Tiptoeing, she treaded as lightly as she could across the carpet, every
rasping whisper of her bare feet across the carpet sounding like the
detonation of a bomb in her ears. She knew the man in the room adjoining
the parlor-room slept as if he were barely asleep at all, therefore, she
took extra pains to be as silent as humanly possible. She was half
convinced that he was awake despite her attempts at stealth; he was
probably laying in bed aware of her every move, her every sound; he was
seeing her in his mind's eye. Considering that he'd caught her before in
her attempts to sneak out, he'd awoken to her making barely any noise at
all—she felt her seeming paranoia about his state of wakefulness was well-
founded.
To the loveseat she traveled, sitting upon it gently lest it give off some sort of loud, revealing creak. Thankfully it did not, and she sat in complete stillness and silence for all of a minute listening with trained hearing for any sort of rustling from the other room, any sort of sign that he might be awake and disgruntled at being so. After a minute, her pulse slowed and her breathing resumed normally—she hadn't realized that she'd been holding it—and she sank back into the cushions of the old-fashioned loveseat (albeit gently to prevent creaking).
The sun was rising, but the room was cold. They were in Amsterdam; tomorrow, London, or perhaps one of the surrounding burgs should London prove to be too hectic or threat-presenting. It'd been that way for almost four months—she'd long since lost count of the months, the days, the hours of virtual imprisonment, whereas he knew the length of their flight down to the day. Her heart pounded like a base drum just thinking about it.
So, she resolved not to think about it anymore. It was more fun to pretend as if it was all just one big, secretive vacation, anyway.
He did not sleep at night; a trend that had started shortly after they'd ended their brief, secretive stay in the city of Paris. He never explained why he suddenly decided that he would stay up all night. She assumed it was for security reasons, assumed that it made him feel useful. She also suspected that it was because he was beginning to have difficulty sleeping; he seemed to do more thinking while laying in bed than sleeping. She slept at night while he slept for four to five hours right at sunup, during which time she would stay awake to stand guard. He had not asked her to do so, but she'd felt it only right, considering he watched over her all night during her eight to nine hours of restful sleep. He took much less than she but it seemed to be all he needed; she never saw circles under his eyes nor noticed him yawning, and never heard him complain. But then again, Amon had never complained about much. Sleep, Robin figured, was the least of his worries.
There hadn't been any Hunters for quite some time. They'd encountered quite a few attempting to make their way out of Japan, after the incident at Factory, but they'd eventually snuck out into Hawaii. From there, they'd travelled into California, the United States—Robin, despite the dangers facing them, had convinced Amon to do at least a bit of sightseeing, mostly at night. Amon had intended for them to become lost in America with the help of Nagira's contacts, but she hadn't felt comfortable there at all, and neither had Amon; she could tell these things. Travelling, travelling—through California, the barren expanses of southern Arizona and New Mexico, through Texas and Oklahoma, up and across Kansas (the people there had thought them rather odd), over, over through many more states that all faded into a blur in Robin's mind, up along the eastern seaboard, until they'd reached New York City, which Robin really hadn't liked. From there they'd flown to Paris, and from Paris on, it'd been one giant, warped grand tour of Europe. Amon had been talking about going back to the southern part of Asia; perhaps Hong Kong, or Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur—any large city where they could be lost and never found—but still they remained in Europe, despite the dangers, Robin's sense of purpose and confidence and Amon's terse worry and discomfort with his newly-spawned powers growing with every passing day.
Wherever they went, Amon seemed to have all the necessary information ready and prepared; a new name for every apartment or hotel room they rented, a mild mastery of the country's language, all the right papers, the right cars with the right tags, the right amount of money. In a phone conversation with Nagira, weeks ago, she'd asked him where Amon was getting all the money to fund all of their never-ending flight from SOLOMON—and the world—from.
"Family resources," Nagira had replied. Robin hadn't pressed further. She knew next to nothing about Amon's (and partially Nagira's) family; she didn't figure Amon would give if she pressed. So she said nothing, and accepted the good luck of the situation she'd fallen into, the luck that depended on a certain very resourceful man's betrayal of all he'd known. She was thankful and quiet.
Very rarely was Robin allowed outside during the daytime by herself, or even at all. Amon seemed intent upon turning them into vampires; he insisted that during the daytime it was too risky to move about, even in vastly large cities. SOLOMON, he insisted, was everywhere. Robin knew that SOLOMON and STN-E were both far-reaching, and so did Amon; they'd both worked for them in the past in Europe, but she thought that sometimes Amon was taking his level of precaution a bit too far. She suspected it had something to do with the fact that he was dealing rather poorly with his emerging Craft powers, the fact that he even had them at all—that he was a Witch, but she said nothing. She was thankful and quiet—she was also tactful and knew exposed nerves and loaded questions when she saw them.
The rising sun was beginning shine through the windows, into the apartment they'd rented for the next however-long-until-he-stopped- paying, casting a bright yellow pinkish light across all of the antique furnishings in the sitting room that she currently rested in. His door had not moved; it remained opened a mere crack, displaying the deep darkness from within. He always shut all the draperies or blinds tightly so that no light would enter, so that he could sleep through the early morning without knowing it was early morning. Robin was always awake for the sunrise, by now well used to spending a few hours by herself sitting in the emerging light, thinking deeply, sometimes not-so-deeply, and flexing her fledgling powers.
Ever since the incident at Factory in Japan, and even well before, Robin had found her powers expanding slowly, bit by bit, day by day. She was now beginning to understand, in moments of silent reflection, why she was to be called the Eve of Witches, she thought. Her powers were expanding, and they didn't seem to be stopping—to both her delight and her horror. Amon purported to be very Amon about it and said nothing more oft than not, but Robin could tell that it filled him with unease and worried him—he was worried, she knew, that they would expand to a point where she could no longer control them and they would drive her mad.
Au contraire, incidentally one of her favourite French terms (as cliché as it was); she found that the more her powers expanded, the more at ease she felt. That was why she was so concerned about waking Amon this morning. It was partially because of the enduring guilt she felt at being able to sleep all night while he garnered only a few hours in the morning (but he insisted), and also because it was the only time she was alone to flex her newborn abilities without Amon having a minor meltdown (he seemed to be convinced that every power of the Craft that she used was like a beacon, calling Hunters to them from far and wide, as if they could sense it—perhaps some could).
