I don't own Lorien Legacies!
Sandor once told me about Loric love. How we Loric can only truly love one person in our lives. He used to tell me stories about him and his girlfriend, a Garde named Devektra. How she was beautiful, talented, intelligent, and entirely able to beat him up. Sandor used to joke about the female Garde from the ship, how I would argue with Number Six all the time and how I made Number Seven cry –not exactly my best moments as a five-year-old, I'll admit.
"Someday, young ward, you'll find someone who'll practically make your heart stop when you see her. She'll change your world, kid." Sandor had told me when I was fifteen.
Not long after those words were told to me, I met her. Maddy. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could love Maddy. Even if she's a human and I'm Loric. So I opened myself up to her and let myself wonder if she could be the one. But then, she betrayed me to the Mogadorians. Sure, it was because they had her parents, but it still hurt. The betrayal stayed with me for years afterwards.
Then, I am broken out of prison by Number Four. Number Four, the idiot who thinks that he's Pittacus Lore. Number Four, who fell in love with a human girl as well and also got betrayed. Number Four, who tells me about the badass that is Number Six.
We meet up with Number Eight, a cheerful boy with a closed-off look in his eyes, along with the other two girls whom he's traveling with. Number Seven, who goes by a human name like Johnny does –Marina –and Number Ten, who's only about eleven. "Where's Six?" John asks immediately when we meet up.
Eight quickly explains how she had been separated from them while the group was teleporting from India to New Mexico. She had come here first, and they had ended up in several other places first.
Ella –Number Ten –explains how Six communicated with her telepathically and said that she had been taken into the base. Dulce Base. The group of us enters the tunnel leading into the base, and fight through armies of Mogs to get to Setrakus Ra.
When we get to Setrakus Ra, though, he is gone. Instead, we find a teenage girl with long, dyed blonde hair and grey eyes. She's holding a sword in one hand and seems completely unharmed. Something isn't right about this. Even I would probably have a few injuries after fighting through armies of Mogs and then Setrakus Ra. Why is she uninjured?
Eight must recognize the girl, because he runs up to her and engulfs her in a hug. "Six! I'm so sorry that –" he is cut off by the girl's sword running through his chest.
Marina and Ella gasp, and John looks bewildered. Until Six starts to grow and we're staring at the ugly face of Setrakus Ra himself. Then, the real fight begins. Marina runs to Eight's body and does something to him while Ella runs off to the side. Without much experience fighting, it's better if she stays out of harm's way.
"He's alive! Just stunned." I hear someone say. I sit up slowly and look around the room. We're still in the Dulce Base, and everyone is here. Including another girl, one with dyed blonde hair and grey eyes.
"What happened?" I ask them slowly as I look around the room.
"I was just about to ask you that." Eight says. "There was some kind of explosion, and then it was just the seven of us still here."
"I don't know –I didn't see where he went. One second I was trying to hold my own, fighting him off; the next thing I knew I was here on the ground." I tell them. Johnny nods, and the new girl eyes me warily.
"What do we do now?" Sarah, Johnny's human girlfriend who apparently didn't actually betray him, asks. The new girl turns away from me and pays attention to Johnny and Sarah.
"We have to get out of here." Johnny answers. He keeps going on about Setrakus Ra and how he could come back to fight us some more.
"Anyone know a way out of here?" Six asks.
The rest of us grimace. "My teleporting legacy won't work with so many of us." Eight says, and Six grimaces, probably at the reminder of teleporting gone wrong.
"We'll have to get out the way we got in." I say finally.
John says some more leader-type things, but I only really catch, "We're never splitting up again."
I stand up –finally –and walk over to Six. I look at her up and down before smirking. "I don't believe anyone introduced us, proper like. It's nice to officially meet you, sweetheart. I'm Nine."
She rolls her eyes at me, and I pointedly ignore Johnny's snickering along with Marina and Ella's giggles. "I'm Six." She says finally, shaking my hand. "And never call me sweetheart again."
