Walking With Giants (Completed)

Chapter 19

Cobalt felt like he shouldn't trust Horus, but he did.

Despite his prediction of an eerie silence in the group because of the possible death of a team member, everybody was talking. Chatter overtook the group, and pretty soon Cobalt seemed to be the only one walking in silence. Scarlet was talking to Herin and Eon, and Horus was talking to Aurum. The most of the chatter seemed to be coming from Eon, who he speculated honestly did not care about the welfare of Ursa. But, then again, his previous prediction had been wrong, so maybe he had to stop assuming.

The chattering continued for a minute before Aurum (of all people) noticed that Cobalt was walking alone.

"Hey, Cobalt." Aurum said, waving to Cobalt. "We're talking crap that maybe you want to contribute to."

"Wasn't I the one who scared you at the base of Eagle Peak so bad that you ran away?" It came out a bit harsh, and Cobalt regretted saying it that way to a teammate.

Aurum shrugged. "I don't tend to hold grudges."

Cobalt walked over to Horus and Aurum, who were watching him in bated breath, and exhaled - in relief, it seemed - when he walked over to meet them in their conversation.

"We were just talking about what Elipse's camp will be like. Like, what we're gonna do there when we get there." Aurum said, trying to hide his excitement at success but failing.

"I don't know," Cobalt said, taking the conversation down a bumpy road. "I'm not exactly thrilled to get there. Avoiding conflict tends to be my style."

Horus butted in on Cobalt directly after Cobalt said his position. "I have a feeling that this conflict is inevitable. You'll have to find a new way of solving these types of confrontations."

"That was always inevitable," Cobalt laughed for the first time that day. "I just tend to play it safe."

"Does that make you a pacifist or a strategist?"

"A bit of both. It depends on how you look at it."

Horus smiled back at Cobalt, for a fleeting moment, and then looked back at the end of the trail. "You crack me up, Cobalt. You know, I used to be just like you when I was your age."

"If it means anything, you look about my age. In case you're old or anything."

Horus frowned, not in the statement, it seemed, but because of what he was about to say. Possibly. "Yeah. Time flies by when you live life in the fast lane." He looked back at Cobalt. "I tend not to measure life by true increments of time; just the rate it progresses and the rate stupidity progresses."

"So I'm guessing you're fourteen... like the rest of us?"

"In some ways, yes, in a logical sense. And, in some ways, no, in a maturity sense."

"Sounds like you keep grudges, by chance?"

"I don't if I barely know the people who've dealt them, once they begin to come out of their shells for who they really are. I do if I know them too well to know they wouldn't do what they did to anyone but me."

"What does that make me?"

"That is for me to know and you to find out."

"You got a very two-sided morality code."

"That's the ways everybody's should be. It should be able to flex depending on the situation. Do you agree?"

Cobalt narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, deep in thought. "I guess. Hmm... Yeah, but there are some times where sticking with one moral rule can get you through."