and Change? Not me!"
If that was what Martin thought, Kiwi decided he could just go take a long walk
off a short pier. He wasn't worth any response; she just turned and walked
away.
Rook followed along behind her, of course.
***** first transformation *****
Sometimes the Change wasn't entirely a physical thing. Sometimes it was the
thing inside of you that changed so that you had a healer's touch or could make
fire from nothing or any multitude of other things that were more Talents than
bodily Changes.
The week after his birthday on Centro, the twentieth day of the month, Moço,
Rook got the Change.
28 Moço—exactly one week.
He'd heard that Changes happened pretty often right around one's
birthday—something about the full sweep of the sun, all nine months and five
festival days later—but it was still eerie for it to be so exact.
One minute he and Kiwi were in the middle of doing some lutador, some of the
hand-to-hand fighting art from the arid western half of the continent,
exercises with one another, fitting this form against that form until they saw
the ways that they came together. The next minute there was a searing pain in
Rook's head and his hands and the kick that he had meant to duck caught him in
the chest and knocked the breath out of him.
He went down like a sack of rocks, gasping for breath and not aware of anything
beyond the pain.
Searing wasn't a strong enough word for the pain, but he couldn't think of any
worse words. It was like sticking both hands in a blacksmith's furnace and
pumping the bellows, waves of pain coming and going; his head wasn't much
better, either.
Rook must have blacked out, because when he came around again Kiwi was kneeling
next to him, shaking him. "Rook. Rook!" She stopped as soon as he raised his
head. "I was so afraid you were gone! Your eyes went back and you just
looked... in pain. Awful."
The pain in Rook's head—especially his eyes—and hands persisted as low
throbbing and burning; it felt like an act of the gods for him to open his
mouth and say " 'm 'kay."
Kiwi shook her head. "No you aren't. What happened?" He saw little swirls and
splotches of yellow and orange in the air when she talked.
He closed his eyes. The lack of light made it better, though the redness of
light through his eyelids still burnt his eyes. What in the name of the gods
were those colors about? Keeping his eyes closed, he said, "Changed."
"Oooh." That yellow-orange color was back in the air between them, kind of like
a cloud. Kiwi petted Rook's dark hair back. "Is it good? The only thing I can
see physically is that you have horns now." She touched them, and Rook
shuddered all over.
A good kind of shudder, and as an added bonus the burst of pleasure chased away
a bit of the pain and it didn't hurt too much for Rook to lift his hands and
look at them. They appeared the same as always: caramel-toned like the rest of
him and long-fingered besides. He made a fist and then relaxed one hand and
then the other; it didn't hurt any more than they already did to do so. "It's
something with my hands." His own voice produced clouds of a rich maroon tone.
Weird.
"And the horns to mark you, I guess." The color of the words lightened to pure
yellow as Kiwi's voice lightened, and she smiled down at him.
"Also, I'm seeing sounds. Like color. Clouds and swirls of color." The last
sentence came out all at once, and the colors in front of him swam in rapid,
lop-sided circles. "They swirl faster if you talk faster."
Kiwi just shook her head. "Well, you clawed me pretty fierce when you were
thrashing around." She lifted her shirt enough to expose her middle and the
four long scrapes.
"Oh, no," Rook murmured, sitting up slowly and reaching out to put his hand on
her stomach.
The burning started again, but just in that hand, a glowing green cloud forming
around the entire area. It hurt a little, but not too badly. His horns tingled,
too, not quite a burn but the kind of sensation that could turn into burning
pretty easily.
When the burning and glowing stopped, Rook pulled his hand away and they gasped
in unison: the scratches were completely gone, like they'd never been there in
the first place.
"Holy shit," Kiwi said, and laughed once. "That's going to be damned useful,
Rook."
"It hurt a little when I was doing it, and the light will make it obvious
what's--"
"What light?" Kiwi let her shirt drop and caught Rook's gaze with her hazel
eyes.
Rook couldn't believe she hadn't seen it. "The light when I healed you! It was
all bright green and glowing. It'll be a dead giveaway."
Kiwi just shook her head, smiling. "I didn't see any light, Rook. Maybe that's
part of your seeing colors?"
Her explanation made sense, he guessed. Rook looked down at his hands, curling
them into fists and relaxing them again. "We should go tell our moms."
"Of course. Think you can walk?"
"Just try and stop me," Rook said, and got onto his feet through sheer brute
force determination.
***** moving *****
They left for Itá Verde, the nearest large city, later that day. Petrel
remembered it leaning against one wall of the carriage, surrounded by pillows,
bumps jolting him awake every so often.
Eider looked worried, but Petrel couldn't stay awake for long enough to
reassure him. Every time he thought of something to say—thinking was really,
really hard—he fell asleep again and then he couldn't remember what he wanted
to say before.
Sometimes he couldn't even remember that he didn't remember what he wanted to
say before.
He remembered the hospital much more vividly. Everything looked clean and
white. Walls, floors, sheets and blankets and pillows. The only thing that
wasn't white was Eider, who was still dressed in his dirty clothes from the
trip here. He looked extra dirty against all of that white. Petrel would've
been dirty too, but they gave him a gown to wear.
When Petrel woke up for good, it was like magic and he wasn't sick anymore and
hospitals were awesome he decided right then and there.
Petrel lay in bed while Eider was sitting in the chair next to the bed, or had
been sitting—he was leaning forward, arms crossed, head resting on his arms and
eyes shut. Asleep. "Eider," he whispered, and touched Eider's arm.
Eider raised his head abruptly, hazel eyes going wide, and as soon as he
focused on Petrel he smiled. "Good morning, Pet. Feel better?"
"I'm laying on my back, aren't I?" Petrel asked, smiling in return; all of his
burns had been on his backside.
"That you are. Want me to go get Batis? He wanted to know as soon as you woke
up." Eider reached out, taking Petrel's hand gently, like he was afraid to
touch.
Petrel put his other hand on top of Eider's, shaking his head a little at the
size difference, with Eider being almost nine now. He'd have to wait for Petrel
to be nine too before they could get Bonded. At least they still had their hair
the same, even if they didn't quite match color-wise: Eider was auburn-haired
and Petrel copper-haired like their mother.
The one who'd died. In the fire. Petrel felt tears starting to well up, his
throat going tight with emotion.
"Petrel?" Eider sounded concerned and cautious.
He shook his head. Silly mind, wandering off like that. Thinking about mom.
He'd already done his crying for that; he didn't need to cry more. "Yeah, go
tell him."
