Skedaddle

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis's eyes rose to hers and studied her. It was difficult to believe she would really be grateful for what he'd done, and more difficult still to realize how concerned she seemed for him. The thought of ever wanting a sexual bond with someone made his stomach pitch. But the idea of her trust was strangely gratifying. "You trust too much," he observed. "When that monster was here, you depended on me almost blindly." He dropped the critical tone and just stared at her in confusion. "I am not like my brother. I have been different from Telanis for some time. I can't be the way he is around humans." He said it like it was a disclaimer. That he wasn't whatever she thought he was. She thought he had a good heart. She didn't know the half of it. "I'm not pure. I'm not innocent, or well-meaning, or selfless. I'm not whatever heroic being you think I am."

Why was he doing this? Why push her away? He didn't want her to hate him. He could admit that much. Maybe he thought that if she knew all this, her confidence would offer him some kind of redemption.

No. It wouldn't.

"I realize this sounds stubborn...but if you knew me, I am certain you would no longer trust me." He hardly trusted himself. "And yet, I am extremely grateful for your trust. Perhaps for the very fact that it's undeserved." His eyes flickered to hers. "You're a highly confusing human."

[Emora Deen]

"I trust Telanis, and Telanis trusts you, so I trust you. The two of you are as far as my trust reaches," Laya told him. "I know very well that you are not like Telanis... you tried to kill me, remember? For a while, I wanted you too. The way you and Telanis react to blood is how I react at the prospect of someone hurting me like that again. I am sorry if I relied on you too much." Laya smirked as she stared at the fire. "You don't have to be pure or innocent to have a good heart. And if you were selfish you would have handed me to Kron's master and ran for your life. Instead you helped me, and you could have died doing so."

"We have all done things in our life we are not proud of," Laya breathed, her eyes flickering to him briefly. "Things we would rather pretend never happened and try to forget. But, that doesn't mean it should forge who we are."

She brushed her hair behind her ear. "I slept with Kron... willingly. Towards the end, that is." Her heart fluttered. "I let myself enjoy it in the hopes that it would end the pain. I was tired of fighting, and so I let myself turn into something else. Something horrible. I stood by and watched as he killed a boy for spying on us." She blinked the water from her eyes.

"I didn't even flinch," she whispered. "He snapped the boys neck, and I didn't feel sorry for him." Laya's expression had drawn away to a very hollow look, her eyes dead of life. "I helped him hide the body. I realized that I had become a monster too. So I seduced him, made love to him a final time, and when he slept I drove a stake through his heart and watched with so much relief as he died."

Laya shook herself free of the memory. "So you see, Adonis... I am not innocent, and I am not pure." She shook her head, not sure if he would like what she wanted to say next.

She wondered if he would even let her in the same vicinity of Telanis after hearing that.

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis paused and observed her closely as he let himself picture the hell she was describing. Gods... She was as twisted and broken as he was. He'd never have believed it if he didn't see it literally staring him straight in the face. She had been tormented to the brink of her sanity, and the creature he'd destroyed today had initiated all of it for sheer greed and entertainment. A breed of cruelty that was all too familiar to the unicorn.

"I'm sorry," he said, the faint tone of rage crawling into his throat, "I should have let you be the one to kill him."

He met her eyes firmly. "Listen to me," he pointed to his sleeping brother, "That creature will never judge you for what you've done or been through. He already knows, deep down. He can read it on your soul, as sure as he can read your eyes. I don't know what you think his love is, but he isn't just with you because you need him. He's with you because he loves and trusts your soul. If you really need some kind of reason to forgive yourself, it's lying right there."

[Emora Deen]

Laya looked behind Adonis to Telanis as she listened to his words. She coughed to clear her closed throat. "Can you find forgiveness in him, too?" she asked him softly, wiping her eyes. "He loves and trusts you. You are not lost, Adonis... He believes in you, as do I."

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis followed her gaze to Telanis's calm sleeping expression. His brother didn't really know him, not anymore, and he wasn't an open book the way humans were. But trying to qualify that he didn't count would only serve to weaken his argument for her. And what was the point in trying to be alone, anyway? That clearly hadn't worked in the past. He liked it here, even if it did still have the lingering remnant of the blood smell from earlier. "I'm not convinced, but I can give the concept a try," he acknowledged.

"So you killed this master of yours, and then what?" he asked, experimenting with lying on his side in front of the fire. His ribs weren't happy with him, so he lay on his back instead.

[Emora Deen]

"I got on a lifeboat and washed ashore in Ighten... and was found by Neko and Kratos. I didn't trust them, but was afraid of being alone to fall victim to someone else. So I traveled with them to the town I met you and Telanis in. If it weren't for Telanis..." Laya laid over to curl up on her side about three feet from Adonis. "I was going to throw myself off a cliff... literally. My life holds no value to me, or rather, it held no value to me."

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis took a deep breath and pulled his hand back through his hair. "He found you, I suppose," he murmured.

[Emora Deen]

Laya smiled as she remembered the first time she saw Telanis. "I don't know who found who. I looked up and before me was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I wanted to touch it, to feel such beauty if only for a split second. He ran from me, so I assumed at the time he didn't want something as dirty as me to touch him and I didn't blame him. But, then we ran into each other again. I collapsed in the river feeling so weighed down by everything that had happened to me. He embraced me in his own way, and I just rambled all that I'd been through out before I could clamp my mouth shut. And he didn't run away from me until the villagers arrived."

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis thought for a moment about the concept of his brother hesitating to approach a hurt girl. His turning the villagers against him had really affected his brother. "Here I thought he was too naive for belief, but he showed some street smarts after all," he said, not particularly pleased with himself. "Suppose I didn't leave him much choice."

[Emora Deen]

Laya frowned. "You were trying to protect him from people like... the one that hurt you," she told him. "It was not the best way, but you were doing it for a good reason." She cupped her hands under her cheek and watched the fire. She didn't want to mention the fact that the villagers came very close to killing him. What would have happened to Adonis if he became the reason his brother died?

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis turned to look at her, a little shocked that she had drawn that conclusion. "Maybe I was protecting him, but I was also angry. Part of me wanted him to find out the hard way, if he had to, that I was right. I was furious that he would take their side over mine. He couldn't see how manipulative and greedy they all were. It made me sick that he would just bend over and let them take everything, let them destroy him with a smile on his face-" He cut off, realizing that he was talking to a human, and that he wasn't completely talking about his brother any more.

[Emora Deen]

"Well, not all humans are so cruel," Laya told him. "There is evil just as much as there is good. Sometimes it seems like the evil outnumbers the good."

She blinked her eyes shut. She tapped her forehead. "Is it bad..." she muttered. "That the stone is gone?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Adonis dropped his gaze. "It means I can't use those powers again. Not without another power source. Their...taint is still there. Using that magic had a strong affect on...other things, the more I used it. Most power comes with a price." He hesitated, staring into the fire.

"I can't feel you," he said quietly. He gestured over his shoulder. "Or him. Not since I woke up."

[Emora Deen]

"Is that better for you? I know that you once told me you could hear me screaming... inside your head," Laya whispered. "Does it free you from the burden of caring about what humans feel?"

[Soran Nightblade]

"Yes," he answered slowly, realizing it for the first time. He blinked at the ceiling and realized his eyes were burning. Warm moisture slid across his cheeks to the corners of his jaw. He caught his breath, confused. What was he doing?

He was free. Why?

His throat clenched and fresh heat burned tracks down the sides of his face.

He turned his head away carefully, not knowing what he would do if she noticed it.