|Mianite| The Missing Woman

[Chapter 10] Brother

[Alva's Perspective]

I woke up with arms still wrapped tightly around my waist. Screaming, I leapt away from the unknown source and flung myself against the wall that the bed was pushed up against. Had it not been a dream after all? Had that woman, Faith, traveled back with me?

I saw a tuft of blue roll off to the side as my scream startled its owner, causing him to fall off the other side of the bed.

"What is it?!" Tom jumped up and stared at me with wide eyes. "What's wrong? Are you all right?!"

I stared at him a moment. "Why were you in my bed?" I finally asked.

"Y-You..." Tom stammered, embarrassed. "You were having a bad dream or something, you kept crying out in your sleep. I was worried... I just..."

I smiled back at him and sighed. "It's alright. Just... an unfortunate coincidence with you holding me that way." He looked confused. "In my dream... Someone grabbed me around the waist just before I woke up." I tried explaining. His eyes grew wider.

"Oh gods," he said. "I am so sorry. I shouldn't... I shouldn't have come in here. I'm sorry."

"No," I said quickly. "It is fine. Under... different circumstances I think it would have been nice." I smiled, blushing, and he looked down at his feet. A thought occurred to him and he spoke.

"What was your dream about?" He asked.

"I..." I tried to figure out where to begin, cringing at the thought of the horrible torture and the strange man with purple wings and kind blue eyes. "You said the other day, that purple is significant here," I began. "I'm guessing because of Ianite?"

Tom nodded.

"Well in my dream I was in a prison." Tom looked at me with wide eyes. "...and I met a young man with purple wings-"

"Andor?!" Tom shouted, cutting me off. "You dreamt about Andor!"

"I... Yeah, do you know him? I thought maybe I had made him up. Did I know him?" I couldn't ask but what I really wanted to know was if he was still alive and what terrible thing he had done to be sent to that kind of prison.

"Yes!" Tom shouted. Clearly he had forgotten the awkwardness from moments ago. "Prince Andor is your brother! You saw him in prison? Was it an old memory? Maybe you came from the inertia! Maybe you and your mother never died and instead Mianite kidnapped you both!"

"I..." I wasn't sure how to react to this hypothesis. I thought back to what the woman told me before I woke up. That I should be dead and to remember my place. "I don't know about that, there was this woman, named Lady Faith, who said I was supposed to be dead. It felt like a dream, not a memory." Mostly I just did not want out to be true. Perhaps I was grasping at straws, but I spoke again. "And when Andor saw me he didn't recognize me as another... inmate, but as his dead sister. If I had been there for ten years I think they both would have recognised me as being very much alive."

Tom thought about this. "I guess you're right," he finally conceded. "So what happened in the dream with you and Andor?"

I opened my mouth to speak but couldn't find the words to describe the events. However my eyes apparently properly conveyed the horror I felt.

"Oh uh..." Tom said. "It's ok, clearly something bad, that's about what we expect is happening to him."

"Is happening?" I asked in horror. "You mean he's there now?"

"Yeah, Al arrested him a while ago, we've been trying to figure out where they're keeping him."

I had so many questions. About Andor, about the prison, and the people, Al and Faith, and about what had happened to the kingdom. But I couldn't find the words for any of them and I feared there was not enough time in the universe for anyone to explain them to me.

Tom saw my blank stare and climbed back onto the bed, wrapping his arms around me. "I'm sorry," was all he he said. "I guess you don't have much of a family to come back to, huh?"

We relaxed on the bed in this comfortable position. I felt safe in his arms. "W-why did Al arrest Andor?"

"Because Andor was one of the first ones to take a stand against King Helgrind and Mianite. He spoke out against their oppression of followers of other gods, and they didn't like that."

"Is he alright?"

Tom hesitated. "I... We don't know. We sent Martha and Steve to look for him, but they haven't returned."

I felt my breaths grow shorter and my eyes grow wet with tears. I tried to keep it in, but after all I had seen, to now find out that his only crime had been standing up for his beliefs, I couldn't stand it any longer.

I felt Tom hug me closer as the tears trickled down my cheeks and neck.

"It's alright," he told me. "We'll find him, he'll be alright."

I sobbed. "That is exactly what I told him in my dream when they-" I buried my face in Tom's shoulder, wheezing and sobbing.

He held me and rubbed my back. "I'm so sorry." He said.

After a while I began to take deep breaths. Tom's arms made me feel safe, as if nothing could hurt me, and his steady breathing made me feel calmer.

After a while there was a knock on the door. "Guys," we heard Tucker say. "Martha's back. She says Steve's been arrested, but she knows where The Inertia is!"

"Oh my god," Tom said. Now that I had calmed down a bit we both stood up. "Steve's been arrested?!" He opened the door and I turned away, not wanting Tucker to see my red eyes and puffy cheeks, perhaps also a little hurt that Tom had been so abrupt.

"Come on," Tucker said, his voice now unimpeded by the door. "We're holding a town meeting about a prison break."