by L. C. Mawson
“Then maybe it’s time to push her again,” Jealousy said.
Love sighed. “You’re probably right, but I’ll wait until the morning. Talking still feels like trying to walk through treacle and I’ll probably lose my words again if I try and speak with her now.”
The others all nodded, giving her looks of understanding as she realised that they had walked her back to the camp.
“You should get some rest,” Vengeance told her. “I can’t imagine today has been easy on you.”
Love nodded in agreement before heading inside.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Love managed to get some sleep, probably because she was so exhausted, but it didn’t last. When she woke up, everyone was still asleep, apart from Vengeance, who must have still been on watch.
Love suppressed a groan. If Vengeance was still on watch, that meant that she'd only gotten a couple of hours sleep at most.
She looked around again, frowning as she realised that Hate wasn’t there either.
Not that Love cared, she tried to tell herself. If Hate wasn’t going to talk to her, she wasn’t going to spend every second worrying about her.
Love sighed herself before deciding to get up and go for a walk. She wasn’t going to go back to sleep, and she didn’t want to wake anyone else by staying and getting bored.
Of course, if Hate was outside as well, that might mean running into her...
Love decided that it was worth the risk, and got up to leave.
But, as was her luck, as soon as she was out of the building, she walked around the corner and straight into Hate.
“Love!” Hate exclaimed, evidently caught off-guard. “What are you doing out here?”
Love shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep,” she explained.
Hate folded her arms tight across her chest, looking away. “Because of what happened before?”
Love just shrugged again. “I suppose.”
“Because your powers didn’t work?”
Love sighed. “Because of that, and because of what it means...” There was no point in dancing around it anymore, she realised.
“Because you don’t care about me as much anymore?”
Love glared. “Because of the opposite,” she said, her voice hard. “Because I do care, but you’re obviously distancing yourself from me, and you won’t tell me why.”
Hate quickly looked away, her jaw tightening as her eyes watered. “I thought it would be easier this way...” she eventually said.
“What would be easier?”
Hate sighed, shaking her head. “The fact that, while we care about each other, I don’t think our relationship would survive the real world. It works while we’re Aspects, but if we weren’t? If we had never been chosen and had met any other way... It never used to matter, but now it looks like we might end up with something resembling real lives once more. I don’t think we’re going to survive that.”
Love frowned. “Why would you say that? Why would you think that?”
Hate’s lip twitched downward as she held herself tighter. “Because we want different things,” she said after a moment.
“Different things? What do you mean? I just want us to be together and have a life and maybe go back to dancing, and we can maybe do future adult things like get married and have children. And you want...”
Love found herself struck silent.
She didn’t know what Hate wanted outside of being an Aspect.
It had taken Love a long time to accept her new life as an Aspect, and she'd known Hate even before then. Hate had known her as she'd been before she'd buried everything else about her previous life to deal with her new one.
But Love hadn’t known the girl Hate had been before.
She'd only ever talked about her past once, to help Love with her own difficulties adjusting.
It had been the only time she'd ever said her old name, and she'd been firm about Love not using it again.
While they had talked about their past during that conversation, Love hadn’t asked about what Hate had wanted out of her future.
She couldn’t. It would have been too cruel. Too painful. It had been hard enough for Hate to talk about her past, to ask anything more would have been too much.
But now it struck her that she knew so little about the girl she claimed to love.
And that hadn’t mattered when those things had stayed buried, but now?
“I don’t want any of that,” Hate said softly, still looking away. “I never wanted any of the things you want. That picture you’re painting of a sedate little suburban life? I never wanted it. I always wanted to travel between the Towers, never held in one place by anyone or anything. I wanted my life to be for me, not for a partner and not for children.”
Love just stood still, unsure of what to do or say.
“It’s okay,” Hate said. “We had a good run while it lasted.”
At that, she turned and left.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Love wasn’t sure what to do after that. Did she try and talk to Hate again? Should they make an attempt to be friends? Should they keep apart so that there was no drama that might disturb the others?
It turned out that Hate made the decision for her, doing her best to avoid her.
In a way, Love was glad. She didn’t exactly want to deal with the situation any more than she had to.
No one went scouting the next day, given Jealousy’s injury. They just continued their work building the wall, with Hate doing her best to stay as far away from Love as physically possible while still working.
Which was fine, Love told herself. It was definitely fine.
Everything was fine...
Empathy and Pain approached after a while, startling Love out of her thoughts.
“Are you okay?” Empathy asked, looking far more like Pain than she ever usually did when around her sister, with pale skin and a flat chest.
She doesn’t want to feel like me, Love realised.
In all honesty, she couldn’t blame her. She didn’t want to feel like her either.
“I know you don’t want the others to know how you’re feeling,” Empathy explained after a moment, under her breath so that no one else would hear. “That you don’t want to tell them the truth, but I already know, so if you want to talk about it...”
