Alternate Realities

For what might come next

For what might come next

Mare couldn't light up the world with one touch, but sometimes she tried. When she did, she couldn't avoid the exhaustion it brought. Her fellow electricons had discipline to spare. They quit when they achieved their goals. They were exacting and precise. She just never quite managed to rein it in.

Mare was a blundering tornado of destruction. Her lightning shot out across the sky and along the ground. She shimmered in purple flashes and bright explosions while others ducked and covered. In her frustration, it only got worse. Pulses screamed out of her hands and off her arms. Archs threatened to leap from her ears and the tip of her nose. It was hard to find an off switch.

Rafe suggested moderation might come with time. Tyton sniped that they should just say Cal's name and drop her in the center of the Lakelands, the war would be over. Ella thrust up a hand, sending warning bolts Tyton's way and then assured Mare that as she learned she'd figure out her limits. Maybe Rafe and Ella were right, or maybe she wasn't destined to be tempered. She might flash and bang through a few short years and at the end find herself drained like a battery, used up by war with nothing left for herself.

She thought about losing her powers a lot. She remembered the silent stone and the strangling weight that loomed over her every waking moment. Or sometimes, she thought about bombs falling, ice crushing, plants strangling, and fire burning, picking which she'd prefer to take her. Even in still, lonely moments sitting on the field waiting her turn, her mind could turn a bird's shadow into a stone from a wall exploding. She would jump and scramble only to see nothing more solid than her friends in close proximity.

Closing her eyes was hardly safer. In rest, she wondered about the reconstructed flag outside her mother's window. Would another star be dashed black? Would she crush them into mourning?

If she kept moving, she could keep some of the worst thoughts at bay. Between her few responsibilities, she meandered up and down Corvium's streets until her feet ached and her body might be weary enough to drift into a dreamless sleep. She slipped into the small row house they'd claimed as their own.

Farley had a room upstairs, empty now that she was back on base visiting Clara and planning their next steps. Mare shared the larger upstairs room with Ada, though her roommate had been gone, too. Downstairs, Kilorn, Bree, and Tramy had claimed a room that used to be a living room as their own. And Cameron shared a smaller room the old dining room with her brother.

Mare's brothers didn't fight on the front lines anymore. They and other reds, Kilorn and Morrey included, trained on long range artillery. Still dangerous, but they'd be away from the hand-to-hand she had to face, away from the silvers. Their training kept them on a schedule much fuller than her own, and she could trust the house to be empty enough for a midday nap.

Mare stopped short passing the kitchen on the way to the stairwell. She was not alone.

"Hey," she called.

Kilorn jumped and scrambled and flipped pages over in front of him. She smirked, surprised he was still embarrassed about studying. She didn't know how much progress he'd made he was so bashful about it. Even in a house of people who knew he was illiterate, he was too prideful to expose himself to her. He sat hands pressed flat against the table, back straight, and stairing straight forward–as if he thought she'd just move on.

"Are you okay?" she smirked, almost laughed at the stiffness.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." He crossed his arms and nodded. His rigid posture screamed the opposite. The heavy swallow hinted at more than just his studies being the source.