Chapter 15: Interrogate

Later that afternoon, Garnet came by to the library again. Immediately, I could tell something had happened, for he looked like a changed dragonet. He walked with more confidence and an exuberance that wasn't there before. He was smiling, and his eyes emanated positivity.

Maybe he'd had a mental breakdown. That was likely the case. How else could he have gotten so happy?

Garnet came up to me, looked me in the eyes…and gave me a hug.

I hugged him back, confused as to what was going on.

"Thank you," he said quietly, a tear falling from his eye.

"For what?" I asked, still confused.

"For saving my dad," he said quietly. "Duh."

"Saving your dad? What do you mean, saving your dad?" I asked, alarmed.

"You saved my dad. He's all better now," he said.

"I saved your dad? What did I do?" I asked.

"You made the medicine," he said. "If it weren't for your medicine, he'd be dead." Garnet hugged me tighter, his eyes closed in appreciation over my good deed. My eyes, in contrast, were wide with shock and fear over what he'd just said.

"Your dad got the medicine?" I asked, terrified of his response.

"Yeah. You forgot?" Garnet asked.

"Forgot? If I had been told of something like this, I wouldn't have forgotten it," I said stubbornly.

"How could you have forgotten?" asked Garnet. "I mean, you were the one who gave Turtle permission to go out and give him the medicine, after all."

"I gave Turtle permission to WHAT?" I asked incredulously, half-screaming the last word.

"You…you gave him permission to heal my dad. Give him the medicine. Right?" Garnet asked, fear starting to creep into his voice.

"I did no such thing," I told him.

"Maybe you just forgot," said Garnet. "Maybe you have like a memory disease or-"

"I do not have a memory disease," I told him.

"Really?" asked Garnet. "Then what's my name?"

"Your name's Garnet, and your dad was coughing up blood, I remember what we were talking about," I told him, annoyed. "I have a fantastic memory, and I am certain that I would remember letting Turtle do something like this. Now, I need you to tell me something."

I gripped his shoulders tightly with my claws.

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions. You are going to answer yes or no. I don't want any fancy explanations or unnecessary details, I just want a 'yes' or a 'no'. Is that clear?"

"Yes," said a visibly scared Garnet.

"Good," I said. "Now, did Turtle fly over to your dad and give him some of the medicine?"

"Yes," said Garnet.

I sharply inhaled a breath of anger. "Is your dad sick anymore?"

"No," said Garnet, a tiny smile showing.

"Can your dad talk?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't he be able to?" asked Garnet.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in, then breathed out, calming myself down so I wouldn't throw Garnet across in the room in rage. I then let go of his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," I said to Garnet, calming down. "I know I scared you, but I had to if I wanted to get the answers I needed quickly."

"You're forgiven," Garnet said, still looking a little shaken from the interrogation. "But did you give Turtle permission?"

I shook my head. "I already told you, I didn't give him anything. He just went on his own," I explained.

"How'd he find out about my dad? Did you tell him?" he asked.

"Yeah," I told him. "And about your dad, I am glad he's OK. I know it didn't seem like it, but I am."

"Thanks," Garnet said. "That means a lot."

"No, thank you for coming to thank me," I told Garnet. "And thank you for telling me this very important information."

"Important? How important is it?" asked Garnet.

"More important than you could imagine," I told him.

Immediately after my conversation with Garnet, I sped over to the sleeping caves, where Turtle was sitting and chatting with some of his friends from some of the other winglets.

"Hey Turtle," I said, trying to act casual, "I hate to interrupt you and your friends here, but can I pull you aside for a second?"

"Sure," said Turtle. "But you haven't met my friends yet!" Turtle's friends politely waved at me. "That's-"

"OK, hi Turtle's friends. Nice to meet you. Now can we please talk?" I asked him, my tone turning serious.

Turtle looked at me, confused by my sudden mood swing, before whispering to his friends under his breath, "Woah. Somebody's cranky," thinking that I couldn't hear him. "OK, then," he then said to me in his normal voice. "Uh, yeah, we can talk. Be back in a minute, guys."

When we were finally in the back corner of the cave, where there was no one anywhere near us, I began my interrogation.

"Where were you this morning?" I asked, acting like I didn't know where he was.

"Oh…um…I was…talking with my friends. Yes, I was talking with my friends," answered Turtle after an extremely long hesitation.

"Might I ask what you have been talking about all morning?" I asked him.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh," said Turtle. He wasn't a very good liar.

"Stop lying, Turtle, and tell me where you actually were," I said.