Confident then that he would not awake, she settled back into the green velvet loveseat fully, resting one thin, white arm on the dark, wooden, delicately curved arm rest. The sun was shining in through the parlor room windows as she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and cleared her mind of all thoughts except one.
Reach.
The experience took her breath away every time; it was as if the ground had dropped out from beneath her and her heart had skipped a beat for a full minute, her soul lifted up and out of her body, flew outwards, high into the clouds. Her mind began to reach out, with arms spreading out in all directions like the vines of a creeping ivy plant in fast-forward.
It wasn't very defined yet, the power, but she hoped it would become more defined. Her mind soared, up and out and over, gliding over tens, then hundreds, then thousands of little warm glowing bodies that represented other Witches. They looked like nothing more than lights viewed through a thick fog; hazy, weak things, but she knew it was them; she could feel it, she could feel them. The ones that were closest to her immediate location glowed brighter (the first and brightest always being Amon, his presence glowing in the other room even without the power of her Craft), felt warmer, the others that were farther away merely had dim coronas about them and were lukewarm. She tried to touch as many as she could, gently, reassuringly. To her it felt like she was laying a friendly, understanding hand on their shoulder, as if to say I understand, I am here, and I will change things when the time comes—but rather pointedly as well. She wanted them to be able to feel it, her touch. She wanted them to know that she was there, at least in a way. Even if all a Witch did was look over his or her shoulder as they walked down the street, thinking that they had felt someone there—well, then, that was a start. And Robin was proud.
She tried to touch them all, reassure them all, but as much as she tried to control it (although her control was getting much better than it had been when she first discovered that she had this particular power of the Craft) her mind inevitably began to soar, to hurry, to roar over the warm glowing bodies she saw in her mind's eyes; until she did not know how fast she was going, how far she was going, how far away all the bodies she was seeing were—
--and yet it was beautiful, the loss of control, she found. The knowledge that there were so many out there like her; so many who could help her, help her to help herself, that she could help, and the beauty of their souls and their Crafts—it made her want to cry, her breath catching in her throat as the individual spots of warmth began to blur into one giant river. It was as if someone had taken a picture of a freeway at night, with the lens wide open for as long as it could be open. All the lights blurred into one.
The voices started in then, they always did. It was more like a giant thrum of voices, softly whispered things that melded together into a giant hum, but somehow it calmed Robin and set her at ease. These were the voices of her people, her brethren, the people she was meant to lead into a new era. Her mind tingled with the prospect of it. Her mind and her mouth began to murmur back, trying to whisper as many calming, reassuring things as she could to the entities, her lips moving slightly externally as the rest of her body fell into a coma- like state. It was almost as if her soul had moved out to blur with the others, becoming a picture of the freeway, moving at a million miles an hour, out of focus—
--Something was pulling her back; everything began to slow down, the blur became less consistent and more of a spotty streak. She continued to whisper to them, feeling like she had so much more to say, but the spotty streak was zooming outward rapidly, like a camera zooming out to its widest frame. The warm coronas around her went away and then there was only one, giant, blindingly bright and sun- fire hot presence right in front of her, but she did not stop whispering, she could not—she knew the others could still hear her, and she channeled the powerful sun storm light presence in front of her, using it as an amplifier for her messages—
"Robin."
Robin's eyes snapped open at the stricken utterance of her name. They blinked, unfocused, a few times before settling on the half-worried, half-angry face in front of her. That was the presence that had been so strong in her mind that had almost blinded her with its intensity. It was Amon. He had been standing right in front of her for who knows how long, attempting to bring her out of her contact.
"What do you think you were doing?" he whispered angrily, his large hands on her shoulders, engulfing them completely. The look in his eyes made her shiver in her thin silk slip that she'd taken to sleeping in for his sake; to spare him the discomfort of knowing she slept nude, and gooseflesh rose over her skin. "No, I know what you were doing. I heard you, Robin."
"I was making noise?" she queried, in disbelief. She'd been completely silent in her motions in the parlor—how could she have awoken him, she wondered?
"In my mind, Robin," he continued, sounding very upset. "In my mind. I could feel you, I could hear you." He stared at her weightily for a moment, his bottomless grey eyes boring down into her green ones. "I thought I told you not to do this any more."
She looked back up at him, her face devoid of emotion (as she was willing it to be). "I'm sorry." What was it that he disliked more, she wondered: that she was reaching out with her powers, possibly sending up locator flags for the STN-E, or that she was touching his mind?
"It's dangerous," Amon continued, giving her shoulders a slight shake for emphasis. "We do not know what resources the STN-E has at its disposal—what if one of the people you're seeing is working for them?"
Robin refused to break their stare first, despite his heated glare with the intentions that she would. "I just wanted to feel them. It's so...comforting. There are so many of them, so pure, so good—Witches, Amon, like you and I. If I don't reach out to them, no one will, and they could use their power for wrong."
At the reminder that he was now a full-blown Witch, Amon tensed and frowned deeply, the corners of his well-formed mouth turning downward dramatically. "That's their problem." He stood, eyeing her critically, the harshly judgmental look upon his face that he often wore. It seemed to Robin as if he were trying to decide, sometimes, how he had allowed himself to be sucked into such a situation with such a person as her. He stalked away from her suddenly, heading back into his room with long, powerful strides. Robin watched him go, folding her thin arms over her chest. "Not yours or mine," he threw over his shoulder as he approached his room.
"But it is," she called softly, and Amon froze; stopped, turned his head to look at her. His trademark slight frown had evolved into a full-blown scowl, and Robin shrank down in her seat, somewhat. She hated to disagree with Amon, or to make him angry, but it was becoming apparent to her that if she didn't stand up to him soon he was just going to drag her around the world for the rest of her life, looking over their shoulders all the time. Robin didn't want to live like that forever, plus, it wasn't the destiny intended for her. She knew that Amon really didn't want to either, somewhere deep inside. It wasn't like him to run; wasn't like him to be afraid.
"I really think," he replied, flatly, "that it isn't." He continued on to his room and re-entered it, returning the door to its original position, open a mere crack. Robin sat in the parlor room for a moment, gathering her strength and her courage, and then stood, her slip sliding against her legs as she did so. Silently she made her way to the sliver of darkness that represented Amon's room, and she nudged the door open a bit wider with the back of her hand. In the dim, almost non-existent light of the room, she watched a vaguely Amon- shaped lump shift about on the bed. As she opened the door wider yet she discovered that the Amon-shaped lump had resigned itself to looking at her in the peculiar Amon-way of managing to look nonchalant and extremely irate at the same time.
