The Depth of Blue

I stood waiting just inside the gates to the Pit. At the sound of boot heels on stone, I turned to see Blue at the open doorway. “We need to talk, Blue,” I said, stepping closer to her and unfolding my arms from across my chest. Blue had been to the Library. Tried to stab Grr, then to drown him. There were none of the usual familiar smiles between us.

“Perhaps,” Blue said evenly. She fingered the hilt of her dagger drawing it out, looking at me with something akin to sadness.

My eyes never leaving the dagger, I began to frown. “Blue…is it true that you tried to use that on Grr? In the Library?”

“It’s not like I can feel bad about it, Joah. I got no guilt. It’s nothing personal,” Blue shrugged.

“What do you mean nothing personal?” I frowned. “When you draw a weapon on my loved ones, it becomes personal, Blue.” I looked from the blade to Blue’s face. What I felt was a mixture of anger at what she had done, and worry and concern for her.

Blue tossed the blade into the air and caught it. “It will become personal, Joah…for the whole group. Every Omegan.” As she stepped closer to me, I could feel the fire rising within me, flames licking in eyes.

“What do you mean, Blue?” I asked quietly.

“It’s just family business,” she said off handedly. “You always knew it would come to this at some point.”

I stood my ground, wary and alert. “Speak plainly, Blue. I know you.
What you are. What you were. And the girl…is not gone…no matter how hard you try to kill her off.”

Blue gave a disconcerting grin. “Family comes first. I do as I have to. Joah, I got no conscience. I can’t feel bad or guilt over anything...Legion ate that part of my soul before I turned.”

“That's not true, Blue,” I replied, shaking my head. “I saw you as a feline. I saw your spirit.” The loneliness, the sense of grief, had overwhelmed her in neko form. A kindness and consideration few have ever seen had welled up within her.

“Sadness and loss are not the same as guilt,” Blue frowned, tilting the blade and moving forward. “You can ask Legion yourself because I asked her to eat the part I did not want.” A look of indefinable sadness clouded Blue’s face. “I got rid of it because of what I had done,” she barely whispered.

She’d just been a girl, living on the edge of demon territory with her parents and her brother, when a demon had come knocking on their door. Her father had been the first to die, his head torn off like a paper doll’s. Her mother was next, dying in a spray of blood as Blue and her brother ran. She lost her brother by the tooth and fang of a lycan.

Or so she had thought.

I stepped closer to Blue, full of uncertainty. I dared not push into her mind, her spirit. To do so would have ended with a knife in my chest or across my throat. But I had to try. As I moved forward, I began to pulse prana, a violet flame shimmering around me.

A look of uncertainty crossed Blue’s face. She gripped the hilt of her dagger, looking as though she was losing some internal argument with herself. “Joah….” she said evenly.

My heart was pounding in my chest. I sucked in a quick breath and pulled deeply from within me, sending a rush of warmth over Blue. Not in her, not pushing into her, but attempting to surround her with flame, transforming my fear into courage, my anxiety into peace and her inner, hidden, self-hatred into love.

“Blue,” I spoke quietly. “You are my friend. This is not business. I know you. What you are. What you were. Perhaps what you may one day become.”

Blue’s eyes met mine. “I'm quite capable of hurting friends, Joah. Just ask Pix and Delrith. Don't start predicting the future…I get enough of that from Rayden.”

I took another breath and reached for the dagger. As I did, tongues of violet fire licked up Blue's arm. I opened my being, flooding her with warmth. An enticing scent began to surround us, as something between us connected. The scent of the things that Blue, the girl, had loved best, reminders of love and longing for home.

“You are more than friend, Blue,” I murmured. “I don't understand why. Or how. You are family.”

Blue gripped her dagger tighter, her blue eyes flashing with inner light, as she hissed, “You’re not a Shadow…you can't be family.” She shook a little as the flames pulsed and undulated around me and toward Blue in endless shades of violet and purple and pink.

I moved closer. “Not Shadow family, Blue. Not Omegan family. You and I alone. Family.” My body was beginning to look almost transparent as the flames curled up from beneath my feet, passing through and around me and over my head.

Blueray bit on her lips hard enough to make the blood well up. “What...?”

“We are, Blue,” I whispered. “Bonded to each other.”

Blueray shook her head as if trying to awaken, raising the dagger in one hand. “Joah for once don't talk in riddles.”

I breathed deeply, walking toward the dagger and laying one hand on Blue’s cheek, stroking it. “Haven't you ever wondered, Blue, why we are friends? Why we watch each other's backs, even though we are light and dark? Why we dream the same dreams?”

“I don't know, Joah. I hardly know anything,” she sighed.

I reached up to brush Blue's hair back from her eyes. A radiant spiral swirled up from me, descending over Blue, and blazing through her, dark and purple. “We are, Blue.”

Blue shook her head slightly. “I only have my twin brother, and he is lost to me right now.”

“We are, Blue,” I continued. “Family.” I continued to pulse prana, washing it over Blue, not taking, but giving and opening myself to her.

“Picket isn't going to be happy...” Blue seemed to finally relax, the blade lowering. “Drinking buddies is how we started, dear.”

I smiled wistfully at Blue, watching her sheath her dagger after relenting, and in the end, not injuring me. Her tail flicked behind her. I took my hand from her cheek and lowered it to hold hers. As I began to breathe more evenly, the flames began to draw back into me. Like gently lapping waves, they cascaded from Blue, over her arms, drifting back to the center of my being.

“Perhaps I'd better head back to the Library,” I said quietly. Blue tilted her head, watching me closely. She shivered as if she could feel her spikes and wings wanting to come out through her skin. I kissed her lightly on the lips.

As Blue returned my kiss, she whispered, “I still don't know what you are….”

I smiled enigmatically at Blue. “You will.”

“One day?” she asked ruefully.

Nodding my assent, I wrapped my arms around her and held her for a moment before heading down the stone steps.

I could feel her watching me as I went.


Read Blue's perspective.