Weight of Penumbra Ch. 02

"That too, but that's probably not going to happen. We need supplies, medicines, mostly. I am sure we can handle the rest here."

I dropped my shoulders and took a deep breath. Just doing that I felt the tension drizzle away like a soft summer rain. "Ok, I'll see what I can do?"

"Thank you Kiowa," Natalia blew air and then giggled as she took Matthias' hand in her own. She had been on pins and needles and I hadn't realized how difficult this must be for her to ask for help.

Matthias kissed Natalia on the forehead and the grabbed me pulling me away from my safe do not detonate zone of their doorframe.

"Thank you," He gave me a huge strong hug.

"I can't promise anything," I peeled myself out of his embrace. I was still on edge, so I just nodded as I turned to finally leave. He let me leave that easily. I guess that is all he wanted.

I started down the flight of stairs, admonishing myself with every flight to the street. I guess that was all he wanted. I sucked my teeth feeling like I lost again. Two hands yanked me pulling me into a dark corner in between two dilapidated and abandoned apartments.

"Don't scream?" a voice said and just as I inhaled air to let out the loudest scream I could muster.

The man's hand slapped hard over my mouth and my scream imploded back into my body. All I could hear was ringing as the stranger pulled me into one of the apartments with a broken ceiling opened to the sky. Yellow sludge from the rust and dirt dripping from patches of a neglected roof. He pushed me against the wall hard pushing the air out of my body.

"I told you not to scream." the stranger admonished. He clapped his gloved hands causing a small spark of light to illuminate his face. "You must really have a death wish human,"

It was Samson. I should have been relieved but I didn't know why he was here in the colony.

He shook his head, his neck corded with tension. "How could you tell that human about your powers? Do you want to jeopardize everything everyone has worked for and ruin any chance of humans survival?" he said in a sharp whisper.

"What's your deal? Why do you care anyways!" I was still riled up by Mattias.

"Because I know the difference between right and wrong. Do you?" his deep amber eyes narrowed at me.

His chastisement made me go stiff. I bit the inside of my lip, my anger abating.

Samson looked down at my hand set aglow and backed off from me. He crossed his arms over his chest. He was dressed down, in a jean jacket and black leather pants. He still didn't look like a usual colony resident but strong healthy man. Samson was incredibly attractive, he's presence seemed to hold the earth's gravity. Yet, he still made me feel like an unruly child.

"You better get a handle on the big picture and your temper too, human. I can still kill you if I see that you are going to put the mission at risk?"

Many thoughts ran through my head, but was he right? I was still fuming about Matthias telling Natalia about my powers. My life was none of her business and my life was none of Matthias' as well - since he didn't want to be a part of my life anyways.

"Why are you here?" I asked trying to stand my ground.

"First, we need to do something about the human couple."

I snapped my fists at my hips and they lit up. "We are not going to do anything with Matthias and his wife other than figure a way to help them."

Samson smirked, "Spunky."

"He's is my friend. He won't do anything to hurt me." I lied.

"You say that now but that's because you are not yet acquainted with war. You will learn soon enough. You will be careful and trust no one with your weapon from now forward."

My heart leaped. He was going to let me become a rebel.

"So I am a weapon now. And how am I supposed to know I can trust you. As soon as I meet you, the entire campus finds out that I am human. How do I know you're not really who you say you are - a rebel. Like, I really believe that there are Y'vori that would care about humans at this point. How do I know you aren't an official trying to catch me in some sort of entrapment rebellion plan?"

Samson only smirked. He dark amber eyes wrinkled with strange amusement and mystery. His thick kissable lips curled into a bright white Cheshire smile. He was brute as Taxa and sexy at the same time. I'm sure being the son of a general, he probably got a lot of attention from women, as much as Gaelen gets. Perfect rich mahogany skin, so bright with health. Samson was enticing to look and I felt like a sea captain on the ocean hypnotized into crashing into dangerous craggy rocks.

He looked at me with a beguiling glint in his eyes, "I guess you are just going to have to trust me."

"Lucky me, now why are you here?"

"You are quite brave, maybe you can be made into a leader after all," Samson said more to himself and then clapped his hands together. "I am here to help you expand your gifts. You've been dormant well beyond maturity. You've been taught to be afraid and hide of your powers for far too long."

