Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. This particular part deals with the problems inherently present in the foster care system. Please utilize understanding of personal sensitivities before and while reading.

Author's Note(s): I have been reliably informed that "lizard-brain" is the gravest of insults to ten-year-olds.

Challenge/Competition Block:
Stacked with: Winter Bingo; SHoE; FF; SoC; PP; LL; NC; SI(N); ToS; BAON; Sentinel AU (Y); Long Haul (N); Truth (N); Slicing Life (N)
Representations: BC Use; Foster System; Sentinel & Guides; Life Lessons; Harry Potter (Punk); Silly Kids; Tiny Pack
Bonus Challenges: Under the Bridge; Lovely Coconuts; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Ladylike – Bossy; Nontraditional; Found Family; Middle Name; Tomorrow's Shade; Unwanted Advice; Some Beach; Hot Apple; Creature Feature; Machismo – Caring)
Secondary Challenges: SHoE (Onus)
Space (Prompt): 5C (Evergreen – Tree/Boughs)
Word Count: 2508

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The Light of Mankind
The Kindness of Strangers
Part 02: Nothing but Blue Skye
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"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle." – James Keller
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The girl darted into the bushes, not really caring about the potential bugs. She just had to get away from—well, everything, really, but definitely her current foster parents and siblings. Even in the open spaces of the park, being around them was just too loud. She just needed a bit of space and being outside always helped. Nature may be full of its own kind of noise, but at least it all made sense.

People never did, even when they were consistent about sending her away.

As she wrapped her arms around a thick tree, she wondered what her name would be at her next stop. They always changed what they called her. One set of fosters had even changed it every time they had addressed her. Some days she just wanted to pick one herself and force the stupid issue.

"So why don't you?"

She squeaked as she jumped back from the tree. The tree (cedar, old, healthy) was the loudest thing in the area, so she stared at it longer than logical before figuring out that it couldn't be the source of the question. Carefully, she raised her gaze to the sturdy branch well above her head. A boy was sitting cross-legged on it, like it wasn't ten feet above the ground and had to be uncomfortable. His green eyes looked like they were almost glowing in the shade cast by the foliage around them. He blinked with cat-like slowness as he stared at her. She returned the blink without really thinking about it, which must have struck him as humorous since he grinned at her in response.

"Don't you know it's rude to hide in trees to surprise people?"

"Oh, is that not normal?" the boy replied, not looking apologetic at all. "I'll have to tell Winter when we met back up. Cor, I may not, since it might give an idea of where I was hiding. He'd be so disappointed in me for giving away valuable intel. Now, you never answered the question. Why don't you just force the issue if it's so important to you?"

"What issue?" she asked, suspicious. It sounded very much like the boy had read her mind, which was ridiculous because not even a Guide could do that. He had to be talking about something else. He tilted his head as if changing the angle of his examination would have an effect on whatever he was seeing. His scrutiny felt like a scratchy sweater mixed with being covered in sunshine. It was as wonderful as it was irritating. She whined, "Stop that. It's freakin' weird."

"You don't know that you're broadcasting," he said. She squirmed as something began to nag at her, like an itch she couldn't pinpoint or the swell of a crowd before the noise started the slide towards too much. He propped his elbows up in the folds of his knees so that he could use his palms as a cradle for his chin. "I don't think you even realize that you're receiving. This is fascinating. Do you even know that you're online? I mean, this is probably rude as all fucking hell, and Cheese will definitely scold me for it all later, but you do know that you're a Guide, right?"

"I'm not—"

"Denying the truth doesn't change it," he interrupted with a strange strength to the words. His grin had a sharper edge to it now, more teeth and less jovial than it had been. Her chin dipped towards her chest while the rest of her head tilted towards her shoulder, all without her really thinking about it. Her insides felt quivery, like she was afraid of something except that she didn't really feel afraid. Not that she couldn't tell that the boy was potentially dangerous—he reminded her a lot like the constrictor that one of her past fosters had, beautiful strength that could easily be turned against someone. It was just that…well, she didn't understand it, but something told her that not understanding didn't mean that it couldn't be relied on. The boy wouldn't harm her, and he wouldn't even hurt her unless necessary.

