Chapter 12

Nyx

Chapter 12

            Nyx was depressed. This was painfully obvious to her roommates, as she had refused to leave her bed for three days now. At first, the girls had thought Nyx had come down with a cold or something. This was quickly dismissed with her lack of fever or cold symptoms. Nyx had given them no explanation to her current state; she had just climbed into bed and lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling. Whise would bring her food while Autumn tried to keep her up to date on the topics she was missing in class. It was useless though. The class notes were ignored and the food was left untouched. She didn’t even rise to the bait when Whise mentioned she must be having boy trouble.

            The morning of the fourth day, her roommates had had enough. Lyric pushed Nyx out of bed, and Whise had all but forced food down Nyx’s throat. They were worried that she would get sick with her lack of consumption. She ate, the food bringing her a little out of her depression, but the heavy cloud of sadness still hung over her shoulders.

            “How about we go to town? That always cheered you up. We could go to the-” Autumn began.

            “I don’t want to go to the market!” Nyx snapped, immediately regretting the harshness that had seeped into the words. “Um… sorry.”

            Lyric pulled her to her feet. “Get up! No more moping. We are going into town and getting a cappuccino, and you are going to be happy! You’re starting to make me feel depressed!” A small sad smile crossed Nyx’s face. Lyric was right, she had spent too much time moping about the smith’s departure, and a nice coffee really did sound good. Her hand came up and touched the bandage on her cheek. Her roommates had no doubt noticed it, but refrained from asking about its origins.

            The walk to the town was filled with gossip and laughter. Lyric, Whise and Autumn talked about the current events going on around the Academy. It was nice to hear them laughing and talking, even though she paid little attention to the subjects they were discussing.

            Their boots crunched through the snow, leaving a trail of footprints to mark their passage. Most of the trees overhead were bare of all their leaves, except for the occasional pine. It was windy, not the best conditions for flying, but her wings twitched nether the less under her jacket. She had to be careful about moving her wings while they were covered. One wrong twitch and her feather blades would slice through the flimsy jacket as if it were paper.

            She smiled feeling the small amount of added weight from the several blades attached to each wing. Each night, she had been very careful to unclip each blade and hide them in a box in her trunk. If she wasn’t worried about destroying her bed, she probably would have slept in them.

            The city came into view and she smiled. It looked like a winter wonderland, everything was covered in white, and people were beginning to put up holiday decorations. A snowball whizzed past her face and she flinched back, blinking.

            Lyric laughed. “Earth to Nyx! We’ve been trying to talk to you for the last five minutes. You still alive?”

            “Yeah, sorry. Just enjoying the weather.” That much was true at least.

            “How can you enjoy this? Its freezing!” Whise complained.

            “I like the snow.” She responded, eyes scanning for the coffee shop they were heading to. It was a regular haunt for their team. A cozy little place, with a fire that was always burning in the corner, to stave off the chilly weather. The barista knew each of them by name, and had their favorite drink memorized.

            They walked in, and the barista called out a warm greeting.            “Ah, I was wondering when I would see you four again. It’s been too long. The usual?”

            “Yes please, but make Nyx’s extra special. She’s been having a bad week.” Whise told him.

            He gave Nyx warm smile. “Nothing a good cup of coffee can’t fix. I’ll put extra cinnamon on yours.” Nyx couldn’t help but grin. She was passionate about three things in life; flying, weapons, and cinnamon. She could put it on just about anything, much to her roommates displeasure. For some odd reason, they thought cinnamon covered pasta was gross. Humans truly were a strange race.

            She took her cappuccino, smelling the fragrant cinnamon and sighed in pure pleasure. Her roommates smirked at her while they took their seats by the fire. Nyx sat down in the deep leather backed chair, sipping at her drink and looking out the window. It had started to snow, and the window panes were frosted over at the edges. Her friends were chattering away about classes, when she became distracted. A smell tickled her nose and her eyes snapped to the entrance of the little coffee shop.

            Four people had just walked into the coffee shop, laughing and talking. She knew they attended the Institute, but only knew one of them by name. Taris, the girl with black hair who had argued about Faunus attendance with the professor a few weeks ago, stood in line to get coffee.

            Whise was saying something to her, but Nyx was unable to tear her attention away from the group at the counter. In the pit of her stomach, she knew something bad was about to happen. The group had just gotten their drinks and where searching for a table to sit at when it happened.

            One of the guys in Taris’ team stumbled as he was walking. The hot chocolate flew out of his grasp, spraying its contents over one of the girls in his team. As he fell to the ground, his arm reached out to grab something, anything to stop his fall.

            His reaching fingers managed to snag the long black hair, trailing down Taris’ back. He kept falling, crashing to the floor, and in his clenched fingers was the black wig Taris had been wearing.

