Kaia the Argent Wing

 

“Why aren't you angry?” I asked tentatively as we picked our way back through the woods towards the camp.

The coyote corpses were left behind, neither of us had the will or energy to lug the useful parts all the way back to Edgewood. It was also very much at the bottom of my priority list right about then.

Even in the dark I could see the side eye that Chloe was throwing in my direction. “Why would I be angry?”

“Because I didn't tell you a very important secret, especially after you started befriending both of my personas?” I asked, still extremely confused.

She made a small, thoughtful noise. “I guess I can see why someone might be upset…”

I wanted to scream. What did that even mean?

“But…” she continued slowly. “To be honest, nobody should be demanding deeply personal secrets like that. Especially when the secret is necessary for your own safety. I've seen the way people treat Silver…”

A little piece of my heart quivered, and I came to a stop. I don't know why… but I felt a deep relief and gratitude over what she'd just said.

She stopped beside me and placed a hand on my arm. “You okay?”

I nodded, but in reality, I wasn't okay. “You're really not upset…”

She squeezed my forearm. “It's like coming out, Silver. You can only step out of the closet once with each person, and there's no going back once you do. It should only happen when you're absolutely comfortable, and since comfort is subjective, the only person who has the right to make that decision is you.”

I laughed, but it was more out of confused amazement than any sense of amusement. “Figures, it's the two queer people who found out who had the chillest reactions.”

“April knows?” Chloe asked, then nodded understanding. “Makes sense. Again, your goofy ass couldn’t have pulled this off without at least one accomplice. What about your friends?”

I nodded, but I winced too. “They found out recently, but it wasn't pretty. Scotty was almost aggressively supportive, but he found out on his own and pushed me to tell the others. They're cool now, but some were pretty upset over the lies.”

“That's ridiculous,” she grumbled, her eyes shining with frustration in the woodland gloom.

I… the amount of gratitude I felt towards this girl right now…

I'd been so scared of her finding out, and of others like my friends finding out, not to mention the sheer terror I felt when I considered what would happen if my twin identities became public knowledge. Now here she was, the only person who’d truly understood my feelings—all the fear and doubt.

“Thanks,” she said.

A silent tear ran down my cheek. Shit. I was crying.

She didn't notice it in the dark, thankfully, and continued talking, “Thanks for revealing yourself and saving me. That was probably pretty fucking scary—making that decision while fighting for your life.”

“It's… nothing,” I whispered, taking a deep breath in an attempt to claw back a smidge of calm. She was being so painfully understanding and I didn't know how to handle it.

I wasn't thinking, and if I had been I wouldn't have, but I grabbed and hugged her. She squeaked quietly and tried to push me away for half a second. Realising what I was doing, I relaxed my grip in a mild panic, but she was already leaning in and her arms kept me from retreating.

“Thanks for being so understanding,” I mumbled, sniffling a little.

She squeezed me tighter. “It's okay. I'm actually kinda happy you're both Silver and Kaia.”

I stepped awkwardly out of the hug and asked, “Why?”

She looked away, flashing a brief tiny smile in the moonlight. “It makes things a lot simpler…”

“Simpler… how?” I asked, genuinely confused. What were the things, and how were they made simpler?

She gave me a sly, almost mysterious look and began to walk again. “Simpler…”

That word was starting to sound funny in my brain. Simpler, simpler, simpler.

 

We stepped into camp to find everyone awake and armed, about to rush into the forest to find us. When my friends saw my current form, they both relaxed and began to smile wryly. I stared sheepishly at the ground.

“Oh,” Ollie said with a laugh. “Cat's out of the bag, huh?”

“Yeah we got into trouble out there,” Chloe said, chagrined. “She was forced to transform to save us.”

“Oof,” Immie said with a wince.

Everyone seemed satisfied after a little banter, although I had to stop my friends from asking Chloe’s opinion about my deception. I knew that if I allowed that conversation to manifest, Chloe would probably tear them all a new one for how they treated me, and we really didn’t need that kind of drama right now.

After Camillo healed both Chloe and I properly, and sponge bath had been achieved, we decided it was time to sleep and wriggled into our tent. I transformed back into Kaia once inside, because I simply couldn't fit in the tent otherwise.

“Tall and angry, then small and cute,” Chloe giggled once we were in the false privacy of our tent. Was it just me, or was she doing a lot of giggling now? It was eerie.

I blushed, which she thankfully couldn't see in the dark. “Ha… yeah.”

“Oh, I just realised, every time I need Silver for something, I can come find you instead,” she said, still amused. Then she gasped, “Oh! That explains why you're so strong as Kaia! Your attributes are the same level… right?”