"I needed to to survive."

"Yes, and you were wise too. But now we need to find out the extent of the powers you've developed in utero as a evolved human. Then, we will decide what you can and can't do in this war."

"I can. I will do what I need to do to free the humans with our without you. I'll figure out a way."

Samson jested, "So you little mouse plan on becoming a war leader...Good." He tapped his gloved hands against the wall - thinking- disturbing the dust around us. "We will begin - today. You will then come here every day and we will train. Show me what you can do."

"Aren't you afraid someone will see you and me here in the colony."

"I move quietly, quickly and invisibly in bother worlds. It would do you well to also learn how to move without drawing attention. Especially, now that the school knows you are human.

"I never said I was going to go back to school."

"How do you plan to lead the rebellion without access to the Realm or know how to maneuver in its system?"

"I thought I could just..." I shuffled my feet, "I thought I could just live with the rebels and the humans."

He barked out laughter, "There is a reason why they don't allow you to truly be educated in the colonies or have children in purgatory." He continued to laugh heartily and I felt my brow burn. "You will go back to school and you will learn and you will be vital to the cause. because you are close to the future king."

"I can't do that!"

"Why not? You love him. Don't lie to me, your emotions already cloud your judgment. But we will work on that. We need you close to the future king and thinking clearly to feed us the information we require."

"I won't do that."

"You will because you want me to help the human couple and their unborn children. I know you, Kiowa, you wouldn't want anything to happen to that woman even though you despise her."

I swallowed the apple in my throat. It was true. Was I that readable?

"Like I said, I don't think I'm going back to school anyways.

He huffed and then snorted like he already gone over it with me. And it was now a moot point to agree. He leaned against the building's brick wall. Quite brave in my opinion, the soundness of this building was questionable. I'm shocked the facade of the building he was leaning on didn't slide to crumbles of bricks 4 stories below.

"Let's talk about those powers. You can bend matter like we can, right? But the ability to turn invisible sounds like you can change time and blend the concept of time and space.

"What so I am a black hole or a supernova?"

"Well, we will see if you implode or explode."

"Just in case, I'm not useful for your cause, correct?"

"We'll see."

"I can manipulate matter - but I won't create - didaskozic earth and I don't want to try."

"That's fine but I am sure you can create a different type of geo layer with our bodies - Y'vori bodies. We'll pass on that test today."

I can't hep but furrow my eyebrows in utter disgust. As much as I didn't like the Y'vori I wasn't looking into becoming a genocidal mass murder against them either.

"Give me some glass." I barked and Samson kicked at the blanks of wood and found a large broken window pan. He picked up a small shard of glass. "Bigger," I said and without hesitation, he carefully picked up a hand-size jagged shard of window glass delicately passing it to me. "I did this before by accident with marbles."

I clenched my jaw trying to forget my anger from the day the class watched the process of creating a new Y'vori geo layer from human bones.

I palmed the shard between my between my fingers, weighing it and testing the sharpness. This is going to hurt I said to myself and I then quickly fisted the shard in my hand before I could change my mind. Blood poured out fast like the shard cut clean through my hand to an artery. Before with the marbles, I was so angry, terrified and shocked that I didn't have time to feel the sharpness of the marbles as I crushed the glass under pressure in my hands.

Again, I felt the pressure of my powers mixed with pain. I tried to tell myself to be confident, that the pulsating pressure wasn't indeed my heart beating as the artery drained. The glass bust in my hand and the remains of glass still in my hand began to liquify and then molded in my hand into a smooth fisted shape.

"See manipulation of matter." I tried to not seem as phased as I handed him the smooth glass. Moving matter was something all Y'vori could do. But his gleeful expression, seeing my power for the first time caught me off guard and his enthusiasm grew.

"Your hand!" He yelled, "There is nothing wrong with your hand. You had blood pouring, soaking even the glass though there isn't even a scratch on your hand. You can regenerate and heal."

"Well, you're not cutting away body parts of me to see if that were fact."

"We leave it at this for now." He seemed tizzied with happiness. Y'vori couldn't heal themselves and I'm not quite sure how I did it myself.

