Theresa paced the top floor of the Spire, seething. Blue will energy crackled in the air around her like summer lightning but there was no one to be impressed or intimidated by her display of power. No one to calm the storm or soothe her fears. She lashed out, upending the small, oak table that stood in the center of the room. Theresa cried out, her voice filled with the frustration wrought from centuries of plans quietly, naturally going tits up.
Her crystal ball crashed to the ground, the silver stand that once supported it falling with a great clunk that echoed loudly in the lonely chamber. The orb, once filled with a milky cloud, was now clear as it rolled across the obsidian floor.
"You fool!" she screamed, tossing her crimson hood from her face. Blind eyes, scarred pupils seeing the world beyond the Spire as if it were a play unfolding before her. Sparrow had been slipping from her grasp since the events at the Spire two years ago, it was obvious now. First the girl had tried to disappear but no one escaped Theresa's sight for long. Sparrow had traveled to the far North on some pretense of visiting Hammer. Theresa had allowed Sparrow those two years. Let the girl feel what it was like to be aimless, to see the injustices that still existed in their world even with Lucien's death. Theresa believed that it would send Sparrow back to her and that they would once again be united in mind and purpose.
With a furious cry, Theresa allowed herself one out lash of will, lightning crackled through the air, striking the silver stand. The metal deflated and darkened to a sooty black and Theresa stared at it, watching the metal cool as she planned how to get Sparrow to her true purpose once more.
When Reaver woke he was covered by a threadbare blanket and he could hear Sparrow's voice speaking to someone else in a low tone. He waited, listening to the sound of her voice, husky and warm, as she spoke.
"I don't know what to do next, Lotus, nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I've seen things," Sparrow paused as if trying to find words for her experience. "I've done things I never thought possible but I've never stepped into someone else's vision. There were times when I couldn't move, when the vision was overwhelming and then at other times it was like the fabric of that world bent to my will."
"I don't know of these things, my song, speak to your Aunt. She will know." that was the high sing-song voice of Lotus. She must have come to check on her charges.
"I can't talk to her." Sparrow's voice was like the walls of Castle Fairfax, cold and unyielding.
"It is bad to hold onto these hurts. It will ruin your aura and unbalance your spirit. Go to her. Forgive her as you have forgiven Reaver and seek her guidance." Lotus spoke slowly, stretching out each syllable of each word as if she were tattooing them into Sparrow's skin. "Not to mention-"
Reaver listened closely so he wouldn't miss Sparrow's next words. He heard her grunt and then do her little sputter of indignation.
"I have not forgiven him, Lotus. I- I can't! You know what he did."
And that was what he expected, stubborn hero being stubborn about everything.
"You're grievances are two years old, Sparrow. Your mind clings to them like the last frosts of winter."
"His selfish actions killed my dog and hurt my friends."
"The sapling will never survive if it does not bend. Have you never been selfish? Do not aspire to be like the stone, Sparrow, immovable and unyielding. It is not what we are."
"You cannot compare our actions, Lotus, he has done terrible things, ruined lives, and murdered for no other reason than a whim. We are nothing alike."
Lotus hummed, her musical voice thoughtful as she offered Sparrow one last gift of wisdom. "Do not close yourself off, my songbird, if he follows you now it may be for a reason you cannot yet see. He is has hero blood in him, just as you do. You have lived alone for so long, I would hate to see you turn away the only other in the world like you."
"Because he has Hero blood?" Sparrow scoffed. "Hammer and Garth both have it. If I am lonely I will just visit them."
"Do as you will Sparrow, but do not let your anger drive you anymore. In the end it will gain you nothing."
Sparrow was silent, but Reaver could feel her irritation at Lotus's insistence on peace like a cheap rug on his bare ass. Prickly and coarse. He thought about stirring from the bed, he was starving for the first time in days, but the women started speaking again and he was never one to pass up a chance to eavesdrop.
"How's Cloud doing?" Sparrow turned the conversation towards a friendlier subject though her tone was tense.
"Oh the old bastard is fine. Still thinks I don't know he's sleeping with Willow or Root but such is his simple mind." Lotus laughed cheerfully. "Reg's death has him shaken though but he'll pull through."
Sparrow breathed in sharply and Reaver bet her eyes were wide at the news.
Lotus gasped, "Oh my song, you didn't know?"
"How?" Sparrow's voice was flat, empty.
"The guards brought her back to us. They found her in an abandoned warehouse in Old Town."
The old healer made a series of noises that Reaver supposed was intended to be comforting.
"Arfur." Sparrow's tone was harsh, the word filled with all her hatred for the unfairness of life.
"Yes, the guards think it was him. It was his warehouse they said. Oh Sparrow, let it go. Reg is free now and she would never want you to brood over her death."
Sparrow was silent and the cave seemed to darken with her mood.
Reaver heard Lotus make more soothing noises, followed by the rustling of skirts and the soft pat of bare feet on stone. Soon, the old woman had disappeared into the tunnel and Reaver and Sparrow were alone.
He was debating whether or not to reveal himself, Sparrow was likely to be in a foul mood and he was completely uninterested in any discussions on his "true purpose" or on how much of a "selfish ass" he was. Sleep was appealing. The pirate felt at once that he had been asleep for days and also that he hadn't even closed his eyes in days. He felt exhausted. He felt restless. He bitterly regretted making a detour through Bloodstone and meeting Sparrow again. He was grateful that she was there.
