A/N: Part 7 yay I like narwhals aren't they cool. Done from the POV of one of the Cepans (pick one of your choice) hope you like it so tired now but my exams are FINALLY over (although I swear I failed all of them) have a great day/night/whatever time it is in the world today is a great day to learn something new or old or somewhat new or old yeah rambling again. R&R&Enjoy! -Candy888

Disclaimer: I disclaim ownership to the entire Lorien Legacies series, which sucks.

Human

But I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down

-'Human,' Christina Perri

xX-Xx

Here's to humanity.

You give a short laugh, and take a sip of your drink. The others follow suit, similar expressions overtaking their faces as they mutter bottoms up, some downing their drinks while others take a small swallow before setting it down.

Humanity- how bitterly ironic. The most so for Sandor, who shouldn't even be alive. Let alone travelling to a distant unknown planet where your only hope of survival is to blend in. How utterly humane.

Nine of you sit around a table, your only companions for the remainder of your lives slumbering peacefully in the next room over, blissfully unaware of their futures. Let them remain that way, for as long as possible. Innocent, untrained and happy. So they don't have to shoulder the burden of their duties until they are older. They are too young to hold this responsibility in their hands, the responsibility of avenging and keeping alive an entire race, and taking back what was once their planet.

A fresh wave of melancholy overtakes you. You had left everything you had back on Lorien. Your family, dead in the blink of any eye. Two older brothers. Gunned down by a platoon of soldiers, weaponless and without legacies. Your elder sister. Torn apart by a piken, claws digging into her chest and piercing through her heart, ending her life. Even your parents, yelling at you to RUN! while they threw themselves in front of an advancing army as you scrambled away like a coward towards the spaceship. All the while, you were forced to watch from above, hovering around the planet in the safety of the spacecraft. Safe while everyone else suffered for it.

You remember the warnings, the endless drills in case something ever happened, but you never thought it would ever come true. All precautions had flown out the window the second the power was cut off, throwing the entire planet into darkness aside from the few misplaced bursts of sparks from accidental fireworks. Panicked people had taken to the streets, drunk and unprepared for what was to come. A celebration ending in a bloodbath.

Tonight is the three month anniversary of when you left Lorien, scarred from the sight of charred and broken corpses scattered around the planet.

"I can still remember her voice," Henri mumbles suddenly, eyes fixated on the table.

"I wanted to take her with me. Julianne. But…she told me to leave her. Begged me to abandon her, leave her to their weapons and pikens and krauls and who knows what else. And she was killed because of it," he finishes darkly, draining the last of his glass.

You all share the same scars, the same memories. Some worse than others.

Boarding the spaceship, a tiny hand grasped firmly in yours- curious face alight with joy at the prospect of another 'adventure,' while yours was already hardened over in a mask of upbeat positivity. In reality, you were still reeling from Loridas's last words to the Cepans.

Protect them. They are Lorien's future- our last hope.

You take another swig of your drink, feeling the bitter liquid slide down your throat. How can you train the most powerful beings of your planet? How can you expect yourself to be able to care for them, when they only serve to remind you of what you lost? It's not because of them, no, the young Garde did nothing wrong. But how can you face yourself in the mirror, knowing you ran away from the battle and abandoned your people to a conquering invasion?

When the time comes, you don't know what you will do. You will train your Garde, yes, hone their legacies and tell them of their heritage. But it will not be enough; how can it be enough? Why did the elders put so much faith in a ragtag group of Cepans, entrusting them to the safety of these nine young Garde who harbor so much power, yet so much loss?

All of you will take on different identities, hiding and camouflaging yourselves in the far corners of the world from remote African villages to isolated American towns. You will not see each other again, for you know you will be dead. And, despite all the words of reassurance, you know that by the time the Garde meet up once more, they will have lost some of their members.

The first Loric up on the slaughtering block- Number One. A bright, happy child with hair the colour of the sun. She will be dead, with the Mogadorians chasing you as agitatedly as they are.

Number Two is a slight girl with fiery red hair, and a shy personality to contrast. Maybe she will be killed too, mercilessly stabbed, shot, strangled or murdered in a number of possibilities.

Those two, lucky or unlucky as they were to escape that night, will be the first to die after. Whether by chance or fate, they will be outlived by the others. And to top it all off is Number Nine, who received his blessing as the 9th Garde because he was late. The universe has such a mocking sense of humour.

You can't blame Nine, or Sandor, who is still so shaken up by his accidental survival at the cost of another. There is no one to blame you, and that is what grates you the most. The Loric, despite being a peaceful and kind race, are truly humane. If they are pricked, they will bleed. If they are hurt, they will feel pain. They have eyes, feet, organs, hands. And if they feel anger, they will put the blame on someone, just like anyone else would. You are not saints, and you cannot pretend to be invincible.

It's impossible to brush aside all that's occurred, and all that's going to come. You are going to die, too. It is not the job of a Cepan to live in place of their Garde. Sacrifices have to be made to achieve anything in the world, a lesson learned the hard way. And soon you too will be sacrificed in return for something greater that the Garde will hopefully live to see.

Some days it all seems like one big joke to you, some delusion that someone will call you out on for ever believing. And you just want to turn away from it all, ignore your duty and curl in a ball in a far-off corner, letting your emotions overwhelm you and toss you around like a ship in a hurricane. You wish you could slip up like that, make a mistake and correct it again. That you could fade into the background and imagine that you never had to grow up.

Create a world where you were just a child again, where you spent days outside playing tag with your three siblings. The four of you tumbling over strands of grass, only to get back up again with stains on your knees and a grin threatening to tear your face open.

Tag! They would yell, before sprinting away from the person they tapped as he or she followed in hot pursuit. You would follow, struggling to keep up as they got further and further away from you. You never minded, though. It was enough in itself to join them, chase after their receding backs as you flew over hills and rolled down gentle slopes, laughing all the while.

It's your fondest wish, to go back to the time where nothing matter but the four of you, and you never saw farther than escaping from whoever was 'it.'

Breaking down isn't allowed anymore though. You can't make another mistake now. And a childhood memory is only a way of keeping the nightmares at bay, the screams and fires burning within your mind. Replace the sad with the happy, that's what your older sister had always told you. But it's a way that will eventually cause you to collapse inside out from the ache of it all.

You've tried to erase the memory, become a perfect Cepan who's only relation is to their Garde, your conscience telling you to abide by your duty. Yet- you can't, not anymore. It was fine at first, but now all you can see when you close your eyes are your siblings, holding their arms out to you, voices raised in jubilance and excitement. Maybe you can just imagine. It's your way of coping, holding on to what you have left. Imagine a world where your mistakes never happened, and you could bear to look at your own reflection without seeing the ugliness of it all. So you cling on to that last shred of make-believe, the last shard of innocence from a sunny childhood, and hold it as a cherished secret. It's your mistake, but you'll stand up again.

After all, you're only human.

xX-Xx