Chapter 29: Sacrifice.
Their first reactions were a lot like hers.
Shock, anger, disbelief, denial, disappointment.
Jade watched all these emotions and more filter across her friends' faces. Angelica had moved to the comfort of Breeze's arms, Camille stared out of the window and Slam… Slam looked at her, his green eyes as much on fire as his hair and personality.
No one spoke for the longest of time and their silence was only interrupted when the door opened, revealing one of the king's man servants.
He bowed at them, though it wasn't as deep as they would've received in their time.
"King
Skyhawk calls you to breakfast in half an hour." He announced
formally, bowed again and stepped outside without waiting for an
answer.
Camille turned from her position at the window, giving
the door and almost curious look.
"They do that…" She mused distracted. "When they don't want to give you a choice as to whether you want to come or not. Skyla told me that once."
Her words broke the spell of silence around them.
"I can't
believe she did that!" Slam exploded. "She had no right, dude –
that girl had no right to mess with our lives, our future."
Jade
winched.
Of everybody, Slam was one of the most accepting towards
Joanie.
He never
really spoke of his life before the academy, but Jade suspected that
he ran with quite a few gangs when he was younger. He understood the
world Joanie had come from and had been a key figure in integrating
her into their life so to speak.
Hearing him refer to her as
"that girl" only showed how angry he was.
"In her defence Slam." She tried despite herself. "I don't think Joanie had much of a choice. "Skyler started digging and she was tired and… It's our fault as much as hers."
Angelica gave her a cold look.
"How do you figure?" She queried. "Like, Joanie has never been a team player Jade. Never. She marched into the academy, unannounced with nothing but mischief on her mind. We probably wouldn't have been able to stop her even if we wanted."
Jade returned the look.
"She didn't do it on purpose Angelica." Jade said. "You should've seen her face when she told me, it really was an accident."
"Then why didn't she have the courage to tell all of us." Slam said. "This is the most cowardly act…"
The words didn't feel right as they hung in the room.
Camille shifted from her position at the window and stood up to join them. Her light eyes glanced over them all.
"Did Joanie tell him about it before or after they offered her the position?"
Jade glanced at her friend.
"Before. Skyla only offered her the position after Joanie told Skyler."
Camille nodded slowly.
"In that moment she changed her past as well." She said softly. "What Joanie did was not right. But cowardly?" She glanced at the rest of the group. "As we said in the beginning, she has the most to loose. Without Skyla, the Joanie as we know her, would not exist. She'll still be out there, on the street or worse dead." Her expression was pained as she looked at Slam and Jade. "You two know her the best from all of us. You know as well as I do that Joanie has only one person she puts first in her life and that is Skyla. Whether it was forced out of her or whether she relinquished the information about us freely, she would've taken only one person into consideration when she uttered it and that was Skyla. Yes, she didn't consider us, but – if you think about it, she doesn't really have to."
Angelica opened her mouth in protest.
"But we will loose everything!" She exclaimed. "Our Skyla, each other, our careers…" She looked at Breeze who had moved to put an arm around her. "If everything changes, if Skyclone does not do away with Skyler, we will never exist."
Camille gave her a patient look.
"It's all still in theory." She said. "We don't know what's going to happen remember. We might not even get back home. It all depends on whether or not the king can send us back."
Angelica glared at her.
"But it is on that theory that Joanie is obviously considering whether or not she's going to stay here." Angelica said. "if she thinks like that, we bloody well have every right to as well."
The
other's shifted uncomfortably, feeling hopeless.
Jade sighed
finally and rubbed over her eyes.
"Just as
Joanie had the right to tell Skyler everything." She said quietly.
"You guys, nothing we say now can change it. We can be angry with
Joanie, we can yell at her – as I suspect each and every one of us
wants to do, we can tell Skyler that she was lying and see whether
he'll believe us… There are so many things we can try to do…
But in the end, I guess we don't have the right to."
She
sighed heavily, and involuntarily looked at Slam.
"We all took
an oath, the day we were swore in as Skydancers, to protect this
wingdom. To protect the royal family. We took that oath and Joanie
did too. And of all of us, she is the only one who abided by it. She
did not play it safe for her own sake, she did not sit back and just
let things be. In the end, she did what's best of the wingdom by
telling Skyler. She did, even it if was involuntarily as she said,
what we should've done in the beginning. Our lives and future are
of no consequence when we are Skydancers."
The others stared at her in silence.
Angelica closed her eyes against the tears that had started to stream down her cheeks and buried her face in Breeze's shoulder.
Slam had met her gaze and was looking at her as if he was drinking in her presence, as if he was trying to sear her into his soul because she might disappear from his life at any second.
"What do
you suggest we do now?" He asked.
Jade closed her eyes and
shrugged.
