Morality Check
"Ow!" Mydnight nearly barked out, his eyes squinting in pain as his fist collided with Isenheart, the sharp edges of his friend's metal spine stabbing his fingers lightly before he jumped back and shook the pain out of his hand with a smirk. "That was low Liv."
Olivier let out a little laugh. She had twisted herself around and ensured the blow from her opponent would land where she desired. "Hey, I didn't use my weapon, I used my spine," she shrugged with a sly smile as she faced him again and re-set her defensive stance.
The other huntsmen and huntresses laughed along with Olivier from the sidelines as the two began circling each other again. After several moments Liv lunged forward at him, her left fist connecting with his right wrist. Before she could pull away however he quickly snapped his right hand down and out, grabbing her fist and twisting her around, holding her arm behind her back and sliding his left foot between her legs, hooking it around her own left leg and pulling it back toward him, causing her to fall to one knee. "Ow ow ow okay Mydnight I give okay?" She winced out in pain as she tapped the ground in front of her.
Mydnight smiled to himself and let her go, "Ya that's what I thought," he laughed as Ruby began to clap and cheer for her brother's victory. He took a step forward and reached down, putting his arm around Liv's waist and lifting her up to her feet. Liv seemed flustered for a moment, her cheeks beginning to grow red before she calmed down and took a deep breath.
She stepped away from him before breathing out a short, "Thank you," and turned back to him.
He noted her hesitation and watched as she seemed to uncomfortably shift her weight on her feet as she folded her arms over her chest in a moment of thought, the pink tinge fading from her face. "Uh...Liv are you...okay?" He asked as he leaned down toward her and reached out, taking hold of her arm lightly as his golden eyes darted down to meet her own plum ones. As she looked back at him he could see her lips part slightly as her face once again began to light up before she shook her head and stepped away from him, his arm falling back to his side.
"I'm..I'm fine," she answered softly before noticing everyone staring at her in confusion.
"I didn't hit you THAT hard Liv," Mydnight remarked in confusion before she closed her eyes and scowled, pushing past him and heading for the house.
"I said I'm fine! I'm...I'm just gonna go for a walk alright?"
"Uh...okayyyy?" Mydnight let out softly as she disappeared into the house and Ambur walked up behind him, putting her hand on his shoulder. "What did I do?"
"I don't think you did anything Mydnight," Ambur breathed out softly. "We are all pretty stressed about all this and she probably just needs a minute. Why don't you just follow her into town and make sure she's alright. Let her walk it off for a while huh?" She asked with a soft smile, nudging him toward the door.
"If you insist," he sighed before slowly chasing after her.
Ruby walked over to Ambur and spoke up in her little voice. "Uhmm, Ambur?" The amazon looked down to find the small girl looking back up to her with her puppy dog eyes on display. "Are they gonna be okay?"
"Ahah," Ambur chuckled, resting her hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Ya...I think so...Liv's just..." Ambur sighed as she looked for the right words, "complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"She's...just got a lot going on in that head of hers...she'll be okay," Ambur sighed, turning away from Ruby and back to the other students. "Alright now, Oscar, why don't you get up here and spar with Ruby huh?"
Oscar snapped out of what seemed to be a day dream at the mention of his name and Ruby's attention turned to him. "Uh...sure," he let out nervously before standing up and dusting his pants down.
"That..damn wolf," Liv sighed to herself as she headed down the pathway from the house toward the center of town. She had taken off in quite a hurry, only grabbing her flannel as she rushed out of the house and pulled it on over her tank top. Her thin heels sank slightly into the dirt pathway with every step she took but she was too flustered to care. She just wanted to be as far from Mydnight as she possibly could be right now.
"Why does he have to be so...huhhhhh..." She growled out as she clutched at her shirt just above her heart. "So perfect..." Her mind began to wander and her cheeks once again grew more and more flushed. After a moment she shook her head back and forth, raising her hand from her chest to her face and lightly smacking herself on the cheek. "Stop it Olivier. Stop thinking about him you...stupid girl," she said aloud to herself, several people in the street taking notice and giving her funny looks.