Eider squeezed Petrel's hand gently, then leaned up and gave him a kiss on the
forehead like he was four or something. Petrel rubbed the spot Eider had
kissed. He was too old for that kind of treatment, but he'd have to tell Eider
that. Sometime later, probably.
In the mean time, Eider smiled again and said, "I'll be back."
"And then we'll leave?" He remembered about Nico de la Monte, remembered
Batis's promise.
"With the way Batis was talking—yeah, we leave as soon as you're up."
A frightening prospect, but not as bad as dying. Petrel was strangely okay with
the whole moving thing, given recent events.
***** minor illness *****
It's like genuine clockwork: every year, Petrel gets the winter fever. And just
like another notch in the gear, Eider is by his bedside constantly.
This year is especially bad; Petrel has seen the healers but there's only so
much that their Talents can achieve when it seems like his al is determined to
settle in his lungs and make him sicker and sicker. Eider doesn't do guard duty
the way he normally does when Petrel's sick, and this year he's pretty much
staying by Petrel's bedside constantly.
In the middle of Mutio the weather makes Nico de la Monte cold anyway but the
fever makes it colder and Pet just wants to be warm. "So cold." He's shivering,
maybe beginning to outright shake.
"It's okay, Pet," Eider says, and crawls into the bed with Petrel the way he
normally does when Petrel gets so, so cold and nothing can warm him up. He
spoons behind Petrel, putting one arm around Petrel's chest and laying his head
on the pillow behind Petrel's. "Is this better?"
"Yes," Petrel whispers, clutching the blankets and pulling them over his head.
He's so, so cold. There's no way he'll be able to sleep like this.
*
When Petrel wakes up, he is hot. Steaming hot, burning up, and he squirms and
Eider tightens his grip "H-hey Pet, calm down, it's okay."
Has he been moving in his sleep? He's sweating, certainly, but he was sweating
before. "Hot," Petrel said, panting the word out and continuing to squirm.
Petrel was far gone on the heat, but not so far gone that he didn't feel it
when Eider's cock got hard, pressed as it was against Petrel's ass. Through
their clothes.
He pulled away as if burnt, eyes going wide, flailing the covers away and
drawing in deep breaths. What the fuck? "Eider?" It could just be an accident,
basic physical reaction to stimulation that Petrel had been unwittingly
providing.
"I'm sorry, Pet," Eider whispered, looking down at the blankets.
Eider was sorry? That could only mean... the prohibition on sexual contact...
he wanted... but how could he? Petrel was so dumbstruck his mouth didn't even
work to try and form words. There were none.
How could he? How could he? Nico de la Monte didn't have many rules, but that
one, it was unbreakable because it changed the metamorphosis, it changed the
way things worked between them, and normally for the worse, normally different
in bad ways and...
Eider wanted to have sex with him. It didn't make any sense. And yet, it made
so much sense. So many pieces were falling into place, despite the fever
addling Petrel's mind. Or perhaps the fever helped him make the connections.
"Get out," he said, slurring the word unintentionally. He said it again,
clearer, more decisive. "Get out."
"Sorry," Eider said again. He hesitated, looking around like he wanted to
collect some things, but he just grabbed his money purse out of its hiding
place in the wardrobe and then turned and left.
Petrel collapsed back against the bed, spent. He groped blindly for the
blankets, moaning unhappily. He was cold again.
***** isolation *****
Eider had been away from Petrel for six days now. Two more would make a week.
He'd meant to leave the Academy, when he left, but he couldn't bear it in the
end. The Academy was everything to Petrel in a different way that the Academy
was everything to Eider, but they both lived and breathed Nico de la Monte's
air and ate of the food and depended completely on the Academy for everything.
How could he leave? It would be the worst kind of betrayal, surpassing even
what he'd already done to Petrel.
Eider ended up staying in the inn where parents who brought their children here
often spent the night. It was a bright, cheery place with a smiling woman
behind the desk explaining to him the rules and regulations he was agreeing to
when he forked over his money.
The price wasn't good, but it wasn't bad either. He needed more money. Lucky
for him, it ended up that they needed someone to clean the rooms so Eider did
that and they knocked off some of the price of the room.
Of course he ended up discovering that he was growing tiny horns, much like his
brother's, that day. He mostly just laid in bed all day and did nothing.
Counted the cracks on the ceiling. Tried to discern the design that the
wallpaper had been going for. Maybe a garden, but if that was it the green was
badly washed out and it looked more like the sky before a tornado struck.
Most of all, he listened to the sound of the inn and the tiny city that
supported Nico de la Monte as everyone else lived their lives and he sat and
did nothing.
He wondered how Petrel was doing. Probably still sick, but that was only to be
expected; no matter how good of care he got, the winter fever always had its
way with him. Eider wondered who was taking care of him since he couldn't be
there. Nico's healers would check in every so often just because that was the
way they were, but who was seeing to his needs? Helping him to the water
closet, changing his clothes...
In the end Eider decided that the job had probably fallen to Petrel's lovers,
Kestrel and Prion. Eider didn't hate them, couldn't hate them. They were too
nice, and they genuinely cared about Eider, he knew.
He'd just never been able to deal with having a long-term lover of his own.
Maybe he was jealous, but thought it was more envy. They were freely offered
what Eider was denied on principle, after all.
Principle and maybe also because his brother wasn't attracted to him, but that
was just the way life worked sometimes, he'd learned. At least they were both
still alive.
Alive and maybe not well, but they were alive. Despite all that had happened to
them, all of the obstacles and mishaps and everything; there was nothing that
had overcame them. And Eider had left at Petrel's request, so no bridges had
been burned.
He hoped.
***** atonement *****
At first, Petrel was too sick to care what Eider had done, that he'd gone, that
anything. Kestrel and Prion were good nursemaids, but nobody cared about him as
much as Eider.
He'd taken comfort in that fact all of his life, and now...
Petrel squeezed his eyes shut. He was well enough to walk around, though he
tired easily; he would start his regular guard duty again next week.
But he hadn't told anyone why Eider was gone. Hadn't said a word about it, just
that he was gone and someone else needed to take care of him. Kestrel and Prion
accepted that easily enough—Petrel lied only rarely—but now it was just. Just
heartbreaking, not having Eider next to him.
He didn't have any of those kind of feelings for Eider, of course, but he'd
always felt hints of this and that through the bond and... he missed his
brother. He missed his Bonded. One night lying in bed, he realized that: he was
depressed without Eider here.
