AIRLESS "Lately" (Chapter Three)

Chapter Three: "Lately"

I continued to hover above Ray and his lover, Avariti, in this higher world, though honestly, it's thick walls of twisted branches seemed more suffocating than the walls of my Kanna. Breathing came easier knowing that my past was, well, in the past. Avariti had long forgotten about it. My parents' death should have been there as well, nothing more or less than the distance the village borders sat from me now, a speck in the hillside.

Their cackling and meaningless terms of 'love' echoed. "Might I ask, this Ana, who is she?"

Ray revolted more quickly than he once did: "She's the daughter of Mrs. Pillice who once lived down the street from me, but I believe she's moved up and they now live in your neighborhood."

He lied, but his secret remained hidden from us both.

Avariti chuckled, and clapped. "You'll be there with me soon enough--in the mansion over-looking the commoners."

I heaved another hollow breath as the two revealed more about their lives, and the more information I grew aware of, the lighter my breaths became, and maybe the less I desired to know.

"Avariti, myself only Human, you will be the village leader--not I," Ray said distantly, as if he covered another well-hidden secret.

Avariti slurred her words like a stalk of corn bent under wind. "But you will be the top of the totem pole no matter who has abilities. It'd be direct death to challenge you."

"I--" he paused. "I can't think of a future where'd I'd ever be challenged by a Non-Human."

And the wind solemnly twirled the world around me. It came suddenly; everything bent as if there was no start or ending point. Brief questions rose my awareness into my surroundings, but voices beneath me continued no differently.

"Why would you not wish to be challenged?" She said highly, "I anticipate the moment someone rises and threatens you!"

"I avoid violence; you know this." As if he could tune his body and soul any closer to the ground beneath our feet, he did exactly that. "It's an act of pure ignorance--"

"How dare you call me ignorant?!" Avariti yelped.

The laugh Ray threw could only piss his 'lover' off further. Avariti's opposing tone was hardly to be poked fun at.

"Defensive measures gives you a guilty look, eh?" he said.

Without even a glance upon her smooth skin--I'm sure it appeared untouched--she was at an ignorant fault. My lips twitched a grin, amused by her anger, but hardly did any smile show, and I shifted to a more comfortable position, my legs tucked beneath my bottom.

"I subject myself to nothing and no one. I cannot help my aggressive behavior."

An uneasy shift within the leaves warned me that the conversation grew out of hand.

"If you are aware and able to pinpoint your aggressiveness, you are capable of mending the problem," he spoke wisely, and suddenly, he spoke to me equally yet still unaware of my presence. "You choose to be aggressive now, and there's no one left to blame but yourself." But I replaced 'aggressive' with 'silence', as I was likely aware of my internal issues triggered by the events of my childhood; silence became my terrible cell weaved together of the past's conflicts.

I struggled to breath due to the devious recollections of my parents' murder. The visions came and went like the downward drafts after a hot summer storm.

The voices died, and the noise of ruffling leaves and debris beneath their feet distanced. They did not tell one another 'goodbye'. Not even a 'love you' or a 'ill see you this evening'. Nothing more defined their departure from one another but the leaves.

This would be my last visit into the fields. He was in a relationship, and one I could hardly compete with. No one could give up the chance to become the Village Leader, not even I.

The air rushed across my neck, and filled my dress with rising and falling hills. My mind blank, I meditated in the wonders of nature as streams of light flashes across my eyelids. And as if anything could break me, he did.

A limb creaked under a heavy weight. An organic silhouette surrendered before me; I yelped, and fell back.

He dove for me, his arm reached for first my skirt, then my waist. My hands stretched for a grip on the closest a branch, scraping my palms as my momentum carried me away.

So things became still again. His arm was warmly wrapped around my waist, and my chest rose and fell like a hot hammer of a blacksmith. Shock firstly came, then a need to regain control over gravity. Ray helped pull me up.

"Are you okay?" he partly asked with humor hidden in his tone.

Silence, that terrible little sin that forbade me to live rightfully--to live within the boundaries of happiness, sat over me like a demon, his fingertips bent across my thin shoulders.

I stared at my shaking hands, struggling to clasp ten together. Falling to my doom might have proved a better outcome, though, it was he who sent me to it. Sweat beaded across my brow, and nothing came from between my pale lips.

"Ayva, are you okay?!" Ray's humor left, and a serious tone took control. "You're shaking badly."

(To be continued)