The Last Human IV - Ch. 7 - An Avian's Grace (Patreon)

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Why bother with words, when cold steel could slice the voice from your enemy’s throat? To say nothing of the roar of cannons, the bark of a rifle.

Back in the War Academy, when her drill instructors screamed orders and insults at her, Agraneia never screamed back. Better to muscle down than waste your breath. Weapons spoke louder than words.

Talya, however had no battle training. Nor did she need it. She trained her tongue at the court of the Queen, both during and after the cyran occupation. In a duel of words, Agraneia didn’t stand a chance. Breath was the only weapon Talya needed to cut her down, and bury her forever.

The white-feathered avian stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her feathers rigid with indignation. Ready to strike.

And worse, the faces were watching. Judging. Whispering their cuts and curses, so that Agraneia found she didn’t have the strength to lift her head.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Talya said.

Agraneia growled her admission, because she had learned not to trust herself to speak. Speaking led to fighting, because that’s all you know how to do, isn’t it, cyran?

“Won’t you even look at me?”

How strange. Agraneia always thought her mind was in control of her body, and yet her body couldn’t resist. Before Agraneia had time to prepare herself, she found the avian’s gaze. Dark eyes, ringed with hazel, pierced into her. Cold and beautiful and furious. And hurt.

That was why Agraneia refused to talk to her. If she opened her mouth, there could only be one outcome: she would hurt Talya again.

“I wish you hadn’t come,” Agraneia growled.

“Is that true?”

“No.”

“And what about everything else? You said you would never leave. You said you would always come back. You said you would always love me—”

“Always,” Agraneia said, “But I—”

“Always or never, Agraneia. Which is it?”

All the things she wanted to say ran together, tangled up inside her head. Agraneia grunted, and tried to shake them loose, but her thoughts were already mud, and the voices rose and hateful chatter confused everything.

“Agraneia,” Talya’s voice cut through the noise, but even she couldn’t silence them. I am always like this. I am the stone that broke.

“Nothing is so simple.”

“At least tell me why you left. Is it because I am avian? Are you so much like the rest of your kind?”

“You know that’s not how I feel.”

“I don’t know how you feel about anything. You ran, Agraneia. You didn’t tell me anything.”

“What’s there to tell?”

“You left me here, to figure it out, and you never came back. Years. It’s been years, and I still can’t stop thinking about what went wrong. When you came back, I had to see—had to know why. But you refuse to look at me. Even now! Tell me why.”

Agraneia’s hands curled into fist, one of scale and flesh, and one of metal. The words were caught in her throat, but she dragged them out, raw and bloody, one by one. “I almost killed you.”

“That night?” Talya blinked. Stunned, as if this was the first time she’d heard this. Her hand went idly up to her eye, where a bruise—long since faded—had once shown, puffy and dark beneath those white feathers. “That’s why you left? It was a mistake, Agraneia.”

“I am the mistake,” the cyran uttered, her voice dripping with the hatred she felt only for herself.

“Do you really think I’m so fragile?

“We are all so fragile.”

You were dreaming. You were not yourself. You can’t blame yourself for—”

“Then who should I blame? The people I murdered? The families? The children? They fought for their homes. I fought for a paycheck. I almost killed you, Talya, like I killed all of them. It was so easy. The hardest thing I ever did was leaving. But I couldn’t … I can’t …”

Agraneia clenched her jaw, as if she could bite down on the feelings erupting in her. It hurt to even think about that night—like a machine had its jaws around her chest, crushing the breath from her lungs. That night, she had been dreaming, as she always did, of the war on Thrass et Yunum. All her nightmares ended with those damned jungles. The sweat. The raging insects, a wall of screaming that never died. Eyes in the forest, flashing, disappearing. A branch—a leg—running out of sight. Spears thrust at her from the trees above. The smell of blood, hot and iron, filling her nostrils. They hunted her. But they didn’t understand that she, too, hunted them. She did what she was trained to do. What you allowed yourself to be trained to do. And when her hands caught flesh, her fingers dug in, and she slammed her elbow into the first face she saw. Kill or be killed. The lassertane, scarred and bloodied, opened its jaws wide, flashing fangs that dripped with saliva. She pulled her arm back and readied all her strength into her fist.

“Agra—” a choked cry. Agraneia woke from one nightmare into the next. Her hand was buried in soft feathers, clenching a soft throat. Talya, eyes wide, begged for her life. The worst part was, even after waking, a voice in the back of her mind told her to squeeze, to crush the air from her windpipe. It horrified her. Everything she had done since coming to this planet—every moment she had spent with Talya—that had been a lie.

After that night, she pulled away from Talya’s presence. Still lingering, too weak to accept that this could never be. Then, she left, saying that Khadam needed her. Because who else could ever want a killing machine?

“Talk to me,” Talya said.