            Silence filled the café. The guy laid on the floor, staring at the wig in his hands in shock. The girl he had spilled the hot chocolate stood, silently dripping, staring wide eyed at Taris, along with everyone else in the coffee shop.

            She stood there, fright plain as day on her face, as she revealed her true colors to the world. The black wig had been hiding a similar dark hair, yet this one was streaked through with bright splashes of red. Most noticeable was the two red fox ears sitting on top of her head. Sound began to slowly leech into the world. The muffled grunt of disgust reached Nyx’s ears as Taris’ teammate threw her wig away from him. Angry comments about allowing a Faunus into the shop echoed from several of the customers sitting around her.

            Whise narrowed her eyes at the exposed Faunus, and the shop owner stepped around the barista. “We don’t serve you freaks here! Get out!” Taris looked to her teammates for help, her eyes pleading, but all she found was the icy stares of her supposed friends. Tension filled the café, a subtle warning of violence that was approaching. A few of the customers stood, fists clenched, anger and disgust on their faces. Nyx watched a single tear slide down Taris’ face, before she burst out of the café and disappear around the corner.

            Silence once again filled the café. Customers went back to drinking their coffee, pretending that nothing ever happened. The now group of three shuffled around awkwardly, wondering if they should leave or take a seat. None of them were making any move to go after their friend. Nyx sat there, rooted in spot, heart racing. This was her dream. The exact dream that had plagued her for months. It had played out exactly how she could have imagined it, except the victim was someone else. She sat there for the rest of the morning, her cappuccino growing cold and long forgotten. She kept her eyes on the entrance, silently willing Taris to come back, to be friends once again with her teammates. To show Nyx that a Faunus could have human friends. To show Nyx that everything would be okay. Sympathy filled her for the girl. She wanted nothing more than to go find Taris, and offer her friendship, anything to make her better.

            The compassion was replaced with rage, and before she knew it, Nyx was striding across the room. Her vision was filled with red as she stopped in front of the former friends of Taris. In one smooth motion, Nyx drew a dagger and slammed in into the drink one of them was reaching for. The blade pierced through the cup, pinning it to the table as the drink froze instantly due to the Everfrost. The boy snatched his hand back, and one of the girls yelped in shock, while the other boy just sat there wide eyed.

            Nyx lowered her head down till it was eye level with them, a soft dangerous voice coming from her mouth. “How dare you.”

            The girl recovered first. “What are you-” Nyx slammed her other dagger into the table, a hairsbreadth from the girl’s hand, instantly shutting her up.

            “You sit here, sipping your damn coffee while Taris is out there in the cold, scared and alone.” One of the boys opened his mouth to speak, but clamped his mouth shut when Nyx snapped her eyes to him. By now, all eyes in the café were focused on Nyx, but she didn’t care. “So it turns out she has fox ears. You abandon her just because of that? Is this how all humans treat their friends? You disgust me.” Nyx wrenched the daggers from the table and stormed out of the café.

            It was still snowing, more heavily than it had been before. Nyx looked around, trying to find some tracks that might lead her after the missing Taris. The door behind her banged open and her friends emerged. “Nyx, what was that? You can’t just go sticking your daggers into anything you feel like!” Whise said. Nyx ignored her; she was in no mood to deal with Whise’s constant desire for good table manners at the moment. She began to walk towards the path back to the school. Every cell in her body screamed at her to go look for Taris, but she had no idea where the Faunus could have run off to. At this time, it would be best to go back to the Institute and see if she was there.

            She felt so helpless. She had to do something, but had no idea what to do. A hand grabbed her shoulder, stopping her. Nyx whirled around to face whoever had interrupted her mission. Lyric stood behind her, clearly confused.

            “Nyx, where are you going? I thought we were going to spend the day in town.” Lyric asked.

            Nyx took a deep breath. She was furious, but it wasn’t at her teammates. It wouldn’t due to unleash her rage against them. A thousand lies came to mind, but what spilled out of her mouth was the truth. “I’m going to look for Taris.” This took all three of her friends by surprise.

            “But it’s snowing, I’m sure she’s fine.” Lyric said.

            “Yeah, come on; let’s just go back to the coffee shop.” Autumn suggested.

            “Why?” Whise said. Nyx froze at the single word that came from Whise’s mouth.

            “…what do you mean why?” Nyx asked softly, keeping her frustration in check.

            “Why go after her? She’s just a faunus.” Whise said in an offhand tone.

            “Whise, that’s not very nice.” Lyric began, but Nyx cut her off in a quiet whisper.

            “Just a faunus? Is that what you really think of her?”

            Whise looked taken aback. “Well of course. They’re nothing but freaks that lie, cheat, and steal.” Nyx clamped her mouth shut to keep from screaming at the girl. Who was she to judge an entire race? In Nyx’s silence, Whise continued. “Taris obviously lied to get into the Academy, why else would she be hiding under that wig. I bet she stole the transcripts from some poor girl to get into the school.” Whise said pointedly, like she usually did when she believed she was right.

