Supernova

Chapter Sixty Two - Who's To Say Demons Can't Be Heroes?

A/N: I know I say this about every fifth chapter, but seriously, the one is definitely one of my favourites. What can I say? I like when my characters suffer.

I liked being with Rafael.

Raf, as I soon found myself calling him. We'd left the party together, and he'd laughed heartily when I made a joke about how he had real human legs. Yes, Cassie, he said on the back of his genuine laughter that didn't mock me in the slightest. I have real human legs. It would be an awful pain to get around if I didn't!

He showed me a spot on The Academy's roof that you could sit on and watch the snow fall and the stars twinkle and he showed me other animal anamorph tricks. He could summon a long antenna on his forehead. He could summon a hard turtle shell from his shoulder blades until it covered his back completely. It made a hard sound when I rapped my fist on it, and it didn't bother him, so he'd let me drum my hands on it and hum and pretend I was some great commoner musician. My favourite trick was his shark grin. One moment, he was smiling regularly, but then he'd close his mouth and smile again, his teeth horrific and jagged, sitting in rows that could easily take someone's hand off. Dangerous, perhaps, and I understood how he might fight, but to me, it looked so ridiculous that it made me laugh hard enough to topple right over. He liked that reaction, so he did it a lot.

"I haven't spent a lot of time in the ocean," I admitted after some time. 

That, for the record, was true. Besides wave jumping with Momo in beachy vacation cities, that was. She'd always been too scared to snorkel and I'd always just wanted to spend time with her, so I never had. The founding California council had no reason to utilize the ocean and saw it as a risk for attack, so the walls that surrounded the compound lay a few miles from it, where we would be prepared from an ocean attack. Rafael laughed like that was delightful.

"Me neither," he said, laughing more. "Funny, right? Armenia is a landlocked country. So, it's like." Raf morphed his hands back into these vibrant blue and white fish fins and shook them a bit in my direction. "Where did this come from?"

"That's fucked," I told him honestly, watching his fins flutter. "How do you even use it?"

"I make do," he told me with a shrug. "There's some pools, some training facilities. Armenia has lakes."

"Isn't the ocean salt water?" I asked, pleased with myself for knowing that.

"Well yeah, but I'm not an animal." He laughed. It was laced with something that I didn't recognize, but if there was some type of joke that went over my head that he found funny, I didn't have to show it, so I laughed too. "Tell you what? I'll take you to the beach one day, if you want."

One day. Us monarchy kids had to be careful with these kinds of statements. They were heavier than they seemed. One day typically meant one day way out there, on the horizon past what the eye can see. Keep in mind that all of us would get married off shortly after, if not before, graduation into the real adult world, and we did not often keep a circle of friends such as this. Opposite sex friends that we would go to the beach with in some foreign country while our spouses and children remained at home through our galivanting. No. To make plans about one day was a very heavy suggestion indeed.

I didn't care to comment on it, and wondered about what to say. But then, I realized I'd never heard of his country before. God was throwing me a lifeline. "Where is Armenia?"

"That's a bit of a debate," Raf said, returning his hands to the human versions so he could place them at his sides and lean back on them. If he was bothered by the cold of the snow they pressed in to, he didn't show it. He must run cold. Like Needles. Like Iliana. Like me. He noticed my confusion and winked at me, but I could see some shame coming over his face. "It's back east. By Turkey and Azerbajan."