AN: The poppy disclaimer appears once again! Pop! POP!

Her War with Peace

Disclaimer: None of the Sky High characters or locations are mine, naturally, but you knew that already. I do, however, own my original character, Dawn Odelle. I am also completely unaffiliated with the author, publisher, and/or editors of Count Leo Tolstoy's book "War and Peace". The book is referenced without direct permission.

Heh. I love recycling that.

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Chapter Ten: Know Your Enemy

"Dear and precious friend,

Your letter of the thirteenth gave me great joy. So you still love me, my poetic Julie. Separation, of which you speak so ill, does not seem to have had its customary effect on you. You complain of absence – what then should I say if I dared to complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we had not the consolation of religion, life would be very sad.

Why do you suppose I should look severely on your fondness for that young man? In these matters I am hard on no one but myself. I understand such feelings for others, and if I cannot approve of them, never having experienced them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian love, love of one's neighbor, love of one's enemy, is worthier, sweeter, and finer than the feelings inspired by the beautiful eyes of a young man in a poetic and loving girl like yourself."

Count Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace", page 129

Dawn yelled a stream of surprised gibberish mixed with expletives as a hand landed on her shoulder and turned her around. She slapped her hand against her pocket, possessively searching for her knife before she remembered she didn't have it anymore.

"Hey, you need to - "

The telekinetic recognized the voice as a male one, but whatever her attacker was going to say was cut off abruptly as the breath was knocked out of him. She had spun sideways and shoved her elbow forward to catch him in the solar plexus, and he bent over slightly. Reflexively, she took advantage of his position to slam her knee into his groin, and it bent him double.

"Get away from me!" She yelled, backing up the sidewalk, her rain-evasive telekinetic maneuvers momentarily forgotten. "I have a knife!" She knew it wasn't true, but she hoped he didn't.

"Quit…" The man coughed in his pained state, "Quit fooling yourself, woman. I know you don't have a knife."

The rain blocked her vision significantly, but she knew it wasn't the shadow that was attacking her; she was dealing with flesh and blood.

"You…how do you know that? You're working with the shadow, aren't you!" She yelled, stepping forward again and slamming the heel of her hand into the back of his neck. The man yelped and finally sank to his knees. Whoever he was, he was a tough one.

"No, Dawn; I'm not working with the shadow."

Dawn.

"How do you know my name?" She gulped, her eyes growing wider and her voice growing softer. She peered down through the rain and observed long, black hair obscuring the face of her attacker. He was finally able to lift a hand from protecting his injured crotch and brush back the hair, and a dyed red streak was now visible.

"Oh my gosh, Warren; I'm so sorry!" Dawn was horrified, and she knelt down beside him. "I didn't…why did you attack me?"

Warren experimentally stood, testing his legs and stretching his neck. "Who attacked who? I was going to tell you that you shouldn't be walking alone in the rain, but the moment I touched you, you elbowed me."

He did not sound like a happy camper.

Dawn cringed and put a hand on his chest, carefully poking his solar plexus. He flinched and swatted her hand away.

"Stop that; it's still sore! Where did you learn to do that kind of stuff, anyway?"

She shrugged and batted water from her eyes. "I took martial arts a long time ago, but I would've expected you to be able to beat me either way, so I'm kind of surprised."

"I was trying not to hurt you." Warren said bluntly, tucking his hair behind his ears. "Now let's get out of this rain; it's going to start hailing soon."

"How can you tell?"

He waved a hand at the weather, "See for yourself."

Unfortunately, the pyrokinetic was right. The weather was becoming increasingly colder, and already small, pea-sized balls of hail were beginning to drop.

"We need to find some shelter." Warren rumbled, taking off his jacket and holding it over Dawn's head, not flinching as balls of hail pierced through his shirt and began cutting through his skin.

"No, no, it's okay; I can keep it off of us, see?" She insisted, trying once more to use her telekinetic powers to sweep the hail to the side.

Warren cocked his eyebrow at Dawn; her powers didn't seem to be working. Her mental strength was fading fast, though she didn't know if it was because she was so distracted from being so close to Warren, or if she just couldn't generate a field wide enough to shelter both of them.

"Ah…what do you say we find some shelter?" She asked innocently, parroting back his previous remarks.

"Right."

Warren draped his jacket over Dawn's head, and she could've sworn she'd seen the beginning of a quirky smile on his face, but her vision was already darkened by the hail, so it must've been an illusion.

A pub down an obscured alleyway flickered with malfunctioning light. The "Closed" sign was hung precariously underneath a large wooden sign that read "The Golden Saloon".

"Real original," mumbled Dawn as she read the sign, "How many times has that been in a movie? You'd think it'd be copyrighted by now. Copywrote? Whatever."

Above the wooden sign was a large canopy that was wavering under the hail but showed no signs of collapsing. It appeared to be determined to weather out the storm.

Warren sat under the canopy and Dawn sat about a foot away from him, carefully removing the jacket from her head and wrapping it around her body as she shivered from cold.

"What's wrong with you? Quit being so nervous." Warren growled, suddenly seizing her by the shoulder and dragging her closer to him until she was pressed close to his side. "I'm doing this because it's freezing out here, you understand." He rumbled in her ear.

Dawn was caught off guard, and her body tensed up as he increased their physical contact. One of his bare arms was wrapped around her shoulders, and his other hand rested on her knee. She was much warmer now, but she was still shivering…although not from the cold. Her contact with Warren and his arm around her was sending uncontrollable shudders up and down her spine.

He, however, mistook the tremors as signs that he was failing to keep her warm, so his hand that had previously rested on Dawn's knee moved to wrap around her in a Warren-ish hug of sorts. "Better?"

"I'm…not really…sure."

This response caused Warren to shift slightly so he could envelope her closer to his body.

"No, no," Dawn protested, putting her hands on his chest to stop him as her wits returned, "I'm okay now. Thanks."

His dark eyes shifted around, and he released one arm from her. "Okay then."

"That's not…" Dawn paused, "not exactly what I meant. I was okay when you had me in your arms, but now I'm getting, um, cold again." It was a lie, and a blatantly obvious one at that, and Warren knew it.

His other arm slipped back around her shoulders, and Dawn slid her hands up and around his back to return his embrace.

"Warren, I know I'm kind of breaking my 'I just need a friend' rule and everything, so I'm sorry." She mumbled into the pyrokinetic's chest. The fact that she could feel his heart beating just as quickly as hers put her at a certain degree of ease.

"Don't be sorry." Warren murmured, resting his chin on her head. "We're still friends. We have an excuse to be hugging underneath the canopy of a saloon during a hailstorm, remember?"

"And what was that excuse again?"

"It's cold. Now shut up; you're wasting energy by talking."

Dawn shuddered through a silent laugh; it sounded like Warren was concerned she was going to freeze to death out in the cold. Granted, it was really, really cold, and being held by Warren was really, really nice, but…

Finally, she realized there was no 'but'. It was really, really cold, and being held by Warren was really, really nice. Period.

Dawn snuggled her head closer to Warren's chest and felt his iron-like muscles tighten protectively around her. With their arms around each other and Dawn's head cradled near Warren's collarbone, they drifted off to sleep with only each other's heartbeats and the shattering hail for ambience.

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AN: Hope you enjoyed and whatnot! My dog is much better, thankfully, and I had a bit more time this evening for my writingness.

And yes, I know this one was a very fluffy chapter, but I've been wanting to write a sweet one for a while now. Deal with it.

Yours always,

Corvaisis