"They test us," she offered instead of trying to deny his claim again. "Whenever they move us to a different home, they stop by the local office and we're scanned by the Guide on duty. I get moved a lot, which means that I get scanned a lot. It always itches for hours afterwards, but no one has ever said anything, so you've gotta be mistaken, right? Because if you're right—"

"—which I am. Because that itch is on the inside, right? Drives you batty, because you can't seem to figure out if it's in your chest or your head, just that it's on the inside? I bet it nags at you nearly as much as the conflicted feeling that you're having about me right now. Have you figured out what's bothering you about it yet?"

"Nothing's bothering—"

"Don't lie to me," he snapped. Again, the words held more than they really should, like each syllable had a weight dangling off it. She felt like falling to her knees, like the weight was trying to knock her down. She also felt a bit like springing up to see if she could knock him from his perch. Even if she couldn't succeed at getting him to the ground, touching him would at least prove that he was actually there.

"Oh, shit," she said as she realized what he had been talking about. The boy gave a quiet snicker before seeming to fall backwards off his branch. Before she could process that he would need help, he had twisted to land in crouch and was popping up to stand in front of her. Instantly, she punched him in the shoulder. He could probably have dodged easily, something that made the impact of her fist all the more satisfying. That itchy spot inside purred contently at the contact. "Okay, so you're real and I'm not crazy—or maybe I am, because if you're real, then there's a good chance you're right and somehow I'm a Guide and no one knows."

"Yeah, but you've got decent shields and governmental bodies typically get the really crappy Guides as the ones to work actually for them. Cheese says that most Sensitives prefer working in their chosen fields or for a Center, because mundanes have difficulties understanding how Sensitives think. He has stories from when his mentor was trying train her replacement that are a hoot. They're even funnier when she's trying to add context to Cheese's dry recitals, because that really doesn't help."

"This is the weirdest conversation that I've ever had, you know."

"It's not even in my top ten—even taking training discussions out of the running. Winter tends to get weird about his rifles, and don't ever let him get started about his knives—oh, or about Punk the First doing, well, anything. Guy's got some brass ones, even if he never used 'em to go against the Hag." The boy puffed up his chest like he had something to be proud of. "I managed to actually bite her."

"That's something to be happy about?" She let her tone express her disbelief. He looked like he was going to argue with her, so she rushed on to explain as she crossed her arms and tried to look stern. "You called her a Hag and mentioned that she was training a replacement. Most people train replacements when they're leaving a job because they're retiring. That means you bit an old lady, you lizard-brain. That's not a bragging point."

"She deserved it," he grumbled. He crossed his arms as well but lifted his chin in defiance. If he hadn't been at least an inch shorter than her, he might have managed to actually look down his nose at her. "She was touching what is mine. I defended my territory."

"Liz-ard-brain," she taunted in a sing-song voice. The spot that always itched during the scans flexed as it felt like something poked it. Acting on instinct, she grabbed the pokey energy and twisted it. The boy gave another toothy grin before pushing back into her space. The outside world faded in importance as the push and pull of energy took over her attention. She had to find something in the space around the boy, something in the wall that surrounded him. She didn't consciously know what she was seeking, only that she would recognize it when she found it.

She lost herself in the whirlwind of it all. She would shimmy energy in one direction, find something that she couldn't force her way past, and then move wave-like in a different direction. She felt like she was water, seeking out cracks in a dam, or maybe the wind wanting to tear off a man's coat. As she moved over the wall in front of her, her understanding seemed to grow, like she was pulling information off of everything she was touching. She didn't think too hard about it as she took her newly gleaned knowledge and applied it, blocking his waves of energy from finding any cracks. Whenever his waves threatened to just drown her in raw depth rather than skill, she would pull from the vibrating life around her, particularly the deep and constant echo that was always around her, no matter where she was at a given time.