"Let me see what you can do with time. You are going to need to be able to use your powers at any given time, not by accident."

"I don't know. It happened suddenly and I didn't even realize that I had done it."

"What were the circumstances that you did it."

I chewed on my lip not wanting to admit the first time I had assaulted their king and the second time while making out with their king.

"I was under... pressure."

"And when you turned the marbles into a single glass."

"Under pressure."

"What kind of pressure?"

Oh, fuck this was getting personal. "Emotional pressure. I didn't like what was happening."

"Fine. Well like I said training is needed. You need to be able to use your gifts even when you are not under pressure."

"I can move things without being under pressure. But not very well."

"Tell me about the time you moved things for the first time?"

I remember distinctly when I had moved something with whatever power that was in me. I was three years old and I was playing with two raggedy dolls my mother had sewn together with some old t-shirts she had found on the street. I was playing at the dinner table which was a large chest that also acted as a coffee table and storage. She didn't want me to play with my dolls at the dinner table and took them away from me. But I was three and threw a tantrum. But instead of going super ballistic with cryings, screaming and kicking like the typical toddler, I had used my powers without a second thought, commanding the dolls to zip out of my mother's hands and back into my arms. It was so second nature.

My mom looked at me differently from that moment on. I remember the different expressions she had in that given moment when the dolls drifted back to my arms. Her face when cold like ice and then fear, surprise, shock, and then landed on amusement.t She laughed so hard, I started laughing as well. At three, I didn't know why I was laughing along and maybe I had laughed out of nervousness because my mind had been forever sketched with my mother's multiple expressions. From three onward, she made a point to sheltered me until I could fully comprehend that I was to not do it in public ever and I was to not tell anyone of my gifts.

"That's too bad, most Y'vori can do these things as second nature easily without thinking. Everything you have done so far was not solely out of pressure but also a natural response. Your body and powers want to do what it was made to do, but you have shut those parts of you down in fear."

"That may be very true."

"How have you stopped time?"

I guess I didn't quite let Gaelen fall easily to his feet when I knocked him over. I kinda froze him in the air, maybe I suspended in time, I guess. Maybe in that moment, I had instinctually stopped time. I was secretly happy that I hadn't figured out my power with time or else I would have run away from Gaelen once I had him suspended in air and then had him land safely.

"What if I were to stop something or someone or make it stand still while I'm still moving in the present?"

"If you did that, that would be quite impressive, especially if it were a person. Y'vori cannot manipulate biology like that."

"Let's say I did?"

"Let's say I can guess this has something to do with the King."

"Yes," I swallowed but my mouth was dry.

"So, he knows about your powers almost to the full extent."

"He doesn't now what I can do to glass." I tried to sound chipper but Samson didn't even crack his lips to an upturn.

"Fine, let's test this out."

Before I could think, Samson was throwing a large shard of glass directly at my face, but I had ducked in time.

"What the fuck!" I yelled.

"You like your face, stop the glass. You need pressure to make your powers work than here it is."

Another large shard of glass was aimed at my face.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ.ºO•❥❧•~•❧❥•Oº Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

I walked home, tired and in pain. An hour of training, maddening deadly training was enough. After getting nicked by shards of glass for an hour- thankfully I avoiding all large pieces- I was happy to go home.

I managed to stop one large hand-sized piece of glass by letting shattering in my face cheek, as I attempted to duck. Samson was not satisfied with me just avoiding the glass and eventually stopping it in mid-air. He then barked at me to attempt to heal the broken skin, not out of fear but will. I did it. I guess that means, one power mastered, sort of.

Samson was a tough teacher. I had to learn how to make my powers work on my own volition. I was to train with him everyday and his tactics would either cause me to eventually figure out how to use my gifts or turn me into a nervous wreck. I am thinking the latter since he is persistent to get results no matter the tactics.

I was so focused on trying to figure a way out of training tomorrow that I hadn't realized that I was running smack into a tall guy, knocking myself off of my feet. I looked up at at a tall lankly guy bemused with a mop of brown loose curly hair and electric blue eyes framing a perfect peaceful disposition. realized I had never met this person before. Every one in colony knew each other or of each other through the town gossips. This chivalrous man I never heard of reach a hand out to help me back to my feet.