As he drifted to sleep, he decided that at the very least he needed to find
Eider and they needed to have a talk and Petrel would see where it went from
there.
*
Petrel knew that Eider wouldn't leave Nico de la Monte. It was their home and
he was no more likely to leave than Petrel himself was. So it shouldn't have
been difficult to locate Eider, with the way Eider seemed to be able to work
his way into any crowd of people and win their confidence.
Even knowing that, it took a whole day of searching before he stumbled upon the
Cavern Widow—one of the few inns here in their little nest in the mountain. The
proprietor was one of the native support staff, the people who lived and worked
here in order for the Academy to do its work properly.
She smiled at Petrel, but it seemed like a sad smile. "It's likely that he's in
his room—the attic room, that is. Already done his cleaning."
His cleaning? Petrel thought, then shook his head. If he was doing cleaning, it
would make sense that he had enough money to stay there.
All of the sudden, Petrel was nervous. He had been too harsh with his
brother—that he knew. The two of them couldn't live without each other;
everybody knew that the worst fate for a Pair was to be kept apart.
As he walked up the stairs, he realized he could feel Eider again—feel his
emotions once more—and it was like piece that had been pulled out sliding home
once more, back in its proper place. He found himself smiling and schooled his
expression as best he could; this was no time for smiles, no place for joy and
laughter.
He had a list of things that he wanted to say, but when he knocked on the door
and Eider opened it, and Petrel saw Eider's miserable expression all Petrel
could do was wrap his brother up in a hug.
"You're not forgiven," Petrel whispered, his voice shaking with emotion. It
felt so right to come into contact with Eider again, to be near him. "But I
can't live without you."
Eider's miserable expression was still in place when he pulled away, though
there was a little bit of life in his eyes. "I understand."
Do you? Petrel wondered, but didn't voice the thought. "Come on, let's go back.
We have to resume guard duty in a few days; we can't abandon the Academy just
because you're... you're..."
"You don't have to say it," Eider said, eyes downcast. He took a few steps away
from the door and wadded up some clothes—where had he gotten those?--into a
ball, tucked the ball under his arm, and returned to the door. "You'll tell me
if there's anything I can do, right?"
Petrel was pretty sure that petty chores and other things that Eider could do
would be meaningless at this point, but he offered a crooked half-smile. "Of
course. And you'll not let on to anyone about this change, right?"
"Right. Anything I can do, Pet."
"Petrel," he corrected, turning and looking at his brother over his shoulder
before heading down the stairs.
It felt like holding together a broken axle with muslin, but there was nothing
Petrel could do about that. He couldn't even speak the offense; how could he
hope to talk about it?
*
Eider was so solicitous of Petrel when they got back that it drove Petrel
crazy. He couldn't get up or he'd have Eider asking him if he wanted this or
that or help to the water closet of all places.
"This has to stop," Petrel told him the next morning, when Eider offered to
iron his uniform; Eider hated ironing anything, but they both preferred their
uniforms to look like they were brand new. There was no reason Eider needed to
do the ironing when Petrel normally did it for both of them. "I'm capable and
allowed to do my own chores. There is no reason you need to do them for me--"
"I want to make it better," Eider said, but not like he meant it.
Petrel shook his head. "If you want to make it better, stop feeling—those
emotions. I can feel them over the bond now and they're distracting." Not to
mention disgusting, disconcerting, and just all-around unpleasant.
"I'll try," Eider said, and he actually sounded like he would, so that was
good.
It would be a lot easier to act like everything was normal if he didn't have
those secondhand emotions kicking around the back of his mind, and Petrel
needed things to be normal.
That was what they said, wasn't it? If you pretend long enough, what you
pretend will become the truth. He shouldn't have snapped like that; the message
needed to be delivered, yes, but Petrel didn't have to brandish it like a
sword.
Petrel rubbed one hand over his face and went to fetch both their uniforms. He
had an apology-favor double standard, but if that was the extent of his
problems for a while he would be happy.
***** falling *****
At first climbing the mountain had been easy for Wren. Living in Nico de la
Monte had made her lungs strong, even in the thin mountain air, so the first
days were hardly even work. The ground wasn't treacherous, the snow was not
ice, and the guide knew her business.
It wasn't until the third day that things started getting difficult.
She'd always hated, hated the dumb endurance work that they wanted her to do.
She was actually quite good at sprinting and was not at all impressed by the
idea that she needed to be good over distances as well. Tanager was there to be
good over distances, damn it.
By the end of the third day, she was light-headed and fell directly into her
tent and asleep as soon as she was able. The fourth and fifth days were no
better, truly, but she was beginning to grow used to not having any excess
energy.
Not even enough to care about the way that the food tasted like nothing at all,
though she continued to shovel the recommended amount down her throat because
it didn't seem like a good idea for her to just pass out in the middle of the
trail.
*
The sixth day, they started to climb.
Wren had been good at climbing, once upon a time. Enjoyed it, even. She'd been
light as a feather and nimble with it, able to scale any wall or cliff face
with ease. But the bone plates—if they were bone at all, though the instructors
seemed to feel like they could be nothing else—were added weight, and she had
grown extra muscle in the bargain and it was just argh to climb now.
She nearly cried when she barely had the strength to hold herself still, much
less do the actual climbing. They had secured a rope around her, so it made no
matter if she fell, but it was still ridiculous, not being able to scale a wall
any more.
How was she going to be any good for infiltration—what her prior training had
focused on—if she couldn't even scale a cliff face anymore?
Crying wasn't an option so Wren just clenched her teeth and climbed the goddamn
cliff face.
The trail from here wasn't vertical, but it was much closer to vertical than
the trail up until now had been. She dug in her picks and climbed and didn't
let it get to her. She was strong. She could do this. Tanager would be so
disappointed if Wren failed.
It was that thought which drove Wren on: Tanager's disappointment. It would be
palatable, even if Tanager didn't say anything, the emotions flowing through
the bond because Tanager didn't try and moderate what Wren felt from her.
Not the way that Wren moderated her own emotions.
*
The seventh day passed in a blur of more rock-climbing and ice-climbing; they
camped at what seemed to be the only flat spot this high up and the guide
explained that they had fashioned this, as a place to rest: tomorrow they would
reach the peak.
Relief flooded through Wren; she closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer of
gratitude.
Going down was going to be so much easier than going up, and they were almost
ready to do it.
*
The peak itself Wren was not in the mood to appreciate. It was beautiful, and
she could see for miles, but the air was thin and she was exhausted, dizzy, and
a little giggly. It was time to go back to the Academy, back to their little
mountain nest.