Feeling all of these complex emotions and having no weaker person nearby on which to thrust them, Reaver allowed his eyelids to slip close. His breathing relaxed and he was nearly asleep when his stomach, traitor that it was, growled. Loudly. Embarrassingly. Twice. Like a bear and a moose competing for loudest mating call.
He heard Sparrow yelp in surprise and he wanted to die.
"Was that you?" her question followed quickly, her dark mood apparently gone at the ferociousness of his stomach.
Reaver made a noncommittal noise, he was still too fogged with sleep to use his voice. He did roll onto his back though, pushing the threadbare quilt from his shoulders without wincing at the pain the movement elicited in his ribs. He looked at the hero, blinking his eyes once or twice to clear the sleep from them.
Sparrow matched his gaze, her expression frustratingly unreadable until a small smile quirked up the left corner of her mouth and her green eyes warmed.
"You look like a wintering rabbit woken too early."
"Spare me your colloquialisms."
She rolled her eyes, her arms were crossed beneath her breasts and she was leaning back on her left leg, her hip out to one side. It was her business stance. Her 'I like you but I will still interrogate you' stance. Her 'I'm the Hero here' stance.
Reaver rolled to his feet, kept his balance, and idly looked around the cave. Little had changed in the night though there was a new basket of food on the old desk.
Sparrow opened her mouth but Reaver cut her off.
"What happened last night?" his tone was casual and he mentally congratulated himself for keeping the panic from entering his voice. He remembered their conversation, Sparrow needling him for his life story and having the brilliant idea to ask Sparrow for an equally dark secret in return. He knew he was going to tell her what she wanted, he couldn't hold it back any longer, but he was going to get something out of the misery. That was where his recollection of the night ended. The rest was a haze old memories played over the soundtrack of her screams and at some point they had become Sparrow's.
"We had a vision." Sparrow spoke calmly, the uneasiness that was present in her conversation with Lotus, held back. She was watching him carefully, her green eyes searching for his face for his reaction.
"'We?'" Reaver repeated, narrowing his eyes but, finally, meeting her gaze. His dreams made sense suddenly. The vision had come to him again, bloody Margret's ghost screaming at him and the flashes of copper always on the edge of the dream. Sparrow's screams. His shoulders sank and suddenly Reaver felt very, very old. "You saw it all then."
Sparrow nodded wordlessly.
"Well." That was all he had. His stomach released another embarrassing growl. He stared at the food but didn't move towards it. He felt hollow, not like a great weight had been lifted off of his shoulders but as if it had been torn from him and thrown to the ground at his feet.
Sparrow tried to read Reaver, tried to sense where he was going with the death glare he was giving the homely basket filled with provisions. He was upset, she knew that, his stubbly jaw was stiff and his shoulders were dropped. On any other man she would be ready for him to rush her and try to drive her off her feet with sheer force. Reaver cared about his face too much to do that and there wasn't anger or panic in his eyes. Just weariness.
Maybe she could read him better than she thought.
"I understand now." Sparrow wanted to move towards him. Or away from him. She felt rooted in place. She felt that if she moved now she would break whatever spell this was that had come over the both of them and whatever path they were on would be lost forever.
I'm not ready to be alone again. The thought came to her suddenly and with it all the despair and loneliness that had eaten at her heart since Rose's death. Theresa had been a guardian, a watcher, and not a mother or a friend. Hammer had ultimately left and so had Garth. Yet here was Reaver. Light cursed Reaver of all people was still here.
"Some of it. How you ended up," She gestured at all of him and tried to think of a better way to say what she was trying to say.
"With such a chiseled jaw? Exorbitantly rich?" Reaver arched a dark eyebrow at her but his heart wasn't in his words.
"Immortal." She finished opting for the most factual of descriptors for what Reaver was.
"Ah, well, hero," Reaver leaned into the title with all his usual sarcasm. "Did you enjoy the tale? You should congratulate yourself. There is only one other alive besides us who knows my story and she was considerably manipulative about it. You take after your Aunt in more ways than you think." His voice was rough and angry.
The spell was broken, Sparrow moved towards Reaver, "You were going to tell me anyway! We agreed. I did not insert myself into your 'dream vision' or whatever the blazes it was." She did not prod his chest with her finger, to which Reaver was grateful, a poke from Sparrow was a likely to be irritating as it was to send him flying across the room if she wanted.
She stopped, froze really, an odd look coming over her face and a shiver, noticeably, running down her spine.
Reaver ignored the growling of his stomach and rubbed his temples. "What?"
She shook her head, copper hair shimmering in the fire light, "Nothing." Some of the energy had gone out of her voice but she seemed otherwise unaffected. "I still have questions, Reaver."
"Don't you know everything now?"
Sparrow gathered herself up, shaking off thought had briefly distracted her. "No, Reaver, I don't know nearly enough."
He considered her for a moment. It did not escape him that Sparrow had a tendency to be as tight lipped about herself as he was. After this was done, he would have some questions of his own. "If you want to discuss those bloody details than can we do it over breakfast?"
This time his words were punctuated by the not so quiet rumbling of Sparrow's own stomach and she nodded with gusto.