Katarina told me about love, and said that she loved many people on Lorien. That some people fall in love with one person and only love that person, but she had never had that experience. Maybe she had simply never found the one person whom she could fully love, or maybe the idea of only loving one person was fake. Either way, I hadn't cared as a kid. I had always just asked Katarina to stop talking and teach me more training exercises or fighting styles.
But now, I wish that I had relished every word which Katarina spoke and had held onto the small bits of wisdom she probably tried to tell me. Now that she's gone, I wish that I could do it all over again. But that's not possible –unless I develop a time travel legacy, which I highly doubt will happen.
I thought that maybe I could love Four –or John, as he prefers to be called –when we were on the road together with Sam. That maybe he and I could have the kind of love which Katarina never had. But that wouldn't –couldn't –happen since he was already in love with another girl. A human girl who betrayed us –but actually didn't betray us, it's a long story.
I thought that I might be able to love Sam. Sam, the adorable little human boy who wants so badly to help us in this fight. Sam who's nerdy and sweet and adores me. Sam who would be an amazing boyfriend. Sam, whom I feel almost nothing for. Well, that's not true. I have feeling for him, just not romantic ones. He's nice and all, but I don't love him. But I try to, anyways. I force myself to forget my thoughts of John while with Sam, and it works. The only problem is that I know I'm using Sam to forget John, I'm not with him because of any feelings I actually have for him.
"How've you been, sweetheart?" Nine asks when we all see each other again, years after the war with Setrakus Ra. In the time since, I broke up with Sam, and they're all surprised that he's not here with me. "Where's the nerd?"
"I'm doing well, and I don't know."
Instantly, they all look alarmed. "Is he okay? Do we need to go looking for him?" Marina asks.
I shrug. "I don't know where he is. We broke up a few years ago and I haven't seen him since." Ella, Nine, Five, Adam, and Marina look shocked, but John already knows. He is, after all, one of Sam's best friends. Of course he already knows.
"What? But you guys were so cute together!" Ella protests.
"Let's not talk about Sam. How are the rest of you doing?"
Marina smiles. "Good, the job at the hospital is working out really well."
Nine shrugs. "Los Angeles isn't as fun as Chicago, but it'll do for now." He says.
"You're in LA?" I ask him in disbelief.
"Yeah, why?"
"I live in Santa Monica. How long have you been there?" I ask him. How have we lived less than 20 miles from each other and not known that the other was nearby?
"Two years? Maybe three. I've been rebuilding Sandor's penthouse in one of the skyscrapers." He reveals. "When it's all done, y'all should come visit me."
"Y'all?" John asks him. "Really?"
Nine rolls his eyes. "We'll come visit you, Nine. Don't worry." Ella finally says.
I smirk at him. "As long as you come visit me first, that is." I tell him.
He grins. "Give me the address and I'm there, sweetheart." He replies. "So, what are we gonna do for this Loric Reunion?" he asks, rubbing his hands together.
Maybe it's possible to fall in love with someone the way that Sandor did. Maybe it's not as dangerous as I thought to love someone. Even if loving her is dangerous. Two weeks after I get back from our little Loric Reunion in Italy, I drive for almost forty minutes towards the ocean to see her. Santa Monica is much quieter than LA, even with hordes of bad drivers and tourists everywhere. There's no parking nearby, but her driveway is empty so I pull into it. I look around and whistle. Her house –actually a townhome –is a block away from the beach. The building itself has white stucco walls with dark-framed windows and doors. Hers is the unit on the left, so I walk up to the door and knock. The door opens immediately –thanks to her telekinesis –so I enter her house.
And whistle again. Damn, she picks nice places. The floors are all a light wood, and the walls are painted a very pale grey color. The kitchen is in the very back, and it's made of dark wood cabinets, white countertops, and dark stone backsplashes. Her living room is decorated with a teal loveseat and a black sofa arranged to make a small and separate sitting area. There's a door off to the side which leads to either a bathroom or a closet. Six is in the kitchen, moving one pot by herself while stirring another bowl and tossing salad with her telekinesis.
