by Tenaya Jayne
A sudden emotional intensity seized Forest as she watched the sky, and a rogue tear eased out of one of her emerald eyes. This was her home. As much as she loved Earth, she never wanted to give up all that she had fought for and accomplished. If things went awry on this trip, banishing herself to Earth forever felt like letting Leith and all those like him win. She would rather die fighting than cower and run. She would not acquiesce to failure. Failure might get the better of her, but not with her permission.
Syrus idly twirled the ends of his hair around his fingers. He twirled the words she had flung at him around in his mind the same way he did his hair. She had spoken without restraint, and she had told him succinctly what she thought of him. Instead of responding with temper and haughty indignation, Syrus considered this a rare opportunity for him. Forest’s respect had to be earned. She wasn’t dazzled by the fact that he was the prince the way most women were. In her eyes, the fact that he was the prince was just another strike against him. If he could earn her respect then she could become something odd and wonderful to him: a real friend.
Syrus thought about the possibility of Forest’s friendship for a while. Given her temperament, he didn’t think she could have many friends. He had no idea how to go about winning a friend, but he had to come up with a plan. At first, he had wanted to guard himself from her, but the more he replayed her voice over in his head, he began to want her to know who he really was.
Syrus smiled to himself as he ran through a mental list of all the things he knew about her, so far. She was far more guarded then he ever had been. The woman, no doubt, had many secrets. In the events of their newborn acquaintance, Forest had unwittingly let Syrus know more about her than she had intended. He discovered that he had a growing respect for her and decided that the best way to possibly begin a friendship was to be more open and just be himself. The smooth charm he regularly used on women would fall flat on her and the usual effect of his charm wasn’t what he was going for. Not this time anyway.
The knock on her door made Forest want to shout. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone the rest of the night? She sighed, steeling herself for what might happen next with Syrus, and opened the door.
“What is it, Syrus?” she asked wearily.
Syrus took a deep breath and then jumped in with both feet. “If you want to hate me for being born the Prince, that’s fine, go right ahead. But I didn’t choose it anymore that you chose to be born what you are. I’ll apologize for my behavior, and I shall strive to treat you with the respect you deserve from now on. But I won’t kiss your feet and I won’t ask you to kiss mine, either. Deal?”
Forest just blinked at him for a moment. “Okay. It’s a deal.”
Syrus astonished her again by flashing another guileless smile. “I’ll think about what you said about my hair. Just give me a little time.”
“Fine,” she said shortly.
“It’s evening now.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, what do you usually do in the evenings?”
Forest considered for a moment. He’d taken her abuse good naturedly—that surprised her. She could easily do something that would make the evening fun and memorable for him. “I usually make a fire outside and enjoy the onset of nightfall in my garden.”
“That sounds nice. Could we do that?” he asked.
“I guess. And I think we should make S’mores.”
“S’mores?”
“It’s a human thing. You’ll like it. It’s very silly. But you have to promise to eat some.”
“Oh. So it’s human food?” he asked.
Forest chuckled. “I don’t know if it’s actually food, but they eat it nonetheless.”
“I promise to try at least one bite.” The childlike excitement was radiating from him again.
“All right. I’ll get the stuff from the kitchen. If you want to go ahead and go outside, I’ll be right there.”
Forest had a difficult time finding where she had stored her marshmallows. When she surfaced from the house, her arms full of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate, she was surprised to see Syrus standing next to the fire pit, a fire already kindled.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
Syrus didn’t answer her, he just smiled blandly.
“You aren’t going to tell me how you started the fire?” she pushed.
He just continued to smile.
“Hmm…Tricky, aren’t you?”
“From time to time. So how does this work?”
Syrus played with the first marshmallow she gave him until it was mashed into a sticky pulp. She couldn’t really blame him for finding the consistency funny. When she tried to hand him a wire poker with a marshmallow on the end, instructing him to light it on fire, he just laughed and crossed his arms. It took her a while to convince him she wasn’t joking. He burned the first one down to nothing, lost the second one off the end of the poker, and nearly singed his eyebrows on the third as he tried to blow it out. Finally, she was able to help him complete a S’more.
“Okay. Now you’ve got to taste it. You promised.”
Forest watched amusedly as Syrus took a decent sized bite. His face went from initial shock to bemusement as he chewed. Then he smiled at her, sending her into a fit of laughter.
“What?” he asked, his mouth thick.
“You’ve got marshmallow stuck to your fangs,” she laughed. “Oh, if only a bunch of human girls could see you now! You’d ruin their vampire fantasies.”
He chuckled, licking at the goo on his teeth. “Yeah, why is that?”
“Well, I guess I could be wrong, but I don’t consider sticky fangs very sexy.”
“I was under the impression that you don’t find fangs sexy at all, sticky or otherwise.” He raised one eyebrow quizzically at her.
“I don’t,” she said quickly, brought up short. “Like I said, I was thinking about a human’s fantasy.”
“So humans know about vampires?” he asked seriously.
“Oh sure. I don’t think many of them believe that vampires are real, just myth. Their myths vary about lots of things too.”
“Like what? What do they think about us?”