"What?" he asked her, in monotone, as if he wasn't perfectly aware that she was getting ready to make one of her few and far between stands. "Robin, couldn't this wait until I've had some sleep?"
She stared back at him through the open door; a light girl in a light room staring into a dark room with a dark man. "Couldn't what wait?"
"One of your bouts of childish righteousness," he replied. "We've been over this before. At least give me the benefit of some sleep before you give me the same argument again."
But it wasn't the same argument; not this time. Robin had been building up the courage for a week, stewing there in the rooms in Amsterdam, mulling over her potential words as she wandered the streets of the city at night; sometimes by herself, secretly, sometimes with an alert Amon at her side . Things were going to change. She was tired of hiding, tired of imitating a vampire, tired of being afraid. This time, she wouldn't allow herself to be intimidated by his blunt words and his daddy-knows-best attitude—he thought one way and acted another, when really Robin was beginning to suspect that he was just as lost as she was.
"I want to find others," she went on, undaunted by his sour mood. "We can't just keep running forever—it's been weeks since we've seen a Hunter, or even been followed anywhere. I think SOLOMON's given up on us, Amon. Even they won't try forever."
"We don't know that," Amon replied, and she heard the sound of rustling, shifting; his form was moving and Robin saw that he was lying back down. Her statement had started off very much like every other stand she'd made, and apparently he thought he was going to be able to take this one lying down. "SOLOMON does not give up. They're not going to stop until we're dead." He paused for a moment and shifted around some more in his bed. "And going out and trying to find other Witches is a terrible idea."
Robin bit down the urge to point out that he only thought it was a bad idea because he couldn't deal with the fact that he was a Witch, now, too, and didn't want to fraternize with Witches still. She couldn't bring herself to drive such a stake into Amon's heart; she knew such a thing would only drive him further away from her, when what she really needed to do was to bind him closer. Needed to do, she wondered, or wanted to do? It didn't matter now, her plan was in action. She couldn't go back.
"Why?" she asked, benignly.
"We can't trust anyone we don't know," Amon replied simply, as if that explained it all. What Robin had heard underneath his statement were the words We can't trust any other Witches. She shifted her meager weight on her feet, hands wrapping around the door as she peered further into the room. "They need me. I'm meant to gather them together—my powers are growing, Amon. Even you notice that."
She could almost feel him stiffen. "Newfound power can lead to foolishness in inexperienced hands." Silence. "I don't think that warrants my explanation."
And you, Amon? What about your powers? You speak as if you had complete mastery over them, when in actuality, I had more control over my own powers at age twelve than you do now. Robin bit her lip, steeled herself, and gripped the heavy wooden door so tightly she thought that it would start to give her splinters. This, she knew, was where this particular scenario would differ from all the others. In all the others, she'd grown tired of butting her head against Amon's stone wall of immovable stubbornness and slunk off, quietly admitting defeat. In this scenario, she was going to do something she'd never done before.
"My statement doesn't either, then," she said quietly, watching the unmoving form of Amon closely, her heart pounding. Everything was riding on her next statement. "If you won't go with me, then I'll go by myself." Time stood still as she waited, fear looming large in her heart as she waited on a reaction from Amon. Robin feared that he would simply do nothing, he would let her walk out of his care without a second thought—she needed him. She wasn't an idiot. She knew that she wouldn't survive long without him if SOLOMON wanted her dead; at least until her powers manifested themselves completely, but who knew how long that would be? She could hold her own against attackers within reason, but who knew what SOLOMON would throw at her, and at what levels? And who knew what the final manifestation of her powers would even be, if they would even be completely useful? She knew that as a fifteen year old girl, life alone would be infinitely difficult, if not impossible. She had money of her own, yes; funds earned from her short stint with STN-J, evacuated out of Japanese bank accounts into German and American ones by Amon (with Nagira's help) shortly after their exodus from Japan. But still...she didn't even want to think of all the dangers and difficulties life would afford her without Amon around.
Plus, she wanted to be near him. Frantically Robin began to doubt her ability to be able to leave him behind, to pretend he never existed. She needed Amon, in more ways than one, and she had thought—had thought—that perhaps he had needed her, just a little bit, maybe. She'd played her trump card. Now all there was to do was wait and see how he reacted; hopefully, she hadn't shown her hand in vain.
Suddenly, Amon sat up quickly in the darkness, staring towards the light. She couldn't see his gaze, but she could feel it, as well as the radiation of an element and an emotion that was a mystery to her. She only felt the power of something radiating outward from him, from within the room, in the darkness. She shivered.
"What?" he asked, sounding startled—at least, as startled as she'd heard him sound in eons. "Are you mad, Robin? Have you gone mad?"
She paused, thinking out her next words. She couldn't tell if he was angry, hurt, confused, or what. He was, as usual, simply being Amon. "I have a duty, Amon," she replied calmly, a lot more calmly than she felt on the inside. "A calling, if you want to name it that. I can't run forever. My—our—people need me. I need to find them." To what purpose, she didn't know, for what ends, with what results...she didn't know that either. All she knew is that she couldn't ignore the feeling that seemed to spread throughout her body like a dull ache, a pull, a summon—the others were calling her, and she was calling to them. She had to make Amon see this. She often couldn't understand why he wouldn't—after all, he was one of them now.
"And what will you do, Mahatma Gandhi of Craft-users? Mother Teresa of the Witches? Rally an army the likes of which the world has never seen? Take down SOLOMON world-wide?" He sounded irritated and incredulous, as if he couldn't believe he was even having the conversation. "Expose yourself unnecessarily and get killed?"
She frowned. "You're not being fair. You're not even listening."
Shuffling, rustling; the dark form of Amon rose from the bed and stalked purposefully towards the door, brushing past Robin coldly, angrily. "I am listening. So far I haven't heard one good, concrete reason why you feel like you've got to do this."
Robin turned to face him as he walked out into the middle of the room, stopping, hands folded over his chest. She continued to cling to the door, her lifeline, her solid support. "I guess...I guess I don't have one. Instinct, maybe."