Wren turned and began to head back down the trail while everyone was still
taking in the view, misplaced her foot, slipped, and fell. The world whirled as
she rolled end over end down the snow covered ice. She hit her head on a rock,
at some point, and everything went away.
*
They told her, when she woke up, that her bone plates were probably the only
thing that saved her from dying horribly.
She had just enough presence of mind to think that maybe she should've been a
little more grateful for her Change, all things considered. The plates had
finally come in handy.
And, on the heels of that thought, she realized what purpose her armor—because
that was exactly what the bone plates were meant to be, of course—could serve
with Tanager in combat.
Because what better protection could there be in a battle than a wall of bone?
It made so much sense, all of the sudden, because of all of the things Tanager
was, what she wasn't was good at defense. The weakness was her one downfall, in
Wren's opinion, so far as combat went: she didn't care enough about anything
but being able to defeat others in order to put the proper care into defense.
So that was Wren's job.
Suddenly the plates really didn't seem all that bad. More like a gift,
solidifying, balancing, and cementing their Pair.
If Tanager's Metamorphosis didn't involve offensive changes, Wren would
probably die of shock. But that was a long way off; right now she had to hurry
up and wait for them to carry her down from this damned peak summit.
***** unconsciousness *****
Tanager missed Wren a lot, lot more than she'd ever expected she would. They
had gone for a day or two without seeing each other before, for one reason or
another, but they'd never been completely separate like this since they started
feeling bits and pieces of one another's emotions when they were kids.
It ached. Tanager would find herself randomly looking around, panicked, sure
that something must be happening to Wren. She could still feel her Bonded, but
it was distant and vague and just wrong. They weren't meant to be apart like
this.
There was no way Tanager wasn't going to give Wren a very stern talking-to
whenever she finally got back, because this was miserable. Tanager wondered if
Wren felt the same disconnect, but guessed probably not—Wren wasn't conscious
of their Bond the same way Tanager was.
Not that she disregarded it, just that she didn't pay very much attention to
it. Tanager was careful to moderate everything Wren felt, but Wren...
No, she didn't need to be sitting here thinking about this right now.
Except she couldn't stop thinking about Wren. The same way she'd find herself
looking around, she would get calmed down and on a topic that wasn't Wren and
her mind would somehow work its way back to Wren just as soon as Tanager
stopped paying close attention.
Nearly a week out, Tanager thought: They have to be at the peak by now. It was
only an eight-day climb, nine with bad weather. Eight days made a week and it
was eight days now and she wasn't really sure how she was going to make it
another week without Wren.
It was no wonder Pairs kept apart went mad, and not always by degrees either.
Maybe Tanager was the not-by-degrees type. Maybe she was crazy already.
No, she was spending a lot of time doing exercises and training but that was
pretty normal and she really wasn't mad.
Not yet, anyway.
One thing she knew, though: Tanager was never going to let Wren go off on her
own again, no matter how much thinking time and space Wren might need. It was
just, just unnatural, this separation, and she couldn't deal with it for much
longer.
Then it happened: sudden searing pain through the bond, making spots dance in
front of Tanager's eyes. Alethe, who she had taken to exercising with lately
because Alethe was clearly pursuing her and Tanager liked to feel like she was
wanted sometimes even if nothing could happen with it... Alethe gasped as
Tanager slumped against the floor, moaning. Before she was completely face down
on the mat, Alethe was there, her hands on Tanager's shoulders, forcing Tanager
over onto her back.
"What's wrong?" Alethe asked, but her words felt muted, far away. In Tanager's
mind she was falling down the stupid peak that she'd barely made it up and each
impact felt awful, each and every scrape was like fire though very few broke
the thicker skin she'd developed.
At some point on her trip down the trail, Wren/Tanager blacked out, and
Tanager, for one, was glad of it.
When Tanager woke up, she was herself again. She could quite clearly feel
Wren's pain and distress through the Bond, but their minds were separate. And
Wren was oblivious, but that was no different from her, and their, usual state
of affairs.
Or lack of affairs. Tanager opened her eyes, and there Alethe was, sitting over
her, looking worried. "I'm okay," she said. Neither light nor sound seemed to
bother her, so she wondered if she'd passed out at all, but was fairly sure
that she had.
"Are you sure?" Alethe asked, brows furrowed. "You just went down and I thought
something had to be wrong."
Tell her, or play innocent? Tanager had learned during their stay here that the
level to which she was in tune with the bond was pretty rare. That was just
what she needed: one more confirmation for everyone that she was a freak of
nature, even among Pairs. "I must've forgotten breakfast. I'm good now, I
think."
The look on Alethe's face said that she didn't believe the act, but she was
also much too polite to say anything.
At least Tanager had chosen well in that regard.
***** bullet wounds *****
They didn't know very much about Rook's healing abilities. Based on what
they've learned in the last six months about those who were Talented rather
than Paired, there weren't a lot of limits on the power but it very likely cut
Rook's lifespan short the more often he used it.
The one healer they spoke to even said that the only limits, since Rook was
Paired, were likely to be related to how much pain Rook could physically
withstand before he had to stop healing. Healers didn't experience pain the way
that Rook did, but the healing did, without a doubt, cut their lives short the
more often they used it and... it was enough to make Kiwi's head spin.
So they tried their best not to use Rook's healing at all, and Rook tried his
best to up his pain tolerance. It was hard to do without using his power, but
he figured out a way and Kiwi did the only thing she could: cheered him on.
It worked, for a few years. Then they started going out into the world, putting
their prowess into action through various tasks that their parents designed.
Mostly dad and daddy; their moms thought this kind of thing menial and below
them.
And then Kiwi got poked full of bullet holes from a trigger-happy brace of body
guards at the estate of someone they were robbing. (It wasn't like the rich
fucks needed the stuff, just an old candelabra and the doorknob from the master
bedroom.) Being shot hurt so, so bad—she'd broken bones before and this was
worse, not to mention the dark blood flowing from the gut wounds freaked her
and Rook right out.
They managed to get away in spite of everything, back to the little room they
were renting at the inn—she thanked the gods for back stairs, not for the first
time. She clumsily took her shirt off and then sat on the bed while Rook sat on
the floor; the touch of his hands on her abdomen was like fire. His look grew
concentrated, then pained, and then all at once he was out like a light.
Kiwi's world went black too, whether in response to Rook or just because of the
pain, she didn't know, but she joined him in a state of unconsciousness just
the same.