Love sighed, looking away. “I don’t want what happened to become common knowledge. If I couldn’t access my powers before...”
“You think you can’t relocate a nest without Hate?”
Love shrugged. “As far as we know, none of the previous Loves were able to use their power like this. Even the ones with romantic attachments. Since opposite Aspects, if they work together well, can increase their powers... Hate is probably the only reason I ever got this strong.”
“What about Sleepy?” Em asked. “Has your bond with her weakened?”
Love shook her head. “No, it hasn’t, but I formed that bond when I still had Hate to draw from.”
Pain cocked his head. “You still care for her. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be in so much pain. Can’t you still draw from that, even if you aren’t together?”
Love sighed. “I’ve tried that in the past, but the feelings get too clouded. Not to mention, if Hate really doesn’t want to be together anymore, clinging to my feelings for her seems a little... Well, kind of clingy and a little creepy.”
“There are other sources of love,” Em reminded her.
Love gave a regretful smile, not wanting her sister to think that she wasn’t enough. “I know, and that should be sufficient to deal with monsters one at a time, and form bonds with the younger ones, but I think my tie to the opposite Aspect was behind my power. No one else was ever this strong...”
Empathy hummed in thought, folding her arms before asking, “What if it’s not that?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if Hate has nothing to do with it? Not really. I mean, you started dating just as you came into your powers. And you�
��ve used her to draw from ever since. Have you even tried to draw from other sources since we started trying to reclaim the city?”
Love frowned. “No, I guess I haven’t. But why else would I be so strong?”
“You’re a direct descendant of the original Love, remember? We still aren’t quite sure exactly what makes Dishar different from regular Rena. Why our eyes are lilac, instead of silver. Whatever it is might be why you’re so powerful.”
Love bit her lip in thought for a moment before nodding. “There’s no guarantee that you’re right, but I suppose I could go with the rest of you on your next scouting mission and try and draw on other sources of love. Trying can’t hurt, right?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next day, everyone seemed more than a little surprised by Love saying that she was heading out with the scouting team.
All except Hate, who ignored the discussion, heading off towards the wall on her own.
“You don’t have to-” Justice started, but Love cut her off.
“I need to be able to use my powers,” Love said firmly. “Whether for this mission or others.”
Justice nodded in understanding, though she said, “You could give yourself a couple of days of rest first. You could head back to the Tower for a while if you need it...”
Love shook her head. “I'll be all right,” she promised.
Justice nodded again, though she didn’t look happy.
The concern wasn’t left at the base, however, Love realised as they walked out into the city.
“Are you okay?” Vengeance asked her after several moments of frowning at her.
Love suppressed a sigh. It was nice that the other Aspects worried about her, but it was a bit much at times. Occasionally, she just wanted her solitude.
“I would rather not talk about it,” she eventually said.
“Funny, that’s what Hate said when I asked her.”
Love looked away, almost folding her arms before remembering that she needed them for balance on the rough terrain. “Did you ever get an answer out of her?”
“She said that the two of you wanted different things, so you broke up. Which I’ve gotta say, I am baffled by.”
“Baffled?”
“Yeah!” he exclaimed as he shook his head. “What the hell does ‘want different things’ mean? You’re sixteen! Did you have an argument over which band you like the best?”
Love glared at him, a little offended by him implying that she was a child, but she couldn’t stay angry. In all honesty, she could see his logic.
Why had Hate been so worried about the future? Yes, Love had been excited about it, but it wasn’t something she was actually going to do anything about for maybe a decade.
And yet, Hate had decided that it was enough to call it quits now...
“Hate was the one who broke up with me,” Love explained. “She’s the one who decided we couldn’t be together. If you want to know why, you’ll have to ask her.”
Before Vengeance could say anything else, Jealousy interrupted. They were in charge of charting the terrain. “We’re approaching a small nest,” they informed them.
Vengeance frowned. “We can go around.”
“No,” Love told him. “I said I wanted to test my powers, so let’s test them.”
His frown deepened. “We can find a lone creature to test them on. A whole nest...”
“It’s only a small one,” Love reasoned. “And I already know that I can probably handle a lone creature. It’s nests that are the problem.”
Vengeance eventually nodded before turning to the others. “Okay, but I want us prepared this time. If things go south, we have to be ready to defend ourselves and get out. Understood?”
The others nodded.
Vengeance turned to Love. “Okay, then. We’ve got your back.”
Love nodded, her mouth going dry as she looked down the road, to the large building Jealousy had identified as the location of the nest.
She steeled herself, however, trying to rid herself of any trace of fear.
It would only hinder her.
As Empathy had said, there was a good chance that she could handle this on her own. Without Hate. And that meant that she couldn’t be afraid.