Amon turned towards her then, arms still folded over his chest, expression stony. His eyes, though, flashed intensely with a myriad of emotions. "Instinct." He spat the word out, acidly. Robin said nothing. "No. I won't allow you to leave."
She stared back at him, evenly, when really all she wanted to do was drop to the ground crying, spent and exhausted. Robin didn't want to fight with Amon, she didn't want for any of what was happening to be happening—but she didn't see any other way. "You can't stop me," she replied, in a tone so quiet and meek that she wondered if he'd even been able to hear her. "I..." she forced herself to look away, not able to look him in the eyes during what she was going to say next. "I may," she began, barely above a whisper, "have outgrown my need for a warder."
"Oh, really." Amon was silent for a long measure of time, and Robin still could not bring herself to look at him, instead staring down at the intricate patterns on the thick rug. She heard him make a noise that sounded like a joyless chuckle, and then: "Well, if you don't need me any longer, Robin, by all means go. Go. But I wash my hands of this, Robin. If you go from me you go from me voluntarily, knowing the dangers. I offered you protection and you willingly denied it. Everything I have done, I have done only because it is the best I know how. I mean you no ill will." He paused. "If you go from me and lose yourself somewhere along the way, my promise from before stands true still. I will find you, and I will Hunt you."
More silence. A heavy sigh from Amon. Robin could feel her resolve running out of her in invisible rivers.
"But at least acknowledge that you go knowing the dangers. At least...spare my conscience some of the guilt for letting you do this."
Robin's mind was reeling; she'd made her stand, but now it was as if she couldn't back out of it. No, no, no no no no NO, her mind screeched, panicked. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It was a bluff. Why, oh why, Amon, must you always be so stubborn? She'd wounded his pride, and hurt him, that was very obvious to her. It was there, in his voice, subtly. Ungratefully she'd turned on him and scorned his help when he'd given up his whole life, his whole world to help her—when by all accounts it would have been much easier for him to just ignore what he was ordered to ignore, on that day oh so long ago in Japan. Instead, he'd come to her aid, saved her life and figuratively sacrificed his own in the process. This, she thought bitterly, is how I thank him?
"I'm...sorry I disturbed your sleep," Robin murmured instead of anything she'd really wanted to say, and still without looking at him, walked hurriedly to her end of the flat, closing the door to the bedroom that was hers behind her with a gentle click. Once on the other side, safe in her room, she let her façade crumble, slinking down to the ground in mute shock. That was it. It was over.
What had she done?
She was scared, terrified; torn between betraying the one person she knew would never, ever betray her and the insistent call of her destiny—whatever it was, whatever it would bring her, she knew not. She knew that her own fate and Amon's had ceased to be separate, long ago—and yet, somehow, it seemed to Robin as if she'd succeeded in knotting or twisting their path somehow. It was wrong, all wrong, something had not gone right, nothing had worked as planned.
What had she done?
Standing quickly, Robin yanked open the door and hurried out into the sitting room, where she saw Amon sitting in the loveseat that she herself had been sitting on not too long ago, head turned towards the windows, staring out at the new day. He did not acknowledge her emergence into the room. Without a second thought, she hurried over to where he sat and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind him, crushing her face into his neck and the thickness of his hair, crying. He did not jump, or have any sort of startled reaction—Robin hadn't been expecting him to, over the history of their fugitive life together she had hugged him or clung to him on a few separate occasions—but she had been expecting him to angrily push her away, to ignore her, or at the very least be somewhat bewildered (as he had been on past occasions), but he did none of those things.
"I thought you were leaving," he said, flatly, distantly. Her tears continued to flow into his hair, down his neck, down over his shoulder. "Robin—"
"I can't," she sobbed miserably, voice muffled, body shaking. "And you know I can't! I—I didn't mean what I said, Amon."
He sighed heavily, his face still turned towards the windows. Firmly, reassuringly, he brought up a hand and held onto one of her arms where it wrapped around him, clinging. "About finding others?"
"About leaving," she replied tearfully. "About not needing you. I...I can't do it without you. I owe you my life."
"You owe me nothing," he correctly in a low, soothing tone. "It was my decision."
She sniffled against his shoulder, and he sighed again, his hand loosening and tightening around her arm, as if to remind her that he was still there, that she hadn't left. "I still need a warder," Robin admitted softly, moving her head slightly; she could feel strands of Amon's hair clinging to the wetness on her face. He was silent, and she twisted her head enough to look next to her at the profile of his face, still gazing out the window. His jaw twitched slightly once, twice.
"I still need a ward," he answered, his voice even, always even. Robin loosed a small noise of relief, lifting her head slightly and pressing her cheek against the top of his head, grateful for his devotion and acceptance of her sudden switch in mindset. After all, Robin thought, dryly, isn't changing one's mind all the time what being a teenager is about? "I'll go where you go. Even," here he paused, "especially even if I don't agree with it."
Relief and joy mixed together flooded through Robin, her very soul lifting with the implications of his words, his agreement to come with her, to help her with her search and whatever it may find. She followed his gaze out the window to the bright new day, yellow light bathing the awakening city in warmth and happiness. Dawn. Dawn seemed to be her time. "It's time, Amon," she whispered against his hair, her voice carrying a note of hope. "It's time for us to find the others."
His eyes closed and his hand on her arm tightened gently and did not loosen.
"I will follow you," he said, quietly, "especially since I still believe that you are making a mistake."
Robin said nothing to his remark at first, simply leaned over him with her cheek to his hair, basking in the contact. She didn't understand his overwhelming aversion to seeking out other witches, not at all. "Perhaps we'll encounter people who can tell you more about your Craft. There must be others like you out there. And who knows?" she said, smiling slightly. "Maybe I will raise an army the likes of which humanity has never seen. Maybe I will take down SOLOMON. Maybe I'll find out more about Toudou's—research." To her dismay, Amon's large, rough hand slid away from her arm, and he leaned forward slightly, indicating that he wished to stand. Robin let her arms slide and disengage from around his neck and shoulders, and he rose, turning to her with a blank, vaguely displeased look. The look in his eyes almost made Robin guilty enough to bow to his wishes to remain separate from society—almost.
"You have gone mad," he said, mirthlessly. He sucked in a deep breath. "I'll think on how to deal with your insanity in my sleep." Turning, he began to return to his room, an aura of resigned defeat glaring about him like a corona. "You are to stay here while I'm sleeping. Don't start trying to take over the world until I wake up. Understood?"
