Rocked: Elemental Warriors

by Ashley West

  And then he’d seen her.

  She was sitting on a bench across the street from him, head tipped up so the warm sun was shining on her face. Her eyes were closed, and her hair was falling down her back, and for a moment, Kain was unsure if he’d ever seen anything so alluring before in his life. Which was saying something because he’d see a lot in his relatively short life.

  Before he was truly conscious of the decision, he was crossing the street and standing behind her bench, towering over her.

  The shadow that he cast obscured the light from her face, and he watched as a frown marred her features before she opened her eyes and looked right at him.

  Silvia swore and jumped, nearly falling off of the bench in her surprise. Kain just stood there.

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” she asked, glaring up at him.

  “No,” Kain replied, because it was the truth.

  “Then what are you doing?” she wanted to know.

  And wasn’t that a good question. Kain hadn’t really stopped to think before he’d come over here to speak to her. It had been nearly automatic, and it surprised him, if he was being honest about it. On the other hand, she had been there for him recently when all he’d wanted was to talk about how he never understood anything the Prince said anymore and how homesick he was for the place where he belonged.

  She hadn’t judged him or tried to remind him that his place was at his Prince’s side. She’d just listened while he talked, something that had looked interestingly like longing in her eyes.

  So now she was there, and he was there, and there was more on his mind, but he didn’t know if it was appropriate to unload on her again.

  She looked up at him, head tilted, and then she got to her feet. “Come on,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Come on. You clearly have something on your mind, and there’s nothing better for that than a walk and some ice cream.”

  Kain frowned, confused, but when she started to walk away, he followed, trusting that she knew what she was doing and where she was going. After all, it wasn’t like he’d had anywhere in mind to go.

  So they walked, and Silvia explained to him that this was a public park. There were children and animals running around, laughing and throwing and chasing things. The sun was shining, and the temperature was moderate, and even with the noise from the others around them, there was something about this that was just peaceful. It soothed something that had been knotted up inside of him, and they walked along in silence for a while until they reached a young woman with a cart.

  There was a short line in front of it, and Silvia directed him to stand with her. “It’s ice cream,” she said. “Do you have that where you’re from?”

  Kain watched as a child walked away from the cart with a strange cone shaped object, piled high with scoops of some colorful, creamy looking substance. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

  “Then you are in for a treat,” Silvia said, grinning.

  They were next, and she stepped up to the cart, one finger pressed against her bottom lip as she pursued the hand written list next to the cart while the young woman running it waited patiently.

  For all he could read the list, it didn’t make all that much sense to him. He didn’t understand what a butter pecan was, and he was equally in the dark about lemon pistachio.

  “What looks good?” Silvia asked him, and Kain shot her a look that was meant to convey ‘how would I know?’ with clear disdain.

  She rolled her eyes at him and turned back to the young woman. “Let me get a split cup of New York Cheesecake and praline pecan please, and then a triple cup with praline pecan, maple bacon, and...sugar cookie.”

  The young woman looked amused as she filled their orders and then traded the strange paper and metal money that humans seemed to favor for two cups of something that smelled cold and delicious.

  Silvia passed the larger cup to him and then motioned for him to keep walking. She didn’t say anything, just dipped her pink plastic spoon into the treat in her hand, so Kain followed suit.

  He hesitated before plopping the bite in his mouth, unsettled by the streaks and chunks in the cold cream. But he was a warrior, and he wasn’t intimidated by things like desserts, so he put the bite in his mouth and then made a noise of surprise.

  “Too cold?” Silvia asked.

  “No, it’s— It’s good,” he said.

  She grinned at him. “I could have told you that. One of the best treats on Earth when you’re having a bad day.”

  And he could see why. It was cold, but it was also a delightful and nearly strange mix of flavors. Sweetness mixed with a salty, savory tang in his mouth, and he couldn’t stop eating it, even when the cold made his head ache.

  Silvia ate her own treat and laughed at his inexperience, smiling a warm smile. It was a nice smile, Kain decided. He also decided that he liked the way her mouth moved as she ate, the spoon dipping between her full lips only to be pulled back out again afterwards and then licked with the flat of her pink tongue.

  He realized he was staring and shook himself, not wanting to be rude.

  “So,” Silvia said after they had walked and ate in silence for a bit. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Why do you want to hear about it?” Kain asked. And, okay, that part was rude, but he was curious why anyone would want to listen to him whine when there were so many other things they could be doing.”

  “I wouldn’t say I want to hear about it,” Silvia said. “But you seem like you could use someone to talk to, and I’d rather focus on your problems than mine, to be honest. They seem more interesting.”

  “That’s because they’re yours,” Kain pointed out. “No one’s problems seem interesting to themselves.”

  “Mmm, maybe,” Silvia allowed. “I think I’ve just been turning my own crap over and over again in my head too much. It’s nice to use someone else’s crap as a break sometimes.”

  “Thanks,” Kain said dryly.

  “You know what I mean.”

