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Chapter 24 - After Dark

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Shift was starting to worry.

He lingered in the corridor that led to Indigo’s sleeping quarters, unsure whether to pursue Athira. As her door’s panels were engulfed in colour and slammed shut behind her, he realised that he was too late.

Shift sighed and walked back down the stairs into the common room, rolling his shoulder.

Today’s villain had been a particular pain, throwing him through a window and towards the wall beyond. The only reason his head wasn’t split like a watermelon now was because Athira’s colour had wrapped around his waist at the last second and pulled him forward, landing him awkwardly on his shoulder instead of repainting the wall Cu’lur Shift’s brain.

He was considering changing out of his suit and into something more comfortable when he spotted Zoe sitting on the couch, forehead resting in her hands. Her yellow aura flickered around her as it often did now the Elite’s armband was removed, but Shift suspected it was more due to her recent colour use than her emotions. Her face told a story coloured by guilt.

Shift went over and sat beside her.

“What’s up?”

Zoe glanced at him. “The colourle-- pink kid, the one that was with Reader,” she said. Shift could barely hear her over the entertainment system Talia had blaring in the corner. “I can’t stop thinking about him. What did we send him to when we let him go with Discord? When we handed him over?”

“We didn’t know, Zo,” said Shift. He rubbed her back. “Even if we did, what could we have done? Discord would have found out.”

“Something, anything.” Zoe shook her head. “We condemned that kid. We betrayed him. Zac. We betrayed Zac.”

“You think they’ll really hurt Zac?” asked Shift. “They need him alive and well if they want to figure out what he knows. You know as well as I do that if you mistreat a kid, they’re going to seal their lips and cry. Even Discord isn’t that stupid.”

“You think?” said Zoe. Her aura flickered, but she didn’t look convinced. “I hear his words before I go to sleep, you know. For a kid, he certainly had some vivid images in his head.”

“Like what?”

“Talking about the light,” said Zoe. “Every time I lit my hand up, like this,” she intensified the glow around her hands, “he’d try to grab it. Talk about the light being the only way to see through the dark, that the darkness would rule if the light wasn’t there. He mentioned pools of fire and broken rocks more than once too, huge mountains that were impassable except by the air. Pillars that shattered but always rebuilt.”

As Zoe’s description continued, Shift grew colder. “He saw Athira’s mindscape. Or something really, really similar. Although why is another question entirely.”

“He knew ‘he’ was coming, too. That the Sleeper was waking up.”

“I can only imagine how he lives with the knowledge,” mumbled Shift. “Especially if he sees it so vividly. Maybe he’s too young to understand what he was seeing.”

Zoe went silent.

Shift’s hand moved automatically across her shoulder blades, the heel of his hand applying pressure as it moved back and forth. Why would a child of prophecy be able to see Athira’s mindscape? Knowing of the Sleeper made sense, but a mindscape?

“What was it like in there?” Zoe asked after a moment. “In Athira’s mind?”

Shift paused, unsure of what Athira wouldn’t kill him for telling her.

It’s Zoe, he reasoned. She would have told her herself if she felt like she had the right to include other people in on her problems.

“Dark,” Shift began. “It was dark. Like Zac described with the pools of fire, the shattering pillars and the mountains, all of it. The clouds hung over the ground like they were pressing us down, and the whole time there was this... sense that something was watching us. Tracking our movements, waiting for the perfect time with flawless patience.”

“That’s her mindscape?” whispered Zoe. “Hunted in darkness?”

Shift took his hand from her back and gently punched her in the shoulder. “There was one ray of light, a sunbeam that illuminated a platform high above the rest. It was over a tree, and from what I understand, they were the only two things Athira couldn’t get rid of. But if she stayed there too long, it crumbled.”

“A ray of light,” repeated Zoe.

Shift placed a single finger to the centre of Zoe’s lit palm. A second later, he felt the rush of yellow colour through his system and brought his own hand up beside hers, this time glowing.

“A ray of light,” he confirmed.

Zoe gave him a half smile. “Thanks, Shift.” She sighed. “I just worry about her. Especially in the last two weeks, she gets back and just locks herself in the room. She’s changed the way she fights, too. With those colour blades on her arms. She’s never done that before, and it’s freaking me out.”

Shift let her words sink in.

The Herald secret Raph had sworn him to still anchored his mind and his heart every time he looked at Athira. Zoe wasn’t hard to hide it from. She was too innocent, too trusting to believe that her team would ever keep information from her.

But Athira? Shift knew every time Athira looked at him, that she knew something was being kept from her.

“It’s new to her, I guess,” said Shift. The excuse came way too easily. “She feels like she has rules to follow, can’t do things her own way anymore. It’d frustrate me too.”

Zoe shrugged. “I guess, but...”

Shift saw the question in her eyes. “You know she likes you better than me, right?”

Zoe’s eyes got wider.

God dammit.

“Fine,” he said, knowing further protests would have the same result. “But if she kills me, it’s on your conscience.”