When she came to, her wounds looked smaller than they had before but they were
still bleeding and they were still wounds. Rook stirred, slumped over her knee,
groaning a little. "I feel like I've stuck my hands in a furnace."
The pained look on his face said even better than words what he was feeling;
Rook was normally so stoic.
Kiwi tucked one of his light brown curls—dark brown now, with sweat—behind his
ear. Her hand shook a little, but the pain was a lot less than it had been
before they'd taken their little vacation from consciousness. "Do you want to
try again, or go get a healer?"
Rook bit his lip. "Try again, I think," he said, and lifted his hands. She sat
back, bracing herself on her hands and exposing her belly to him again. His
hands weren't as hot when they pressed against her initially, this time, but
they heated up slowly as the concentration on Rook's face intensified.
"It doesn't hurt as bad if I try and do it slower," he murmured. Despite his
words his voice was tight, restrained.
All Kiwi could think was to thank the gods that none of the bullets were still
inside her; all three had gone straight through her flesh. "It hurts a little
on my end, too. Your hands feel like they're burning me." She paused and
laughed once as a new idea occurred to her. "Hey, Rookie, do you think there
will be blisters when you're done?"
He shook his head. "I dunno. Maybe? I feel like I should have blisters too, but
I can't see around all the light."
Kiwi reached down and cupped her hand over the back of one of Rook's. It hurt a
little, but not as much as his palms against her skin hurt. "How much longer do
you think it'll take?"
"Always impatient, aren't you?" Rook asked, smiling and chuckling.
She didn't mind getting labeled impatient if it made Rook smile like that when
he was in pain. Well worth the price, by her estimation. "Guilty as charged.
Think you'll be done sometime before dinner?"
In answer, the heat suddenly went out of Rook's hands and he pulled them away
from her belly. "See for yourself."
Without Rook's hands in the way, Kiwi saw easily what had been hidden before:
the wounds were closed into small scabs. She touched one gingerly and it hurt
as bad as any infected wound. "Not completely healed."
"Not going to try to completely heal them again. I think that's what made
me—us—pass out before."
Ah, now that made sense. Kiwi reached for her bloody shirt and examined it.
"Good thing I have spare clothes, huh?"
Rook fingered one of the holes; it was about the same size as his forefinger.
"These could be easily patched over."
Kiwi snorted. "I love how you don't specify who's going to be doing the
patching."
"Mmm." Rook sat down on the bed next to her and wrapped a tentative arm around
her shoulders. "Just try not to get shot again. I don't think I have enough
juice in me to do that again anytime soon."
"Low on fuel?" Kiwi tilted her head, mind already racing off. No person's
powers were limitless, but it was good to know the limits of Rook's power:
three bullet wounds in the abdomen. Did they dare experiment with that?
Rook seemed to be having a similar thought process, because he let the subject
drop and after long moments of comfortable silence said, "Do you think they'd
let me practice the healing? Maybe if I use it more the limits won't be as
stringent."
"Maybe if you use it more you'll die," Kiwi shot back, but softly, letting her
head rest against his chest.
"No, I don't think it works that way. It hurts and it was a Change, not
something with me from birth. The circumstances are different."
They'd had this argument many times before, and many times before Kiwi had
thought that the risk wasn't worth the potential gain. Now, looking down at the
scabs on her stomach, she wondered what would've happen if it had been worse.
What if there were five bullet holes? Or what if it was a broken bone?
The last thing they were going to do by limiting Rook's use of his ability was
develop his powers.
It really could be worse next time.
"Okay," she murmured. "I'll trust your judgment. It's your power—your life."
Rook kissed her head. "You know I'd never do it if you were against it."
Probably the only thing that had kept him from doing it so far, if Kiwi was
honest with herself about the whole thing. "I know. So go ahead; do it, with my
blessing."
"Thank you."
Kiwi just found his hand and squeezed it tightly. There weren't any blisters.
***** arrest *****
Kiwi would've thought that if she and Rook were going to get arrested it would
be when they were inexperienced. During the robbery when she got shot three
times in the gut and they'd barely made it back to the inn. Or maybe the time
when Rook jumped off a wall like an idiot because there were dogs and he
panicked because he couldn't abide dogs and broke his stupid leg; they had
gotten lucky and the residents of the house seemed to think it was nothing
since the dogs stopped barking as soon as Kiwi climbed down the wall. Oh, or
the time she'd nearly cut her fingers off trying to get into a window—a real
pinnacle of achievement, that, and one she still bore the scars from across the
insides of all four fingers on her left hand. Those were logical places for
their inevitable arrest to happen, though it hadn't.
Not when she was engaged in fermenting a bit of civil unrest during a protest.
Rook had declined to accompany her tonight; he was feeling wiped out from
practicing his powers so damn much.
The protest was against the emperor, of course. She was against idiocy of any
type, really, but Kiwi was especially against the imperialistic idiocy that
permeated through Liman culture and made them essentially smash their head
against the wall repeatedly when it came to technological advances.
So what if they had the highest rate of Pairs in the entire world? So what if
their Pairs were trained and deadly? So what, all of these things were
meaningless if they couldn't keep up on the technology front. They were getting
less insular of late, but it was by force so of course the emperor just ignored
everything that he didn't deem important.
He ignored more than anything the fact that guns were beginning to make a lot
of Pair abilities useless at best. Not to mention that the advent of guerrilla
warfare was making their military seem useless—the smaller special forces
groups were better but they were still smaller and...
At any rate, she protested, then she got arrested. They weren't rough with her,
or anything, but sitting in a cold cell with six of her fellow protesters and
being yelled at any time any of them opened their mouths was less than
pleasant.
She'd been irritated about it this morning, but now she thought it was a damn
good thing that Rook wasn't with her, or she might never have gotten out of
that stupid jail. But he was there, smiling goofily, when they said someone had
come for her.
"Staying out of trouble, I see?" he asked, raising one eyebrow. She'd never
mastered that, herself, but he could do it and have it not look ridiculous.
Kiwi let her fingers twine with his as they walked out, squeezing his hand and
hoping that he could feel even a portion of her gratitude through the Bond. "Of
course. You know me."
He grinned crookedly at her over his shoulder, giving her hand a quick squeeze
in return."That's the problem."
She wanted very badly to be angry, but the only thing Kiwi could do was laugh.
***** secret identity discovered *****
On Kiwi's twentieth birthday, she and Rook received an invitation through their
moms and dads to join the resistance.
