The Second Moonlark: A KotLC Fanfic

Chapter Twelve (Memory Lane: Not As Comforting as it Should Be!)

Why did everything have to be so difficult?

Sonia was frustrated. She had done the basics: remove the implanted tracker and place it in some camel in the middle of the Sahara Desert, move the gate daily so that the Neverseen coul dn't get a handle on it, and wear a copy of Ruy's addler when she went out. But her other pastime was incredibly annoying and time consuming. She had been scouring her memories for any trace of Sophie, and so far the only rewards she had gotten were useless. It was getting better, though. Recently she had been recovering more memories, and she could feel that she was close to a breakthrough.

"Soni?" It was Ruy. She had given him some baking lessons, so now he could cover passable meals while she repeatedly walked down Memory Lane.

"Thanks, Ruy." She went to her door to claim her butterblasts.

"Do you need anything else?" His concerned eyes stared into hers, trying to find the answer to his question.

"I think I'm fine. You're the best." He nodded gently, and then strode back into the kitchen to clean up after himself. Sonia returned to her workbench, where she now spent most of the day. She wanted to have some evidence before she told everyone about her blood ties to their missing friend. She delved back into her own mind.

There. It was dim and forgotten, but it was still a memory. She dragged it into the front of her mind, and realized something amiss about this one. It was darker than it had been in earlier ones, and it was tinted with fear, and rage, and pain.

Then she saw it.

It was like a Melder, with the gun-like body and the sleek profile. However, it was set on a stand, with a strange case attached to the back. The machine was pointed towards an inverted table, standing up, and she was clipped into it by cold, rough hands. It started whirring, buzzing with white electricity, and then...

The memory went black.

Sonia was torn out of it, regaining her own thoughts. As she recuperated from the childish mindset, the memory of the Melder-like machine kept running through her head. She remembered it- most of it. The Melder base was right, the table was right...

Yes. The box wasn't supposed to be there, because it didn't connect correctly. The Whiteout- because that's what it was- would've lost power and shut down, because the power source would not be connected to the rest. That was the problem that she had been called in to fix. Her solution was to create a wire cradle for the power source, that would then transmit electricity. Had she helped perfect the instrument of her undoing? And had she consigned her twin sister to the same fate?

She sat down at the table.

It was the first time she had been back at school since she blew her own cover, so naturally she was a little bit behind on schoolwork. She just told her teachers that her parents had needed her at home, and that was partially true.

Her father, Trix, had sent a message to her. While most of it was 'I always knew you were going to do something better' fluff, it was the last part that interested her.

"I thought you should know," he had said, "because you probably know the rest already. I am, actually, your father." Her head was left spinning at that point, so she had come back to it later.

"I was on a mission for intel on the Black Swan- a plain-sight mission, just like the one you were on. They asked me to be a part of some project, Project Moonlark. And I agreed. I never thought that that would be the best thing besides Umber to ever happen to me." And that was it. Trix was her biological father, and Sophie was his daughter too.

She pulled herself back to the present. As soon as she had sat down, Linh had scooted away from her- a small message that she didn't want to be bothered right now. But Sonia would have to bypass that in favor of her news to the group.

"Guys." The entire table stopped talking. Maybe her strategy to leave them alone for a while hadn't worked as well as hoped.

"There was one thing that I didn't tell you. I didn't have enough information to, but now I do." She took a deep breath, as all of the elves around her stared at her.

"Sophie's my sister."

Those three small words had the power to create such a rift. Most of the elves stared silently, while the others shook their heads. But it was enough motion for her to read, and she did not like her results. They didn't believe her.

"Fitz. Enter my mind. Feel free to probe around as much as you like, but what you're going for is tinted blood red. You should feel fear and pain emanating from it."

"You're sure?" His voice was cautious, and she nodded. She didn't want to make him feel threatened by her offer.

His hands reached for her temples, and an energy entered her mind.

A.N. To accurately capture what Fitz sees, I need to tell a little bit from Fitz's POV. I don't like it either, but it must be done...

Wow.

So that's what it's like in the mind of a psycho liar.

My consciousness probed around inside the dark caverns of her mind. It was the strangest experience- There were many memories with light emanating from it, and all of them held Ruy. The darkest, most painful ones all seemed to be thrown out in the open, painfully raw, with strong feelings of guilt. I realized it as I took it all in.

This is too much guilt for an elf to carry.

Even I, with all my mistakes, have never felt anything like this. This was crushing, suffocating, deep in the subconscious accompanied by its own heartbeat. I ignored it for the moment, however, in search of the memory she had described to me.

I found it tucked in a dark space with no bright memories. All of them were dull and quiet, like she had buried them and forgotten them for ages, pulled them into the light, and then tried to forget them again. Wonderful, I thought. I'm rooting around in a criminal's darkest secrets. However, they all contained happy moments of a younger Son- Don't say her name- playing and messing around with another girl.

My heart started pounding in an achingly familiar way as I realized.

So this is what Sophie looked like as a six-year-old.

The memory I wanted held no trace of her.

It was pulsing with dark emotions, just as she had said. Its blood-colored tint leered venomously at me as I reached out to it...

My head.

Cold fingers dragged me through the caverns of an underground base, like the one I had spent the last years of my life in. Where was Sophie? Had they hurt her? I didn't have any time to speculate. The elves pulled me into a cave with a machine in it. It was sleek, like one of the Melders that Mr. Forkle always carried. It was on a stand, bolted into the ground, with a clunky looking box bolted to the back. They locked me into a table on the business end of the Melder-but-not, and white electricity crackled from its exposed circuits.

As the world went black, I could feel my memories disappearing.

I was launched, shaking, out of Sophie's sister's mind.

That must've been a lot.

Fitz collapsed, shivering, onto the bench. Sophie noted that his eyes were filled with horror. Maybe he would be a supporter on her- No, she told herself. You're not in the Neverseen anymore. Now think like it.

"That was..." Words obviously failed him. Sonia listened intently, trying to pick out what he felt through the fragmented words he could gather.

"You've... I'm... I'm sorry. I... I treated you like a monster, when you were brainwashed and manipulated into it. All... All that guilt." He stared at her with broken, questioning eyes as she cursed herself. Of course he'd be able to tell. Telepaths were annoying that way. But she slowly recognized that the horror in his gaze wasn't at her, it was at his actions. She judged from the group's awed response that this was the first time that he'd apologized for a tantrum before. How funny, being a first for anyone in anything.

"I forgive you. You can't lift the guilt, but I'm trying to be better than they made me. And you all can help." She turned to the others.

"I know where my sister is."

A.N. Dun dun DUUUUUUUNNNN!!!!