It's not the physical changes that threw me off when I evolved.
It took me all of two seconds to recognize the wind currents again and adjust to my longer wings. Clothes, of course, will always be as infinite and insignificant as feathers; you can strip them off and they'll grow back in a few hours. My hair got longer, I got stronger, my dive-bomb became flawless, as expected. That's the point. It's all expected.
It's the mental changes that still leave me reeling. Now, even on the ground, I have to look down to meet Alex's eyes.
No, it's not just a physical disparity. I feel like I need to protect her now because she's so small against me. I've always felt like I needed to protect her, but the urge has doubled, tripled, quadrupled.
I don't feel trapped anymore when she hugs me. I feel like the sky is all around me now, and that she is just a velvet fragment of it.
I wonder if this is how Torrent felt when he evolved, because that's when he started to like Briar.
Yes, I saw it, I saw his glances and the way he grazed his hand against Briar's shoulder and the punches that amounted to "I love you's" bloomed in bruises.
I see everything.
And I ignored it.
And it makes me a terrible, horrible person.
Briar reaches out and strokes the inside of my wrist.
It calms him, to feel my pulse, to feel the tattoo of my existence beating against his fingertips. He knows I think too much and too far and too deeply.
"If I can guess what you are thinking, do I get a kiss?" he asks quietly as we make our way towards the Fiery Pass. He will have to go inside the PEN when we reach it, since the flames will be too much for him.
I have to balance on the tip of my toes to kiss him.
"I like having my thoughts to myself," I say.
He barks a laugh, lifts my hat, and kisses my head.
I like his new confidence. And height.
Should I tell him about Torrent? Should I tell him that someone else also watches the way his muscles flick and searches for his leafy eyes in the dark?
"I love you," he murmurs into my hair, and when I feel the familiar fire creep into my cheeks, he moves forward to walk next to Alex. He adjusts the strap of her bag so that it isn't digging painfully into her shoulder anymore. At her dimpled smile, he bends down to put his mouth to her temple and ruffles Torrent's hair.
I can see it on Torrent's face, the way his eyes slide away from Briar, the way he runs a hand through the hair Briar's fingers touched.
Briar returns to me.
I cannot tell him.
And I ignore it.
And it makes me a terrible, horrible person.
The new one in our party, Aiden, walks next to Alex and Torrent. He has century-old eyes and a gaze that's as heavy as the air before a thunderstorm.
He introduced himself before, bowing in a razor-sharp, ninety degree angle and whispering his name.
Broad shoulders taper to a narrow waist. I see the turtle smoothly swim down his arm to his wrist and beside me, Briar twitches in disgust.
But I understand. Suicide takes a certain type of bravery.
The air has already started to oscillate in waves in the heat. We made good time; we don't have to wait so long for Alex now.
"Briar? I think you have to go inside," she says.
"Okay, Baby Girl," he puts his forehead to hers, nuzzling, breathing. "Be careful." He already looks uncomfortable from the heat.
Does this love, this yearning to protect run through all of our veins?
With a brush of his lips on my cheek, Briar disappears in a flash of light. Torrent crouches in front of Alex, offering his back and she clambers onto him.
"Oof," he sighs, slowly straightening his legs. "You have muscle on you now."
"I can walk, Torrent."
"Muscle is a good thing. And the floor's too hot. Make sure to fly, Skyra."
"I know," I reply.
And it really is easy to glide, stretching my wings and rolling on the updrafts. Little spurts of fire far into the cave constantly light our path, as well as springs of magma. Even in his jacket, Torrent is unaffected and Aiden is happy but Alex has sweat dripping down her face onto Torrent's collar.
"So jumping off a cliff didn't do you in, huh?"
"Torrent," she says sharply, "Don't start this."
"Why?" his voice is light, "I think we deserve to know."
"It's his business." Her cheeks are red from the heat and her eyes looked glazed.
"It's our business if he decides to kill one of us w-"
"I charred a family into ashes," Aiden interrupts.
"How kind of you," Torrent snorts derisively, "how sweet of you."
"A human family," the Numel adds quietly. "They were going to catch me in a PAL. I saw my mother and my father be taken in a PAL. I saw my friends disappear. So I melted the flesh off their bones."
"Alex, you don't look well," I say. Her eyes are tightly shut.
"I think I'm gonna throw up," she whispers.
I snatch her off Torrent's back and rocket towards the entrance.
We barely make it.
On the dirt outside, Alex vomits nothing but bile. When he catches up, Aiden easily picks her up, trying to find shade, but hurriedly places her back on the ground when she squirms violently.
"Skyra, don't just stand there. Fan her," Torrent snaps, stripping off his jacket and shirt. I do, watching Aiden's face turn stiff and tight-lipped. "Lexa, Lexa it's me."