She had this.
Love walked towards the building as calmly as possible, her thoughts focusing on her sister.
This had to work. She had to keep Em safe.
As long as she kept Em safe, everything would be fine.
Love approached the building, and a creature poked its head out from a window above her.
As soon as it realised that intruders approached, it hissed, before scuttling down the wall.
It’s okay, we’re okay, we’re not here to hurt you.
Love’s jaw locked up, but that was all right. She didn’t need verbal communication to get the creatures to understand her.
The creature hesitated, cocking its head as Love approached.
That’s right, I’m not here to hurt you.
I can do this without Hate, Love thought, almost daring to smile.
Of course, the second she thought Hate’s name, the creature reared its head, sending a plume of fire out towards Love.
She threw herself out of the way just in time, as the others launched themselves at the monster.
No no no no no.
The others attacking it only riled the creature up further and Love realised that she'd lost her chance to sway it.
Her hand went to her staff but hesitated over it.
If she could just get her powers to work, it wouldn’t be necessary.
If she could just connect with it, they wouldn’t have to spill any blood...
Her eyes tracked the creature as the others surrounded it, putting all of their effort into getting it to turn tail and run.
It wouldn’t, though.
Instead, it sent out another barrage of flame, this time hitting a weak spot on the wall next to Empathy.
Em hurdled backwards as the loose bricks crashed down onto the spot where she had just been.
The creature wasted no time in clambering over the collapsed wall, heading straight for the prone Aspect.
Em’s eyes widened as the creature approached and Love’s heart stopped as the creature reared its head, ready to unleash flames once more.
Only, before the creature could attack, the skin on Em’s face melted away to reveal scarlet scales as she opened her mouth, a lizard-like tongue hissing out before a barrage of flame rushed from her throat.
The creature reeled back, scampering off as Em stood still in shock, her scales seemed to liquify, reforming as skin a moment later.
Em reached her hand up to her cheek, seemingly checking that she was still Human.
Or Half-Blood, Love supposed.
Vengeance took hold of Em’s arm, and she instantly morphed into him, taking on his determined look as she moved out and away from the nest.
Love scrambled up to meet them, the words gone from her throat as they made sure they were far enough from the creatures to be safe before talking.
As soon as he was sure they were safe, Vengeance grinned at Empathy. “That was incredible! I mean, I know other Empathys have had that same power, but not for over a hundred years!”
Em shrugged, though she was mirroring Vengeance’s grin, as well as his image. “I spotted some eggs in the building,” Em explained in Vengeance’s low voice. “I realised that was why the monster wasn’t retreating. After that... Well, I guess that was enough for me to tap into their powers.”
“I’m proud of you, Em,” Vengeance told her with a brotherly clap on the shoulder.
Love cringed a little. Wasn’t that supposed to be her job? Supporting her little sister?
And yet, she couldn’t get her face or mouth to move. Her arms stayed locked across her chest, and the only limbs that seemed capable of movement were her legs, marching heavily across the debris-ridden road.
Em fell away from Vengeance for a moment as
they walked and her white-blonde hair immediately turned black like Love’s.
She jumped away, back towards Vengeance, as if she'd been scalded.
“Are you okay?” Vengeance asked as her hair turned white-blonde once more.
Em nodded as she clutched his arm and Vengeance looked over to Love, realisation dawning across his features.
Love’s throat began to sting as everyone turned to her.
She needed to get away from Em.
She immediately turned on her heel, racing as far as she could from the others.
“Love!” Vengeance called after her, but she just kept going.
Love stumbled after a while, and her arms failed to reach out and stop her.
She skidded across the road, her side catching her fall on a large boulder so that her head remained untouched.
The rocks skinned her knees and elbows, cutting into her side and tearing her tank top as blood spilt forth.
Love sat up as the shock wore off and immediately burst into tears.
If she could think straight, she would have hated herself for that. For all of it.
She'd failed again. Em was wrong, she wasn’t some exceptionally skilled Aspect. Any ability she'd ever had stemmed from the fact that she'd fallen in love with the right girl.
The right girl who had broken up with her.
How pathetic was that...?
How pathetic was she...?
And not only had she failed the others, her inability had put her sister in danger.
And then, when her sister had risen to the occasion, all Love had been able to do was hurt her.
She should have buried her disappointment and anger at herself better. This wasn’t about her, it was about Loneliness and Justice. And Em discovering more of her powers shouldn’t have been tainted by Love’s self-pity.
She should just shut up, bury her feelings down, and get on with it, Love knew.
But while that had worked for her in her normal life, she was an Aspect now. Her powers came from her emotions.
How could she function when they were such a mess?
“Are you okay?” Love eventually heard.
Her head shot up to see Vengeance approaching. He had probably been there for a while, she realised. Just waiting for her to calm down.