Zoe bounded forward and threw her arms around him. “Thanks, Shift.”

Shift hugged her back. “You said that already. And you know the eyes aren’t fair.”

Zoe withdrew, trying to bite back her smile that now matched her aura. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said innocently.

Shift rolled his eyes and got up, taking a detour by the kitchen before he made the trip to Athira’s domain. How was he going to handle this? he wondered as he investigated various nooks and crannies of the cupboards. Waltz in, ask her how it was going? She’d barely spoken to him all week.

She’s barely spoken to anyone all week.

With some kind of fruit the Elites insisted contained essential vitamins for boosting colour in his mouth, Shift wandered back out into the room. Zoe was gone and Talia had ditched the entertainment system for repairing her suit. Shift hadn’t been the only one to take a pounding from their latest capture.

Shift tried to get past her smoothly.

“You’re going to talk to her, aren’t you,” said Talia as she replaced the metal band around her wrist with an undamaged one.

It wasn’t a question. “Yea,” said Shift, reluctantly turning to face her. “Going to try and find out how she’s coping with being on a team and all. Fighting crime like we do can be exhausting on the mind and body, you know?”

“Especially when you used to be that crime,” said Talia. She finished clipping on the band. “She’s sneaking out at night, you know. I put a sensor rune on her ceiling that records whenever someone uses their colour. Unless she’s getting in some midnight practice, Athira’s going somewhere.”

“She isn’t confined to her room,” said Shift. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Whatever you want, really,” said Talia. She stretched her neck and flexed her fingers, shaking them loose. “I’m done trying to warn you all. You want to play this game? Fine. Just don’t come crying to me when she tries to kill you all.”

With that, Talia turned and left.

Shift shook his head. At least she didn’t openly hate Athira anymore, although the tension between the two was undeniable. It was like their very presences set off a reaction in the other.

Well, in Talia, anyway, he amended. Athira was unreadable as the day he’d met her. For all Shift knew, she could have been daydreaming about replacing Discord for the rocks in a catapult.

His feet stopped once more outside Athira’s door.

Shift’s hand hovered over the unused panel that would open the door, still blinking as if the room were vacant. Talia’s words were floating around his head as he pressed the input code into the door and hit enter.

She’s sneaking out at night, you know.

The door panels opened.

Athira was lying stomach down on her bed, one knee draped over the side while her foot kept the leg from the floor. Her elbows propped up her chest, giving her eyes distance between them and the book she was reading. Her cloak lay in an indigo pile on the floor, but other than that she didn’t seem like she’d bothered to change after returning. Shift couldn’t help but admire what the pose did for her figure under the suits skin-hugging material.

Her head rolled around to face him, expression annoyed.

“And you’re in my room, why, exactly?” she said.

Shift’s attention jerked back into place. “Uh, just came to see if you’re okay. Zoe and the rest of us are worried about you, is all.”

Her eyes went downcast. “Fine. Just reading. You can go now.”

“Thira--“

She stiffened.

A moment later, the book snapped shut.

“Don’t ‘Thira’ me, Shift,” she said icily.

Athira placed the closed book on the pillow and pushed herself off the bed. Standing, she turned to face him. Despite her only coming up to his chin, Shift had never felt so intimidated in his life.

Her grey eyes blazed with something he wasn’t used to seeing in her. Hurt.

“Get out of my room.”

Shift took a step back at the venom in her words. He forgot how to speak.

Athira matched it with one of her own. “Now.”

She shoved him in the chest so hard he stumbled backwards. Once he was outside her room, her colour sealed the doors between them once more. Despite that, Shift felt like there was more than just a metal panel between them.

Much, much more.

*+*+*+*

A few hours later, Shift was still lying awake staring at the ceiling.

He squeezed his head between his hands. He didn’t know why this was bothering him so much. The look she’d given him, the bite in her voice. This Athira was closed off, distant from the one he’d come to know. Or thought he knew.

Whatever, he thought, turning on his side. Why the hell are females so confusing?

He couldn’t get comfortable. His brain refused to shut down as one little niggling thought at the back of it kept the organ awake and running until he could ignore it no longer.

You need to tell her.

Shift closed his eyes and sighed. The clock on his bedside table glowed green in the darkness, the numbers flashing 12:09. Any normal person would have been asleep by now, but somehow Shift knew that Athira wasn’t the type to be.

He flicked off the covers and swung his legs out of bed. This time, he had to be ready to talk. Explain. Not take no for an answer. Scenarios and sentences ran through his head, constructing them and forming Athira’s answers and how he’d respond.

Shift pulled a shirt on over his head while the tracksuit pants he’d attempted to sleep in still covered his legs. He tapped the button to open the door and walked out into the dark corridor. A little of Zoe’s colour remained in his system, so he used it to morph a small orb of light that floated above the palm of his hand.

The carpeted floor muffled his bare footsteps as he approached Athira’s room. As before, the panel was blinking, indicating there was still no one inside but by this stage, Shift was thinking it was more to do with Athira overriding the system by using her colour.

