Chapter 9: Chapter 9 – Of Rain and Reflection

The rain was frigid, the ledge less than a pace behind me. My whole body tensed and tremored with fear and cold as bile rose to the back of my throat.

And the lightning and thunder just kept on coming.

Screw this.

Looking decidedly away from and past my antagonist, I started forward, aiming to simply walk around them. But just as I reached the edge of the shelter, there was another blur of movement and an impact at the center of my chest. Not a shove, exactly, just a very sudden obstruction.

I blinked down at the metallic hand pressed over my gemstone.

The other kobold smirked down at me.

“I think, out of respect for the rest of us, you would like to stay out here, in the rain. Wouldn’t you?”

My first instinct was to yank away, to shriek at them for touching me again.

But…but they were just so nice to look at. So articulate and protective. And I couldn’t help but wonder, somehow, if they might have a point.

At the same time, though, a new set off glyphs was pulsing in the upper right-hand corner of my vision, distracting me.

 

(Innate Charm)

 

Innate Charm…what the hell? That didn’t show up in their glyphs before.

The instant I’d thought the word “innate,” more glyphs appeared beneath the first set. They were faint and silvery-blue where the others were gold. And there was something about them that suggested a questioning tone.

Thanks to my random spurts of obsessive gaming back when I was a human that could still do things that involved hand-eye coordination, I got the distinct impression that they were options. Actions or skills I could use in the moment.

 

(Innate Aetheric Insight)

(Innate Reflect)

 

The first “option” pulsed. The second did not…at first. That changed as I focused on it.

The weird compulsion to agree with my bully faded.

“No,” I replied, finally. “I think I would very much like to not be in the rain. Listen, I promise I won’t bother anyone. I just don’t want to freeze to death.”

The Golden One blinked down at me for a moment, their pupils going wide. The pressure of their hand on my chest eased.

And then their eyes suddenly narrowed, and they actually did push me, so I hard I stumbled back far enough to feel with my left foot where the edge of the tier gave way to open air. I shifted my weight forward in a desperate bid to counteract my momentum, even as a force of resistance at the edge pushed me in the same direction.

I fell forward, pain jolting through my bones as I caught myself on my forearms just before my snout could smash into the stone. Pushing myself upright again, I actually growled. Not entirely on purpose, but not really against my will, either.

“Keep your grasping, murderous paws off my power,” snarled the other kobold.

“What are you going to do? Stay there all night to make sure I don’t get in? And all day, every day, until this is over?”

They scoffed. “No. I’ll do my watch, and my friends will do theirs. Just another duty to see to.”

Shit.

“The elders are watching too,” I said, gesturing off in the direction I’d heard that owl. “How is this going to reflect on you?”

“Oh, I think it will speak well to my character that I took action and made a plan to protect my innocent peers from a lying, clutch-traitor of an excuse for a krada who isn’t even fit to lick my feet.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’re just thrilled to hear about your foot fetish,” I tossed back. “You’re a real upstanding citizen. A beacon of kindness. Tossing around someone who’s half your size.”

They laughed again, a harsh, awful sound.

“I am skyborn, it’s my responsibility to use my strength to protect my own, no matter the size of the threat. Would you have me coddle a scorpion, just because it is small?”

I scrunched my nose.

“I feel like that’s an unfair comparison.”

I’d been resisting it, because I knew how pathetic it’d look—but I couldn’t help it any longer. I wrapped my arms about myself, squeezing hard as my teeth began to chatter. My skin prickled as my follicles tensed, trying to raise fur that was already plastered down. Almost all I could smell was the rain, and it was disorienting.

“I have no interest in anything else you have to say. I suggest you save your breath,” said the jerk, crossing their arms and leaning against the nearest pillar, eyes still fixed on me.

Fuck you. I’ll use all the breath I want.

Sucking in a lungful of freezing air, I shouted my next words as loud as I could.

“Hey! This person stuck me out here against my will and won’t let me back in! Could someone help?” I dragged in another breath. “Please?”

Whole groups of initiates had already been watching our interaction, all of them keeping their distance. At my plea, the rest of them turned their attention our way too. After glancing around amongst themselves, a few broke away to head in our direction. And then a few more. And before long every single initiate had crowded themselves at our end of the tier, lining up to either side of and behind the gold-champagne kobold. Those with wings flared them. And almost every single one, deepborn and skyborn alike, glowered at me with hatred and accusation in their eyes.

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But a few, a very, very few, looked hesitant. Almost even sympathetic.