“Yep,” I grinned, rolling over to look at her. All I could see was her outline, which… the curve of her hips and waist… What was I going to say? I was— ah! “It's actually helped me realise that exercise and building muscle are still very important. Like, I get some pretty nice stat bonuses when I'm Silver, but it doesn't account for how much stronger I am.”

“That's really interesting,” she said, then in alarm, she quickly clarified, “Like, actually. I'm not being sarcastic.”

“I know,” I said with a smile.

I heard rustling, then she sighed. “I always struggle with sarcasm. Like, I miss it entirely half the time, but when I catch it I'm instantly anxious trying to figure out which part of what they said was sarcastic… Does that make sense?”

I hummed affirmatively. “Yup. I started noticing that about you after the Storm. I've tried to be a little more direct when I'm talking to you.”

She was quiet for a couple of heartbeats, then I felt something touch my side. She was reaching over. I pulled a hand out of my sleeping bag and grasped her hand, and we stayed like that for what felt like ten minutes.

Eventually, she cleared her throat and murmured, “Thanks. That's actually really nice of you. It's… I always struggle… you know? It seems like everything I do makes other people mad…”

I squeezed her hand gently while my heart hammered in my chest. This was really important—Chloe was not the type of person to be vulnerable like this on a whim. She was really, properly opening up to me.

“I suppose you noticed that, too?” She asked, a tiny wisp of doubt mixed with hope in her tone.

I giggled softly, with as much care in my tone as I could add so she didn’t think I was laughing at her. “Yeah. I started realising that you really do just mean what you say a lot of the time. There's no um… like, layered meanings or subtle tone shifts or whatever. The words should be processed as-is. Does that make sense?”

Her fingers had begun to fidget and play with mine, but she stilled once I'd spoken. “Exactly…”

“So yeah… if you need me to be a little more direct or to clarify something, you can just say, okay?” I said, summing up my feelings on the matter.

Her gentle fingers squeezed mine one last time, let out a tired yawn, then let go. “Thank you.”

 

The next day, we dedicated our time to scouting around the quarry, mapping out any other dangers. Thankfully, it seemed that the massive amount of noise created by the golem battle had driven most wildlife away, so apart from a recently abandoned raccoon camp, there was nothing to note down.

Any serious attempt to get resources from the quarry itself would have to wait until we figured out some sort of bulk transportation method. Normally, this would've been the point where an oxen or a couple of horses were employed to haul a wagon. Unfortunately, there weren't any oxen around, and the only horses so far had been… unsuited to menial labour.

I had the inklings of a plan, though, but I wasn't ready to talk about it with everyone yet.

The whole day, Chloe stuck to my side in a way that I wasn't used to. She'd stand closer to me, touch me to get my attention, and on one occasion where I made a goofy joke, she hugged me. She was just… so much more happy around me, and I didn't know what to make of it.

The morning after the scouting day, we took our samples and began our journey home. Alec had a bunch more goofy marching songs for us to rotate through, making the journey back home far less tedious and time consuming.

We stopped a couple of hours after midday for lunch—choosing a random copse of windbreaker trees to shield us from the sun. None of us were used to how hard the sun could hammer you from above, especially if you spent hours under it. It almost felt like the sun was a malicious entity by the afternoon.

“Gah,” I grumbled, picking a leaf off a shrub. “I'd give anything for a nice stiff breeze right now.”

I sent an accusatory stare up into the only barely swaying branches of the trees above us.

Alec chuckled around a mouthful of breadleaf. “I wonder if there's a wind chant? Hey, ho, the wind here she blow, ay, yo, it'll throw us back to the snow! Hey, ho, this song-stuff is tough, ay, yo, ain't this sun kinda rough?”

Eyes were rolled throughout the rest of the party, because while Alec's lyrics did the job, they could've used some… refinement.

“Funny how we're all wanting to get back to the snow, even though we're trying to get rid of the bird,” Ollie said idly.

We all hummed wordless agreement— all except Chloe. Her head whipped up, and she speared me with a look of wild shock. “Kaia!”

I glanced around at my friends, trying to see if they had any idea Chloe looked like her head was going to explode from internal pressure. “Uh… me?”

“Harmonic chanting is very good at doing one simple, broad thing, but very well. You want to make people walk faster, easy. You want to explode an enemy army or one particular giant bird? You're out of luck…” she said rapidly, excitedly. “I bet you, though, that summoning a wind, even a gale, I bet that's possible.”

Now it was my turn to look like I'd been hit by lightning. “The burning plan!”

“The burning plan!” She repeated, grinning like a wild woman.