The Metaphorical Key Book I- Call of the Raven

Chapter XIV

The ride to Harean was eerily silent. Aiden could hear every laboured, shuddering breath from his friends. He could hear the quiet sounds of hooves on grass and dirt, and the chirps and croaks of the frogs and crickets, calling out somewhere in the inky darkness of the night.

He could hear every faint whisper of noise, and if he were to listen hard enough, he could hear his own racing heart.

That had certainly been... something.

Desperately wanting to talk with somebody, anybody about what'd just happened in the little house, Aiden rode up beside Dulcie, but she just shook her head and went forwards a little faster.

Curtis was silent and his face appeared to be constructed out of finer steel. Thee only indication that he was just as scared as any of them was his hands- ghostly white as they clutched the reins. Clearly, he wasn't in the mood for conversation, and so Aiden let him be.

Pollux was equally steely, but in a different way. Curtis' steeliness seemed to be a facade, to keep the group's morale up, while Pollux was often steely, his emotions difficult to read unless he was talking about something he was interested in. His eyes were focused on the ground below him, and the only reason Aiden could tell he was upset was the slight sag of his shoulders and his drooped head.

Not knowing what to think about the whole situation, and feeling a little guilty about not trying to read Pollux, he rose closer, opening his mouth to speak

Without even looking beside him, Pollux's face darkened.

"I'm sorry, I don't... I don't wanna talk about anything right now."

The ginger teen let out a small sniff before riding further up ahead, just as Dulcie had done.

Aiden sighed.

Sometime later, they arrived at the Parallel Inn, a pretty decent Inn near the entrance to Harean that had stables in the back. They dropped off their horses there and got a room up at the front, and nobody spoke to Aiden on the three-flight walk up the stairs, either.

I need to talk, I need to talk, please, any of you, can I please talk to you, please?

Dulcie threw away the used disinfectant wipes and tossed their laundry into a bin, which the housekeeping staff would clean and return.

Aiden barely remembered to remove his shoes before climbing into one of the two beds in the room - he was sharing one with Curtis, and the twins were sharing the other.

Before long, the twins had fallen into quiet conversation and then sleep, but Aiden was left asleep, staring at the room's ceiling and trying to count the number of scratches on the wooden panels above.

He lost count somewhere around twenty - not even a simple task like that could tear his mind away from what'd just happened.

With a sigh, he turned around to face the other side of the room, the side where Dulcie and Pollux were, but instead of seeing across the room, he was greeted with a pair of bright blue eyes.

"Ah, sh- you scared me."

Curtis chuckled, shaking his head.
"So, you can't sleep either, huh?"

Aiden swallowed and shook his head, turning his head away so that Curtis wouldn't see the emotion building up inside his chest and scrawled out onto his face like a drunk trying to sign their name.

Aiden sighed and propped himself up. It was no use trying to get to sleep now, he figured. Curtis probably wanted to talk about something.

"So, what's bugging you, Aiden?"

"Take a wild guess."

"That was a pretty stupid question, I guess."

There was a silence, then. A long, painfully awkward silence. If all of the awkward silences Aiden had experienced were present for this silence, they die of embarrassment for their fellow awkward silence.

Finally, Aiden spoke. Awkwardly. Damn, could he stop being awkward for five seconds?

"I - You're different now. I mean, you - you were different before? I mean you were... ugh"

He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. A touchy-feely conversation was coming and Aiden wasn't ready for a touchy-feely conversation.

Curtis snorted.

"I haven't really changed much. You just didn't ever get to know me. You based all of yoour opinions of me off of one fu- screw up."

Aiden cringed. This touchy-feely conversation wasn't going well.

"I'm sorry," Aiden muttered, burying half his face into his pillow.

Curtis shrugged.

"It's fine. I'd probably do the same if someone said something like that to me."

Aiden's eyes flicked up the ceiling.

One, two, three cracks.

"You weren't exactly wrong."

Aiden's voice was bitter, and the words were about as easy to say as trying to swallow an entire rock.

Curtis was quiet for nearly a minute, opening and closing his mouth in wide-eyed shock before speaking.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"It's alright. I never knew them."

"I think that's worse, in a way."

Aiden nodded solemnly and screwed his bottom lip.

"Anyway, I'm think.... we're friends now. I dunno, I just feel like there was a shift of some kind, y'know?"

"Yeah. Even Dulcie seems to like me, and she used to hate me."

"Dulcie didn't hate you."

Curtis snorted.

"She punched me and called me a dumbass. That sounds like hate, doesn't it?"

Aiden was silent.

"You kind of deserved it."

It was meant to be a joke. It didn't sound like one.

Curtis laughed darkly.

"I'm sure I did. Thing is, though, what do you think would've happened had you made an insensitive comment, and Dulcie punched and swore at you?"

When Aiden didn't answer, Curtis answered his own question.

"Rico would've given her hell for that. Because you're the important one, and everyone knows you don't punch important people. Has it ever really occurred to you that Dulcie is just as impulsive as I am? But she gets off scot-free. Because everyone loves spit-fire Dulcie, but nobody likes hot-headed Curtis."

Aiden swallowed.
"A- Am I not important?"
Curtis suddenly flew into a torrent of curses.
"No, no that's not what I meant it's just-" He took in a deep, shuddering breath.

"It's just... I don't get it. Why let your life be dictated by what you might do, what you could do to help people? You can help people whenever, you don't need a call to action to do it. Anyway, wouldn't it sort of... be really bad to be in included in some sort of big thing like that? People are suddenly looking up to you and thinking you're the answer or whatnot, and guess what?"

"What?"

"They don't do a thing for the world. They're waiting for their call to action before they mke a move. They think that the kid who got the "call" is going to take care of it for them. And guess what? Maybe they're not going to. Maybe whoever go the call just doesn't care. Maybe the person who got the "call" has no idea what they're doing. Or maybe, you know, whoever got the "call" is a freaking kid. And they're not ready for people to shove the world into their face and tell them to fix it. I care a lot about all of you. I know that I don't know you very well, but being under that kind of pressure... just... be careful. Don't let it break you, m'kay?"

Aiden swallowed deeply and nodded.
"I-it won't I promise."

Seemingly satisfied, Curtis rolled over.

"Night, Aiden."

His voice was hoarse.

Eventually, Aiden could hear him snoring, and he was left alone with his thoughts.

He didn't want to be left alone with his thoughts.