He punched in the ‘open’ code. The panels slid apart.

Shift lifted the little yellow orb of light, trying to illuminate the dark room.

Athira’s indigo cloak was still in a pile on the floor. Her suit was slung over the back of a chair. The book had been moved to the table beside her bed, carefully set beside the clock that flashed 12:11, turning to 12:12 as he watched.

But Athira herself was nowhere to be seen.

Shift moved into the room. He knocked on the closed bathroom door but got no response. The bedsheets were crumpled where she’d been laying beforehand but other than that, there was no sign of her. 

He stood in the centre of her room, beside the corner of her bed.

Talia was right.

Zoe’s orb died in his hand. Without the light and feeling strangely betrayed, Shift almost returned to his room when instinct stopped him.

He paused, trying to figure out what it was.

Colour buzzed just beneath the surface of his skin, agitated and wild. Just having dropped the last of its absorbed yellow colour, Shift knew there was only one thing that would set it off like this.

Athira.

Shift ran for the stairs, ignoring the elevator. He could move faster than it if he tried. The closer he got to the roof, the more he knew he was right. Athira was on the roof, for what reason he didn’t know, but he intended to find out.

Steps vanished beneath him bringing him closer to the sky until there were no more.

Shift unlocked the door leading outside. He paused for a moment, making sure he had his breath before he continued. One. Two. Three breaths. With a smooth movement, Shift pushed the door open and walked calmly outside.

The night air was chilled, as it always was this time of year. Sirah’s sky was covered beneath a patchwork blanket of clouds, hiding the moonlight from much of the city’s ground.

As Shift moved forward, looking for any signs of Athira or anyone else, all he could think of is how he should have worn shoes. The stone hard ground was freezing.

Shift approached the edge of the building without catching so much as a glimpse of colour, let alone Athira’s. His colour was still running haywire through him though, so maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe there was another source of--

Something struck him in the back.

Shift lurched forward, arms pin wheeling by his sides as he desperately tried to regain balance before he toppled off the base and became a pancake. The edge was dangerously close as he pulled himself back and rolled to the side, just in time to avoid a second strike from his attacker.

He got barely a glimpse of a figure clad in black before he was moving once again, trying to evade their strikes. They were shorter than he was, slighter too. If it came down to a battle of strength, he liked his chances. Only problem with that was there weren’t many villains in Sirah that preferred to brawl with fists rather than colour -- something Shift didn’t have until he took it.

The black clad figure advance on him, palms held out. Shift, figuring the best defense was a good offense, put his head down and charged.

He never reached them. A tide of colour swept his body away, rolling him towards the edge. The ankle-high edging of the roof never stood a chance to save him as his legs went over the side and pulled his torso with it.

Shift’s hands shot out automatically, grasping for the ledge before he plunged. His left failed, fingers catching nothing but air but his right managed to make contact. Three fingers kept him connected to the roof as the black clad figure stepped up on to the edging, one foot either side of Shift’s fingers.

They--she, by the shape of her chest--folded her arms.

“Don’t you know it’s not nice to follow people, Shift?”

Shift’s eyes went wide. “Athira? The hell are you doing? You almost killed me!”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. I wouldn’t have let you fall.”

Shift’s fingers started to lose their grip as he made an attempt to get his left hand back on the ledge. He was starting to seriously doubt his ability to get back up by himself when Athira extended her palms towards him. He felt her colour take hold, cocooning around his body up to his neck as she levitated him back to safety.

“There,” she said. “Now go back to bed and leave me alone. I have work to do.”

Shift eyed her. “Dressed like that?”

Her get up was strange, yet what it did for her appearance was... entrancing.

His initial glance was wrong. Athira’s garments weren’t entirely black. Most of it was dark grey and edged in intricate silver thread, although that wasn’t what demanded his attention now.

That was the long piece of silky looking material fastened around her throat, hugging her chest, winding around her waist until it reached her hips. There, it split off into an over and under layer, the latter which flared to the tops of her thighs. The over layer continued down, narrowing into a singular strip that hung down over her legs about halfway down her shins.

There were other bits to the outfit, sure. The black boots, grey leggings, the bare shoulders that showed her runes and the strange, almost feathery looking things fastened around her forearms and fingers, but Shift just couldn’t get over the chest piece.

Athira looked fierce, like some ancient goddess readying herself for battle. Like the ones in the legends, she looked like she’d stepped off the pages and into reality. None of the Elites had ever matched the raw presence Athira was commanding now.

Shift mulled it over for a moment until he realised.

This wasn’t Athira.

This was the Owl.

*+*+*+*

A/N - Give it a vote, maybe a comment if you're feeling generous? I love comments. Especially long ones, but I'll take any ;D REPLY TO THEM ALL! RAWR! MOTIVATION! 

Also Indigo is ranking pretty well, at this rate it might get higher than Sentinel ever did. ILY guys, thank you for stickin' around with me ^.^