The Tale of Tara and Emiko

XXXIX. Kailey

It wasn't for another ten minutes that Cliff came back into the room, a small black box in his hand.

"Kailey?" he called. "Where are-oh," he said, looking up through the invisible maze of the gravity currents to the top of the tower. It only took a short glance at me, floating below the beautiful domed glass roof in a pocket of zero-gravity, leathery purple wings that looked more mauve under the clouds wrapped around my form, for him to tell something was wrong. He grabbed the dead projector base and flew up to meet me, fiery blue wings cutting through the push and pull of the currents like butter. He floated there for a minute (yes, I counted) before finally speaking. "What happened?" he asked.

I flicked the power pack at the projector with a burst of purple energy. It flickered back to life, showing the same scene from before: Tara's Spirit barely there, Emiko's Spirit gone.

"I failed her," I choked out, not wanting to make eye contact.

"Failed who?" Cliff asked.

"Our author."

Cliff sighed. "Well...maybe this was planned by them, and it'll get better. Maybe-"

"Oh come on, don't tell me you believe that cultish 'our authors control us' crap!" I cried.

I couldn't see Cliff's face, but something told me he was standing at a crossroads. "Either way, we're still fictional characters in a story that will get a happy ending."

"Yeah, for you guys," I said.

"It applies to you too." Cliff sounded like he was asking a question.

"No, it doesn't."

"Really? Why not?"

"You guys are fictional characters." I took a deep breath, willing the sobs to not interrupt my speech. "I'm a coping mechanism." The color and hope drained out of my vision.

Cliff sucked in a breath through his teeth. I still wouldn't look at him, but I had a few guesses as to what his face looked like. "H-holy shards, Kailey, don't ever say that. I get it, self-awareness is hard, but if it's gonna do this to you I'll ask Mrs. Frolight to-"

"No thank you, I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine right now, but I will be," I said. "And I'm not mad about it. I'd rather they hurt me than someone real in their life, someone they actually care about. I'd rather they hurt me than you."

"Okay, not even gonna try to deal with that last sentence because I know you'll shoot down any and all of my arguments. But...if it makes you feel any better, in my opinion Tara and Emiko are more likely to be the coping mechanisms."

"How would you know?" I asked weakly.

Cliff was silent for a beat before he spoke. "I've been tracking them since their third appearance. And before you go blaming yourself for not noticing earlier, I was the one who accidentally made the Narrator self-aware. Maybe their torture would've stopped there if he hadn't dragged them out of their destined lives for his own greed. I'm sorry."

I was too numb to even be the slightest bit shocked about this. "It's not a big deal. Why didn't you tell me, though?"

"You were so busy already with your fictionals and the Junior Story Spinners on top of the actual Story Spinners club. And you always pushed yourself closer than needed to your breaking point. Astoria had to retrieve your comatose body from the void more than once. You always seemed tired; I didn't want to burden you with this and make it worse."

A shiver of gooseflesh ran up my arms. As much as I didn't want to admit it, what he was saying was true. "You're missing something, though." Something he wouldn't know. "The void didn't tire me as much as you think it did. I've been visited by what's left of the Ancients in some of the solo missions I get sent on, who have been helping me hone my elemental abilities."

"See!" Cliff cried. "Our author does care about you! Why else would the literal gods of creation meet you, help you?"

"Yeah, you have a point," I said. "But-"

A new voice came from the bottom of the tower. "Hey why, hate to interrupt whatever 'sibling bonding' moment you've got going on right now, but I've got news."

I cracked my wings open. A girl with impossibly straight raven hair wearing a Hatsune Miku t-shirt and tan cargo shorts was standing under the gravity currents, waving up at us. I flew down to talk to her.

"Hey! You're Kailey, right? Great, I'm not in the wrong place," she said when I nodded. "Thanks for coming down here, I didn't want to scream. So. I found where Tara and Emiko are. Neither of them are dead, yet, but-hey, don't look at me like that. They're my friends, too. Grab the frosty phoenix and let's go, there's no time to waste."

"I'm sorry, who are you again?" I asked.

"Zia Willows. Metal crow, junior at Crystal High, lockpicking extraordinaire. Now come on, follow me. Let's go save some lives."