You don't - you don't believe it's the right thing to do?" Brant took a deep, shaky breath.
Jolie grabbed ahold of his hands, caressing them. "No, my love, not when they want to kill humans. It's wrong!"
"But they're - we're - trying to create a world where we won't be scorned! Where we can be together and our children won't face bullying and the cruelness of others." Brant tore his hands out of Jolie and swung them around, as if trying to show her his vision for the future.
"I know, and I think that that's amazing," Jolie said. She smiled. How she loved this boy. "That you would be willing to do that for me - for us. But, Brant, I can't participate in activities that include killing innocent people. And not only that, but prejudices against Bad Matches don't just disappear overnight. It takes time. A lot of time, especially for this kind of thing. You want to change the world. And I love you for it. But the way the Neverseen is doing it isn't the solution."
"Jolie! There is no other way. We -"
"Yes, there is," she interrupted. "The Black Swan."
"Jolie!" Jolie gasped at the sharpness in his voice, taking a step backwards. Brant's eyes flashed with anger. "The Black Swan is just talk. They're not real."
Jolie knew she couldn't blow her cover. Even if she had been kicked out of the Neverseen, it didn't mean that they needed to know she was a spy for the Black Swan. They would never have let her escape if she'd been a spy.
"Nevertheless, I don't think it's right. Why do you care so much anyway? Just because we're a bad match -" She looked down and gasped again. "Brant. Brant. Your hands are on fire!"
He looked down, momentarily surprised, but unconcerned.
She felt her eyes widen, but it took her a minute to put all the pieces together. "You -"
"Yes. And it's not just about the Match." Brant's eyes burned. Jolie knew; the angrier he got, the more heated his face became. "I don't want to have to hide who I am, Jolie. Because if I didn't have to, we wouldn't have to be a Bad Match. This -" he held up his burning hands. The fire had by then spread onto his arms - "is who I am, Jolie. This is what means so much to me, not just the Match. And this is why I'm changing the world."
Jolie was horrified. "Brant, you know I love you, but - I - you lied to me. About something quite significant."
"I didn't have a choice," he said angrily. "My parents would kill me if I told anyone."
"And that's a good enough reason not to tell the woman you're in love with and also who you're marrying?"
"I don't need to explain myself to you."
Jolie stood strong. "You do, if I'm going to be your wife. I can't marry you if I don't know who you are."
Brant groaned, and a fire suddenly appeared in the corner. Jolie yelped, not accustomed to random fire turning up just anywhere. She started to move away as the fire got closer. She wasn't sure if Brant's intention was to scare her, but if it was, it was working.
When the fire didn't stop spreading, well, that's when she got a little more worried. "Brant!" She called. "What are you doing?"
But Brant didn't stop. The fire had already blocked the door, and it started to climb up the walls.
A beam of the ceiling dropped right next to her. She screamed. "Brant!"
And when he didn't respond, that's when she knew, without a doubt, that she wouldn't survive.
Jolie had never thought that she would go this way. She thought she'd live to be several thousands of years old, perhaps dying from old age, with Brant at her side.
Well, it seemed like only one of those things was coming true - and even that wasn't in the way she'd thought.
She looked at Brant. He was the last thing she would see. And right before she left, she saw his eyes open, looked around wildly for her, and landed on her torched body, face anguished. "Jolie!" He shouted.
But she was already gone.
YOU ARE READING
Different KOTLC Oneshots! (Romantically)
Fiksi PenggemarJust a compilation of some different oneshots I was asked to write on KOTLC couples. I will be making a separate story for the ones that aren't romantic. If you have any you want, let me know in the comments. :) *these characters are all owned by...