Bend Around the Wind by Scyllaya

Chapter 56: Never Bored

Chapter Fifty-Six

Never bored

Milky Way Galaxy

Elidra System

Open Space

It was harder to catch Stark alone nowadays than ever before. Even after Juyu locked them up in their room he and Loki were not this attached at the hip. Plus Hatchet seemed to be everywhere. He was a menace, an annoying, loud, cackling menace. He literally had the gall to kick Juyu out of the kitchen when she wanted to eat some of the meat he and Loki brought. He said she was ruining it! How can you ruin it? You just put it on heat and let it fry, but no, Hatchet had to put some fancy seasoning on it and chop it to little bits. She didn't even know they had all this stuff. It was clear that he planned to come with them from the very start, because he obviously got all kinds of things among their supplies for himself. Crafty bastard. So what if he could cook? If Juyu wanted to have a piece of meat fried on nothing, she could damn well have a piece of dry meat fried on nothing without any of Hatchet's fancy sauce.

Her sister should've not been amused. She should have been glaring at him murderously instead of snorting in amusement. Betrayal, that's what it was. Juyu was betrayed by her own flesh and blood. At least Drongo seemed to share some of her frustration, but he was not visibly rattled and Hatchet always left him alone after some time when he couldn't get a rise out of him. So Juyu was left grinding her teeth in agitation while the elf smirked and grinned and flitted around the ship, poking his nose in everything.

So it took longer than she would've liked to find Stark alone.

'I wanted to speak with you,' she started. Stark looked up from where he was tinkering with one of his new tech gear.

'Oh? Okay,' he said, putting down his tool. 'Unusual though.'

'Why?'

'Because you usually talk to Loki lately,' he said. 'Since the whole training thing started.'

Juyu shrugged, it was true, but... 'I want to talk to you now.'

'Sure,' Stark nodded, leaning back in his chair.

'It's about Loki, well... what he told us.'

Stark made a "go ahead" gesture, so Juyu kept talking.

'It's just... it's Loki. I can't believe he would... I mean, I know he's not the nicest man ever, but I still can't wrap my head around him doing things like that. I can't imagine you as enemies either.'

'We won't be enemies again, so you don't have to,' Stark said.

'That's good I guess,' she said. 'It's just that I thought one thing and now it seems all wrong.'

'He's the same Loki.'

'I know, but... it's hard to think about the Loki who laughs when I manage to hit him as someone who hurt a lot of innocents.'

'He's not that guy anymore,' Stark said. 'Those were some very dark and very horrible years for him, but he's not there anymore, he's doing better.'

'So you're saying it won't happen again.'

'I'm saying it's very unlikely it will happen again.'

'That's not the same.'

'No, but it's the best I got,' Stark said. 'Look, Loki is Loki, he is the guy who laughs at being punched by you, but he's also the guy who made some very bad mistakes.'

Juyu nodded. 'How do you deal with this? He was your enemy, but now you love him. How does that work?'

'You and me, are not the same, Ju. Not by a long shot, so no matter what I tell you, it may not make much sense to you.'