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Chapter Thirteen


"Why did you not tell me? What could have possessed you to not only choose not to tell me, but to go as far as to let me go on believing that life on other planets was all just some sort of sci-fi story fodder? A fantasy. Was there some noble reason that I cannot see? Did you think I couldn't handle it? And did you ever intend to tell me?"

Lauren finally managed to pull the cork off of her bottled up emotions, and the questions won't stop coming. Neither will the emotions, though they mostly consist of anger and confusion now. She feels deceived. Betrayed. Foolish.

"Or perhaps you didn't think it important for a young girl to know something like that." she clinches her fists at the words that just came out of her own mouth and looks to the sky as she shouts "How could that not be of utmost importance, mother?"

She's been out here for at least an hour, just thinking. Thinking and raging. It's gotten colder with each passing moment since the sun set just over five hours ago, and that's no joke seeing as how it only hit a high of twenty three degrees today, and that was several hours before the darkness came, during which time it had dipped even lower.

Wrapping her arms around herself to stave off the chill that tries to invade the very core of her being, Lauren continues "This changes everything, mother. It changes who I am. What my people are like. How I should live. What I can do. It changes me. I am not me anymore. Or rather, I am not who I always thought I was. Who I tried to be. I am none of those things which I had been proud to say I was." tears begin flowing anew as another thought emerges that she had never considered before "Am I even your daughter?"

Slumping down into the snow, Lauren sits numb emotionally and physically, wondering what her purpose is, and questioning everything she's ever known. It's a good while before she realizes just how cold she's gotten, and how badly she needs to get to warmth before frostbite or hypothermia set in.

Standing, she walks toward the house, stumbling along the way, due in part to the snow that's quickly accumulating, and in part to the numbness that's gnawing away at her muscles' ability to support her. Soon enough she realizes that she won't make it very far in this condition — certainly not to the house. Fear sets in and she begins looking around considering her options, but there's only one.

Off to her right she sees the large building she'd injured herself opening when she first got here. She doubts she can pull that open with all of the snow on the ground in front of it, and her nearly frozen muscles, but she has no other shelter in sight, so she decides to give it her best try.


Upon reaching the door finally, after having taken what must have been a full five minutes to reach a door that couldn't have been more than sixty yards away, Lauren stoops down and scoops the snow away from the front of the door with her gloved hands. Once she's cleared most of the offending white fluff away from the entrance to the large mystery building, she grabs the handle and gives it the hardest tug that her weakened muscles can offer. To her surprise the door comes flying open with such force that she's knocked backward and lands in the snow behind her.

Now how on Earth did that happen?

Sitting up she looks into the dark building, and unsurprisingly, can see nothing beyond the open door. Still, dark or not, she has no other option available, and so rising to her feet and dusting the snow off, she heads into the building. As she pulls the door closed behind herself, she marvels at how it closes just as easily as it had opened this time. Odd.

"This has to be the darkest room I've ever seen." she thinks aloud "I can't even see the floor under my feet. In fact I can't see my feet — or my anything else for that matter."


Fumbling blindly through the darkness, Lauren scoots her feet across the dirt floor and slides her hands along the walls and boxes, looking for something big enough to sit on. Pressing ever onward she works her way to a large box and sits down on top of it. Sitting there a moment, she notices something that strikes her as peculiar: there's no source of heat in here, yet somehow she feels warmth that seems to be emanating from somewhere to her right. Warmth. That's something she needs desperately right now.

Rising back to her half frozen feet, Lauren begins scooting them again, keeping one hand on the wall beside her for guidance, and one hand held out in front of herself to avoid walking into anything. As she continues journeying farther into the dark room, she finds herself growing warmer and warmer until finally her outstretched hands come into contact with a wall. This is where the warmth was coming from. Sitting down on the ground against it, she feels her muscles relaxing and her body thawing as the warmth envelops her. And before she knows it, she's drifting off to sleep.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Opening her still sleepy eyes, Sanya immediately realizes three things: she slept all night sitting on the couch, it's half past six AM, and Lauren didn't come home last night.

At that last thought, Sanya quickly rises to her feet and grabs her coat and boots. After putting them on and wiping furiously at her eyes to get the sleep out of them, she heads out the door and into the dimly lit early morning. She knows that Lauren must be safe since she hasn't sensed any danger other than a brief flash last night, and considering how no sense of harm had followed, she'd simply deduced that Lauren had been afraid of something briefly before calming back down.