"Yes," the young witch conceded; she could at least give him that small comfort, knowing where she was. "Sleep well," she called softly as Amon entered his room; his only response was a sound that sounded highly akin to a sardonic little chuckle.
To the loveseat she traveled, sitting upon it gently lest it give off some sort of loud, revealing creak. Thankfully it did not, and she sat in complete stillness and silence for all of a minute listening with trained hearing for any sort of rustling from the other room, any sort of sign that he might be awake and disgruntled at being so. After a minute, her pulse slowed and her breathing resumed normally—she hadn't realized that she'd been holding it—and she sank back into the cushions of the old-fashioned loveseat (albeit gently to prevent creaking).
The sun was rising, but the room was cold. They were in Amsterdam; tomorrow, London, or perhaps one of the surrounding burgs should London prove to be too hectic or threat-presenting. It'd been that way for almost four months—she'd long since lost count of the months, the days, the hours of virtual imprisonment, whereas he knew the length of their flight down to the day. Her heart pounded like a base drum just thinking about it.
So, she resolved not to think about it anymore. It was more fun to pretend as if it was all just one big, secretive vacation, anyway.
He did not sleep at night; a trend that had started shortly after they'd ended their brief, secretive stay in the city of Paris. He never explained why he suddenly decided that he would stay up all night. She assumed it was for security reasons, assumed that it made him feel useful. She also suspected that it was because he was beginning to have difficulty sleeping; he seemed to do more thinking while laying in bed than sleeping. She slept at night while he slept for four to five hours right at sunup, during which time she would stay awake to stand guard. He had not asked her to do so, but she'd felt it only right, considering he watched over her all night during her eight to nine hours of restful sleep. He took much less than she but it seemed to be all he needed; she never saw circles under his eyes nor noticed him yawning, and never heard him complain. But then again, Amon had never complained about much. Sleep, Robin figured, was the least of his worries.
There hadn't been any Hunters for quite some time. They'd encountered quite a few attempting to make their way out of Japan, after the incident at Factory, but they'd eventually snuck out into Hawaii. From there, they'd travelled into California, the United States—Robin, despite the dangers facing them, had convinced Amon to do at least a bit of sightseeing, mostly at night. Amon had intended for them to become lost in America with the help of Nagira's contacts, but she hadn't felt comfortable there at all, and neither had Amon; she could tell these things. Travelling, travelling—through California, the barren expanses of southern Arizona and New Mexico, through Texas and Oklahoma, up and across Kansas (the people there had thought them rather odd), over, over through many more states that all faded into a blur in Robin's mind, up along the eastern seaboard, until they'd reached New York City, which Robin really hadn't liked. From there they'd flown to Paris, and from Paris on, it'd been one giant, warped grand tour of Europe. Amon had been talking about going back to the southern part of Asia; perhaps Hong Kong, or Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur—any large city where they could be lost and never found—but still they remained in Europe, despite the dangers, Robin's sense of purpose and confidence and Amon's terse worry and discomfort with his newly-spawned powers growing with every passing day.
Wherever they went, Amon seemed to have all the necessary information ready and prepared; a new name for every apartment or hotel room they rented, a mild mastery of the country's language, all the right papers, the right cars with the right tags, the right amount of money. In a phone conversation with Nagira, weeks ago, she'd asked him where Amon was getting all the money to fund all of their never-ending flight from SOLOMON—and the world—from.
"Family resources," Nagira had replied. Robin hadn't pressed further. She knew next to nothing about Amon's (and partially Nagira's) family; she didn't figure Amon would give if she pressed. So she said nothing, and accepted the good luck of the situation she'd fallen into, the luck that depended on a certain very resourceful man's betrayal of all he'd known. She was thankful and quiet.
Very rarely was Robin allowed outside during the daytime by herself, or even at all. Amon seemed intent upon turning them into vampires; he insisted that during the daytime it was too risky to move about, even in vastly large cities. SOLOMON, he insisted, was everywhere. Robin knew that SOLOMON and STN-E were both far-reaching, and so did Amon; they'd both worked for them in the past in Europe, but she thought that sometimes Amon was taking his level of precaution a bit too far. She suspected it had something to do with the fact that he was dealing rather poorly with his emerging Craft powers, the fact that he even had them at all—that he was a Witch, but she said nothing. She was thankful and quiet—she was also tactful and knew exposed nerves and loaded questions when she saw them.
The rising sun was beginning shine through the windows, into the apartment they'd rented for the next however-long-until-he-stopped- paying, casting a bright yellow pinkish light across all of the antique furnishings in the sitting room that she currently rested in. His door had not moved; it remained opened a mere crack, displaying the deep darkness from within. He always shut all the draperies or blinds tightly so that no light would enter, so that he could sleep through the early morning without knowing it was early morning. Robin was always awake for the sunrise, by now well used to spending a few hours by herself sitting in the emerging light, thinking deeply, sometimes not-so-deeply, and flexing her fledgling powers.
Ever since the incident at Factory in Japan, and even well before, Robin had found her powers expanding slowly, bit by bit, day by day. She was now beginning to understand, in moments of silent reflection, why she was to be called the Eve of Witches, she thought. Her powers were expanding, and they didn't seem to be stopping—to both her delight and her horror. Amon purported to be very Amon about it and said nothing more oft than not, but Robin could tell that it filled him with unease and worried him—he was worried, she knew, that they would expand to a point where she could no longer control them and they would drive her mad.
Au contraire, incidentally one of her favourite French terms (as cliché as it was); she found that the more her powers expanded, the more at ease she felt. That was why she was so concerned about waking Amon this morning. It was partially because of the enduring guilt she felt at being able to sleep all night while he garnered only a few hours in the morning (but he insisted), and also because it was the only time she was alone to flex her newborn abilities without Amon having a minor meltdown (he seemed to be convinced that every power of the Craft that she used was like a beacon, calling Hunters to them from far and wide, as if they could sense it—perhaps some could).
Confident then that he would not awake, she settled back into the green velvet loveseat fully, resting one thin, white arm on the dark, wooden, delicately curved arm rest. The sun was shining in through the parlor room windows as she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and cleared her mind of all thoughts except one.
Reach.
