Aita can feel all eyes on him as he takes his accustomed seat on one end of the table. There had been conversation when he came in, but it's stopped now. Aita knows why, and it has nothing to do with his sixth sense—no, this is all just common sense.
"Alright," he says, folding his hands in front of him on the table. He's directly across from Juno, who is staring intensely at him. "I know what you're all expecting me to say, so I'll come out and say it. Humanity is breaking free from our control, and this is the first chance we've ever really had to reach out tot hem.
"Reach out?" This is Juno, her voice low and smooth. It's a beautiful voice, or at least—it's the kind of voice that Aita has always found attractive. There was a time when he would have done anything for the kind of attention Juno is giving to him now, but Aita knows better. He knows the kind of person she would have become, or possibly will become, trapped in that temple in the far future. He can't see anything beautiful anymore when he looks at her—all he sees is the destruction she'll one day cause.
"Yes," Aita says, and the only sound in the room is the two of them. Everyone else is listening as intently as they can, to see how this is going to turn out. No one else in this room is as in favor of human equality as Aita is, and no one is as against it as Juno. "They're people, they're sentient, they're intelligent. They're missing the sixth sense we have, but that's no reason to keep them mindless and enslaved."
"They're lesser," Juno says dismissively. "And always will be."
"There are isu that are blind," Aita says. "Or deaf. Or—"
"You're being deliberately idiotic!" Juno stands and slams the palms of both hands down onto the table. "You can't seriously be considering elevating them to the same level as us?"
"You're—"
"You brought one of them into your home," Juno says, and now there's a murmuring all around them. "Of course you're biased."
"Because I have first hand knowledge of what humans are capable of?" Aita asks. "That's not bias, that's just having information."
"It could be a kind of disease," Juno says. "You let one of them think for herself and now they all can—"
"That's superstitious nonsense," Aita snaps. "And you should know better than that." Other people are nodding, and Juno must see it to because she seems to realize she's gone too far, and backs down.
"The point is that they're dangerous," Juno says. "Look at what they're doing to our city."
"They're waking up," Aita says. "They're just learning to think for themselves."
"And the first thing they do is cause a riot!" Juno says. "This is the kind of behavior that we grew out of as a species, we don't do this kind of thing anymore."
"No," Aita says. "We limit ourselves to slavery."
"You've gone too far," a new voice says—an older man, one of the elders of the council. "Slavery is barbaric, and we are not barbarians."
"Then what would you call what we do to the humans?" Aita asks.
"We use them," he says. "As tools are meant to be tools."
It's like talking to a brick wall, and Aita is lost for words, for so long that the conversation moves right on without him while he's still trying to think of a comeback.
The rest of the next hour or so doesn't go much better than that. The conversation continues, going around and around in circles, with Aita rarely getting the last word in. He's outnumbered—in fact, at this moment, he's the only one here that thinks the rebelling humans deserve a chance.
They break eventually, when they can't talk another minute without coming to physical blows. Tensions are high, and Aita feels as exhausted as if he's just run a marathon. He retreats to a corner by himself, and is surprised when Juno follows him.
"You don't really believe all this," she says. "Do you?"
Aita takes a few seconds to gather himself before turning back to look at her. "Yes," he says. "I absolutely believe it. Humans deserve every chance we can give them, and we're losing something by keeping them broken."
"Why?"
He doesn't dare tell her what he's seen in the future, about the people he cares about, but she's not stupid and she puts the first half of it together.
"You've been different since you went on that mission to investigate the future of humans," Juno says. "What did you see? All you would say when you came back was the same thing you're saying now—that you believe in humans."
"I won't tell you," Aita says.
The sound she makes has no words in it, but it communicates her frustration clearly enough.
"Juno," Aita says. "I saw humans. I saw them living, with everything that entails, and I don't know why you need to know anything else."
"No," Juno says. "You saw more. "I know you did."
He'd seen the aftermath of what happened to her. He'd seen the way she'd taken his face and plastered it across centuries of human DNA, all the way up to Elijah. He'd seen the place where she was trapped for millennia, and heard the stories of what she'd tried to do before she was finally defeated for good. "I won't tell you," he says. "There are some things we're just not supposed to know. Or know."
She stares at him for a long time then, gradually, softens. "Aita," she says. "I think you used to like me."
Aita knows his face must be burning bright red. He had liked her once, before seeing the kind of woman she would become, and what she would use him for. "I don't—not that you—"
"I did like you too," she says.
"I thought you must have," Aita says. His mind is just going sort of blank. He has no idea why Juno's cornered him like this, now, to talk about any of this. There are more important things. There are the humans that need them to be on their side.
"Really?" Juno asks.
In the future, in a future, they'd been married.
"I just…"
"And then you left," Juno says. "And you came back. Did you fall in love with a human?"
"What?" he says. "No."