Where could she have gone? Sanya wonders as she scans her scarcely visible surroundings. After looking around the house and the flower garden behind it, she decides to check Lauren's special retreat in the woods, but that too proves to be a dead end. Wait, she's probably at Aaron's house. Why hadn't she thought of that sooner? It was the logical first place to check after all. But then Lauren hadn't exactly been acting logically — certainly not like herself anyway.


As she walks back to the house, Sanya replays the previous night's events in her head: what could she have done differently to have ensured a better outcome? She's a firm believer in the idea that everything that happens occurs as a result — direct or indirect — of one's actions, and that reasoning that things are fated, destined, or unavoidable, are mere attempts at indemnifying oneself.

Destiny is for the weak and the cowardly.

Holding such beliefs, she always makes it a point to analyze her actions in a situation that ends with a less than desirable outcome. That's how she went from a common criminal who stole whatever she could in order to eat and getting caught and locked up for pickpocketing as a kid, to one of the most infamous and elusive criminals in not only this galaxy, but a few others nearby as well. It's also how she had become such a skilled pilot. Life to her is not a matter of uncontrollable happenings that randomly shape a person, but rather an outcome that is shaped by people. And by her estimation, most of how people and their lives turn out are in their control. Usually.

Let's see, Sanya continues her reasoning as she passes the large building she'd been found in by Lauren and Aaron when she first arrived. Well I suppose my biggest goof was not telling her myself. Sure there were a lot of things to drop on her in one night, but Aaron could have handled it better than he did. Maybe sat down and talked with her about it. He's a good guy but he can't communicate very well. He hides. I can't stand people hiding. The truth is something that you have to stand up and face.

Stopping for a moment, Sanya stands still as she realizes that she's been running for years now. Ever since she'd seen Oankagei die before her. She'd hidden the truth of his decease from everyone, assuming that they could never believe her, let alone understand how it all happened. Perhaps they wouldn't have listened to her over the royal family, he was their beloved king after all — to the point that many seemed to border or worshipping the man — but she could have at least tried. She could have told Aaron when he spoke with her about it, and she could have told Lauren when she'd asked about her past. And in hiding the full truth about it all from Lauren, had she acted like Aaron did? No doubt about it, she could have acted better. She could have faced her fears.


Shaking her head, Sanya pushes further thoughts on this matter aside, and convinces herself that she isn't refusing to deal with it still, now she's just handling more important matters first. She'll get to the rest in due time. With her head mostly cleared, Sanya continues her trip back toward Aaron's house. As it comes into view she scans the area once more but sees no sign of anyone trudging through the knee deep snow except for her own tracks. Nobody has walked through here in several hours probably, as it hadn't been snowing this morning when she came outside, nor had it started back since.

Climbing the steps to Aaron's porch carefully, Sanya opens the front door and enters the house. Stepping inside she hears Lauren in the kitchen, and, breathing a thankful sigh of relief, decides to act casual as though nothing had happend, just in case Lauren still hadn't calmed down completely. As she rounds the corner however, Sanya sees that Aaron is the one in the kitchen.

"Really?" Sanya says as though Aaron should feel ashamed of himself. "With all that's going on, you decided to enjoy some rice cakes?"

"Well I wouldn't exactly say that I'm enjoying them." Aaron answers as he holds his last one out in front of him and looks at it disappointedly. "They're pretty bland."

"Seriously? That's all you have to say?" Sanya replies, not even trying to hide her disgust.

"They're a little stale too."


Sanya is not amused.

Walking closer she slams her fists on the table, causing Aaron's plate to bounce up off of it and some of his juice to slosh over the brim of the cup. "Be serious here, Aaron. You know what I'm talking about. He's going to be here soon, and I don't even know where Lauren is. She never came home last night."

"You know something?" Aaron says and takes a sip of orange juice "You worry too much."

Staring at him like he's lost his mind, Sanya shakes her head in confusion and turns to walk out "I don't even know what to think of you right now. It was your nonchalance about the whole thing that got us into this mess to begin with. I'm gonna go look for her now. Enjoy your breakfast."

"I'm not entirely sure that's possible. Enjoying this breakfast that is. And what mess are we in exactly? She's okay, isn't she?"

"How should I know how she is?" Sanya says as she whirls around, anger written on her face "I haven't seen her since she ran off last night."

"Is your spider sense stinging? Is it stinging? No, that's not right... itching maybe?..."

"What?"

"Oh right, you wouldn't get that, would you? Haven't been here long enough. Oh well." he replies as he stands up, having finished his rice cake. "Look, you're linked to Lauren, so you would know if anything had happened to her. You haven't sensed it, so stop worrying. Besides she's in the shrine."

"Just because she hasn't been hurt yet doesn't mean she..." Sanya's words trail off as she realizes what he just said. "She's where?"