The voices were as quiet as whispers, but together, they thundered in her ears. Shouting, screaming. Behind a tree, Agraneia saw the silhouette of an old lassertane woman sobbing over the broken body of a soldier. The soldier’s head was turned the wrong way. Looking at her. Accusing her. And there, in the branches, a black beak pushed through the leaves. Why him?

“I can’t control them, Talya. I thought I could, but sometimes they win. This is no way to live.”

“Then let me help you,” Talya stepped forward, only an inch from Agraneia’s chest now. It hurt, how bad Agraneia wanted to touch her. “I can be there for you.”

Agraneia put her fists to her head, and dragged her knuckles across her scalp, digging into the scaly flesh. She shook her head.

“Please,” Talya said. “I want to help.” Her hands came up, as if to touch Agraneia, but the cyran flinched away.

“You hear them, now, don’t you?” Talya asked.

Agraneia nodded.

“Do you think you deserve this?”

“Did they deserve what I did to them? I made them. I think… I think I’m losing my mind. Sometimes, they’re quiet. Sometimes, I get lost. Nothing makes sense. It feels like I know what I’m supposed to do. That I’m supposed to … “ A severed hand fell from above. White bone peeked out of a bloody wrist. It made a wet sound on the stone, and got blood on her boots. Agraneia tried to ignore it, but her heart was pumping. The branches were growing thicker.

“Where are you?” Talya asked. She spread the fingers of her feathered hand, and she brushed against Agraneia’s hard, callused scales. “Talk to me.”

“I am … back.” The words were mud in her throat, but she forced them out anyway.

“Back where?”

“Red. The leaves are red. They’re … everywhere. Waiting for me. And I don’t—I don’t want to do it. But they know.”

“What do they know?”

You could have changed. Her own thoughts were echoed by a voice, gravelly and harsh and all too familiar. “After the first world,” Eolh croaked, “Or the second. Or the third. You could have left the Emperor’s endless wars, become something better. But you didn’t. You couldn’t bear to leave this behind.”

“I hate it,” Agraneia protested. Her chest was growing tight, and Talya’s fingers felt too hot on her scales, and she shoved her arm away. Her veins were tense, her muscles ready to flee—to fight—to break anything, because at least then she might escape. But the pressure was too much.

Broken.

Forever.

“I hate it,” she growled, but the branches didn’t care. The bark of the trees was closing in, and the pitch of the insects raked her body with hot, suffocating waves. “I hate it!”

“Agraneia,” a face eclipsed the darkness. Feathered and white. She could barely hear her. Could barely remember her name. But she remembered how she felt about her. I love her.

“Agraneia,” her voice was soft, and gentle, and beckoning. “Do you remember when we first started going together? I took you on a walk up one of the new skyscrapers. Round and around, the scaffolding took us. The workers yelled at us, remember? Told us to get down, told us we’d hurt ourselves. You smiled. You didn’t care. And I was so excited, I couldn’t stop laughing.”

“Dangerous,” Agraneia said. She was sitting on the floor—when did I get here?—with her head in her hands. But she could remember it, the rough planks of wood, creaking under her weight. Talya skipping ahead, and Agraneia’s heart pounding for a different reason. “We could’ve fallen.”

“I would’ve caught you,” Talya whispered. It was such an absurd thing to say—the wingmaiden was half Agraneia’s weight.

“Then we both would’ve crashed.”

“Then we would’ve crashed,” she shrugged, “And I would crash with you, each and every day. I always wanted to.”

“I can’t bear the thought of hurting you.”

“Then be here,” Talya’s feathers quivered with barely-contained anger. Her eyes were great black pools, needing her, drawing Agraneia in. “Every day you’re not here, I die a little more. I shouldn’t love you, cyran. I should hate everything about you. But you’re not them. You’re nothing like them. You are like no one else, Agraneia, and if I can’t have you—if you can’t bear to be near me—”

Lost in a storm of emotion, the avian turned away from her. Agraneia knew that if she let her go, one day Talya would forget her. Would find a way to live without her.

Talya, she wanted to say, but the name stuck in her throat.

“Say her gods-damned name, you coward,” that voice croaked in her ear.

“Talya.”

“What?” The avian’s voice was all ice and venom. She jerked her head around, her carrot-colored beak flashing in the sunlight. Then, her gaze fell on Agraneia’s arm.

Agraneia raised her metal arm. The flawless chrome warped, unfolding layers of liquid until a delicate, white feather pushed itself out and into Agraneia’s metal hand. The feather was ragged, and old, imperfectly preserved by the metal. “I kept it. So I would always keep you near.”

“Oh,” Talya said, a single word so soft and yet, so full of meaning. And the wingmaiden folded into her, her winged arms sliding into Agraneia’s scales and metal. This time, the cyran didn’t flinch. This time, she sank back, and let herself breathe out, as if she’d been holding her breath since the day she left. They sat together, chest to chest. Warmth to warmth. Agraneia held her all the tighter, even though she knew this was wrong. All wrong. Nothing had changed. I am still what I am.

But, for once, all the voices are silent. For once, she allowed herself to hope …

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