"Whoa," Prince Charming said as I sprang me up to my feet. "You're ok. I got ya."

"Oh, thank you," I said and dusted my body off.

"Hi, I-"

"You're not from here?" I accused.

"How did you know?"

"Everyone knows everyone here. How did you get here?"

"The Y'vori re-assigned me. I was escorted to this colony a few days ago. I don't really know why they want me here, but I am relieved they didn't kill me."

"I know the feelilng."

The charming man laughed and offered his hand out, " Simeon, pleasure to meet you-"

"Kiowa." I shook his hand.

"Kiowa. Pretty name. Sounds Native American."

"It is. It was a Native American tribe. My mother -" How do I describe my mother. "She's..."

"Like most of us. Anti-Eclipse."

"What about your parents?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and I realized how thin he was. His hair that seemed to weight half of this body.

I began to feel awkward. We just stared at each other, he grinning and me perplexed. I never liked this feeling of not knowing what to say, do. My hands and head felt like an elephant.

"My parents are dead?"

"Oh I'm sorry-"

He cut me off, "My father died in the war. Just another nameless solider that is a causality of Eclipse. My mother died giving birth to me. The morality of living without heat, running water and simple medical supplies in the colony."

"That's terrible. How did you survive? Most orphans, let a long a baby, die usually within a year of becoming orphaned."

"Well, aren't you a smarty patootty. And cute too. I guess I was just a scrapper of a baby."

I snorted and didn't realize I had already slid my hip to one side and my arms crossed my chest, I was beginning to truly find the chinks in the man's armor. Who is he and whats his deal? My defenses were up. Cute - I have a boyfriend, well, I think I do?

"For some reason I find that hard to believe?"

"Really?" He smirked again his voice dipped with sarcasm. His smile was genuine one that hit his grey eyes. Man, maybe he was a scrapper. Charming people don't stay just charming in the colony. Jadded charming people, yes, but charismatic kind people, usually did not make it long.

"You know I don't know anyone in the history of After Eclipse being allowed to visit another colony, let alone relocate. And for your benefit, in this colony, not being straightforward means we are all going to suspect you of one being Y'vori and two dangerous."

"Wow, what a warning. If you can write that all down, I will tuck it into my back pocket whenever I meet someone from another colony. Man, are you paranoid?"

I tucked my chin in and spat, "We have reason to be. We ALL have reason to be."

"Well, let me settle your nerves before you breakdown. I was transferred here. I am not sure why, I quite liked my chill, non-hysterical colony. And I am as man as you can get - not Y'vori."

I chomped on my teeth behind tight lips as I considered other factors. "I better go home." Was my decision, there was something about Simeon I just couldn't trust and with Gaelen coming to the colony, I had reason to suspect Simeon was a spy.

"Alright Kiowa, Don't sigh-awa. Don't worry. I'm only trying to find my way around here and were I will fit. Just to ease your doubts. I lived with the mayor in my colony. He took me in when I was a baby. But now I am here, far away I have no clue how far away from home. I've been placed in this building but it's a total shamble. I thought things were terrible in my colony but this building is the worse. For what its worth, twas lovely meeting you. I just wanted to say you are very cute, I love the way you nip on the inside of your cheek when you are speculative. I just wanted to put that out there just incase the building I am living in sinks into the foundation and you will only be able to retrieve my pinky. It's a nice pinky," with that he held up his pinky. "But I am sure you would rather, have more than the pinky."

My hand moved quickly as I slapped him hard across the face. I didn't even realize I had wined up and pitch the flat of my hand across this strange man's face. I was mortified as I heard the contact of flesh on flesh. He kinda stumbled back, a bit surprised his hand already soothing his redden cheek. He then returned my astonished face with an even more seducing smile like I had just started a game and he was all in. I turned and ran down the street as fast as I could towards my apartment building.

*****

Dear Readers,

I hope you enjoyed chapter two of Weight of Penumbra. I am really smitten with the new characters and writing from Gaelen's point-of-view. I hope you are too. What do you think of Gaelen's family and the people in Kiowa's colony?