Spice
Thread Topic: Spice
-
Kenna nodded. "Alright, then." She'd at least know how to fight back. She knew she'd be a hard case considering she couldn't even run and essentially only had one hand to use while standing, unless she used her cane as a weapon. But she had a feeling Ander would do well in teaching her.
Then her point from before stuck in her mind. She hesitated before softly asking, "Why did you even choose to save me in the first place?" -
Ander glanced over at Crypta, who was not so subtly listening in on the conversation. When he looked at her, she quickly began to scrub a perfectly clean spot on the counter. He got up from his chair, setting his mug into the sink. "That is a question with a long answer. Would you care to join me on a walk, Kenna?"
-
Kenna looked at him, then nodded. She had no idea what he was going to tell her, and she felt extremely curious, but also very wary for some reason.
-
Ander opened the door and sunshine poured in, filling the home with warmth and light. Birds were chirping and singing and the radiant, lively sunlit forest before them now seemed barely anything like the misty, terrifying woods of the night. The gnarled roots and twisted branches that had seemed so beastly then we're charming now, adorned with moss and leaves and various creatures watching the scene curiously.
Ander patiently held the door for Kenna, drawing in the sights around them like fresh air. He turned to her, taking in how the sunlight made her seem warmer, softer. It was nicer to see her in a place like this. He wished he had meant under such pleasant circumstances. Would things have been different? Maybe they'd be acquaintances through choice, not by threat of death.
He shook himself out of his thoughts, offering her a slight smile. "I have some questions for you, but they can wait. What would you like to know? We have all the time in the world." When he spoke, he spoke softly, but this time not as if he were afraid of being heard. It just seemed natural as the gentle wind combing through the trees around them, to speak gently to not disturb the peace. It made his words feel more personal, as if they were meant for only her. After all, they were. -
Kenna let out a nervous breath as she walked with Ander. First she had to organize the information she already had before figuring out what her questions were.
"You said you were going to limit what information I knew," Kenna started, her voice soft. "So far I know that Linnus is some sort of organization of assassins. Probably more. But that's probably all you want me to know about that, right?" -
Ander began to walk, taking slow strides so he wouldn't speed ahead of Kenna. "That's about all you're privy to at the moment. But more or less, that's the idea. It's not just assassins. Linnus is responsible for establishing order throughout the world. If there are threats to that order, they are...eliminated through whatever means necessary. For the greater good of humanity."
-
Kenna understood that he was speaking from Linnus' perspective, not his own. Otherwise, none of this would have happened, she would be dead.
"Do you know why they decided to go after me?" she hesitantly asked. "I mean, I'm nobody. I don't understand how I'm significant enough to make a difference to them." -
Ander's brows furrowed at this, giving her a look of concern. "That's what I was going to ask you. Usually my targets are older individuals, key members of the government or rebels. Important people worth risking good men for. But you?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You don't even know why they're after you. That doesn't make sense to me. Either you're lying to me or there's more to this than you think." He fixed her under his gaze, studying her expression. "And I think I'd know if you were lying to me."
-
This sent Kenna into a whirlwind of thoughts and questions, ones that she knew Ander had no answer for. He was right, there had to be far more to this than met the eye.
Kenna looked up at Ander with her deep blue eyes. "So then why did you save me?" she asked. "You shouldn't have cared, you have no reason to." -
Ander stopped walking, coming to a halt. He turned to fully face her, meeting her eyes. She was shorter than him and smaller than him, but her gaze held a certain intensity that he couldn't ignore. "I'm not entirely heartless, despite what you may think," he said in a light tone with a half smile. His expression grew more serious. "I spent most of my life fighting for what I thought was right. I thought I was one of the good guys. It was easy to believe. The people I killed were not innocent men, at least not many of them. I thought I was doing the right thing." He let his gaze drop, breaking the eye contact.
"I began to put the pieces together. I investigated, looked deeper into what Linnus was really doing. There was so much that I hadn't known, so much that they never told us. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't trust Linnus anymore. I kept my head down so they wouldn't put a bullet in it. I tried to stay low and avoid missions, distance myself as much as possible. But then you showed up." -
Kenna looked at him with a surprised expression. But she started putting the pieces together. Since he was good-hearted, he hadn't found it in himself to kill her. She realized he was facing vast consequences to Linnus because of her.
She swallowed. "Are there any others like me?" she slowly asked. "Have any other innocent people gotten away?" If there were, that gave her hope. Maybe Linnus wasn't such an impossible force to beat. Maybe they had a chance. -
"That depends on what you mean. As far as I know, only two people have openly crossed Linnus and survived. And that's only because they took an entire division down with them," Ander replied, glancing off to the side. "But from what I know, they were extraordinarily lucky. Linnus would never repeat the same mistakes they made then."
He felt like he was hurting Kenna by saying these things, but she had to know the truth. She needed to understand how threatening Linnus was. Maybe if she got lucky, she'd survive this. In his heart, he knew that he wouldn't. No matter how skilled he was, no matter how hard he tried or how far he ran, they would not rest until he was dead. He couldn't run forever, but maybe he could make a difference before his time was up. -
"I see," Kenna said, a feeling of disappointment and dread washing over her. This was the impossible task. Their chances of success were incredibly slim, and no one really knew how to survive against them in the first place.
"How did you even get involved with Linnus in the first place?" she asked. There was no way someone like Ander would have willingly joined them, knowing they were a huge group of killers. Granted, Ander had said they hadn't seemed that way on the outside. Yet she still wanted to know. -
"I'm not sure how that's relevant," Ander replied, his defensive walls slowly rising up. He was being too vulnerable with her, too open. She didn't need to know everything about him. There were some things that were better left unspoken, stories that he kept tucked away in the back of his mind. He didn't want to open those old wounds again.
He averted his gaze, focusing instead on a nearby bird. It was perched on a branch, its movements sharp and precise. If only he could have wings like those. He turned back to Kenna, hoping to change the subject. "Why don't you tell me about yourself? We've been through a life-threatening experience together and I still feel like I barely know you." -
She realized that maybe he didn't want to talk about it. He had described it as "tough." It looked like she had been right that there was more to it than that. But she had forgotten herself, they had only recently met each other, things like that shouldn't be shared yet, they were by no means close enough for that.
Kenna wasn't sure where to go with the question since he had asked her that the night before. She decided maybe some sort of little bio about herself would suffice.
"Well, I'm nineteen," she started. She tried searching for other things to say about herself. She was horrible at these types of questions. "There's actually some controversy as to how I came to the orphanage. One theory says that my father brought me there. Another says that a man found me abandoned on the streets and brought me there. They told me I still had my hospital tag on me, you know the one that says your name so that they don't get the babies mixed up? So I suppose it doesn't really matter how I ended up there.
The orphanage was poor, so I wasn't able to get treated for the monoplegia (one limb crippled) I was born with. I guess I was raised the same as anyone else would be with indifferent parents. There were rules, punishments if you broke them, of course, they gave us food and clothes and whatever else you needed, but you could tell they didn't really care."
Post a reply as a guest or Log In
REMEMBER:
- Do not harass or insult other people. Treat others how you'd like to be treated.
View all 10 forum rules
- Do not harass or insult other people. Treat others how you'd like to be treated.
View all 10 forum rules