Forest sighed. “There are so many ideas; I don’t know the half of them. There are scary vampires, sexy vampires, classic vampires, cliché vampires, hybrid vampires, vampires in space, take your pick. You can’t come out in the sunlight or you’ll burn to death. You probably know that that is true. Earth’s sun will kill you. There are some ideas that vampires are really dead, reanimated corpse stuff.”
“Eww. That’s gross,” Syrus interjected.
“Yeah. Let’s see, sleeps in a coffin, allergic to garlic, they know about silver. It goes on and on, and they keep changing their ideas. It really is just the fault of vampires crossing the portal and becoming so addicted to human blood that they basically go insane.”
“Sounds like it’s all great uncle Dracula’s fault.”
Forest laughed. “A lot of it is.”
“You’re the one who caught him the last time he tried to sneak through the portal, aren’t you?”
“Yup. Is he still mad about it?”
“Oh yeah he is! I try to avoid him as much as I can. He’s so annoying. And if he doesn’t get his fix of human blood every so often, he goes totally crazy. State events are excruciating with him, he always says the most embarrassing and inappropriate things. And he’ll drone on and on about the good old days in Transylvania, and when he does, the old accent comes back.”
Forest shrieked with laughter as Syrus wiggled his eyebrows theatrically at her and said, “You are a beautiful flower, my dear, come closer,” in an apt impersonation of Dracula.
Forest was amazed that she could laugh so hard. She hadn’t laughed like that in so long it totally escaped her memory.
“I can’t tell you how many movies have been made about him.”
“Really? Could you get some for me?” Syrus asked. “I bet they’re hilarious.”
>
“I might have a few in the basement. I’ll have to check.”
The fire crackled happily between them as Forest toasted another marshmallow.
“So, do you like working for Fortress?” he asked.
“Fortress just is. I can’t allow myself to have opinions about it, but I love being a traffic controller. It’s good to have the ability to have some status, and being on Earth keeps me out of Regian politics.”
“Is there anything on Earth like Fortress?”
“Sure. Some of them are secret and they all seem to be named with acronyms like, CIA, KGB, FBI, and MI6.”
“Have you spent any time as a spy?”
Forest laughed. “Not a real one. Some of what I’ve done in the past is similar to being a spy, I suppose. When I was first hired at Fortress, I had to take all kinds of aptitude tests; the results were not very flattering. I was given a very low ranking as a possible spy.” She was not sure why she had just told him that and wished she hadn’t.
“Hmm…I bet it said something like ‘too volatile.’ Am I right?”
“Something like that,” she replied bitterly. “I don’t care. I never wanted to be a spy. Everyone at Fortress slots you as a spy if you are a Shape shifter. It’s just racial profiling.”
“Ah, well.” Syrus shrugged. “We are all victims of stereotypes from time to time, aren’t we?”
She narrowed her eyes. Yes, he would know something of that.
They were quiet for a while, and Syrus began twisting his wire poker between his fingers. Forest couldn’t bring herself to pick the conversation back up, and Syrus didn’t seem to care. She allowed herself to stare at him. His expression was blank like he had simply left his body and gone elsewhere. His lack of expression, coupled with his pupilless eyes, was unnerving. He seemed so far away. It was starting to grow dark and the firelight cast shadows about his angular face. The bone structure of his brow and cheeks was so sharp, so masculine, but his mouth was soft and full.
Syrus had a sense that Forest was staring at him. Over the last few years, he had become accustomed to being stared at by those around him. Now he was having a sensation that he couldn’t account for: his eyes hurt. It felt like his shut pupils were straining to open, to see. He had the feeling that a fleeting opportunity was passing before him.
Syrus smiled suddenly, making Forest startle guiltily. “You know, I was just thinking how very much I wish I could stare at you as openly and unabashed as you stare at me.”
Forest huffed. “If you could see, you wouldn’t look at me any longer than was necessary. I’m really quite hideous.”
“Well, that was a large compliment. Thank you.”
“Huh?” Forest asked bewildered.
“Since you think ugly people are not worth looking at, you must think I’m devastatingly attractive. You’ve been staring at me for a long time.” He laughed when she made no reply. “Fascinating that you make no attempt to deny or contradict me.”
Forest was burning with embarrassment. She had to change the subject and fast. “How did you get all those scars?” she asked quickly.
“Training.”
“That must be terrible—” she said in a falsely sympathetic tone “—being well trained and never getting to really exercise your skills. I think I’d die of self-pity.”
Syrus refused to take the bait, he merely smiled at her. “I almost did once. No one thought I would pull through. But then, as you said earlier, I’m a narcissist. I love myself too much to just let myself die.”
There was another momentary silence, more uncomfortable than the previous.
“I’m not everything you accused me of,” he said quietly.
Forest had been waiting for him to bring this up. She was surprised that it had taken him this long to complain about her insults. “Oh?” she prompted.
“No. I am, unfortunately, some of those things, it’s true.”
“And you’ll enlighten me, no doubt, about which ones,” she said acidly.
“No. I hope in the course of this journey, you’ll find out for yourself and unwittingly form a better opinion of me.”