"This is why you let us decide on our own schooling, isn't it?" Rook asked, not
missing a beat—as usual.
His mom just nodded, and Kiwi's mom smiled at them. "We're so glad to be able
to have you two join us; we're proud of both of you."
Kiwi felt her cheeks getting red. "I just hope we live up to the praise."
"Don't worry," Rook said, giving Kiwi a winning smile. "We'll be the best—wait,
what are we going to be doing, exactly?"
"Infiltration," Kiwi's dad said. He wasn't smiling.
At least they wouldn't be bored anymore.
*
Their very first job was to infiltrate Nico de la Monte. Not as students, but
as part of the school's guard. They didn't normally take people from outside
the school for that, but someone else inside the school pulled strings for
them; Kiwi and Rook's names became Kite and Oriole and they supposedly attended
Prado Ciclo and had their contracts bought by a private merchant, who
subsequently died and bequeathed their contracts to Nico de la Monte.
It didn't make a whole lot of sense to Kiwi, but then the way that the whole
contracts thing worked was one mess that she'd never really considered learning
about. Thus, she was happy to let someone else do the thinking for her when it
came to contracts.
Rook understood it slightly better, but all that mattered was that they were
now guards at the school with full access to most of the grounds. The private
center where the teachers trained still remained off-limits to them, but they
were free to go anywhere else in the school.
The first order of business was to make a map of the entire place. There was a
warren of tunnels under the school, quite necessary during winter, but there
were only partial maps of this portion or that portion of the tunnels, meant to
show guards how to get from one place to the other. The full extent was unknown
to probably everyone but the dean of the school herself, so Kiwi and Rook set
to exploring the tunnels and making their maps.
They thought that their expeditions went unnoticed, but evidently they did not:
one night as they were mapping the tunnels under the annex where the teachers
lived, doing their best not to sneeze from all of the dust and mold that had
piled up from this sector falling into disuse, a teacher approached them.
He walked directly up to Rook and said, "I know what you are. Oriole."
Rook looked down at him. Rook tended to look down at most people. "And what do
you think I am, Tinamou?"
He took a step back, like he hadn't expected Rook to stand up—perhaps anyone
who witnessed Kiwi and Rook's public interactions might think such a thing, but
Kiwi knew that Rook had backbone. More than her, maybe.
Tinamou looked at Kiwi instead. "You're spies, is what you are. Dirty little--
" But he cut off as Rook's hand closed around his throat.
Good. "That's not a very nice thing to say." Kiwi kept her tone even as she
approached him. "What basis do you have for your accusation?"
Tinamou wisely tried to move out of range of Kiwi's touch, gagging and choking
as Rook's grip on his throat didn't allow for any movement.
Wise, because Kiwi's first metamorphosis had occurred a week after her
birthday: she could make people lose consciousness with a touch. It was useful,
paired with Rook's healing, so the injured didn't try to push Rook away or
suffer any more pain than they were already in.
Also useful for disabling pesky, nosy teachers who didn't know well enough to
mind their own goddamned business. Kiwi knocked him out with nothing but her
forefinger on his forehead and Rook eased him gently to the ground.
"Fuck," Rook said, simply.
But Kiwi had already moved beyond that. "Do you think he told anyone about his
suspicions?"
It was likely that he had told his—but Tinamou wasn't Paired, wasn't Bonded. He
was Talented, instead, one of the few teachers who made it on staff by virtue
of their power rather than their partner.
Rook seemed to be following the same trail of thought. "He's not close with
anyone, is he? If he were Paired, I'd worry, but he's not."
Kiwi nodded. "We can kill him with impunity, then."
"No," Rook said, quickly and quietly. "We don't have to kill him. Just—just
disable him, and take him away from the school."
"Oh, yes, because that won't blow our cover." Kiwi rolled her eyes at the idea;
Rook just hated to kill people. It was fitting that he'd gotten the power that
he did.
Rook shook his head. "There's no reason for him to die. We shouldn't—what are
we going to do with the body? How will his disappearance get explained? It's
too big of a risk."
"And letting him live isn't a risk?" Kiwi hissed.
"I won't let you kill him." Rook's hands curled into fists and his eyes were
alight with anger as he looked down at her.
"Then you can forget us continuing this mission; he's going to be even more
ready to tell everyone about us after what just happened. We all but admitted
our guilt with our actions."
"Please," Rook begged softly. "I don't want to."
"Then take the lantern and go down the tunnel a bit. You don't have to watch,
or hear, or anything. I don't need light to do this idiot in."
Rook sighed but nodded. "Okay. But next time..."
Kiwi nodded in return. "Yes. Next time someone catches onto us, we get out of
here like our asses are on fire and the only water is down the mountain."
That at least earned a ghost of a smile.
Times like this, Kiwi wished that Rook was just a little more bloodthirsty. But
then Pairs were supposed to balance, weren't they? She didn't mind killing, so
Rook loathed it. It was a balance. A balance sure to cause strife, yeah, but
what was the fun of being in a Pair if you didn't have a good row every now and
then?
On the floor, in the darkness, Tinamou groaned.
Idiot, Kiwi thought, and drew her knife.
***** food poisoning *****
"Shouldn't have had that salmon," Petrel said, holding Eider's hair back from
his face as he puked into a bucket.
Eider's eyes said that Petrel had better shut up, but Petrel couldn't resist
continuing. Not when his brother was so vulnerable and, well, what were
siblings for if not to harass one another? Pair or no Pair.
"I know it looked good, but it wasn't bright orange the way it should've been,
was it?"
In response, Eider started to gag again. It was getting to the point where he
wasn't bringing up anything, just having dry heaves. Petrel rubbed his back.
"I mean, it was slimy, to begin with. And that brownish rust color, too—no good
can come of that, can there?"
Eider closed his eyes tightly and gripped the bucket as he gagged again. He sat
back, then, somewhat tentatively, and Petrel let go of his hair. "You should
just shut up. Urgh, I'm not even... thinking about it is..."
"Shh, shh," Petrel said, mock-soothing as Eider leaned forward again and gagged
nothing into the stinking bucket. He waited for Eider to sit back again and
asked, "Want me to empty that?"
The distrust in Eider's gaze made Petrel want to laugh, but he kept a straight
face. And was rewarded for his effort: Eider whispered, "Yes, please. The smell
is making it worse."
Petrel picked up the bucket, standing and looking down at the contents. "Oh,
man, this looks utterly awful. It's not just the salmon in here—it's the garlic
bread stuff you had for lunch too, and it looks like--"
"I know what it looks like." Eider's hands were clenched into fists, and he
swallowed rapidly. Repeatedly. Like he was trying not to gag again.