"I told you, I was talking with my friends," he said defensively.

"No you weren't. You know you weren't, I know you're weren't. And I think I have a guess as to where you were, but I was hoping you have the moral decency to tell me yourself. Because morally decent dragons tell the truth. Right?"

Turtle sighed. "Fine. I…I know you told me not to, but…I gave the medicine to that kid's dad."

Turtle was staring at something on the ground that I couldn't see. He didn't even dare to look at me.

"As I feared," I said. "You did exactly what I told you not to do. Why?"

"His dad was going to die, he was going to be an orphan-"

"Do you want this plan to go wrong, Turtle? Do you want everyone to know that you're an animus?"

"No, but I-"

"Then why'd you heal him?"

"Because I couldn't let that poor kid be an orphan, Starflight," Turtle slowly said without looking at me.

"I know it sucks for him, but you can't intervene like that," I told him. "Now he's going to tell everyone about your medicine and everyone's going to know and soon they're going to want the medicine. And we can't give them that."

"He said he wouldn't tell anyone."

"He'll tell."

"He promised."

"Promises don't mean much when you're being offered money."

"But he promised," said Turtle. "He gave me his word."

"Turtle, if your friend told you their deepest, darkest secret, and then your mom offered you a chance to be heir to the throne if you told her that secret, would you tell her?"

Turtle thought for a bit. "Yeah," he said.

"This isn't any different. I know he gave you his word, Turtle, but dragons will pay a lot for the truth. And you just gave it away like it didn't even cost anything."

"I still stand by what I did."

"Are you still going to stand by it when an army of dragons come and attack us for our medicine once we tell them that we can't give them it?"

"That's not going to happen."

"It wasn't before, but it is now."

"I trust his dad not to tell."

"I don't, and I'm not sure why you do."

"Because I have faith in dragonkind, Starflight. Don't you?"

"Only up to a certain degree. There's a point where faith becomes irrational. You're at that point, Turtle."

"Are you saying that trust is irrational?"

"In certain situations, yes."

"How can you say that?"

"Because it's true, Turtle. That's how."

"It's not true. I don't believe that."

"Denial and irrationality often go hand in hand."

Turtle was silent for a second.

"Why can't I just tell everyone that I'm an animus?" he asked me. "Like, why does it need to be this big secret? What's so bad about being an animus? I mean, Anemone and everyone else's powers are public. So why not mine?"

I sighed. I knew he was going to ask this question eventually, and rightfully so. I'd even debated this question in my own head a lot. At times, believe it or not, I almost said to Turtle that he could tell everyone that he was an animus now. But in the end, during these debates, I always came back to the same argument, the same line of reasoning.

"Because you're a target. That's why. Animuses like you, they're rare. So if you tell everyone that you're an animus, then everyone is going to want your powers. They're going to want to use them to advance their own agendas. You'd be beridden with pleas to ruin your soul for some stupid things, and eventually, you'd be threatened to use your powers, or else. Turtle, if everyone knew you were an animus, you would constantly be worrying about being kidnapped, or assassinated, or about something similar happening to your family. But when you're not a target, you're free to live your life without worry of being kidnapped or whatever. I mean, look at Anemone. She's spent her entire life chained to her mother's side, not being able to go anywhere. No friends, no social life, no anything. Consider that if your powers were public then your mom would come over, take you out of Jade Mountain, handcuff you and make it so that you would never leave her sight again. You would never be able to see any of your friends here ever again. Those dragons you were just talking with - they would be gone, forever. Do you really want that?"

I paused for a second to catch my breath.

"I'm sorry if it seems like I've been manipulating you for the past few days. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm treating you like a commodity. But the truth is, in a way, you are a commodity, and a priceless one at that. But the difference between me and everyone else is that I care about you. Everyone else would see you strictly as a commodity, something to exploit. But I realize that you need to live your own life. You need to be able to have friends and be happy and things like that. Please, Turtle, believe me when I say that I really think you shouldn't tell anyone. For your own good. I mean, you're happy now. You have friends. You're living the life you want to live. Do you really just want to throw all that away?"

Turtle still has his eyes facing downward. He had not looked up once during my speech.

"Do you?" I asked.

Turtle didn't respond.

"Turtle?" I prompted, starting to get worried.

Turtle just kept staring at the ground.

"Turtle, you're starting to worry me here," I said, my voice filled with concern. "Talk to me, Turtle, talk to me."

Instead of talking to me, he fainted and crumbled onto the floor.