The Guardians of Gaia

Chapter Twelve

The Present

Faust was considerably gloomy when he met with Ophelia in the abandoned warehouse near the edge of Hester. He was a thirty minute drive from Twin Oaks Wildlife Park, where he learned that Marshall was Cryo. It was all he ever thought about when he was alone with his thoughts and he hated himself for it. "What's eating you?" Ophelia asked.

"Nothing," Faust grumped. Ophelia and Faust were sitting on top of a crate. Ophelia had a tablet with her, she had organized all her research concerning Cryo and Pyro. Faust had done research himself, he had combed all manners of social media to try and find more about Marshall and his brother Pyro, and how they ended up with their powers. He had come up on an interesting link on drug trials run by a company called Roose Pharmaceuticals in the 90s and before he got to read the article his laptop had promptly died.

Ophelia chuckled to herself. "It's not about that guy that kept visiting you at Canadian Tire? Or are you thinking about the way we let Beaster and his gang run us over?"

"Both," Faust grumped. He half expected Ophelia to put the two together and whirl around and exclaim that he needed to confess who his Canadian Tire boyfriend really was. But she didn't. She kept going through her iPad, studying the article she was reading with renewed interest.

Marshall hadn't stopped by Canadian Tire in three weeks which was a first for him. He hadn't missed a week in several months. He was there so often the staff knew him and many were close to realizing that Faust and he were involved.

"Are you ever romantically interested in anyone?" Faust asked, purely out of curiosity.

Ophelia laughed. "Of course I am. I'm a human, not a robot."

"That's crazy."

"Really?"

"Yeah well you never talk about liking anyone. It's hard for me to picture you liking anyone." Faust admitted with a smirk.

"'Cause I don't like being romantically interested in people."

"What?"

"It's easy once you get into it. It's like fasting. After a few days - well a few months in the case of romance - you won't even get the urge to anymore."

"Now that is definitely impossible. Don't you ever think people are attractive?"

"Yeah but I don't want them. I just think they're attractive, I acknowledge it as a fact and move on."

"But don't you want to be with someone?"

"Yes and no. People go around like it's so nice and pleasant but can it really be that good?"

"You know the answer to that is yes. Look at how many songs are written about it, how many poems, how many books written on it, all the movies, all the art. It's captivated us from dawn of civilization right until now."

"Yeah but it's painful," Ophelia surmised. She couldn't be any more right, Faust thought.

"You've never been in love, how can you know it's painful?"

"You've never been in love either!"

Faust's silence made Ophelia feel as though she had won. "If you're truly in love, I bet the pleasure outweighs the pain. Makes it worth the risk. Sort of like women with childbirth - yeah don't you want to have kids someday?" Faust countered.

"I don't need to be in love with someone to have kids. I am a strong, independent woman and men are an obsolete life form." Ophelia said that last line with such conviction and seriousness, neither of them could keep the laughter from spilling out of them.