“Honest with myself,” Astrid scoffed. “What do you mean by that?”
Myles skipped a rock twice as far as her last one. “I dunno.”
Rolling clouds absorbed the pinks and oranges from the beginnings of a sunset. It reflected off of the lakewater across from them, disrupted by Astrid’s next throw. There was little else to distract them out here, surrounded by an endless forest of craters and trees. Mostly trees. Mostly nothing of note. Appropriate, because their conversation had taken a similar pointless course right up until Myles’ question.
The rock bounced once, twice, then a final time. Then, silence for a little while.
“…And what about you?” Astrid finally said, still unimpressed with her throw.
“Mm?”
“How honest have you been with
yourself? If you’re gonna be asking me that, y’know,” she said, hesitating. This was uncharted territory for both of them. “I mean, just… who
are you? You’re not my brother, you’re, um, you’re—god, I feel like I know you even worse than I knew him. But we’re attached at the hip, and you’re an ally, not an enemy. It’s just weird.”
Myles listened intently to the strange confession. Just weird, huh. Okay.
There was something there to latch onto, and Myles wasn’t going to pass it up. Getting this girl to speak in a straight line was hard enough sometimes.
He licked his dry lips and said, “You feel like you didn’t know him, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do I look like this?”
“What?”
“Why am
I him, without, according to you,
actually being him? Shit don’t make sense.”
Taken back, she answered lamely, “Because, um, I… still think about him a lot. Even as his face and his voice has gotten blurry and impossible to recognize, I still hold onto hope that things can be better. Someday. Maybe.” She feigned a shrug. Another rock in the water. More visible disappointment.
Her familiar’s face turned to iron. “Hope?”
Astrid met his gaze, unsteady. “Yeah… hope. For our family. I mean, mom and d—erm, my parents, they’re sort of… ohh. I don’t know about them.” She looked away. “They’d probably hate me for running away.”
‘And proving them wrong.’ Maybe Astrid didn’t mean to project that at him, but whatever. Happened all the time. Myles was certain he heard more than she realized, and definitely more than she’d be comfortable with. There was always that urge to say something, and there was always that urge to say nothing at all…
“…But yes. I have hope for Myles still.”
“Do you now?”
“Yeah.”
In spite of the edge in her eyes, her mouth ticked upwards at some blurry memory of him. She really missed him, or at least, she missed the memories. Missed the
idea of having those memories. Missed having family close instead of far, as she seemed to view it. She wasn’t addressing the Myles before her, of course, who couldn’t make any more sense of those memories than she could, even as he experienced them in spikes every time she fell into a stupor. Even as he discovered more of what was hidden than she could, for whatever fucking reason, he could not make sense of it. Could not accept his origins, as if being aware of it made it any fucking better.
If she was more perceptive, she might’ve noticed the glint in his eye that had formed. But, ah. Astrid’s brother, wherever and whoever he was, was real; Myles was simple mimicry, borne of an abundance of energies and different parents entirely. Something else. Some
one else. Astrid’s brother hadn’t been seen in years, and
he was right here, but he would never be her brother, and that was what mattered.
Her hope was never meant for him.
“What do you think I should do?” Astrid earnestly asked him, pulling him back to reality.
Now it was his turn to be taken aback. “Huh? You mean, about… ah. Hmph.” Was she asking because he was the closest thing to her brother she could talk to right now? “Why ask me? I ain’t a family guy, or based on one, so. Yeah, sorry, not my lane.”
“Because you’re the closest thing to my brother that I can talk to right now,” Astrid said candidly. Myles twitched his nose, annoyed for once at how attuned their minds were—but could not bring himself to feel disappointed when he saw such softness and desperation in her stupid gleaming eyes. What was
with this girl and her… bizarre emotions? Sometimes he wondered if he was really the biggest alien between the two of them.
In the end, Myles shrugged. “I’m just me, y’know? Closest thing? Sure, okay. You want my advice, so here’s what I got.” Vulpix to Ninetales, familiar to host, he stared her in the face and said, “Run and don’t look back. Find a way to incorporate those rocket booster paws of yours into my metaphor about running because you cannot possibly get away fast enough. I’ve spotted more red flags about this ‘family’ of yours than I saw at the Colosseum the other day when they were putting up banners for that gross Fire tournament going on.”
They stared at one another.
“Run?” Astrid whispered. “I can’t just give up, right? I mean, I know it’s a long shot, but hrmm.” She turned away and frowned. “It might take years. They might be gone forever, I don’t know. But they’re family and I think I should try for that reason alone. If I fail, well…”
“Red flags,” Myles repeated.
“There are plenty of red flags about my fighting style,” Astrid countered a little darkly. “Haven’t you encouraged it the whole way? Even when my friends didn’t?”
He flinched, then quickly adjusted. “Yeah, well, that’s different.”
“Is it?”
God. When had she grown so assertive?
More importantly, where had he gained the notion that she shouldn’t be by default?
“Yeah. It’s different because you found a way to control yourself before you got killed. Adapt or die. You can’t adapt your family to shit, Astrid. They gotta decide what they care about for themselves, and if your memories are any indication…”
“I don’t think it’s that—“
“Well it
is that simple sometimes,” Myles cut her off. “Sometimes hope is misplaced.”
“Misplaced?”
“Mis-fucking-placed.”
Another rock skipped across the pond.
“We’ll see.”
No we won’t, Myles thought to himself,
but you might.
It was clear to him what this exchange was, because indeed, he considered himself a master at reading terse situations like this. Perhaps that carried over from the bastard he was designed from; he didn’t give a fuck. This was borne from mutual exhaustion for the most part, compounded of course by the circumstances that Cibus continued to deliver them. Astrid clearly wasn’t over the trauma from seeing her friends pseudo-die, and it had affected things between them. Bursts of tension gave way to periods of neutrality and even softness, as it always had between them.
Wasn’t that what actual siblings did?
I’m not your goddamn brother.
I’m not your goddamn brother.
A deep silence lingered between them. All was familiar.
And as always, they both harbored feelings of misgiving for the
real Myles, wherever and whoever he was indeed. Did it matter? He might’ve forgotten about Astrid by now, fake Myles reasoned. It had been years; there were plenty of other kits at the time, and not all of them made it. Stupid memories lingered that weren’t his, yet were. He—the real Myles—might have a family by now, which wasn’t uncommon in those tribes. Adapt and survive. Commit to the Way of Life, or you might as well be dead. Adapt and survive. A horrifying thought crossed his mind: he was created by those very words, that very principle. One of the freshest memories forced upon him was telling Astrid those very words, spoken right from
his mouth…
Yes, he was starting to remember all of it. It was becoming less blurry the more he dug. The more he did, the larger his hatred grew.
He looked at Astrid; she was staring off into space, probably busying herself thinking about random shit. Were those memories clearing up for her, too? Because he could feel her frustration, and it was nothing quite like his. There was confusion there. Something clearly wasn’t clicking.
She picked up another rock and threw it. The look on her face as it released from her paw said it all.
Plink—plink—plop!
“Ugh, damn.”
Yeah. Astrid didn’t swear out loud often, unless she was fighting, drunk, or especially distressed.
Tense and suddenly uncomfortable where he sat, Myles stared into the water, stared at her reflection, and pondered that disconnect further.
Not your goddamn brother…
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