Jay's POV

My heart is hammering in my chest so hard that I can practically hear my heartbeat. Nya and I walk side by side, our hands occasionally brushing each other's. With each bit of contact, my charged skin releases energy, letting out a slight zap.

She either doesn't notice or doesn't care because she mentions nothing as we walk in silence. It's not a pleasant silence either. It's the awkward, tense one that makes your own breathing feel loud and the air around you feel stuffy. However, we maintain it until we reach a little clearing with two foldable chairs in it beside a stream.

"I figured we'd need a place to sit," she explains, immediately plopping down in one of them.

I follow her lead and sit down. "Nya, I..."

She holds up her hand as she lets out a sigh. "Let me talk first, please." I shut my mouth and purse my lips together. "Thank you."

She takes a deep breath in, massaging her temples with her index and middle fingers before she continues, "You know how I am. I'm stubborn and hate to admit when I do anything wrong, but I acknowledge that I fucked up. You literally told me the day before how you felt about me being physical with Shade, and I completely ignored you. I hurt you, and there's no way to sugar coat it. You didn't deserve that," she pauses, breaking our eye contact momentarily to zone off into the distance. "You were completely justified in acting how you did last night. You were so mature in how you handled everything, and I want you to know how much I appreciate that. I acted without taking you into consideration, and that was wrong. This whole situation is unconventional and weird, but that doesn't mean that I can play with everyone's feelings. The thought of you feeling like I don't care about you kept me up all night. I'm so sorry, Jay. "

"Oh Nya," I lean across the small divide between our chairs, tightly wrapping my arms around her. She does the same, and the pressure soothes me. I lean forward and rest my head on her shoulder. "That's all I wanted to hear. I forgive you, and I'm sor..."

"No you're not," she pulls me even closer and leans her head on top of mine. "You don't have anything to apologize for."

We linger there for who knows how long. I savor our closeness and how precisely I can feel all of the currents in her body. The electricity that thrums beneath her skin merges with mine, filling me with a lightness that only she brings out. It's as if I'm meditating.

She picks her head up from on top of mine with a sigh, "I need to talk to you about what happened this morning with Shade."

I pull back from her, the ease replaced by a lump in my chest. I recline back in my chair, my eyes focusing on how the water parts when it reaches rocks that jut out of the water.

"I already heard a lot of it. He proposed to you. Cole interrupted. Shade got upset and started to ask questions. You explained how I'm back, and he got upset that you even wanted to be around me before you explained the situation to him. He then asked you what we did together, and when you answered, he lost his cool. He threw the ring into the lake and cussed everyone there (and me) out before storming off," I say everything that I remember.

"I wasn't going to say yes to him," the strain in her voice commands my attention, pulling my eyes off of the water and onto her creased face. "I need you to believe that I was going to say no and explain the whole situation to him if Cole hadn't interrupted."

"I believe you," I give her a small, closed mouth smile. "It doesn't mean I enjoy another guy proposing to you, though."

"Of course not," she agrees, and the weight in my chest forces me to look away and back at the stream. "What was it that you said a long time ago, that the thought of me with anyone else 'makes [you] want to, ugh, punch something then sulk in a corner'?"

My head whips towards her in a second. She's looking out towards the river, but she has a small smile on her lips. "You remember that?"

"Is that a surprise? It's from when you proposed to me after all," she looks down at her left hand before looking over at mine. "I noticed that you still wore your ring when I first saw you in Lightning City but that you stopped soon after."

"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable," I shrug, answering her unspoken "why". "It's crazy to think that if one little thing changed, we would be married right now."

"Our wedding was going to be so small. It was literally only going to be my parents in attendance," she shakes her head in disbelief, but a smile still rests on her lips.

"And yet we still had everything planned out from the venue to the dinner to the music. We even had our first dance practiced to perfection. I guess that's what happens when the groom is the master of dancing," I let myself fall back into those days and remember what I tried so hard to banish from my mind. I think of all of the little moments Nya and I spent planning the wedding, whether it was bickering over the flavor of the cake or picking out a dress for her. All of those emotions rush to the surface, but for the first time in a while, I am not plagued with an unrelenting knot in the pit of my stomach. Instead, there's something good there, butterflies, hope.

"Had? I could still bust the whole thing out right now," Nya lets out a little laugh.

I raise an eyebrow and stick out one of my hands towards her. "Then why don't we?"