Oh, it was too, too easy. "And the smell is like the sewers shat in a bucket
and added a little vinegar for good measure."
That did it: Eider gagged, covering his mouth with one hand. There was still
nothing left to bring up, and he didn't end up gagging anything onto the nice
stone floor. Petrel emptied the bucket down the drain and ran some water after
it to clear the pipes, then rinsed out the bucket.
"Here you go," he said, setting the bucket back in front of Eider, who gripped
it and gagged into it a few more times before straightening.
"There is going to be payback," Eider said, and he sounded like he meant it
too.
Petrel grinned. "Will there? I don't recall being enough of an idiot to eat
food that is obviously past its prime, so you won't catch me in this
situation."
"Just you wait," Eider promised. "Just you wait, Pet."
*
"Are you sure you don't want to have some more of those delicious fish eggs? I
know they're imported, and the squid is just as divine, also imported, and
think how they would be together, all the mushy parts there in one dish to
tease you. Entice you. Eat me, they say. Taste me. I am chewy and will make you
vomit up everything you've eaten in the last week."
Petrel just groaned and gagged into the bucket. This was the one downfall of
your brother being your Bonded: the sibling stuff never went away, but you
spent your entire lives together, so it wasn't really possible to get away from
it.
Next time, he swore, he was going to make Eider pay. Once he was done being
sick, he would sit down and think up the grossest things possible and then,
then Eider would be sorry he ever retaliated.
***** deprogramming *****
When they got back, Eider didn't say anything to anyone about why he had left,
and he was fairly sure Petrel didn't either. Right up until he was led into a
room and Lieutenant Swift said, "We're going to condition you out of that nasty
habit you have when it comes to your brother."
That was an interesting way to put being attracted to his brother. "Why? I
thought they just threw Pairs out when that happened."
Swift smiled, not a nice smile. "You and Petrel are far too dedicated to us for
us to want to do that, though we will if this conditioning fails to work."
Oh, shit. Eider swallowed hard. "What do you want me to do?"
Lieutenant Swift motioned to the threadbare bed on one side of the room. They
were in an old dorm room, fallen into disuse, so the mattress smelled moldy,
but when the other option was getting kicked out, who was Eider to complain?
"Now, think about your brother."
Eider's brain chose that moment to remember that Swift's Change had involved
him gaining the power to call lightning from his hands. He sat down on the bed,
and thought of Petrel's face. "Is this all?"
Swift shook his head. "Close your eyes and think of the things you would like
to do with your brother."
He swallowed hard again and did so, imagining as he had so many times before
Petrel turning to him and confessing his love, and the things that might happen
after—kisses, touches. Their bodies pressed together. His cock started to get
hard.
Without warning, Swift shocked him. Just once, but once was enough when it was
hard enough to make Eider's teeth clench and his hands ball up. He smelled
burnt hair around him. His erection was gone.
"You're doing very well, Eider," Swift said, and sounded like he actually meant
it. "Now, close your eyes and think of him again. The same as before."
It was the very last thing Eider wanted to do, but he wasn't going to start
disobeying orders now. He thought of Petrel pressed against him again, of his
brother's voice gone low and husky, of kisses that grew increasingly fierce.
This time took longer, but Eider's cock got hard again.
And Swift shocked him again. This time didn't hurt as badly as the first, but
it was still a shock, a jolt, and monumentally unpleasant.
"Excellent. Again, please."
"How many times are you going to do this?" Eider asked, his voice shaking a
little, but that was probably just from the lightning that had coursed through
him.
Swift cocked his head. "I don't know. As many times as it takes for the message
to sink in."
"What message?" Eider asked, even though he knew already, he knew what they
were trying to prevent. Swift had told him. He just needed to hear it again.
"That the only thing that may come from this fixation on your brother is pain."
Eider squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes, sir. Again?"
"Again."
***** disappearing *****
About a week ago, Wren started disappearing whenever Tanager went to spar with
people. It might not have been remarkable if not for the fact that everybody
knew that when Tanager won against another girl the forfeit was sex, but things
were what they were so Wren started skipping off and doing something else
whenever Tanager had a spar.
Which was pretty often; most of Tanager's training so far had been through
various forms of sparring, and she liked doing it in her free time too because
why the fuck not? Sparring was fun.
Feeling Wren's grief and anger through the bond was less fun, but what was
Tanager going to do? Confess her feelings, have sex with Wren, and get both of
them kicked out of the school they'd worked so hard to get into? That would be
dumb.
Tanager wasn't going to jeopardize things until Wren gave some indication that
she wanted things to be jeopardized. Because whatever else she was, she wasn't
pushy when it came to what Wren wanted to do—or not do.
So she fucked other people, and Wren disappeared, and it was dysfunctional but
it worked... until it didn't.
"I don't see why you have to do so much sparring," Wren muttered one evening,
when Tanager got back. Sometimes Wren was here waiting, but most of the time
she was gone.
There had been times when Tanager wondered exactly where her Bonded had gotten
off to, but she wasn't willing to point out that she was noticing by asking.
Not yet, anyway. "Because I like to fight, little bird," Tanager said, about as
gently as she ever said anything. She added, teasing, "I thought you knew
that?"
Wren's mouth twisted into a scowl and she looked away. "I think what you mean
to say is that you like to fuck."
Tanager had wondered how long it would take Wren's top to blow over this, and
here was her answer. "I like both things, actually, but—yes. I do fuck after
spars, if the conditions are right."
"If you win against a girl," Wren muttered.
"If that bothers you, little bird--"
Wren looked up suddenly. "Quit calling me that."
It was the nickname that Tanager had had for Wren since forever. There was no
way she was going to stop using it; Wren would have to kill her first. "Why?"
"Because pet names are for lovers and children, and I am neither one so you can
just cut it out—there's no need to call me that anymore."
Anymore. What had changed? But more importantly, this was seeming more and more
like Wren saying that she wanted to admit her feelings to Tanager. So of course
Tanager had to move first; Wren was too timid to do anything otherwise.
Tanager reached over and tried to cup a hand around the back of Wren's neck.
With the plates, Wren wasn't so fas as she once was, but she was still quick
enough to duck and whirl and pin Tanager against the bed with one arm twisted
painfully behind her back.
Maybe she was learning those lessons on maneuvering with the things gifted to
her in her Change a little too well. Tanager drew in unsteady breaths, but said
nothing; when Wren got mad, she knew better than to run her mouth.