Mydnight as well had seen her outburst, following behind her as far back as he could to keep her in sight. He let out a sigh of his own as his shoulders sank, "Oh Liv...huhhh...I'm actually going to have to tell her," he said in sadness as he scratched the back of his head and continued slowly after her.
Olivier continued down the road until she found herself at a dead end, staring off into the waterfall that split the town down the middle. She found a bench overlooking the falls and sat down, legs crossed with her elbows rested on them and chin rested upon her hands. "Why can't I just follow my own orders...this would be so much easier if I could make myself ignore it instead of him," she said quietly, spacing out while watching the rushing water. Guilt began to over take her however, with the admission of what she had once done to her closest friend. Her annoyance with herself grew more and more until she was so frustrated that she began to silently cry. Her head lowered between her knees, moving her hands from her chin to her eyes as she began to let the tears flow.
"Liv..." She heard her friend say quietly, having snuck up behind her. She jumped from her seat and reflexively stumbled backward into a small wooden fence, keeping her from falling over the cliff into the water.
"No! No no Mydnight you cannot be here right now!" She blubbered with more tears welling in her eyes. "Please just leave me alone!"
Mydnight looked at her for a moment before he shook his head in response. "No."
"Stop Myd I just wanna be alone!" She said more nervously as she shied away from him. However he kept slowly walking toward her. When Mydnight had reached her he put his arms around his friend and pulled her into an embrace, one she had been longing for for over a year now.
As he held her he felt her begin to shake in frustration, only causing him to hold her tighter and rub his fingers into her back. "Just cry Liv, you need to."
After a few moments he felt his t-shirt begin to soak through on his shoulder where her head rested. She started to audibly cry as well, having pent her emotions up for so long that she could no longer contain herself. She felt lucky that there was no one else around where she had mindlessly ended up.
"Liv I...I know okay?"
Olivier's breath caught in her throat and her eyes shot wide open, tears now silently streaming down her face. She stayed that way for several moments, unsure of what to do. She felt like she was going to vomit, like her entire world had been turned upside down. "How...How long did you know!" She yelled out in anger before pushing him off of her. He stumbled backward and nearly fell over onto the bench.
"Stop pushing me away, I'm trying to help you!" He yelled back at her, his fangs bared with bite in his voice.
"I said," Olivier started, her anger growing before she cleared her mind and looked directly into his eyes, saying more calmly, "How...long...Mydnight."
Mydnight's head began to feel fuzzy for a moment, before he shook it off and looked back at her, his own levels of anger beginning to grow. "Really Liv? Is that how this goes? Every time I try to help you you just use your semblance to try and screw with my brain?"
Her jaw dropped, air catching in her throat again as she realized what she had just tried to do. Her emotions had gotten the better of her and once again she was trying to take it out on one of the only people who cared about her. She couldn't believe herself for what she had done, but more so couldn't believe how he had shaken off the effect of her semblance so easily.
"I'm," she whined, before dropping to her knees and holding her face in her hands again, "I'm sorry Mydnight," she breathed out between hyperventilating.
"Sorry for which time..." he asked smugly, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Both, you jerk!" She yelled out as she cried and looked back at him.
He once again approached her and crouched down, taking her into another hug. "I know...so stop doing it," he whispered in her ear as he ran his hand through her hair.
"...How long have you known..."
"Since I woke up at Ruby's house. I think my semblance overwrote yours."
"...Are you...are you mad at me?" She wept out.
"A little but...not too much," he chuckled out. "Look Liv you can't keep running from your feelings. Between your issues with your parents, your accident, Caroline and Hunter AND this? You keep way too much in and eventually you're going to explode. Way worse than you just did."
Again she pushed away from him, but not so hard as to send him away, just enough to look up at him. "And how exactly do you propose I do that? How am I supposed to accept the fact that I love I like both of my best friends WAY too much?!"
"Okay look I didn't say it was going to be easy," he rolled his eyes before sitting down in the grass beside her. "Besides to be perfectly honest I think Ambur has known how you feel about both of us the entire time anyway."
"Huhhh..." She sighed as she too sat down in the grass, picking at it with a nervous fidget. "I always suspected she might know but...I hoped that she didn't."
"If she doesn't know then you should be the one to tell her."
His words grabbed her attention back, looking at him wildly, "No way! I'm not trying to get myself killed, you know!"