She knew she would lose, knew that there was no way for her to defeat the boy. She was used to losing, having done nothing else all her life. Still, she pushed against whatever he shoved at her, barely aware of how he would twist around her occasionally like he was correcting how she was attacking him. Something whispered along the points their energy touched, easing the feeling of unfamiliarity every time it threatened to overwhelm her. It was as much comfort as it was information.

She could feel it now, a steady thrum in the background that had always colored how she saw the world. The only difference was that now she was aware of it, could recognize the hold that it had her. She wanted to scream at some of it (why had no one seen her drowning?)and cry at even more (why did no one want her?). Everything she had gone through seemed both worse for knowing what she was (what she had always been) and better for now understanding why she hadn't fit anywhere they had sent her.

Of course, she had never fit; she wasn't like them.

She melted into the arms that wrapped around her, into the warmth that layered atop of her. The warmth was even better than the arms, actually. It pushed away all the buzzing from before, all the people-noise that had been so loud. She could finally breathe, only the sensation isn't physical just like the boy had said. It was somewhere between her chest and her head, just buried deep inside. With the same insubstantial waves, she brushed against the warmth, barely recognizing it from the inside.

"I used to not have one either, you know," the boy murmured in her ear, drawing her attention back to the outside world. It was disorienting to find herself curled around the boy who was equally curled around her. Hugs were not something any of her fosters were really big on, and other kids typically weren't any better. All of that was made worse when some of them felt like they were cheese graters or scouring pads if they so much as brushed her skin. The boy didn't feel like that, though, even if he smelled like dirt and old cheese this close. He rubbed his cheek against hers like a cat. She hummed in response, both content and curious where he was heading with his nonsensical rambling. "Then Winter found me. He didn't really have a name either because the people who had him before he was mine are assholes."

"You shouldn't use that kind of language," she scolded. "It's rude. Also, you can't own people. There's laws, lizard-brain."

"There's always gonna be laws, O trembling one," he replied. "Laws are made by people with power who don't want to share it with anyone, even if that means keeping what they do to keep that power a secret. That's an asshole move and deserves to be called out. You can't deal in the dark without expecting to get blindsided a bit. Me and Winter? We're the knife that's gonna shank them. Wanna know why, tree-hugger? 'Cuz Winter is mine same way that I'm his, and no one hurts what's mine."

"That's crazy," she said, trying to hold onto the feeling. It was kind of hard when all she wanted was for someone to want her that way. It was wrong on so many levels, not the least of which was the boy's easy declaration of future murder. That didn't stop her from wanting to belong somewhere, to have someone care that much for her. "You can't just do that. There's gotta be limits and rules or people will get hurt."

"Not sayin' there shouldn't be rules, Quaker Oats. I'm sayin' that laws only protect those in power and those in power cannot be trusted with it. Winter broke the law when he saved, but he was following his instincts and I'm better off with him than I ever would have been otherwise." His energy trembled just a little as it rubbed over hers again. She couldn't help sighing as she snuggled into it. "Winter's mine, and it's not about owning. Adults don't own the kids they keep, do they?"

"Sometimes it seems like that," she whispered. "Sometimes it seems like they own everything about us, like when my fosters always change my name."

"So don't let 'em."

"It's not that simple!"

"Why not?"

"Why not?! There's paperwork and medical files and—"

"So?"

"Stop that!"

"Stop reminding you that you're capable of making some decisions for yourself? Yeah, sure, that's a great idea. Let's continue that brand of insanity. It's so clearly working."

"You're a jerk."

"No, I'm a Punk. There's a difference."

"You're lousy at comforting people!"

"Are you going to pick a name or what?"

She growled and yanked herself away from their embrace, stumbling into a patch of sunshine that managed to break through the boughs of the cedars that surrounded them. Feeling catlike, she turned her face towards the sky, letting the sun warm her face. All around her, nature quivered in expectation.

"Skye," she said. She smiled, pleased with the feel of it. It had taken ten years, but it felt right to finally have a name. She turned back towards the boy. "I'm Skye."

"Hello, Skye," he greeted her in return, no trace of snark to be found. "I'm Punk the Second."

It felt like the start of something.

She was still fairly certain that someone was going to end up getting bitten.

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To be continued
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