And there's the sharpness in her eyes again as she goes back on the attack, so quickly it startles Aita. It's an act, he realizes. She's doing whatever she can think of to get him to explain what she wants to know. "Then what changed?" she demands.
"You!" he says, before he can stop himself. "In tens of thousands of years, you are going to change. And the person you're going to become is—"
"What?" she demands. "In the future?"
"Still fighting humans, of course," Aita says sarcastically. "Even when they rule the world and you're the only one of us left-"
And she smiles. It's calculating, almost predatory, and Aita doesn't know what mistake he's made but he knows that there must have been one. "So they did replace us," she says. "They are a danger. Thank you, Aita. That's all I wanted to hear."
She turns and leaves him then, and Aita has a sinking feeling that he's just said the worst possible thing. He dashes after her, and closes his hand around her upper arm. "Wait," he says urgently. "Just… Juno, just wait a minute."
She raises her eyebrows at him. "What."
"Let me show you," he says. He's not sure where this is going or what he could possibly do to prove her wrong, but he knows he has to try. "Not the council, just you."
"The future?" she asks.
"No," he says. He'd sent Ana there to be safe for a reason. "Here. Let me show you the humans here."
She looks at him, and Aita can see her about to say no. She has the upper hand. It's the only thing she reasonably could say, and yet…
"Alright," she says.
"What?"
"One way or another, we're going to resolve this," she says. "If you can show me that humans are people too—" Her voice is mocking as she says this. "Maybe you'll convert me to your side. Or, more likely, you'll realize that even if you're right, even if there's something more to humans, the fact that they exist is hurting our people."
"No," Aita says. "Humans will only make us stronger."
That's all they've ever done for him, after all.
-/-
"So what happens now?"
Elijah looks up when Khemu corners him, and sighs. "Can we just assume for right now that I have no idea what's going on or what we're supposed to do next?" he asks. "Because I have… I'm clueless, Khemu."
On the other end of the room, the girls are having a quiet conversation of their own. Aletheia and Elina both look a little awkward, in a way that Elijah doesn't blame either of them for. This is a weird situation, after all. Not the best time ever for making new friends.
Ana, on the other hand, seems perfectly happy as she darts between the two of them. She seems less worried, now that she has more people she trusts around her.
"Okay." Khemu glances back over his shoulder at the girls, then steps closer to Elijah. "So are you… Elijah, honestly, you don't seem like you're coping okay right now."
"I feel… I just can't shake this feeling that something's going to get worse," Elijah says honestly. "Everything that's going wrong is happening thousands of years in the past, but it feels so…" He gestures vaguely at the two of them. "Close. But there's nothing we can do to stop it, or help, or…"
"Whatever happens," Khemu tries. "It's all over."
And then, with a perfect sense of dramatic timing, Elijah's phone starts to ring. He makes a face, but doesn't dare not answer it just in case someone's hurt or something (his dad's a Hidden One, and he knows things can get dicey sometimes).
"Hello?" he says.
"Elijah?"
He pauses for a long minute, waiting for his usual sixth sense of knowledge to tell him what's going on here. It doesn't come—maybe he's too tired, or maybe he's just unlucky, but either way what happens next is just one long, awkward pause.
"Yes?" he says at last.
"Elijah Miles," the voice continues, a little more uncertainly this time. It's a woman's voice, Elijah notes. Vaguely familiar, but that might just be a trick of the way cell phones tend to distort everyone's voices into a kind of tinny shadow. She sounds older, maybe his dad's age or even a few years past that.
"I…" Elijah is wary, he can't help himself. He doesn't like the idea of a stranger knowing his full name.
"Are you Elijah Miles?" the woman presses, and Elijah realizes he's not going to be able to get away without confirming it.
"Yes," he says.
He looks up at Khemu, who mouths, who is it?
Elijah shrugs.
On the other end of the phone, the woman lets out a sigh that sounds like static in Elijah's ear. "Finally," she says. "I've been… I shouldn't have let you go in the first place, I've been trying to track you down and you're just—well, you're using your dad's last name now aren't you? I didn't expect that, and I—"
Something starts to tickle at the back of Elijah's mind. It's not exactly a knowing of what's going on, but a kind of knowing that very soon, something upsetting is going to happen. Preemptively, his stomach plummets. "What's going on?" he asks. "Who are you?"
"Who is it?" Khemu asks again, out loud this time. It's loud enough, in fact, that Elina and Aletheia look up at them, both looking vaguely concerned.
"Elijah," the woman says. "This is your mother."
Oh.
The first thought to go through Elijah's mind is that at least it makes sense why her voice had sounded vaguely familiar to him. But he hasn't seen his mother since he was… well, he'd been much younger at the time, and more Sage than anything else. He'd known things then, but hadn't understood them, or why he was different, or how to even begin to relate to the people around him.