The experience took her breath away every time; it was as if the ground had dropped out from beneath her and her heart had skipped a beat for a full minute, her soul lifted up and out of her body, flew outwards, high into the clouds. Her mind began to reach out, with arms spreading out in all directions like the vines of a creeping ivy plant in fast-forward.
It wasn't very defined yet, the power, but she hoped it would become more defined. Her mind soared, up and out and over, gliding over tens, then hundreds, then thousands of little warm glowing bodies that represented other Witches. They looked like nothing more than lights viewed through a thick fog; hazy, weak things, but she knew it was them; she could feel it, she could feel them. The ones that were closest to her immediate location glowed brighter (the first and brightest always being Amon, his presence glowing in the other room even without the power of her Craft), felt warmer, the others that were farther away merely had dim coronas about them and were lukewarm. She tried to touch as many as she could, gently, reassuringly. To her it felt like she was laying a friendly, understanding hand on their shoulder, as if to say I understand, I am here, and I will change things when the time comes—but rather pointedly as well. She wanted them to be able to feel it, her touch. She wanted them to know that she was there, at least in a way. Even if all a Witch did was look over his or her shoulder as they walked down the street, thinking that they had felt someone there—well, then, that was a start. And Robin was proud.
She tried to touch them all, reassure them all, but as much as she tried to control it (although her control was getting much better than it had been when she first discovered that she had this particular power of the Craft) her mind inevitably began to soar, to hurry, to roar over the warm glowing bodies she saw in her mind's eyes; until she did not know how fast she was going, how far she was going, how far away all the bodies she was seeing were—
--and yet it was beautiful, the loss of control, she found. The knowledge that there were so many out there like her; so many who could help her, help her to help herself, that she could help, and the beauty of their souls and their Crafts—it made her want to cry, her breath catching in her throat as the individual spots of warmth began to blur into one giant river. It was as if someone had taken a picture of a freeway at night, with the lens wide open for as long as it could be open. All the lights blurred into one.
The voices started in then, they always did. It was more like a giant thrum of voices, softly whispered things that melded together into a giant hum, but somehow it calmed Robin and set her at ease. These were the voices of her people, her brethren, the people she was meant to lead into a new era. Her mind tingled with the prospect of it. Her mind and her mouth began to murmur back, trying to whisper as many calming, reassuring things as she could to the entities, her lips moving slightly externally as the rest of her body fell into a coma- like state. It was almost as if her soul had moved out to blur with the others, becoming a picture of the freeway, moving at a million miles an hour, out of focus—
--Something was pulling her back; everything began to slow down, the blur became less consistent and more of a spotty streak. She continued to whisper to them, feeling like she had so much more to say, but the spotty streak was zooming outward rapidly, like a camera zooming out to its widest frame. The warm coronas around her went away and then there was only one, giant, blindingly bright and sun- fire hot presence right in front of her, but she did not stop whispering, she could not—she knew the others could still hear her, and she channeled the powerful sun storm light presence in front of her, using it as an amplifier for her messages—
"Robin."
Robin's eyes snapped open at the stricken utterance of her name. They blinked, unfocused, a few times before settling on the half-worried, half-angry face in front of her. That was the presence that had been so strong in her mind that had almost blinded her with its intensity. It was Amon. He had been standing right in front of her for who knows how long, attempting to bring her out of her contact.
"What do you think you were doing?" he whispered angrily, his large hands on her shoulders, engulfing them completely. The look in his eyes made her shiver in her thin silk slip that she'd taken to sleeping in for his sake; to spare him the discomfort of knowing she slept nude, and gooseflesh rose over her skin. "No, I know what you were doing. I heard you, Robin."
"I was making noise?" she queried, in disbelief. She'd been completely silent in her motions in the parlor—how could she have awoken him, she wondered?
"In my mind, Robin," he continued, sounding very upset. "In my mind. I could feel you, I could hear you." He stared at her weightily for a moment, his bottomless grey eyes boring down into her green ones. "I thought I told you not to do this any more."
She looked back up at him, her face devoid of emotion (as she was willing it to be). "I'm sorry." What was it that he disliked more, she wondered: that she was reaching out with her powers, possibly sending up locator flags for the STN-E, or that she was touching his mind?
"It's dangerous," Amon continued, giving her shoulders a slight shake for emphasis. "We do not know what resources the STN-E has at its disposal—what if one of the people you're seeing is working for them?"
Robin refused to break their stare first, despite his heated glare with the intentions that she would. "I just wanted to feel them. It's so...comforting. There are so many of them, so pure, so good—Witches, Amon, like you and I. If I don't reach out to them, no one will, and they could use their power for wrong."
At the reminder that he was now a full-blown Witch, Amon tensed and frowned deeply, the corners of his well-formed mouth turning downward dramatically. "That's their problem." He stood, eyeing her critically, the harshly judgmental look upon his face that he often wore. It seemed to Robin as if he were trying to decide, sometimes, how he had allowed himself to be sucked into such a situation with such a person as her. He stalked away from her suddenly, heading back into his room with long, powerful strides. Robin watched him go, folding her thin arms over her chest. "Not yours or mine," he threw over his shoulder as he approached his room.
"But it is," she called softly, and Amon froze; stopped, turned his head to look at her. His trademark slight frown had evolved into a full-blown scowl, and Robin shrank down in her seat, somewhat. She hated to disagree with Amon, or to make him angry, but it was becoming apparent to her that if she didn't stand up to him soon he was just going to drag her around the world for the rest of her life, looking over their shoulders all the time. Robin didn't want to live like that forever, plus, it wasn't the destiny intended for her. She knew that Amon really didn't want to either, somewhere deep inside. It wasn't like him to run; wasn't like him to be afraid.
"I really think," he replied, flatly, "that it isn't." He continued on to his room and re-entered it, returning the door to its original position, open a mere crack. Robin sat in the parlor room for a moment, gathering her strength and her courage, and then stood, her slip sliding against her legs as she did so. Silently she made her way to the sliver of darkness that represented Amon's room, and she nudged the door open a bit wider with the back of her hand. In the dim, almost non-existent light of the room, she watched a vaguely Amon- shaped lump shift about on the bed. As she opened the door wider yet she discovered that the Amon-shaped lump had resigned itself to looking at her in the peculiar Amon-way of managing to look nonchalant and extremely irate at the same time.