"Need some help, sweetheart?" I ask her as I walk passed her living room and into her kitchen. I walk around the breakfast bar and into her kitchen and take over the salad. I have no idea what else she's making, but I can handle putting some vegetables into a bowl.
"Yeah, thanks." She responds, not glancing up from the stove. "It's good to see you, Nine."
"You too. This place is pretty damn nice, sweetheart."
"Yeah." She agrees. After a few minutes, she sets the pan down and turns off the stove. She also sets down the spoon she'd been stirring with her telekinesis and faces me. Her kitchen is pretty small, so the two of us are only half a foot apart.
She looks the same as ever, with long dark hair falling down her back and striking grey eyes accompanied by a face made of all sharp angles –other than the wide curve of her mouth. "How's living in Santa Monica?"
"Crowded, loud, and expensive." She retorts. "But nice. Turns out that I love living by the ocean. No one questions when there's a freak rainstorm around here." She grabs two plates with her telekinesis and serves them while filling two glasses with water. She sets everything on the countertop in front of barstools. "I don't have an actual table, so this will have to do." She explains. She grabs silverware –thankfully not with telekinesis –and sets it down as well. "Hungry?"
"Always."
I end up staying longer than I originally intended. After eating and washing dishes, the two of us spend almost an hour just sitting next to each other on the teal loveseat and chatting. By then, it's dark outside as the sun finishes setting. "You know, the beach won't be as crowded now that it's dark out, if you want to go for a swim."
Thanking Lorien that I keep an extra pair of shorts in my car –for emergencies –I quickly agree. It takes Six less than five minutes to smile at me, go up the stairs, and return wearing a shorts and a plain T-shirt. "Ready?" I ask her.
"Definitely." She grabs two towels from the closet and hands me one. After locking her front door, the two of us walk to the beach. Just as she had said, the beach is pretty empty, other than a few groups of people having bonfires. Six sets her towel on the sand and takes off her shoes. She wastes no time in pulling off her shorts and tugging off her shirt. "Are you going to swim? Or just stand there staring at me?" She asks with a smirk.
After our swim, Nine takes a quick shower as I change into pajamas. I couldn't care less that Nine's here –that's a lie, but I ignore that fact. He walks down the stairs, and I assume that he's going to say goodbye and then leave.
But he surprises me be sitting on the couch –next to me, again –almost too close for comfort. "You should visit me soon, sweetheart."
"I might," I reply with a smirk, "if given the right motivation."
He leans closer, and I lean my back against the armrest so that I'm facing him. "Oh yeah?" he asks, still moving closer to me. Six inches. Now five. Now four. Now three. Now two.
"Yeah." I reply, hating how breathy my voice sounds.
And then I'm too distracted by the fact that his mouth is on mine to care much about anything other than tangling my hands in his hair and pulling him closer to me. I am aware, however, of his hand on the small of my back which is pressing me closer and closer to him and his other hand which is slowly running through my hair.
After a few minutes, I put my hand on his chest and gently push him away. "So, now will you visit me?" he asks after a few moments of silence.
"Perhaps." I reply with a wink and he smirks.
"Good." We stare at each other, neither of us getting up from the couch. Nine glances at the clock hanging on my wall. "You know, it's pretty late." He says casually.
"And?"
He shrugs and grins at me. "It might be dangerous for me to drive home in the dark, sweetheart."
I grin back at him. "Well, we can't have that, can we? It wouldn't do for such a badass Garde to die by driving home." I mock him.
"Exactly, sweetheart." I shift around and rest my head in his lap.
"Well, Nine, it's a good thing that you're a comfortable pillow." I say as I use telekinesis to turn all of the lights off.
Hello! Thanks for reading yet another Nix oneshot. Please review and tell me your thoughts. Have a fantastic day/night!
~Nerd