“He’s still unconscious,” Sister bit her lip, concerned. “What if he never wakes up?”
“He’ll be fine,” Gri-gri reassured her. “Trust me. He’ll be fine.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“So did I.”
They sat in silence for a while, both of them looking at Aono’s bruised face. Gri-gri watched Sister out of the corner of her eye and felt a wrench of something both alien and extremely familiar: jealousy.
“How did you know he’d be here?” Sister asked, curiously. “How did you know to come to Fifth?”
“I knew him for a long time,” Gri-gri smiled bitterly. “Besides, he once said that if he never returned I was to look for him here. That was years ago but…promises and all. How did you know?”
“He told me once,” Sister tipped her head sideways. “About his life long, long ago. Before he even became part of Fourth. He told me about Gavarn. I…made an assumption.”
“He told you about Gavarn?” Despite herself, Gri-gri was surprised. “Everything?”
“Well, no, not everything,” Sister admitted. “I only knew that Aono hated him. And that he was scared. Aono was rarely scared.”
“We knew different Aono’s,” Gri-gri laughed, as if that fact didn’t hurt her.
“You know, don’t you?” Sister guessed. “You know why Gavarn scared him so much. All the things he never told me.”
“He was ashamed,” Gri-gri sighed. “Terribly ashamed. He was drunk when I got the story out of him.”
“He drinks too much,” Sister agreed.
“My fault,” Gri-gri raised her hands. “I take the blame. I was the one who started him on it.”
“Could you stop him?”
“Once, perhaps. Not now.”
“Worth a try,” Sister pleaded. “I don’t want him to drink himself to oblivion. I don’t want to lose him.”
Gri-gri knew the girl wasn’t trying to stick a knife in her but it hurt all the same. It hurt in a way that Gri-gri was completely unfamiliar with. It felt like caring.
“Listen,” she said. “Gavarn…he knew Aono back in the old days. Aono was born in Fifth, you know. I don’t know the details of that part of his story. A guy has to have some secrets, I suppose.”
“I knew that,” Sister nodded.
“Well, Aono was, I don’t know, ten? Eleven? A little kid. Gavarn was a few years older and an out and out psychopath, even then. Charming and pleasant one minute, laughing as he kills you the next. Demonic.”
“They were friends?”
“I don’t know if you could call it friendship. Gavarn was protective, in a way. He was the one who taught Aono to fight. That was the reason I first fell in with him, actually. The boy was shy and scared and easily-lead but he could fight like a champion.”
“Gavarn is famous for his street fighting,” Sister remembered. “And Aono knew lots of tricks.”
“Right. I don’t know about anything else. I just know that one day Gavarn kissed him.”
“What?!” Sister cried. “He never told me that!”
“As I said,” Gri-gri pretended the feeling of triumph didn’t exist. “He was drunk when he told me.”
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The Rising Dawn
AdventureTwenty years ago, two thirds of the world's population silently and mysteriously died in one instant. A new regime fell into place: a regime controlled by the Ruler. Confined within place, ordered and structured, the new regime is designed to keep...