"In the shrine." Aaron answers, placing his dishes in the sink. "Come on, I'll show you."

"How do you know where she is?"

"She's interacting with the ship." Aaron answers as he heads past a confused Sanya and to the door behind her, leaving her staring at the spot where he had just stood.

"What?" the word comes out emphatically, expressing Sanya's bewilderment.


____________________________


Lauren wakes as a ray of sunlight spills across her face — the bright light covering her eyelids after sitting in that pitch dark room for so long would be enough to rouse anyone. Opening her eyes, she holds her right hand out to shield them against the blindingly bright beam that comes from the doorway where Aaron and Sanya stand.

"See? I told you she was here." Aaron says as he gestures toward her.

"You said the shrine."

"This is the shrine."

"Huh?" Sanya looks around at the dirt floor, unpainted splintering wood walls, and boxes stacked up everywhere. This is where she had been found. "What the heck kind of shrine is this?"

"A smart kind, that's what." Aaron answers as he steps inside "Would you ever peg a place this plain and run down as housing anything important?"

"I wouldn't peg this place as housing anything but rats. It's a dump." Sanya replies as she walks slowly behind him, looking at the poor condition of the building.

"Thanks!" Aaron replies, his voice playfully cheery.

"What are you two doing here?" Lauren asks, her tone not the most warm or welcoming.

"We're here because Sanya was worried about you, so I had to show her you were okay."

"Well don't be." she says as she gets up off of the floor and walks toward the door.

"Good to see you too." Sanya replies as Lauren brushes past her.

Turning to see Lauren walk out of the shrine, Aaron looks at Sanya "Well then, she seems awfully cheery this morning."

"Yeah." Sanya answers as she too heads out.


______________________________


It's been nearly an hour since Lauren walked out of the shrine, and she's gone back to her normal routine for the most part, but she still refuses to speak to Sanya or Aaron, opting instead to walk away anytime they come near.

"Lauren, I really need to talk to you." Aaron says as she walks past him for what must be the tenth time today.

She says nothing, just keeps on walking.

"Listen up, little girl." Sanya calls out from behind her, speaking much louder than necessary "I've had just about enough of you acting like a spoiled little brat, alright?"

Stopping dead in her tracks, Lauren turns around and shouts "I am NOT a little girl! I am a grown woman, and you two treating me like a child is getting old!" she lowers her voice but sounds no less furious for it "You kept hiding this all from me. You sneaked around whispering about me behind my back, all because you didn't think I was grown up enough to handle it. I'm not a child, so I'd appreciate it if you stopped treating me as such."

"Maybe if you'd have stopped acting like one for a few minutes we would have." Sanya retorts, her voice low and condescending.

Wearing an expression that clearly communicates her intentions to make Sanya pay for that comment, Lauren stalks toward her.

"I'd think twice before doing anything if I were you, especially after declaring that you want me to treat you like an adult. You aren't even close to being ready for me."

"I'm not afraid of you." Lauren says defiantly as she continues striding toward Sanya.

"You will be when I'm finished with you if you don't back down right now."

"Alright you two, cut it out." Aaron tries to curb their anger "There's no sense in you fighting each other."

"Stay out of this, Aaron." Sanya warns him while keeping her eyes trained on Lauren.

"No, I said cut it out. There's not going to be any fighting in my house." he orders as he steps up closer to Sanya.

"And I said stay out!" Sanya's voice borders on rage, and without so much as lifting a finger, she emits an energy field that knocks Aaron back, sending him flying into the wall several feet behind him. Hitting it with considerable force, he falls to the ground winded.

Seeing this, Lauren stops advancing, and looking from Sanya to Aaron and back, decides against her planned assault on the other woman. Instead she turns and heads for the front door.

"Oh no, I don't even think so, princess." Sanya spits out the words as she blocks the front door with another force field of energy.


For the first time during this altercation, Lauren actually feels frightened. Turning toward Sanya she tries to hide it and shouts at her "Let me go!" to her dismay those words sound every bit as afraid and desperate as she feels.

"No, you're staying here until you hear me out." Sanya says sternly as she continues to stare intently at Lauren.

"Sanya, let her go." Aaron says as he rises to his feet finally.

"No Aaron, she needs to hear this whether she wants to or not. You know how important this is as well as I do."

"What are you talking about?" Lauren asks, her attitude still no better than before, despite the fear.

"Irzorwyn!" a voice calls from outside.

"We're too late." Sanya says as she lowers the shield and walks past Lauren and to the door. Then turning to look back at Aaron, she adds "He's here."


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