The Winged Warrior

Chapter 17

(PLS read the author's note)

Percy's POV

I was back in my room and I was painting.

Again.

It seemed that whenever I was angry or frustrated, painting was the first thing I did. It cooled my rage and helped me get things into perspective.

This time I was painting Lexi, but she had no idea. She was sitting in front of me on my bed, talking about Ariem. As I listened to her complaining about the lack of buglehorns on earth, I continued to create the brushstrokes that Lexi thought were forming another landscape, but were in fact shaping the strands of her hair on the canvas.

I was particularly proud of this one. The detail on it was better than many I had done before, helped by the fact that I had a live model to for reference.

I set down my brush for a second and looked at Lexi. Even when she was complaining, her eyes were alight with the fire she only had when she spoke about her old home. She still loved it with all her heart and sometimes I felt guilty for taking that away from her.

She saw me staring at her with concern and raised her eyebrows.

"What's up?" She asked curiously, looking at my expression.

"Do you ever regret coming with me?" I asked, in a rush.

"What? To earth? Not really..."

"No, I mean leaving Ariem. Joining me. You had the perfect life, a mum and dad, a sister -"

Lexi's expression softened. "Of course I think about it sometimes, but no, I don't regret it. You showed me how to be stronger, be the independent girl I'd always wanted to be. I don't regret it one bit."

But I could see her eyes dart to the left when she said this. I sensed her heart speed up and knew she was lying.

"You do regret it. I knew it." I said, my eyes downcast.

"I don't, I promise. What I meant was that... I guess I just miss my family, but it doesn't matter now. My parents have already died and my sister is too busy ruling Ariem to see me. Plus, I think she's about two hundred Arishe years now, that's nearing the end of her lifespan. You know how long we live. She's too elderly and I doubt she'd remember me. She was only seven when I left."

She turned away and collapsed on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. She didn't seem upset, but I could tell that she didn't want to talk about it. She'd obviously thought about her sister a lot, and didn't need me to help her worries along.

I picked up my paintbrush and was about to continue my work when Lexi asked something else.

"Percy, why do you have stars on your ceiling? Don't you have stars on your ceiling in your bedroom in the chaos palace as well?"

I would've been happy with any change of subject apart from this. I looked up at my ceiling and saw the hundreds of tiny white stars I had hand-painted so carefully, some recent, some very old.

"Yes, why?" I answered, wishing she'd drop the subject.

"Well, is there a particular reason for them? They look hand-painted. Why did you bother to paint this ceiling as well as the one back home?" Lexi asked me. I could tell that she knew I didn't like the subject, but her curiosity had obviously taken over.

"I didn't. I took these over with me by magic, from the chaos palace. They're the same ones as the chaos ones."

"Why?"

"Because I need to be reminded of what they cost. Always."

I didn't say any more and this time Lexi did stop. It was clear that she wanted to know more, but was restraining herself.