Author’s Note: I almost went right back to the bookshop, but they decided they wanted to talk first. It was kind of important, since Tynan needed to hear what the others were saying, so… 🙂
“I am starting to get very, very worried about you.”
He looked across the car at Luna, shaking his head. “I am recovered from the incident. I am. It hurt more than I was prepared for, and I was weaker than I remember being in the past, but I do not know that anything is wrong—those factors are most likely proportional to what I did consume. I do not know that I have any clear memories of my worst disasters—I don’t know that I stopped myself then. I think I can say that this was the largest thing I have consumed with conscious awareness—I cannot say deliberately because I did not always do these things intentionally—but of all the things I remember, that metal cylinder was the largest. I cannot figure out what that was for.”
“I’m guessing it was a part of one of those windmills that we see everywhere out here. Like that,” Luna said, pointing to the fields on his side of the car. “They don’t look that big from back here, but those suckers are huge. I’ve seen the propellers. They look like they’re blades for giants, not part of a cleaner sort of energy.”
He smiled at that image. “You should paint that.”
“Maybe I will. You never know. Right now, I’d rather just get you home. Well, to my home but your home since you don’t have one and are there all the time. I want to be sure that you’re safe and okay, that we’ve put enough distance between there and us. I’m also hoping no one was filming that on their phones and uploading it online or anything. This could be really bad.”
“Not necessarily. Remember, my appearance is a facsimile. I can change it to suit my needs—though admittedly, that is mostly done without any conscious effort on my part—and so I can simply change if we find there is a problem.”
“Right.”
“Something is wrong?”
She shrugged. “I know it’s not real, not really, but I’m kind of used to the way you look. You’ve always been the same around me. I like the way you look. You’re not… For someone who can look like anyone or anything he pleases, you didn’t grab the first model you came across—you look rather ordinary and yet… You’re still appealing and compelling and—Wow, I sound like an idiot.”
“Never. Not to me.”
She smiled. “I hope you don’t have to change how you look—You better not be lying to me about being better and over all this, though. If you’re lying to me—”
“I’m not, Luna. I do not know that I have ever lied in my life. I have chosen not to speak, and I have found that most people do not believe me, but I have not lied. I have never lied to you.”
“You don’t know how special that is.”
He would have asked about it, but Alvin flew up to the back of the seat, bumping into both chairs at once. “Tynan is special. Tynan is not vortex.”
“Alvin, I am the vortex. I was born of it, and I am just as any of the others who are a part of it—”
“No. No. Vortex only destroy. Tynan saves. Not vortex.”
“He’s got a point,” Luna said, and he frowned at her. “You should think of yourself by your name, take it and make yourself something different from all those others. I don’t know why you haven’t already. Break free from all those stereotypes, all the things people have told you of your species—you are not like the rest of them. You’re your own person, you have your own rules, and you make your own choices. Maybe they destroy. You don’t.”
“I did.”
“To save lives. Sometimes the police have to shoot people who take other people hostage. You saved a whole bus full of people. You might not have realized it, but you did. That’s noble. You were a hero, and I think you already got punished enough for what you ate. You didn’t do it without pain, and that makes what you did even more noble.”
“I do not feel noble. I am still a monster.”
“No! Friend Tynan is no monster.”
He frowned, not sure how to react to Alvin’s words. Friend. Alvin had called him a friend. Luna had first, but Luna was different. She’d never feared him or what he could do. Alvin had. This was bewildering.
“Just rest,” Luna told him. “We’ll prove it to you eventually.”
I love you, little Alvin!
I’m glad you didn’t skip this for the books. This was one of those perfect little sequels.
🙂 Alvin was very helpful this time.
Yeah, this part couldn’t be skipped.