"Go to the breakfast that we are already late for. See what Joanie does. And then decide what we would like to do in terms of deciding whether or not we should still try to go home. I am sure that, if we ask – they will give us a home here."
She opened her eyes and looked at her five best friends.
"It's the only thing we can do."
&&&
"You are solemn." The king remarked some time later when they were all seated at the breakfast table.
There were only eight people seated at the breakfast table. The six Skydancers, the king and Master Anwar. Very little conversation had been made thus far, as the Skydancers did not look at the king, nor at each other and all of them hardly touched their food.
King Skyhawk glanced at them all in turn and glanced at Master Anwar who was seated at his left.
"Is the food not of your liking?" He queried gently, though they could see he knew that was not the case. "Or the company?"
He noticed how young Cara sank down ever so slightly and push at a piece of egg. Her mouth was thin and her face paler than usual.
The young man Behr shifted though and shook his head.
"We are just thinking of home your Highness." He said respectfully, if gravely. "It feels as if we have been gone for a long time." He glanced at the others and sighed. "We miss it."
Cara, if possible, sank even lower.
Amero, who was sitting next to her sister, seemed to outright ignore the child.
The king gave them a curious look.
"Well, if all goes well," he started, "I will be able to send you home by the end of the day."
His words did not seem to lighten the mood and if anything, they all seemed to become more solemn.
He sat back and gave them a curious look.
"Your thoughts are dark." He remarked. "May I venture a guess why?"
The silence around them became more intense as they looked up and gazed at him.
The king smiled slightly and motioned to Cara.
"My son told me that young Skyla has made a proposition to your youngest companion." He leaned slightly towards Cara and rested a hand on her arm. She did not stiffen or protest, but merely dropped her gaze to his signet ring.
"I have to apologize for it." The king continued. "It was hardly in an appropriate fashion, such things can not be asked spontaneously."
None of them said anything but by the sudden tension that flowed across the table he knew that he was dancing on the mark.
"I understand that you have duties back home that you have to return to, families that are undoubtedly awaiting your return anxiously. You are Skydancers after all. Your King and Queen would not take kindly to me entertaining you longer than I need you." He glanced at Cara. "Please, do not feel under any obligation to accept any offers that came your way. But also know, that you are welcome here for as long as you wish to stay, people with your talents can most definitively be used in this kingdom."
The party shifted uncomfortably, but the olive skinned Simone shifted and put her fork down with a sigh. She glanced at the others in apology.
"I only speak for myself when I say that I would rather return home as soon as you are willing to send us, your Highness." She said slowly. "You are right, I have a family. And a younger sister I wish to return to. I will miss my family if I stay here."
Natali shifted as well, and – with an understanding look in her friend's direction, but strangely avoiding the red headed boy's eyes, she also nodded.
"It is just my father and me." She said. "If I stay here, he will be alone. I would love to stay here," she glanced at Cara, "but I can't."
The rest
of the party stared at their friends in silence, not daring to look
at one another.
The king shook his head slightly.
"You are
taking such a seemingly simple decision so seriously." The king
remarked. "Almost as if you are expecting trouble when you return
home."
Red headed Gerhard shook his head with a sigh.
"The
journey is dangerous your highness – even with the help of the
Skyswirlstone." He said. "And always, when we return, there is a
chance that our Realm might've changed. Politics are… volatile."
He glanced at Cara. "Especially for young Cara. I can understand if
she wants to stay but," he looked at Natali who was seated across
from him, "I will return home also with Natali."
The raven
haired girl smiled at him and reached underneath the table to touch
his hand that was already waiting for hers.
Their
friends smiled slightly.
Behr, with his eyes travelling between
the two blond sisters, nodded slowly.
"I'll return as well." He said simply. "Your Highness, may I please request that we can get up briefly and go to the next room, we have to quickly discuss something amongst ourselves. We apologize for bringing our business to breakfast, we have not yet talked to Cara this morning and obviously, until we sort this out – it will spoil not only our day, but yours as well."
The king smiled amused and nodded. He motioned to Master Anwar to stand up.
"I was going to suggest it." He said. "Do not be concerned, we'll leave. We'll give you some privacy. It's easier for the two of us to get up, instead of all the four of you."
Without hearing Behr's protests, the two older men left the room, taking the guards with them.
&&&
Joanie felt as if the ground had been pulled out from underneath her.
Looking at her friends, she got up with jerky movements and went to stand against the wall, looking at them cautiously.
They in turn returned her gaze, some – like Breeze and Camille – passively, other's with more emotion behind their eyes, like Slam and Jade. The only one who didn't look at her was Angelica, who only looked at the uneaten food in her plate.
Breeze was the first to move, as he fixed her with a stern look and motioned to Jade. "We would've appreciated hearing it from you in person Joanie." He said plainly as he stood up. "This was not the type of action, and decision, to be kept from us."