Her eyes widen, "Right here, right now? We don't have music."

Despite her protests, I stand up and move in front of her. "We can hum the tune. Come on, Nya, take my hand."

With only slight reluctance in her movements, she grabs my hand and stands up. We naturally fall into our positions, our left hands intertwining while my right hand finds her shoulder blade and hers cups my shoulder. Our humming is out of tune and has no beat, an absolute cacophony if I've ever heard one, but we find a way to dance to it.

Our feet carry us around the dirt. As one foot moves out of an area, another fills the space it left. With our chests pressed against each other, we laugh as our humming gets even worse. I let go of her shoulder blade to spin her around. Her giggles fill the air, making mine follow right after. When she finishes her rotation and our eyes meet, hers are glowing with little crinkles around the corners before she throws her head back in her own fit of laughter.

Nya Smith is gorgeous. I already knew that, of course, but right now, there is nothing else in the world I can think about. It's not even solely on the outside. Her soul is glowing. It's shining through her eyes, through her smile, through the cute little crinkle in her nose, in a way that is so distinctly her that I can barely process it.

When her laughter finally dies down, she takes a long look at me. Her lips are turned upwards as she just looks at my face. When I raise an eyebrow, she lets out a small sigh. "I really wish you could have met my father. He would have liked you a lot."

What is implied about her father's fate makes my chest tighten up. After my parents brought me to the elemental army with questions about how to raise an elemental master, Ray became an icon to me. He introduced me to the other elemental masters of creation, checked in on me, and would help me train my powers without any judgment or scrutiny for being behind a few years. It was as if he was another father to me. "Well, Nya," I maintain a somewhat cheery demeanor. "I did meet your dad. He was the one who helped me harness my powers."

"And you couldn't see the familial resemblance?" she tilts her head to the side.

"Well, I did not have the pleasure of meeting your mother, and you're allegedly the spitting image of her, so it makes sense that I can't see a lot of Ray in you."

"I used to, but not anymore. She's...she's not doing well. I was supposed to take leave from the army to take care of her, but then the war happened, and I couldn't," she looks away from me and towards some stray tree stump.

"She's still around?" I ask with wide eyes. "Elemental lifespans are always shorter than that once they have children."

"She took very good care of herself, especially after my dad died. It broke her. They weren't soulmates, but they really, really loved each other. Even with that, she wanted to be around for as long as possible so I wouldn't be in the world without family.

Every time I would visit her, she'd ask when her grandchildren were going to be visiting with me. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now...it's just..." she drifts off. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

"She doesn't have to worry anymore about you being alone. You have Kai...and you have me...and all of the guys, for that matter. You're in good hands, and I hope that we can show her that once this is all over," I reach out for her and wrap my arm around her shoulder. I try to pull her into my side, and she lets me, wrapping an arm around me as well.

Her shoulders drop a little, and she lets out a few breaths. However, that tension coils right back up, and she pushes away from me, walking towards the bank with her hand over her mouth.

"Did I do something wrong? I wasn't trying to assume that you're going to pick me, I was just trying to say that no matter what..."

"Jay, my dad knew you," she shakes her head, blinking rapidly.

"Yeah, I knew him. What's wrong with that?" my eyebrows furrow together.

"Well he also knew me, and if he knows me and he knows you, he must've known that we..."

"Oh my... no way, no way. Maybe he just forgot what my tattoo looked like. I don't think he would've purposefully..."

"He knew that we're soulmates. I hadn't told them that you were my soulmate before you met them since I thought it would change their interpretations of you, but afterwards when I talked to him after you left... he knew, and he let me believe that you were dead," she clenches her jaw. Bunching up her fists, she walks in a tight circle just breathing. Once she stops, she lets out a scream and summons a jet of water to blast at the nearest tree. Water droplets ricochet off the tree and hit me in the face, but I barely feel them. Her words take up all of my attention.

"They didn't want you to have anything to do with me. If they shunned their own son to protect you, they would have no problem keeping you in the dark about me," I rationalize, my own eyes brimming with tears.

"How many fucking things can go wrong for us?" she bunches the strands of her hair up in her fists.

"It's comical, really," I let out a quick, bitter chuckle as I shake my head. "Come on, let's go to Cole and Seliel. We can train off some energy there."

---

Skylor's POV

I lie facing my dresser, breathing in and out as I try to ignore what is going on behind me.

