A Piece of History: Not Quite Eye to Eye

     The tea grew cool as the air around him chilled, and still…she did not leave. She did not speak. She did not speak.

     It was another afternoon, another minor house repair, another cup of tea, as had become the norm. However, this was the first time that Jonas Foster and Diamanta Rothwell had sat in utter silence. Her crystalline eyes were focused on one of her beloved houseplants, a bustling rubber tree that had sprung forth new, waxy leaves. His dark gaze was leveled at the cooling liquid in his favorite mug. Neither spoke. Neither breathed very loudly, or even twitched a finger.

     Over the month since their first ‘meeting,’ Jonas had come to spend a great deal of time with the Gift of the Dreaming. At first it had been small; bringing a cup of coffee over before he’d headed out to pretend he had a normal job {…something in that gaze…how could he talk about death…with her?} The afternoon he’d ‘happened’ to be in the area and had found her struggling to repair a broken porch step support, it had begun. Jonas had repaired it, so odd to be fixing something…rather than destroying it, and she had brought him a cup of hot tea. Was peace to be found anywhere else? Could it possibly exist away from these soft chairs? He did not want to reflect on it, and for the first time in many, many years…he pushed a problem aside and ignored it. Dia was here, and she knew precisely how to sugar his tea. That was all that mattered.

     Or…that was all that had mattered, until the conversation had swung, from the gardening she was constantly doing…to death. Perhaps it was simply the death mage’s effect: he could not escape the Wheel, even in talk. Perhaps it was that all people must eventually share their views on childbirth, death and taxes. Or even something so simple as…he had opened his mouth.

     It hadn’t been intentional, so speak in such a manner, but when she had laughing described the frustrations she had been having with a sprouting honeysuckle vine, it had slipped out.

     "Oh, just yank it up and toss it. One life isn’t much to worry about. Climbing roses might look better, anyway."

     Like a sudden snowstorm, the silence had blown into the room with that single blink of her wide eyes. Jonas realized, as the quiet descended, what he had just said…whom he had said it to…and that there was no way in the name of the Wheel that he could take it back. It had been said, done. ‘What’s said is said,’ echoed in his mind, almost mockingly so. He had watched the pale rose of her cheeks fade to a sickly white, the colours in the facets of her flicker from blue-violet and green into a pale orange. Her wings had drooped faintly, and while he watched, she swallowed convulsively, her long, pale fingers twisting around themselves in her lap.

     "I…" She tried to speak, but her voice seemed to falter, as if what he’d said had taken the air from her very lungs.

     "Dia…I’m…" …what? What was he? Sorry? He couldn’t be sorry for expressing that sentiment. One life, to him, was as expendable as the next. After all, once the light extinguished in their eyes, they simply moved along the path, the Wheel turning continuously.

     "Don’t lie, please," she whispered. Dia’s eyes flickered up to his, and then down at her hands as she swallowed again, her brow furrowed.

     Jonas gritted his teeth as he was caught between two wildly conflicting emotions. He was angry, righteously so. How dare she sit in judgement of him? What gave her the right to look at him in such a way, as if he had become tainted in her eyes through a single comment? On the other hand…his heart had jumped with sudden, throbbing ache at the obvious pain in her eyes. He wanted to apologize, to take that look from her eyes and make her smile at him again. Conflict never sat well in the death mage’s mind, so used to being clear and decisive, as he preferred his life. It was always easier to give into the emotion that put you in the offense, and thusly…his eyes darkened with fury.

     "I’m not going to fucking lie," he snapped, standing up abruptly. She flinched, her wings flattening back as she looked up at him nervously. Perhaps that spurred the real fury…that she would flinch away from him, as if he was one of those that would hurt he

r. Him. "Stop looking at me like I’m the goddamn boogeyman, Dia! Yes, I don’t value what you do. You know what? That doesn’t give you the right to look at me like I’m a slug." His voice dropped into an icy growl as he planted his hands on the table and leaned closer, glaring at her. The flash of bright, almost lime green in the facets of her eyes made him angrier, as did the soft sound of instinctive fear she couldn’t control.

     "…you’re right," Dia whispered softly, meeting his eyes as the lime-green faded to a muted grey and soft yellow. Reaching out, she delicately laid her fingertips on the back of his right hand, and then flinched back. Jonas scowled, as he had not moved, but she was acting as if…as if she was honestly in pain. She swallowed again, rubbing her fingertips on her leg. "I…I’m sorry I reacted the way I did, Mr. Fo- …Jonas. I did not mean to upset you."

     It took the wind out of his sails with a single gust, but he couldn’t resign himself to letting this pass. "Now you’re lying. Fine, I’m not sorry I said it. You’re not really sorry you reacted that way. Goddamn it, Dia. Yes, life is fucking worthless. So? It doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt you."

     She didn’t meet his eyes when he leaned down to glare at her. "…I am sorry that I upset you," she whispered softly, her silvery-white head bowed. He focused on the pointed tips of her delicate ears, and had to repress the welling anger again.

     "Yeah, you upset me. So what? I just upset you. It happens." Jonas wasn’t sure why he was angry now. Something about her apology had dimmed his irritation at her expression when he’d spoken, but now…it was as if she was begging forgiveness for existing, and he couldn’t help despising her weakness even as he wanted to make her look at him and smile. "People hurt each other. It’s the way the world works."

     "No!" She sprang to her feet and away, crystalline eyes swimming behind unshed tears, her expression one of mingled sorrow and anguish. "It doesn’t have to be that way! It doesn’t! I’m sorry, Mr. Foster. I truly am. I didn’t mean to upset you, and it…it hurts me that I have." (…what does she mean by that?) The Gift of the Dreaming backed away, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as her wings twitched, as if her flight instinct was screaming in her ears. "…the world doesn’t have to be a place of death and pain," she whispered, almost as if she was trying to convince herself, rather than him. "…it’s just that no one has time to understand." Finally, Dia looked up at him, met his dark gaze with her own, and her lips trembled. "They’re all so scared…"

     When she turned and fled the room, running with almost no noise, only the whisper of air across her feathers, he remained standing, gaping after her in utter confusion. It made no sense, any of it! Time? Understanding? People were self-serving parasites! He couldn’t understand her, and confusion made him even angrier. Shoving his chair against the table, the death mage stalked out of the room, the front door closing with an echoing slam.

     …death to life, fae to mage, male to female, heart to mind…and never quite meeting eye-to-eye.