"What?" he asked her, in monotone, as if he wasn't perfectly aware that she was getting ready to make one of her few and far between stands. "Robin, couldn't this wait until I've had some sleep?"
She stared back at him through the open door; a light girl in a light room staring into a dark room with a dark man. "Couldn't what wait?"
"One of your bouts of childish righteousness," he replied. "We've been over this before. At least give me the benefit of some sleep before you give me the same argument again."
But it wasn't the same argument; not this time. Robin had been building up the courage for a week, stewing there in the rooms in Amsterdam, mulling over her potential words as she wandered the streets of the city at night; sometimes by herself, secretly, sometimes with an alert Amon at her side . Things were going to change. She was tired of hiding, tired of imitating a vampire, tired of being afraid. This time, she wouldn't allow herself to be intimidated by his blunt words and his daddy-knows-best attitude—he thought one way and acted another, when really Robin was beginning to suspect that he was just as lost as she was.
"I want to find others," she went on, undaunted by his sour mood. "We can't just keep running forever—it's been weeks since we've seen a Hunter, or even been followed anywhere. I think SOLOMON's given up on us, Amon. Even they won't try forever."
"We don't know that," Amon replied, and she heard the sound of rustling, shifting; his form was moving and Robin saw that he was lying back down. Her statement had started off very much like every other stand she'd made, and apparently he thought he was going to be able to take this one lying down. "SOLOMON does not give up. They're not going to stop until we're dead." He paused for a moment and shifted around some more in his bed. "And going out and trying to find other Witches is a terrible idea."
Robin bit down the urge to point out that he only thought it was a bad idea because he couldn't deal with the fact that he was a Witch, now, too, and didn't want to fraternize with Witches still. She couldn't bring herself to drive such a stake into Amon's heart; she knew such a thing would only drive him further away from her, when what she really needed to do was to bind him closer. Needed to do, she wondered, or wanted to do? It didn't matter now, her plan was in action. She couldn't go back.
"Why?" she asked, benignly.
"We can't trust anyone we don't know," Amon replied simply, as if that explained it all. What Robin had heard underneath his statement were the words We can't trust any other Witches. She shifted her meager weight on her feet, hands wrapping around the door as she peered further into the room. "They need me. I'm meant to gather them together—my powers are growing, Amon. Even you notice that."
She could almost feel him stiffen. "Newfound power can lead to foolishness in inexperienced hands." Silence. "I don't think that warrants my explanation."
And you, Amon? What about your powers? You speak as if you had complete mastery over them, when in actuality, I had more control over my own powers at age twelve than you do now. Robin bit her lip, steeled herself, and gripped the heavy wooden door so tightly she thought that it would start to give her splinters. This, she knew, was where this particular scenario would differ from all the others. In all the others, she'd grown tired of butting her head against Amon's stone wall of immovable stubbornness and slunk off, quietly admitting defeat. In this scenario, she was going to do something she'd never done before.
"My statement doesn't either, then," she said quietly, watching the unmoving form of Amon closely, her heart pounding. Everything was riding on her next statement. "If you won't go with me, then I'll go by myself." Time stood still as she waited, fear looming large in her heart as she waited on a reaction from Amon. Robin feared that he would simply do nothing, he would let her walk out of his care without a second thought—she needed him. She wasn't an idiot. She knew that she wouldn't survive long without him if SOLOMON wanted her dead; at least until her powers manifested themselves completely, but who knew how long that would be? She could hold her own against attackers within reason, but who knew what SOLOMON would throw at her, and at what levels? And who knew what the final manifestation of her powers would even be, if they would even be completely useful? She knew that as a fifteen year old girl, life alone would be infinitely difficult, if not impossible. She had money of her own, yes; funds earned from her short stint with STN-J, evacuated out of Japanese bank accounts into German and American ones by Amon (with Nagira's help) shortly after their exodus from Japan. But still...she didn't even want to think of all the dangers and difficulties life would afford her without Amon around.
Plus, she wanted to be near him. Frantically Robin began to doubt her ability to be able to leave him behind, to pretend he never existed. She needed Amon, in more ways than one, and she had thought—had thought—that perhaps he had needed her, just a little bit, maybe. She'd played her trump card. Now all there was to do was wait and see how he reacted; hopefully, she hadn't shown her hand in vain.
Suddenly, Amon sat up quickly in the darkness, staring towards the light. She couldn't see his gaze, but she could feel it, as well as the radiation of an element and an emotion that was a mystery to her. She only felt the power of something radiating outward from him, from within the room, in the darkness. She shivered.
"What?" he asked, sounding startled—at least, as startled as she'd heard him sound in eons. "Are you mad, Robin? Have you gone mad?"
She paused, thinking out her next words. She couldn't tell if he was angry, hurt, confused, or what. He was, as usual, simply being Amon. "I have a duty, Amon," she replied calmly, a lot more calmly than she felt on the inside. "A calling, if you want to name it that. I can't run forever. My—our—people need me. I need to find them." To what purpose, she didn't know, for what ends, with what results...she didn't know that either. All she knew is that she couldn't ignore the feeling that seemed to spread throughout her body like a dull ache, a pull, a summon—the others were calling her, and she was calling to them. She had to make Amon see this. She often couldn't understand why he wouldn't—after all, he was one of them now.
"And what will you do, Mahatma Gandhi of Craft-users? Mother Teresa of the Witches? Rally an army the likes of which the world has never seen? Take down SOLOMON world-wide?" He sounded irritated and incredulous, as if he couldn't believe he was even having the conversation. "Expose yourself unnecessarily and get killed?"
She frowned. "You're not being fair. You're not even listening."
Shuffling, rustling; the dark form of Amon rose from the bed and stalked purposefully towards the door, brushing past Robin coldly, angrily. "I am listening. So far I haven't heard one good, concrete reason why you feel like you've got to do this."
Robin turned to face him as he walked out into the middle of the room, stopping, hands folded over his chest. She continued to cling to the door, her lifeline, her solid support. "I guess...I guess I don't have one. Instinct, maybe."
Amon turned towards her then, arms still folded over his chest, expression stony. His eyes, though, flashed intensely with a myriad of emotions. "Instinct." He spat the word out, acidly. Robin said nothing. "No. I won't allow you to leave."
