by Azalea Ellis
"Safe, by joining NIX?" Adam raised an eyebrow, but he was subdued enough I thought the rebuttal was more his token role as devil's advocate.
"Safer. If we don't want to join, we need to destroy them. But destroying them doesn't stop the Estreyans from coming. What it does is reduce the power Earth has to fight back. From what I understand, they're the only real defense the world has."
"And you want other people able to do the fighting, so maybe we won't have to," he said.
"Uh, yeah. Exactly. Plus, we'd have access to more Seeds, and targeted training."
"And in exchange for this, they keep us under their thumb and watchful eye. They control us."
"They think they control us," I'd corrected, giving them all a quick grin.
Zed frowned down at the table, not meeting my eyes.
Blaine and Bunny hadn't been to the Trials before, and so the revelations down in the depths had come as quite a shock. Both the scientist and the awkward-in-person Moderator seemed too overwhelmed to respond. And Blaine had his surrogate kids to worry about.
"I know what I have to do," I said. "I'm worth enough to keep NIX off your backs if you decide to leave. Think about it, and whoever's with me, meet me on the wall. I'm kinda tired. Gonna watch the sunset."
And so there I sat, alone, thinking about distant suns and the wind of change.
"Heya!" I heard from down below.
Jacky waved up at me, and started walking across the courtyard to me, the others following on her heels. All of them.
I grinned and waved back, then turned to watch the red and purple streaked sky fade out as they came to join me.
Birch turned around in my lap, and let out a whine.
"What's up?"
He leaned forward and started to lick my upper lip and nose, his tongue coming away dark red.
I drew back from him and brought a hand to my nose, taking away bloody fingers. "Just a nose bleed. No big deal," I said, laughing past the fear.
He nuzzled up to me and started to lick my neck, whining more insistently.
I felt the blood drip out of my ear, and saw it land on his muzzle.
He whimpered again, and licked more frantically.
I tilted my head back, tore a strip of my sleeve away, and used it to wipe away the blood spontaneously dripping from my nose and ear, then took a Seed out of my pocket. I'd stolen it and a few others from NIX’s secret laboratory while Nadia was distracted. "I wish I was more Resilient."
I took a deep breath, and then lifted Birch above my head and had him lick up the rest of the dark red smears from my face and neck. "This is a secret, okay?" I said, staring seriously into his eyes. "The others can't know about the side effects of my new power. They think I’ve got it under control. No one can know, or we won't be safe anymore."
He let out his little scratchy growl, and I laughed. "I know you'll protect us. But it's still a secret."
I turned my head to the side, where my team had just walked up the steps on the inside of the wall. I waved them over, and they settled in beside me to watch the muted sun of Earth leave us behind.
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