“I see. You must have a nasty opinion of me in return.”
“Not at all,” Syrus said seriously. “I have a very high opinion of you.”
“Why?” she demanded aggressively.
Forest felt aggravated when he smiled at her again.
“Now, now, you can’t go asking questions like that and expect me to answer them. I’d embarrass the both of us.”
Forest was embarrassed anyway. She wished she hadn’t asked him why. She realized how stupid she’d made herself sound; like she didn’t deserve respect from anyone. She hoped that thought hadn’t occurred to him.
“Despite all my faults, would you consider being my friend, Forest?”
Forest couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d slapped her in the face. “I … uh…”
Syrus waited for her reply, one eyebrow raised.
“I don’t know how,” she finally managed.
Syrus laughed, not in mocking, but a release of his own tension. “Neither do I.”
“You really want to be my friend?” she asked seriously.
“I swear on my hair.”
“Well, that’s an oath I can take seriously,” she said emphatically.
“Would you tell me about your childhood, Forest?”
Forest hated to admit to herself that she was touched. No one ever asked her about her childhood, not even Kindel. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“What are your parents like?”
“Dead,” she said shortly.
“Dead?”
“My mother died during my adolescence. And my father is alive as far as I know, but he’s dead to me. I don’t even know who he is, only that he is an Elf of some rank.” Her voice was completely devoid of emotion.
“Do you think your father knows about you?”
“Oh, he knows about me all right. The only thing he ever did for me was force my mother to send me to the Academy. He was determined that even his shameful bastard would have the best education.” Forest threw a marshmallow violently into the fire. “I guess he meant well, but I wish he never would have taken any notice of me at all.”
Syrus was listening, but when she mentioned the Academy, he remembered something Redge had said about her. “So that’s how you know my cousin, Leith.”
Forest’s insides went cold. “What?” she asked deadly quiet.
“You know my cousin, Leith. You must have met at the Academy. He spoke of you to my guard, Redge. I thought it odd that you two should have occasion to know each other. Now it makes sense.”
“What did Leith say about me?” Forest asked through clenched teeth.
“Oh, I don’t remember now. It was something nice though, a compliment. Something about your eyes, I think.”
Forest realized that Syrus didn’t know anything, but she felt like she was going to erupt regardless. All she could do was run away.
“Forest? Forest?!” Syrus called at her retreating back. He carefully walked around the fire and followed her back to the house. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” he asked as he closed the front door behind him.
“No. I’m tired and I want to go to sleep now. You should do the same.”
“Okay,” Syrus said confusedly. “Thank you for the evening. I enjoyed it.”
“Good night, Syrus.” Her voice was harsh, and she practically sprinted away from him to her room.
“Good night,” he said quietly, sure she hadn’t heard him.
She leaned against her door after she shut it, breathing heavily. She’d had to get away from him and his questions. She didn’t think they could be friends. Friendship was built on knowledge. Knowledge was too high a price. She couldn’t afford it. So Leith was his cousin. Just when she was starting to think Syrus was half way decent.
Forest got ready for bed quickly. She was so tired her muscles were rubbery in some places,
knotted like macramé in others. She listened at her door for a few moments to see if she could hear Syrus moving around. Silence. Because she thought it best to still consider him her enemy, Forest opened her door a crack to better hear, before turning out the lights and crawling into bed.
An hour later, Forest’s eyes were cinched shut but her brain refused to stop whirring like a computer that had been left on too long. She never had any trouble falling asleep, and it wasn’t like Syrus was making too much noise—he wasn’t making any. She wasn’t even thinking coherent thoughts about him, but his face haunted her. Time lumbered on in a slow agonizing dirge as Forest fought to shoo him from her mind and drift off to sleep.
Syrus sat on the edge of his bed again, half meditating. He was tired, but his irritation would not allow him to relax. He could feel Forest all the way across the house. His door was cracked open just like hers, and because there was no other noise in the house, he was able to hear her breathing faintly. She was not asleep. His muscles constricted every time she sighed or rolled over. He had never been so physically aware of another person as he was at that moment, and it was maddening. He knew he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman, and he was incredulous of his own desire. He didn’t even have a mental picture of how she looked. He had been trying to make one up but was so far unsuccessful. The tones and nuances of her voice were clear in his head and he had been conjuring it for a while, listening to her speak inside his mind.
He was desperate to know why the mention of Leith had set her off. What kind of history could illicit such a strong and immediate response? Leith had obviously mortally offended her. Syrus needed to distance himself from any association to Leith she might draw. He figured that wouldn’t be too hard. He wasn’t at all close with his cousin. He didn’t have many occasions to meet with him. His opinion of Leith was vague.
The night continued to mature, and Syrus was acutely aware when Forest finally fell asleep. He listened to her breathing as she slipped deeper and deeper. He waited. When he knew she had achieved a level of sleep that she would not wake from easily, he made a decision based purely on instinct and frustration. He’d had a very weak moment earlier in the night when he considered reaching for his flask of human blood and taking a small drink. But he knew that would have been utter folly. He wouldn’t have been able to do it without making some cry of pain. It would have woken her. So he did the only other thing he could.