She stared back at him, evenly, when really all she wanted to do was drop to the ground crying, spent and exhausted. Robin didn't want to fight with Amon, she didn't want for any of what was happening to be happening—but she didn't see any other way. "You can't stop me," she replied, in a tone so quiet and meek that she wondered if he'd even been able to hear her. "I..." she forced herself to look away, not able to look him in the eyes during what she was going to say next. "I may," she began, barely above a whisper, "have outgrown my need for a warder."
"Oh, really." Amon was silent for a long measure of time, and Robin still could not bring herself to look at him, instead staring down at the intricate patterns on the thick rug. She heard him make a noise that sounded like a joyless chuckle, and then: "Well, if you don't need me any longer, Robin, by all means go. Go. But I wash my hands of this, Robin. If you go from me you go from me voluntarily, knowing the dangers. I offered you protection and you willingly denied it. Everything I have done, I have done only because it is the best I know how. I mean you no ill will." He paused. "If you go from me and lose yourself somewhere along the way, my promise from before stands true still. I will find you, and I will Hunt you."
More silence. A heavy sigh from Amon. Robin could feel her resolve running out of her in invisible rivers.
"But at least acknowledge that you go knowing the dangers. At least...spare my conscience some of the guilt for letting you do this."
Robin's mind was reeling; she'd made her stand, but now it was as if she couldn't back out of it. No, no, no no no no NO, her mind screeched, panicked. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It was a bluff. Why, oh why, Amon, must you always be so stubborn? She'd wounded his pride, and hurt him, that was very obvious to her. It was there, in his voice, subtly. Ungratefully she'd turned on him and scorned his help when he'd given up his whole life, his whole world to help her—when by all accounts it would have been much easier for him to just ignore what he was ordered to ignore, on that day oh so long ago in Japan. Instead, he'd come to her aid, saved her life and figuratively sacrificed his own in the process. This, she thought bitterly, is how I thank him?
"I'm...sorry I disturbed your sleep," Robin murmured instead of anything she'd really wanted to say, and still without looking at him, walked hurriedly to her end of the flat, closing the door to the bedroom that was hers behind her with a gentle click. Once on the other side, safe in her room, she let her façade crumble, slinking down to the ground in mute shock. That was it. It was over.
What had she done?
She was scared, terrified; torn between betraying the one person she knew would never, ever betray her and the insistent call of her destiny—whatever it was, whatever it would bring her, she knew not. She knew that her own fate and Amon's had ceased to be separate, long ago—and yet, somehow, it seemed to Robin as if she'd succeeded in knotting or twisting their path somehow. It was wrong, all wrong, something had not gone right, nothing had worked as planned.
What had she done?
Standing quickly, Robin yanked open the door and hurried out into the sitting room, where she saw Amon sitting in the loveseat that she herself had been sitting on not too long ago, head turned towards the windows, staring out at the new day. He did not acknowledge her emergence into the room. Without a second thought, she hurried over to where he sat and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind him, crushing her face into his neck and the thickness of his hair, crying. He did not jump, or have any sort of startled reaction—Robin hadn't been expecting him to, over the history of their fugitive life together she had hugged him or clung to him on a few separate occasions—but she had been expecting him to angrily push her away, to ignore her, or at the very least be somewhat bewildered (as he had been on past occasions), but he did none of those things.
"I thought you were leaving," he said, flatly, distantly. Her tears continued to flow into his hair, down his neck, down over his shoulder. "Robin—"
"I can't," she sobbed miserably, voice muffled, body shaking. "And you know I can't! I—I didn't mean what I said, Amon."
He sighed heavily, his face still turned towards the windows. Firmly, reassuringly, he brought up a hand and held onto one of her arms where it wrapped around him, clinging. "About finding others?"
"About leaving," she replied tearfully. "About not needing you. I...I can't do it without you. I owe you my life."
"You owe me nothing," he correctly in a low, soothing tone. "It was my decision."
She sniffled against his shoulder, and he sighed again, his hand loosening and tightening around her arm, as if to remind her that he was still there, that she hadn't left. "I still need a warder," Robin admitted softly, moving her head slightly; she could feel strands of Amon's hair clinging to the wetness on her face. He was silent, and she twisted her head enough to look next to her at the profile of his face, still gazing out the window. His jaw twitched slightly once, twice.
"I still need a ward," he answered, his voice even, always even. Robin loosed a small noise of relief, lifting her head slightly and pressing her cheek against the top of his head, grateful for his devotion and acceptance of her sudden switch in mindset. After all, Robin thought, dryly, isn't changing one's mind all the time what being a teenager is about? "I'll go where you go. Even," here he paused, "especially even if I don't agree with it."
Relief and joy mixed together flooded through Robin, her very soul lifting with the implications of his words, his agreement to come with her, to help her with her search and whatever it may find. She followed his gaze out the window to the bright new day, yellow light bathing the awakening city in warmth and happiness. Dawn. Dawn seemed to be her time. "It's time, Amon," she whispered against his hair, her voice carrying a note of hope. "It's time for us to find the others."
His eyes closed and his hand on her arm tightened gently and did not loosen.
"I will follow you," he said, quietly, "especially since I still believe that you are making a mistake."
Robin said nothing to his remark at first, simply leaned over him with her cheek to his hair, basking in the contact. She didn't understand his overwhelming aversion to seeking out other witches, not at all. "Perhaps we'll encounter people who can tell you more about your Craft. There must be others like you out there. And who knows?" she said, smiling slightly. "Maybe I will raise an army the likes of which humanity has never seen. Maybe I will take down SOLOMON. Maybe I'll find out more about Toudou's—research." To her dismay, Amon's large, rough hand slid away from her arm, and he leaned forward slightly, indicating that he wished to stand. Robin let her arms slide and disengage from around his neck and shoulders, and he rose, turning to her with a blank, vaguely displeased look. The look in his eyes almost made Robin guilty enough to bow to his wishes to remain separate from society—almost.
"You have gone mad," he said, mirthlessly. He sucked in a deep breath. "I'll think on how to deal with your insanity in my sleep." Turning, he began to return to his room, an aura of resigned defeat glaring about him like a corona. "You are to stay here while I'm sleeping. Don't start trying to take over the world until I wake up. Understood?"
"Yes," the young witch conceded; she could at least give him that small comfort, knowing where she was. "Sleep well," she called softly as Amon entered his room; his only response was a sound that sounded highly akin to a sardonic little chuckle.