"Liv, come on you know it wouldn't be like that. Ambur is well aware of the fact that my heart belongs to her. She's not that insecure."
"Hmm...Guess it's just me then," Olivier joked with a fake smile, starting to wipe her eyes into her sleeve. She then felt his hand take hers and her cheeks got hot once again, pink spreading across her pale skin.
"She will understand. And I do too. And while I can't give you what you want I can still be here for you and we can get through this."
"Okay..." she let out, nearly out of breath. Mydnight stood up and lifted her to her feet before releasing her.
"Come on, let's get back to the house, okay?" He asked gently as he wiped a streak of black eye liner from her cheek. Olivier leaned into his hand softly, enjoying the warmth of his touch as much as she could for only a moment before it was gone.
"Ya...okay," she said softly as she followed her friend back toward the house.
Ambur had run into the house to get water for everyone out back who were still training together. As she was filling a large pitcher and collecting glasses, Olivier and Mydnight came through the front door.
"Hey guys, you alright now?" She called from the kitchen, knowing it was her friend immediately from the sound of Olivier's heels on the wood floor.
"Ya we're good," she heard her boyfriend answer as their footsteps kept getting closer until they rounded the corner into the kitchen. Ambur turned to find Mydnight walking toward her but Olivier paused in the doorway, looking down to the floor attempting to hide her ruined makeup. "This for the kids?" He asked as he reached her, grabbing her attention.
"Ya it is," she answered, cooking up an idea in her head. "Hey can you actually take it down there for me."
"I think that's probably A good idea ya," he said with a smile before quickly pecking her on the cheek and taking the pitcher and stack of cups out of the room and down the back stairs out to theback yard.
The two girls stood in silence for a moment before both speaking up at the same time, reciting each other's names. Olivier then spoke up again, "Me...first," she whispered as she looked into her friends' eyes nervously.
"Okay," Ambur breathd out.
"I'm sorry...I don't. I don't have excuses to give you or any explanations but...somewhere along the way...without realizing it until you were in the hospital I..." Olivier went silent again for a moment, trying to find the words but before she could, Ambur spoke up.
"I know Liv," Ambur smiled out softly. "I think I've known longer than you have to be honest."
"You...you're not mad at me?" Olivier questioned, looking back at her friend in confusion.
"How am I gonna blame you for falling for Either of us? How am I supposed to get mad at you for that? I did the same thing," she replied with a small laugh. "I fell in love with him too. So did Rosaria. So did tons of other girls at school. That boy knows better than to cheat on me and that's all I care about."
"Oh gosh no!" Olivier cried out in a small panic, "we never did anything I...I mean..." she said quickly, tripping over her words before looking back to the floor. "I wanted to but...he stopped me...and I ordered him to repress the memory of it..."
Ambur couldn't help but let out a smile and a small laugh before she crossed the room to her friend and took her hand. "Let's go get you cleaned up before dinner huh?"
Olivier sniffled once before smiling along with her friend and squeezed her hand. "Ya, okay."
The pair walked to the bathroom and Ambur started running the warm water in the sink as she sat Olivier down on the edge of the tub across from it. She grabbed a cloth from the drawer under the sink and wet it before kneeling down beside Olivier and beginning to gently scrub her makeup off of her cheeks. "You know I can do this myself," she struggled to get out as her face kept getting squished and pushed around.
"I know," Ambur winked out, "this is more fun though," she giggled as she finished the job. The girls laughed together for a moment before Liv spoke up.
"Thank you...Ambur," she breathed before pulling the far larger and more muscled girl into a hug. "You really are an amazing person."
"Eh," she said rolling her eyes before tightly hugging her back, "I try."
The pair walked through the house and out toward the backyard to find Mydnight in his massive wolf form with Ruby on his back, prancing around the backyard for her enjoyment. "This is so cool!" Ruby swooned in happiness as Ambur and Liv looked over to find the other kids laughing along with her from the sidelines.
Ambur lightly elbowed Liv in the side to grab her attention, "see what I mean. He's even good with kids," she joked.
Liv looked back to her friend, watching his fur blow in the light spring breeze as a smile crept across her lips. "I know...He's perfect."