"Hot," she whines, "hot."
Torrent pulls her to his chest, resting his cool cheek on her fiery ones.
"I know. Aiden was hot, right?"
She nods. I guess that was the reason why she pushed him off, not because of his inclination to incinerate humans. The Numel visibly relaxes.
"C'mon, Lexa, hands on my neck. There we go, much better, right? I think the fires in there ate up the oxygen. That plus heat is not so good." He shoots a glare at Aiden. "We're continuing our conversation later. Hold on Lexa, you'll be okay." With an arm behind her knees and one behind her shoulders, he lifts her and starts walking down the path. "I'm gonna start walking to Fallarbor Town. Catch a new team mate if you can and then follow me. And Skyra," he looks over his shoulder, and I've known him long enough to understand what he's thinking.
Keep an eye on Aiden.
Quietly, we creep through the grass, listening for any signs of movement. Aiden, for all his broad shoulders and height, walks softly and meekly, eyes on the ground.
"How many humans did you kill?"
He jumps at the sound of my voice, then quickly bows his head again.
"Four. A father, a mother, and two little boys. They were twins. I hadn't meant to kill them. I had just wanted to scare them off, but I couldn't control myself through my fear."
"And what did you do afterwards?"
"I," his voice becomes even quieter. "I put their ashes in the ocean. Far away from any kind of fire. And then I jumped in. I can't swim, so I lost consciousness very fast, but I woke up on the shore with burning lungs and the tattoo of a turtle swimming on my skin." He looks up at me, flashing a brief half-smile. "Just my luck, huh?"
"No."
"No?"
"No. Everything happens for a reason," I say, stopping when I hear a noise. We stand still and then continue when it does not repeat.
"Do you think Alexandra is scared of me?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
Why not indeed?
Alex fears death. Alex fears loss. Alex fears rape. That's what her brother told her to fear. But how can she fear something she's never experienced? That's why she cannot fear things until she's in the midst of them, until she sees Cobalt's limp hands or smells the rusty scent of blood on the floor. Until then, she is safe in not knowing, in ignorance.
I shrug.
"Fear," I say, "is only as profound as the mind allows."
Do you know what the funniest thing about moral dilemmas is? The way they creep out of a clump of grass when you're not expecting them.
This is exactly what happens.
The Manectric's hair is a messy blond and he must be moderately old in Piece years because he looks like he's in his late twenties, in human years. Golden bracelets circle his wrists, echoed by a similar collar and yellow skinny jeans. Crumpled up in his hands is his beryl-colored wife beater and darker indigo jacket. He looks at us, his narrow shoulders half turned away, the lean muscles of his stomach tensed.
The familiar facial features - the pointed nose, the high cheekbones, the rounded eyes - only continue to drown my sinking heart when I see yellow polish on his finger nails.
I may be wrong. I hope and pray that I am wrong as I draw a PEN from Alex's bag, but I know that in a world where everything happens for a reason, this Manectric is most certainly, most definitely Lana's brother.
As I said before, I have a problem.
I can turn around and leave. I can pretend we couldn't catch him and let him free. But this would mean lying to Alex and violating the rules she promised to uphold, not to mention robbing our already small team of a potentially useful Piece. Or I can kill him, but I already know that I won't be able to, nor would I allow Aiden to.
But.
But.
But if I catch him, he will unquestionably ask us if we know his sister, if we had seen his sister. And we will be forced to tell him that, by our hands, Lana was killed.
That we murdered her.
That the Piece who was directly involved was also eradicated.
Problem, problem, prob-
He jumps at me, and I have no choice but to lunge at him, knocking him down, and throw a PEN at him.
In two clicks, his fate is sealed.
I pause for a second, terrified, then scrabble through Lana's bag for Briar's PEN.
"Skyra? What-" but he stops talking when I grab his arms.
"I caught Lana's brother."
"What? What?! Why?!"
"No other options."
He doesn't argue with me. He knows that when I say 'no other options', I mean it. I see guilt storm across his face and I know he feels at least partially responsible for Lana's death.
"We have to tell Lexa," he says.
"But he's going to ask about Lana. It's unavoidable. And who knows how he'll react?"
"If it's unavoidable, it's unavoidable," Aiden cuts in. He has his hands shoved in his pockets. "He can't get past you to Lexa if he decides to direct his rage that way and with his level, he can't kill you either. But it's better to let him know the truth."
"We killed his sister," Briar says.
"We killed a lot of things. That's how life is," Aiden states.
"So that makes it okay?"
"It makes it the truth."
Briar strangles his next sentences. The only thing that comes out of his mouth is a frustrated sound.
I twine my fingers into his, massaging is palm.
We look at other.
We decide.