  And he did. And it was easy for him to let it all come pouring out of him once he gave himself permission to let it. He told her about Comman and about the rest of the guard and their disrespect, and how it was driving him crazy to see someone he respected so much be treated like that.

  “And the part that makes me the angriest is that he tries so hard,” Kain said. “He’s doing this for them, for all of us, and they act like he’s never done anything of worth. His mother was a great warrior, and he won’t ever be one, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not worth respecting. Isn’t there something to be said for intellect and loyalty?”

  “There is,” Silvia agreed. “In most places, anyway. It seems like your fellow guard members have a different idea of what merits respect, though.”

  “Because they’re idiots,” Kain said. “And most of them haven’t done anything worthy of respect themselves, and yet they’re content to sit there and pass judgment on the Prince for doing his best.”

  Silvia was quiet for a moment and then she smiled at him. “It seems like you at least look at the prince with plenty of respect. So he has that going for him.”

  “It’s not enough, though,” Kain said. “I can’t change the minds of everyone else.”

  “No,” Silvia agreed. “But maybe he can. Maybe this will help.”

  “Perhaps.”

  They lapsed into silence again, and Kain made a face when he realized he had been talking about his own problems for so long. They had finished their ice creams, and walked around most of the park, and were near the bench that they had started from again. It felt selfish, weighing Silvia down with the burdens of his life without offering to take hers from her as well.

  “Do you want to talk about your ‘crap’ as you put it?” he asked.

  She looked up at him, surprised. “What?”

  “Isn’t that how this works? I unload on you and then you do the same to me? A back and forth? Equal exch
ange?”

  She looked stunned that he had even asked, and Kain couldn’t tell if he was doing the right thing or not. Maybe that wasn’t something humans did? But then her surprise melted into a look that was all relief, and she sighed. “Actually...yeah. It’s been a really long time since I’ve had someone impartial to talk to.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to be impartial?” Kain wanted to know.

  Silvia shot him a look. “Because you don’t know the other person involved in my crap. For that matter, you don’t even know me.”

  She had a point there, and Kain nodded, allowing it. “Alright, then,” he said. “Unload on me.”

  Honestly, he wasn’t really sure what he had been expecting. Humans were supposedly shallow creatures, driven by greed and the lust of power. He’d been taught that they were simple and brutish, and that they were willing to go to absurd lengths to get what they wanted.

  But that wasn’t what he was hearing from Silvia. What he was hearing was that she was lost and confused, looking for a path of her own, and that was something that seemed to be the opposite of shallow.

  “I kind of envy you,” she admitted. “You have this cause, this drive. This thing that keeps you going. You’ve wanted it for so long, and there was hardly even a question of you not getting it. I’ve never had anything like that. When I was a kid, I would have given anything to just be normal. I just wanted to be like everyone else. And then Bobby came along and made it seem okay to be something other than normal, and...I clung to him. And now it’s however many years later, and I don’t know what else to cling to.”

  Her voice was sad as she said it, and Kain frowned. “Who is Bobby?” he asked, pronouncing the silly sounding name with a wrinkled nose.

  Silvia laughed at the face he made and then sighed. “He’s my...well. He’s kind of my everything. That’s not how I wanted it to be, but it’s what happened. Before I knew it, he was in every part of my life. We were together, like in a relationship, and he also owns the building I live in and would be my boss if I go with his job offer.”

  “It sounds like he’s your Prince,” Kain said.

  “Are you and this Prince Comman in a relationship you haven’t told me about?” Silvia asked, wickedness sparking in her eyes. “Because that would explain a lot about the two of you now that I think of it.”

  “We are not,” Kain said, shooting her a withering look. “He is my liege. It’s different.”

  “I know. I was just teasing you. Anyway, he’s not my Prince,” she insisted. “He’s just...he’s important to me. He’s been there for me a lot, and that means a lot to me, honestly.”

  “And so you feel like you owe him?”

  Her head snapped up and she gave him a confused expression. “No. I don’t feel like that.”

  “Oh.” Kain blinked, confused himself, now. “It just seems like you feel like you have some sort of obligation to him. Perhaps an unspoken one, but still.”

  “No, I…” She trailed off, and Kain watched her face. Emotions played across it, lovely as it was, and he had to shake himself. Getting too involved with the locals was a bad thing. He really shouldn’t have even been there right then, getting too chummy with this one. Because he was going to leave, and he’d never be able to erase his presence here. Kain took a step away from her, widening the distance between them. “He asked me to marry him,” Silvia said all at once. “Marriage is—”

  “I know what marriage is,” Kain said. “Or at least I can infer what marriage is.”

  She nodded. “Well, he asked me to marry him. He’s asked so many times, I think I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said no.”

  “He continues to ask?”

  She nodded again.

  Kain made a face. “That isn’t honorable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have made your choice clear, and he doesn’t respect it.”

  The confused look was back on her face, and Kain had to wonder if no one had ever told her things like this before. How had she made it if that was the case? Didn’t she know that she deserved to have someone who would respect her if she said no? It made him angry to think about someone ignoring her wishes like that.

