Cosmic Twists 1 (Old Version)

Part Three - Lara - Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

I watch Jenna as I wait for her response, but she turns and looks down.

“We should go,” she says. “Only I have permission to enter this room.”

We make our way back up to the palladium, down the twelfth corridor into the Piscesian realm of Halneon, in silence.

In the light, I see Eirah approaching us. The usual soft smile on her face is nowhere to be seen. I look at Jenna beside me, but she looks ahead, and nods towards Eirah and begins to make her way back towards the Palladium, pausing momentarily before closing the doors behind her. Eirah stands before me, finally forcing a small smile on her lips. We walk.

“I told you she doesn’t hate you…” she reassures me, trying to sound light hearted.

“Eirah, I…” I mumble, but before I can finish, Eirah turns to face me, reaching out for my hand. I feel her soft fingers clench my wrist gently but with noticeable pressure. She turns my wrist so that my palm is facing upwards, and she rests two fingertips where the blue shadow of my veins run near the surface of my pale, almost transparent skin. She closes her eyes.

“The blood of a Piscesian,” she smiles again, releasing a long sigh.

“What?” I stutter. She takes my hand in hers, lifting two of my fingers to her neck just under her jawbone, where I feel a strange repetitive thud.

“Do you know what that is?” she asks.

“Your pulse…”

“It’s my heartbeat,” she says happily, “my human heartbeat.” I raise my other hand to my neck and place the fingertips of my middle and index fingers onto where I would usually find my own pulse. I listen. Nothing.

“You have the blood of a Piscesian, Lara. You always have. There is a reason why you never felt ‘normal’ in the human world. You were born half Piscesian. Halneon’s air completes you. Here, you are a full Piscesian.”

“What does this mean?” I ask.

“You could never love Ronan the way you were expected to, because you weren’t supposed to. The blood that runs through your veins can only hold places in your heart for those you love platonically and unconditionally; people like family. I… I am human. I am a human in the wrong world, and I have no control over who I fall in love with.” Her eyes begin to sparkle with tears. “Lara, I am in love with Ronan.” She looks up at me, and I realise all the times she has seen him through my eyes, how he was only seeing me, and she had wished he was seeing her. She never knew how I really felt about Ronan, until now.

“How did you learn this?” I ask in astonishment. Everything makes sense now. Eirah looks over her shoulder to reveal Jenna speaking with the Professor.

“The Professor took your blood the day you came to Halneon, while you were recovering. He has seen this happen before.” I immediately look at Jenna, wondering if Eirah knows the story of Fera. Jenna and the Professor step towards us. “He was able to find the Piscesian elements in your blood, which were taken to the Praefectus to be studied telepathically to retrace the moments in your memories that had been blurred by my own emotions, which revealed how you really felt about Ronan, which finalised all of this. I could never see the way you felt about Ronan. Lara,” Eirah says intently, her eyes concentrating on mine, “do you feel happy here?”

“More than I ever have been before, but…”

“I know what this entails, but if I can have a shot at a life of my own, with the person I love, and knowing that you would be happier in my place, then I am willing to die trying for that chance.” She speaks defiantly; there is no self-doubt in her words. I think of Jenna.

“I can’t lose you…” my voice shakes. I look down at my hands. Eirah reaches for them.

“Lara. I don’t know what will happen. For once I do not know what the future holds for us, but I need to know that I tried to make it better for the both of us.” Her eyes wide and wet, but she smiles; smiling at the hope of having a life of her own fulfilled desires and dreams. Her happiness is the only thing that matters to me now. I nod, slowly but surely.

We look at each other in silence for a moment, until Jenna and the Professor finally reach us, their pace quickened having overheard our decision.

“I shall begin the preparations” says the Professor, before bowing his head slightly and turning swiftly on his foot back in the opposite direction. Jenna lingers ever so slightly behind him, following him back shortly after.

We see Cali and Peyton heading towards us. Jenna and the Professor stop them and speak with them below our hearing level. They suddenly look at us. Sadness floods their eyes.