"That's it?" Wren growled, the ghost of her breath hot against the back of
Tanager's neck. "You're just going to act like you want something now that I'm
threatening you?"
"I've always wanted it," Tanager said, or tried to say; she got about halfway
through 'wanted' and ended up with her face pressed against the bed.
"Shut up shut up. You don't get to say things just because they're what I want
to hear."
But I'm not saying it because of that, Tanager thought desperately, and tried
to buck under Wren, to throw her partner off so she could speak and express
herself and maybe snap Wren out of this view that she was the only one who
wanted it.
No matter how angry she was, though, Wren wasn't truly violent or cruel; she
let Tanager's head up after a few more moments, with a hissed, "Got anything to
say?"
"I love you," Tanager tried, and hesitated once the words were out, waiting for
the backlash to come. None came, though. She took a few shaky breaths before
continuing. "I've always loved you, Wren. Yes, like the way you love me. I'm
attracted to you."
"Liar," Wren said, but without conviction. "I never felt anything over the
bond. I would've felt something."
Tanager shook her head. "No. I can just control what you feel over the bond
better than you can." She could control just about everything to do with the
bond better than Wren could, but she wasn't going to get into that now.
Wren let go of Tanager's wrist, but kept one knee in the middle of Tanager's
back. "I don't believe you. I would've noticed by now."
Damn, but her wrist hurt. Tanager used it with the other hand to angle herself
off of the bed a little—not enough to throw Wren off or anything—and closed her
eyes to concentrate. She winked out everything, so Wren could feel nothing
through the bond, waiting for the little gasp of shock, then let everything,
everything come flooding back through the connection between them.
"Holy goddesses," Wren breathed, and climbed off of Tanager entirely. "You're
really not lying, are you?"
Tanager offered up a little grin. "Why do you think I never kept a single
lover? None of them could compare."
Wren's cheeks went red, the way they were supposed to, and she looked down at
her hands.
Without a word, Tanager reached over and laced their fingers together. "We
don't have to do anything about it, you know. If you want to stay here, I've
not done anything for years, I think I can keep it up." As long as Wren didn't
decide that Tanager wasn't allowed to fuck anyone anymore.
"No," Wren whispered. "I want... I want to do something about it."
In that case, Tanager leaned over and pressed her lips against Wren's. It was a
sweet, sweet kiss, though it only lasted a matter of seconds before Wren pulled
away, eyes wide, shaking her head.
"I can't, I'm not—not supposed to. Not supposed to sleep with your Bonded." She
tittered, looking away, then closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. "I'm
sorry."
This was what Tanager had been afraid of all along with coming here: that one
or both of them would get brainwashed into being too afraid of acting on their
feelings. But she'd known the danger and said she'd go anyway, hadn't she?
Which kind of meant that she had no right to complain now. "It's okay. No,
really, I—I expected it, a little. So don't worry about it. We'll continue like
always, right?" She didn't bother trying to smile.
Wren just nodded slowly.
"Good. In that case, I have a spar tomorrow, if you don't have any problem with
it." With Alethe, and if Wren noticed that Tanager was sparring with Alethe
multiple times and winning multiple times she was in deep shit.
But Wren only shrugged and looked away. "You'll do what you want, of course."
Too right. But at least now Wren knew how Tanager really felt.
***** blood loss *****
The spar had been with Hawk, who was dangerous because he didn't know when to
fucking stop, and on top of it Tanager had been off her game because Wren asked
her to stop sparring with women.
So then Tanager lost, and lost badly, and lost blood, and even after the
healers were through with her she was light-headed and felt half dead.
Wren same to watch the spar, so she was there most of the match anyway, and she
saw it and Tanager felt so stupid and humiliated to have had her ass kicked
like that in front of Wren.
"It's okay," Wren said, one arm looped around Tanager's waist. "He's an
asshole, anyway, and I know you were still... reeling some."
Understatement. Tanager would've talked, but it just seemed like so much effort
to just open her mouth, and she didn't want to nod because that would very
likely make her pass out the way she had on the sparring floor.
"Of course, if you'd just given up before you bled half to death, we wouldn't
be in this situation, but no one would ever accuse my Tanager of being
gutless."
Was that a backhanded insult, or a backhanded compliment? Tanager couldn't
decide, and once again—no energy to ask. Plus she was starting to see spots
again, urgh, and the room was tilting worryingly. Not to mention the fact that
she could hear her heartbeat like a drum in her ears and it was too, too fast.
The healer said she would be like this, though, until her blood level built
back up.
Somehow, they made it back to their room, and Tanager collapsed on her bed and
didn't remember anything else after that.
*
Someone was petting Tanager's hair. Slow, even strokes that reminded Tanager of
her mother, though it wasn't possible because her mother was dead, dead, dead.
Opening her eyes seemed like a tall order.
She could do it, though. She could totally open her eyes. There was nothing
stopping her but herself. And a little blood loss. She'd lost blood before. So
just open your eyes, she told herself.
Tanager opened her eyes slowly. She blinked slowly at Wren's form, kneeling on
the floor, arms crossed on the bed, head atop them, eyes closed.
Little horns sticking out, begging to be touched. Tanager touched one. It was a
slow movement, too, and she wanted to draw her hand back quickly, but her body
didn't quite want to cooperate.
Wren jerked awake at the touch, eyes going wide for a moment before she
realized who was touching her and she smiled. Tanager touched her cheek, and
smiled at the way it was all warm from sleep. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself," Wren said, and without preamble leaned forward and pressed her
lips against Tanager's.
Who didn't try to pull back. This was what she wanted; why would she ever try
to stop it? Wren kept it chaste, at least, and was still smiling when she
pulled away.
Confusion and joy mingled together was a very disconcerting feeling. Tanager
shook her head a little, but that made her dizzy and actually a little bit
nauseous too.
"Woah there," Wren said, putting one hand behind Tanager's head and helping her
ease back down against the bed. "The healer said you'd be sick for a little
while. Do you want some food? It's beef stew."
Tanager's favorite. She wondered who Wren had bribed to make it; Wren's cooking
skills were crap. Still, no need to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Yes,
please."
The way Wren spooned Tanager the food, nothing had changed between them, but
Tanager was pretty sure that there was something in Wren's eyes, a feeling
coming across the bond, that hadn't been there before.
Just like that, she thought once her stomach was full and Wren leaned forward
for another kiss.
Tanager could get used to this kind of thing.
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