            Nyx narrowed her eyes at Whise, when Autumn said something that sent a spike of pain deep into her heart. “Whise has a point Nyx… I’ve never known a Faunus to be anything but rude and untrustworthy.”

            “I don’t really agree that all of them are that bad…” Lyric began. Nyx looked at her, trying to hide the pleading look in her eyes. “…but she already lied to her team. What type of friend would do that?”

            She was stunned. Was this who her friends really were? Were they all so prejudiced against her kind? “How can you say that?” She asked her friends. “What do you know of the Faunus to judge them like that?”

            “Don’t snap at us.” Autumn said, getting defensive. “I’m just saying what I’ve seen! Have you ever had your stuff stolen right from under your nose? Well I have. It’s hard not to judge them, when they steal from you!”

            “They have to steal! No one will employ them!” Nyx growled at Autumn.

            “Why are you defending them?” Whise yelled.

            “Because no one else will!” She yelled back.

            “They don’t need you defending them! They deserve everything they get!” Whise was becoming red in the face.

            “You are so ignorant!” Nyx didn’t know whether to scream or cry at this point. Her friends were turning against her, just like in the dream.

            “Leave Whise alone! She was almost kidnapped by the Faunus! Your being insensitive!” Autumn yelled.

            “So you think Taris is like that? Planning on kidnapping you? Those fox ears must really bring out her evil side, huh?” Nyx responded coldly.

            Lyric stepped up to Autumn’s side. “Nyx, how could you defend a girl like that? She lied to her friends about something that big. That’s not something you can just ignore.”

            “Why does it matter if she is Faunus or not? Why can’t you just accept her as a person?” Her eyes began to tear up. She wanted so hard to make her friends understand the truth, to look past their prejudice.

            “BECAUSE SHE ISN’T A PERSON! SHE’S AN ANIMAL!” Whise screamed, at the end of her patience. “You haven’t been around them. They are horrible creatures that will do terrible things just to get money. They tried to kidnap me when I was a child! So don’t you come to me and try to change my mind about them. ALL OF THEM, EVERY SINGLE ONE IS ROTTEN TO THE CORE!!!”

            Tears streamed down Nyx’s face. “AND YOU HUMANS KILLED MY MOM AND DAD!” Why couldn’t they just understand her pain? “YOU DON’T SEE ME BLAMING THEIR DEATHS ON YOU!” How could they not see their words felt like a knife driven into her heart. “IT’S HUMANS LIKE YOU THAT FORCED US INTO HIDING!”

            Silence filled the forest. Nyx waited for Whise to keep scream back, but no sounds met her ears. Through the tears streaming down her cheeks, Nyx could see the shock clear on her friend’s faces. They stared at her uncomprehending, as if they were unable to process the words they had just heard.

            Nyx’s mind finally caught up with her mouth. Her eyes widened as she realized what she had just said to her roommates. She heard the words of the smith in the back of her mind. “It’s not a question of if they find out, but when.” It had happened, the nightmare that she had seen happen to Taris just an hour ago had happened to her. A chill ran down her spine. No, this wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Why couldn’t she just have kept her mouth shut.

            Fury began to present itself on Whise’s face. Lyric looked as if Nyx had betrayed her somehow. Nyx turned to Autumn, hoping to find solace in the girl she had looked up to for so long. What she found was simply disappointment. Nyx wanted to throw herself at their feet and beg forgiveness.

            “How are we supposed to trust you now?” Autumn whispered. Nyx froze, wide eyed, staring at her former friends. Had they really just asked that? It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her, and Nyx grabbed at her chest, holding it in pain from the betrayal she was facing.

            Autumn, Whise and Lyric just stood there, awaiting her answer. What could she tell them? It was clear they had already made up their mind about her. She was nothing but a filthy Faunus, unfit for friendship, untrustworthy, worse than dirt. She was no longer Nyx in their eyes, but a creature that had falsified her way into their lives. How could they trust her when everything they knew about her was a lie? They weren’t friends with Nyx, they were friends with the girl she had been pretending to be.

            She took a step back, and their eyes following her, judging her. They wanted an answer, so she responded in the only way she knew. She ran. Trees passed her in a blur, whether it was due to her speed or her tears, she didn’t know. Bushes grabbed at her clothes, ripping them, and low branches cut up her face, but still she ran. She ran from the lies, the nightmares, and the strife that had plagued her life.

            Nothing followed her through the forest. No sounds of footsteps giving chase or voices calling out to her. She ran and ran, till her lungs couldn’t keep up and her heart pounded in her chest. She ran till her legs went numb and still she ran. Her only companion was the silence of the forest.