  “It’s not that he doesn’t respect it,” Silvia argued. “It’s that he thinks I’m going to change my mind. He wants...he wants me to be his wife.”

  “Yes,” Kain said, speaking slowly so she would understand what he was trying to say. “He wants you, and you don’t want him, and yet he keeps asking. So what he wants is more important than what you want.”

  “Maybe it’s different on your planet,” Silvia said, lips pressed tightly together. “There’s nothing wrong with loving someone and having hope.”

  “You can’t claim to love someone if you don’t even respect them,” Kain countered.

  “You don’t know anything about it!”

  “I know what you have told me. And it sounds like he doesn’t respect you or care about your choice.”

  “Well, that’s not how it is,” she snapped. “You can’t expect things here to be the same as things where you’re from. That’s not how the world works.”

  Kain scoffed a laugh. “And you’re so well traveled that you know how the world works, are you? You’re as obsessed with yourself and your greed as any other of your kind,” he said. “Respect is universal.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  He opened his mouth to argue with her and then let a controlled breath out through his nose instead. He was a member of the Prince’s Guard. A member of the Stone Guard. There was nothing to be gained from standing here having a loud disagreement with a human. There were more important things to be done.

  “I need to return to my duties,” Kain said, voice clipped and polite. “Thank you for the ice cream and for listening.”

  Silvia looked surprised, especially when he affected a short bow in her direction. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, flapping a hand at him.

  Kain rolled his eyes and stalked off, irritated.

  Chapter Six: Decide and Decide

  “And then he said it’s because Bobby doesn’t respect me,” Silvia said, irritation mounting when she remembered his words. “Like Bobby isn’t one of the most generous people on the whole face of the planet. And like he’s ever met Bobby in the first place. Which he hasn’t. I just—ugh. Where does he get off, you know? Passing judgement on someone and something he doesn’t even understand.” She was pacing in her living room, Bridgett sitting on the couch in front of her, eyes tracking her progress while she sipped from a glass of wine.

  It had been a full day since she and Kain had gotten into their argument in the park, and it was still bothering her. So much so, that she’d needed to rant to someone about it. Of course, Bobby himself was out, so she’d called up her other friend, in need of some reassurance.

  “Wait,” Bridgett said, arching a brow. “Who are we talking about here? Usually when you’re ranting about a guy, it’s about Bobby himself.”

  “Oh.” Silvia made a face, realizing she’d never said. “It’s this other guy I know.”

  “A guy you know from where?” Bridgett asked, leaning in.

  Silvia rolled her eyes. If she let her, Bridgett would focus on nothing but this for the whole night. “Just someone I met. Remember when we were at that cafe, and I went over to talk to that one guy?”

  “The really tall, muscular one?” Bridgett demanded. “Because you still haven’t said how you know him or where he came from or if he’s single.”

  “Can we focus here, Bridge? Please? Because this is so not about that guy.”

  “Sounds like it’s a little bit about that guy. I mean, you’ve been going on about him for fifteen straight minutes. I’ve been timing it. And you know what I think?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

  “I think,” Bridgett continued loudly like Silvia hadn’t even spoken. “That you’re doing one of those ‘the lady doth protest too much’ kinda th
ings.”

  “I am not!”

  “You are so! Look. You’re my friend, and I love you, I do. But you’ve got to make up your mind when it comes to this Bobby thing. Either you want him to stop asking you to marry him or you want to marry him. And then when this other guy comes along and says that he’s rude to keep asking, you get so defensive, like it doesn’t bother you every single time Bobby does it. You wanna know what I think?”

  “No,” Silvia muttered, well aware that she sounded like a petulant child.

  Bridgett continued again like she hadn’t said anything. “I think this guy is right. I think Bobby doesn’t actually care what you want as long as it revolves around him. And I think you know that. But I think that it makes you happy or something when he keeps asking you to marry him. A girl’s gotta have a backup plan, I’m not faulting you for that. But you need to accept that’s what it is or move on. You’re never gonna find what you’re looking for in life if you don’t.”

  Silvia wanted desperately to argue. She wanted to say that there was no way she was happy when Bobby kept asking her to marry him and that she was fine not having a backup plan, but… But it didn’t feel like the truth. She already knew what Bobby wanted, but neither of them knew what she wanted. Bobby’s proposals were always skewed so that it seemed like it would be easier for her to find what she wanted if she was with him, but was that just about him getting what he wanted?

  “Uh oh,” Bridgett said. “Realization face.”

  “I just...I never wanted it to be about that.”

  “Oh, honey. I don’t think he wanted it to be about that, either. But he’s Bobby. He’s used to getting what he wants, and he doesn’t understand when he can’t have it. And you’ve tried to explain it to him, and he still doesn’t get it, so…” She shrugged.

  “So maybe Kain was right. Ugh, that means I’m going to have to apologize for snapping at him.” And have a very uncomfortable conversation with Bobby, but one painful thing at a time.

  “Oooh, his name is Kain?” Bridgett asked, turning the conversation back to what she clearly wanted to talk about.