“You shouldn’t even be here,” said one of the hateful ones, a deepborn with scales of seashell pink. A number of others jeered agreement or shouted their own abuse, all variations of the same claims.

I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t wanted there. I was lucky even to have a piece of the outer edge.

It was all so overwhelming, so harsh and unfamiliar and impossible to separate from who I really was, that I couldn’t stop myself from crying, the tears flowing freely down my face to intermingle with the dowsing rain.

And I hated crying in front of people. I really, absolutely fucking hated it.

So, I turned my back on them. I sat down on the faintly heated stone, huddled in on myself with my eyes squeezed shut, and let the tears flow because there was nothing I could do to stop them. Behind me, several of the others laughed. But then the Golden One’s voice rose, sharp and a bit higher than usual, above the others.

“What are you doing?”

“This is wrong. I’m going to help her,” replied a soft, unfamiliar voice.

“If you cross that threshold, you’re not crossing back this way again.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” replied the other voice.

I sniffed, resisting the useless urge to wipe my tears away at the stranger’s approach.

“If you’ll let me sit close to you, we can share body heat,” she said, coming up beside me. I looked sideways and up at her, blinking past the rain. She smiled sadly down at me, a leaf-green deepborn kobold around my size—perhaps even smaller. Her snout was particularly short and pointed, her ears especially large, and from what little I could smell, she seemed like a her.

I met her big brown eyes, and her glyphs flickered into view.

 

1Gem Jade

 

“A-alright,” I managed, sniffing again. I was wary of trusting her, but against all odds, my instincts suggested I shouldn’t be. Besides, I was cold.

“I’m Keshry,” she said, settling in beside me.

“I’m, um…” she already knows your name, idiot. “Nice to meet you?”

Her laugh was as soft and light as her speaking voice.

“Oh, I think the circumstances could be nicer. But thank you.”

That had me chuckling too, which in my state kind of hurt.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be thanking you. All I’ve done is gotten you s-s-stuck out here with me.” I squeezed myself harder as a particularly intense chill overtook me, and Keshry the Jade pressed herself closer in to my side.

”Getting stuck out here was my choice.”

“Why are you doing this?” I wondered.

“Hm? Oh. Well, because I don’t want to be the kind of person who wouldn’t do this.”

“So you don’t, um, hate me for accidentally killing my sister?”

“No. Mostly, I just think of how I would feel if I’d accidentally killed someone I love, and it makes me think that that must have really hurt and changed you. It seems like it has.”

At first I had no idea what to say.

“Oh,” I finally managed.

“Yes.”

For a time, we sat side-by-side in silence. Watching the lightning, listening to the thunder. I could sense and hear some of the other intiates still lingering behind us, forming a loose sort of wall. Most, however, had dispersed.

“May I put my arm around you, for more warmth?” wondered Keshry, not looking at me but instead up at the clouds, not seeming to care that she caught the occasional raindrop to the eyeball.

“You’re not going to shove me off the ledge, are you?”

“No, and even if I were, the sigils still have enough mana to stop you going over,” she said. “Besides, you can put your arm around me too, for even more warmth, and then if we go down, we go down together.”

I laughed again, reluctantly—it still kind of hurt—and shook my head.

“Very comforting,” I said, snaking my arm around her back. “It’s a d-d-deal.”

To say that night sucked would probably be one of the biggest understatements of my lives. But it would have sucked a lot worse had it not been for Keshry. We didn’t talk a whole lot more, because I mostly just wanted to escape the discomforts of consciousness and she mostly seemed to want to stare dreamily into outer space. Ultimately we fell asleep spooning, lying on the stone as close to the roof’s shelter and as far from the ledge as we could get. I’d been terrified of getting struck by lightning or eaten by something big that came down from the sky or rolling over the edge in my sleep, and I carried those fears right into my dreams when exhaustion finally overtook me.

By the time we woke up, a lot of things had changed.

For one, I was merely damp, rather than bone-soaking wet. The sun was climbing in the sky, the cloud cover broken…for now. For another, the winds were blowing a whole lot harder over the tier—which in a way was good, because back under the rooftop, the cookpit was producing excessive amounts of dark, acrid smoke. Keshry was awake already and crouched nearby, looking at me as though I’d grown a second head, and to my other side, another kobold had joined us…but he was still out cold and snoring like a chainsaw.

“Wh—what is it?” I wondered, sitting up and meeting Keshry’s wide-eyed stare, my stomach twisting up in knots.

“You are not from this world,” she said.

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