The younger girl did not say anything but unconsciously hunched her shoulders as if she as expecting a physical attack.
"We are a team Joanie." Breeze carried on, unhindered by her body language. "That means that we should do and decide everything together. That is also what makes us all Skydancers. Not just you, or us. Every single one of us has a responsibility not only towards the one we serve, but each other and ultimately ourselves. Whether you had control over what you were saying or not, you should've taken that into consideration and – if you failed to then, you should've considered it afterwards or at least took responsibility for your actions and told us yourself."
A few months ago, before they knew her, these words would've meant nothing to Joanie, but now – its onslaught was worse than a physical attack.
She did
not break his gaze, but tried to push herself into the wall.
Jade
glared at Breeze and stood up as well.
"Stop it
Breeze." She told him heated. "What's done is done, there's
nothing we can do about it now. Joanie we…"
Breeze held up a
hand to silence her.
"Let me finish Jade." He said before he turned back to Joanie. "Be still Joanie please," he said softly as he noticed her expression, "I'm not saying this because I am angry with you, I have no right to be. We have all conducted ourselves in a manner that we should be ashamed of. None of us have done the wisest thing since we came here, none of us have thought of our actions. We have tried to get by here on lies and illusions. We didn't really talk to each other, we didn't really think of what will happen in the future. We didn't even think about our Future." He shook his head. "I don't know what happened in this Time, but it felt to me as if we unravelled without us knowing. Yesterday for instance, instead of making sure that Joanie's okay and keeping her with us, we let her into the lion's den, hurt – confused and obviously not herself, alone. We were all too concerned with our own wounds." He turned his attention to the whole group. "Joanie didn't just fail us, we failed her, just as we failed each other."
Slam gave his friend a look and shook his head.
"That's harsh dude." He said softly. "But, I guess true."
Joanie still kept her pose by the wall, but had dropped her head just like everybody else.
"I'm sorry." She said softly. "It really was an accident."
There was
an unexpected bitter laugh from the table.
Angelica didn't look
up but kept her gaze fixed on the table.
"You know." She said. "I should like, say that as well. Those exact same words."
When the others gave her a puzzled look she sighed.
"I brought us here remember?" She lifted her one hand as if she could almost see Skyla's glove there. "Me and my silliness." She glanced at her boyfriend. "You mentioned taking responsibility Breeze, but like, I didn't really take responsibility for my actions either. I'm sorry you guys."
Jade glanced at her friend.
"It's not your fault Angelica." She said. "Please don't worry, we don't blame you."
The rest nodded in agreement and Camille went as far as to smile.
"Just as we don't blame you Joanie." She added. "We're all just very very scared."
Breeze nodded as Joanie relaxed slightly.
"We also realise." He carried on. "That you probably have the most reason of us all to be scared. As we said in the beginning, you have the most to loose." He hesitated and glanced at his friends. "That is why I want to make a proposal."
And just like that, things felt normal between them again.
Joanie slowly moved from her place at the wall and sat down next to Jade as those who had stood up retook their seats.
Breeze waited for them to settle before he leaned forward and folded is hands.
"I suggest, and would almost advise it, that Joanie stays here."
The company blinked at him.
"Breeze…" Slam began but the boy shook his head.
"Again, let me finish." He said. "If we go back, or those of us who chooses to return, and everything is as it should be, then we tell Skyla what happened. If this happened once, I'm sure that she'll be able to find a way to send us through again. Then, we can just come and retrieve who ever stayed. If things have changed…" He hesitated. "Then, well, there would be no need to come back."
His
friends chewed over the words.
Joanie looked at him, her eyes
desperate.
"What if you go back and everything is normal, but she can't send you guys back?" She queried. "What will happen then?"
Angelica gave her a tired look.
"Then,
in a month or so, if you feel that you have to return, you fess up
here." She said. "You tell them what happened and get them to
send you back. Take the risk that we're taking now."
Breeze
glanced at her as she held up her hand.
"I'm going home with the rest of you." She said. "We all have a reason to go back. I… Won't be able to stay here."
Joanie hunched down, a feeling a bit ashamed.
"I guess it's only fair." She said eventually. "I mean, you guys are taking the risk. I might as well do the same."
She sighed softly and rubbed over her eyes, feeling Jade's hand lightly rest on her leg.
"I'm… Going to stay here then. You guys I…" She sighed again. "I can't live the way I use to. I… don't want to go through a world without knowing Skyla. I'm sorry. I don't even want to take that risk."
The
Skydancers nodded.
Nothing more needed to be said.
They shared
a moment of silence before Camille moved to break it.
"I think we should let the king and Master Anwar back in." She suggested. "All our breakfasts have gone cold and they are waiting for us."
The party
nodded as Breeze moved for the door through which the king and his
advisor had gone.
They did not see the tiny latch in the wall
close behind them.