I was minding my own business, trying to ignore the master of fire and wind down before bed, before he took off his shirt and started to work out in my room. He jumped up and grabbed onto the shallow door frame before he started to bust out pull-ups. It was hard to look away (none of the men I was around had a back like that), but I forced myself to pry my eyes away and focused on my dresser.

Since then, I've had to fight the urge to look back. My entire body feels hot, and while I'm very deliberately not stirring, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to survive this. It's only been one day in his company, and that alone is too much.

I don't hate his company. I actually enjoy it a lot, and that is what tears me up inside. His laughter doesn't induce rage. His smile makes me want to smile. His stories are quite captivating, and even when I pretend to be ignoring him, I tune into his every word. Especially now as I hear his grunts as he squeezes out a few more repetitions of his exercise, I really just want to turn around and enjoy the show.

"Can you quiet down? I'm trying to sleep," I hiss, madder at myself than at him.

"Sorry. I didn't get any training in today since I was in here," he makes a thump, probably from dropping off of the door frame.

"Don't you need to sleep or something?" I grumble, pulling my blanket closer to my body.

"I'm just waiting for my replacement. I'll be back in the morning though, so don't miss me too much."

"Oh, I'm just so thrilled..."

"Did I overhear a person mention a 'replacement'?" the voice catches my attention. I whip around in my bed to face the door. Beside the master of fire whose sweatless frame looks exquisite, a robot stands.

I look over at her. From her cheekbones to her nose to her height and everything in between, that is the sister I remember in my dreams. Yes, she is mechanic and metallic, but that is my sister. However, next to this fondness and joy that bubbles up in my chest, nausea stirs in my stomach.

On the day that we attacked the elemental masters of creation in the mountains, we ambushed 3 people. The first was the master of fire, of course, and I knew that another one was the master of ice. None of us knew who the robotic girl was, but Tobias took her with us anyways because she was with them.

It was my sister. I didn't recognize her, and I let her be mercilessly tormented. She was thrown against the cliffside, bolts flying everywhere, and I did nothing. We could barely recognize that they were robots when we were lugging them down the mountain because they were so dented. I failed her.

I shake my head. I don't remember the day that she died, but I failed her that day by not protecting her. Then, while trying to avenge her, I hurt her even more. No wonder Harumi doesn't want to see me. I'm an awful sister.

Tears start pouring out of my eyes, cascading down my face and landing in a pool on my comforter. The guilt gnaws at my insides, turning my lungs into a rotten pile of mush. PIXAL takes a step towards me, and my head snaps away.

"Don't come closer," I command her.

I can't look at her. When I do, I just see all of the ways that I failed her.

"But Skylor..."

"I said don't," I snap, making the room fall silent apart from the gasps between my tears.

My shoulders shake as I curl my legs to my chest. I rest my forehead against my knees and let my remorse pour out of my pores.

"Shh, it's alright..." the tenderness of his voice, his hand cupping my shoulder, the safety I feel in his presence, it all makes me snap. I twist out of his grip and shove him hard in the stomach, sending him stumbling a few steps backwards.

"God, can you just leave me alone? I don't want you! I don't like you, I don't need you, I don't want to see you! The sound of your voice makes me want to smash my head through a wall and just being in your presence makes my skin crawl. The only things I feel when I look at you are anger, complete disgust, and sexual repulsion," my body is trembling with the anger I feel towards myself, and I channel it all towards him and at the way I want him to feel.

I have verbally assaulted him plenty of times while we've been in here, but this time, his face finally falls in a way that looks obsolete, like I chipped away the last bit of his resistance. His eyes hollow out as a glassy shimmer overtakes them. The color drains from his cheeks. His jaw slightly slacks before he turns his back and heads towards the door.

"Give me a minute," he mumbles, squeezing past PIXAL and disappearing from sight.

All of it locks up my throat, especially when she looks back at me with wide eyes. She goes to open her mouth, but I wrap myself in my covers, tears still pouring down my face, and keep my back to her. "Please leave...I can't be around you right now."

"I must find a replacement first," she explains so calmly and cooly, but I hear an edge of something else, something rawer that makes the tear in my chest so much bigger.

I don't say anything to her. I don't nod or even react. I just lie here, my body racking with sobs, as I neglect my own sister even more.

A/N Sorry that this one took so long to come out. School has been busy, but I get out in a month, and then I will be able to write for you all a lot more!

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