He'd known that it was time to go, and so he'd left his mother and gone to his father, where things had worked out as well as they possibly could have. He'd made friends, and found a family he could understand. He'd helped save the world. Twice. He's learned so much about where he comes from and what it means to be a Sage, but he's never had the courage to look back at the mother he'd left behind.
He hasn't thought about her.
"I'm sorry," he says all in a rush. "I'm really sorry, but I think you must have the wrong number."
"Wrong number?" she repeats, crestfallen. "But how many Elijah Miles-es can there be in the world?"
"Two," Elijah says. "Definitely two, at least. There must be—"
"Elijah," she says, and he slumps. "What are you doing?"
It's not fair. There's already a crisis going on, and Elijah doesn't have any idea why his mom is calling him now (still assuming it really is her, and not part of some kind of plot). And most importantly, he doesn't know how he feels about her showing back up all of a sudden like this. He needs… time, and space, to fix what's already wrong and figure out how he feels before he lets her back into his life.
"I can't do this right now," he tells her, fighting and mostly failing to keep his voice calm. "You don't understand, there's so much going on already, and it's really important, and—"
"Do you know how long I've been trying to find you?" The woman, possibly his mother—and then, too late, the flash of knowing comes to tell him that he is, actually, speaking to his mother. He's not sure whether that makes things better or worse.
"I'm—" He can't think of any good reason she'd possibly be trying to find him. He can't even remember what kind of person she'd been, really, except that she'd seemed very tired and sad all the time. Which is fair. If he'd had to deal with a son that treated him like he'd treated his mother, he probably would have been tired and sad all the time too.
In a panic, he throws the phone to Khemu, who fumbles just barely manages to catch it. "What's this for?" he asks. "Who is it?"
"My mom," Elijah says, and then—panic overwhelming him all at once—he turns and runs. There's a hand on his shoulder but Elijah twists and slips away, and there's no one close enough or fast enough after that to grab him as he stumbles, half falls into the door. He's clumsy and uncoordinated as he runs away from his past and his mistakes and the person he used to be and the consequences of what happened when he left all those years ago.
-/-
"What the fuck was that?" Elina whispers, then winces when she remembers there's a little kid in the room. Luckily, when she turns to see if she's done any damage, Aletheia has her hands over Ana's ears. She gives Elina a reproachful look, then slowly removes her hands from the now wiggling Ana.
"I… suppose he has a problem with his mother?" she says.
"Elijah doesn't have a mom," Ana says.
"Oh?" Aletheia asks, turning to her. She looks completely confused by what's going on here. Elina can't blame her. She's pretty confused herself. "How do you know?"
"I never saw him with a mom," Ana says. She looks suddenly uncertain. "Why, does he have one?"
"This is ridiculous," Khemu says. "We have more important things to worry about." He holds Elijah's phone up to his own ear. "Hello," he says. "Sorry, Mrs.—" A brief pause, then, "Ms. Simmons, sorry. I—no, my name's Khemu. I'm a friend of Elijah's. He just had to… step away for a minute."
Elina, Aletheia, and even Ana wait in curious silence as Khemu listens for almost a full minute, nodding occasionally.
"I understand," he says at last. "And I'm sure that as soon as Elijah gets back, he'll be happy to…" A wince, then, "No, Ms. Simmons, I'm sure he didn't mean to—" He sighs. "Yes ma'am. I'll pass the message along."
He's barely managed to hang up before Elina blurts out, "What the—" Ana's here, she reminds herself, Ana's not supposed to hear words like that. "What the heck happened, Khemu? Was she really his mom?"
"I mean…" He's turning the phone over and over in his hand, staring at it like it has all the secrets of the universe hidden inside. "He wouldn't have gone running away if it was just some stranger, would he?"
"I guess not," Elina admits. Then she turns to Aletheia. "You're one of… I mean, you're an isu, right? You should be able to tell whether that was really his mom, right?"
"No," Aletheia says. "I would need more data, to be able to give you a definite answer. We're not psychic, like I've said. We just pick up on things that we don't ever really notice consciously—but I don't know enough about human culture to be able to interpret those things."
"So… we have no idea," Elina says. "Great."
"He ran," Khemu says. "Why would he run if it was just some stranger?"
"Why would he run if it was his mom?" Elina asks. "I mean, you've had some problems with your mom, but you never ran away from her."
"I'm also not Elijah," Khemu says, crossing his arms and staring thoughtfully in the direction Elijah had run off toward. "And I'm sure he has his reasons."
"We don't have time for this," Aletheia says. "I'm going after him."
"No!" Elina jumps in front of her. She flushes when everyone stares, but Aletheia doesn't know Elijah like she and Khemu do. "We'll go after him. You stay here with Ana. Is that okay with you, Ana?"
"Yea?" Ana says hesitantly.
"Great," Elina says, grabbing Khemu by the apple. He's strong enough to hold her off, but he doesn't try. "Awesome. Let's go, Khemu."
-/-
...I'm so sorry this chapter isn't good. I tried :(
