#kilmare

Mare was a blundering tornado of destruction. Her lightning shot out across the sky and along the ground. She shimmered in purple flashes and bright explosions while others ducked and covered. In her frustration, it only got worse. Pulses screamed out of her hands and off her arms. Archs threatened to leap from her ears and the tip of her nose. It was hard to find an off switch.

Rafe suggested moderation might come with time. Tyton sniped that they should just say Cal’s name and drop her in the center of the Lakelands, the war would be over. Ella thrust up a hand, sending warning bolts Tyton’s way and then assured Mare that as she learned she’d figure out her limits. Maybe Rafe and Ella were right, or maybe she wasn’t destined to be tempered. She might flash and bang through a few short years and at the end find herself drained like a battery, used up by war with nothing left for herself.

She thought about losing her powers a lot. She remembered the silent stone and the strangling weight that loomed over her every waking moment. Or sometimes, she thought about bombs falling, ice crushing, plants strangling, and fire burning, picking which she’d prefer to take her. Even in still, lonely moments sitting on the field waiting her turn, her mind could turn a bird’s shadow into a stone from a wall exploding. She would jump and scramble only to see nothing more solid than her friends in close proximity.

Closing her eyes was hardly safer. In rest, she wondered about the reconstructed flag outside her mother’s window. Would another star be dashed black? Would she crush them into mourning?

If she kept moving, she could keep some of the worst thoughts at bay. Between her few responsibilities, she meandered up and down Corvium’s streets until her feet ached and her body might be weary enough to drift into a dreamless sleep. She slipped into the small row house they’d claimed as their own.

Farley had a room upstairs, empty now that she was back on base visiting Clara and planning their next steps. Mare shared the larger upstairs room with Ada, though her roommate had been gone, too. Downstairs, Kilorn, Bree, and Tramy had claimed a room that used to be a living room as their own. And Cameron shared a smaller room the old dining room with her brother.

Mare’s brothers didn’t fight on the front lines anymore. They and other reds, Kilorn and Morrey included, trained on long range artillery. Still dangerous, but they’d be away from the hand-to-hand she had to face, away from the silvers. Their training kept them on a schedule much fuller than her own, and she could trust the house to be empty enough for a midday nap.

Mare stopped short passing the kitchen on the way to the stairwell. She was not alone.

“Hey,” she called.

Kilorn jumped and scrambled and flipped pages over in front of him. She smirked, surprised he was still embarrassed about studying. She didn’t know how much progress he’d made he was so bashful about it. Even in a house of people who knew he was illiterate, he was too prideful to expose himself to her. He sat hands pressed flat against the table, back straight, and stairing straight forward–as if he thought she’d just move on.

“Are you okay?” she smirked, almost laughed at the stiffness.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” He crossed his arms and nodded. His rigid posture screamed the opposite. The heavy swallow hinted at more than just his studies being the source.

“You sure you’re okay?” The temptation to needle him, tease him rose up.

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind is all. I’m okay. I’m fine. Thanks.”

Thanks? Thanks? There were no thanks in their relationship. She looked harder, let her intuition feel him out, and while she couldn’t point at exactly what it was there was something there. Something deeply distressing to him, almost comical to her, but also untouchably raw.

She pulled her smirk down into a sincere neutrality. “Want to talk about it?”

Mare took the steps to the table and glanced at the shuffled stack of papers, the pencils on the table. Kilorn stacked them neater, less to show.

“I don’t want to bother you with it. Just, you know… stuff.”

“I wouldn’t be bothered, Kilorn. I mean, if you want to talk to someone about something… I’m here.”

His face went red, all the way up to his ears.

“Come on, what’s going on? Maybe I can help?” School never ranked very high on Mare’s list of activities, but she’d managed to pull out the important stuff. And if Kilorn needed help reading something, she could at least do that.

“It’s… it’s dumb.” He curved in on himself in a way that rarely happened anymore but reminded her of being back home, before.

“I’ve been handling your dumb for years. Lay it on me.” Mare reached out and pulled at the paper. “I was never much for homework, but you know I can try to help.”

“It’s not… it’s… ugh, fine. I was writing a letter. But I keep getting mixed up. I can’t remember how to spell things and even if I think it’s right, it doesn’t look right. And then I can’t get the words down fast enough and so I skipped a few on accident. So then I started over. But… it… it doesn’t matter. It’s dumb.”

Between the lines she heard it: I’m dumb. Kilorn was silly. He was emotional and impulsive. He was shortsighted and, much like her, rarely did anything that wasn’t with his full conviction.

“What kind of letter? Let me help. I can write the words and you can copy them, one by one so you don’t get the letters mixed up,” she offered.

“It’s… it’s personal.” He paused, still red and hot. He swallowed again, then admitted, “This is weird.”

“Weird because?”

Kilorn hunched further down under her inspection. Mare’s stomach flipped in realization. Kilorn needed to write a personal letter, one that he was embarrassed to tell her about.

“Because it’s for a girl?” He shrugged, noncommitallly. “Okay. And because… I get it. It’s weird for you. So, I guess you can wait for Ada. That’s cool.”

“No, I can’t wait for Ada. I… need someone else.” He said slowly, looking out of the corner of his eye for the briefest of seconds.

Mare’s brow furrowed. “You need someone else?”

“Anyone else.” he cleared his throat and his hands flexed into fists.

”Oh.”

“See, I told you it was stupid. She’ll take one look at it and she’ll…” Kilorn trailed off before grabbing the papers and looking at the trash can.

“No! You should.”

“I should?” He checked, looking square at Mare.

“Yeah, I think it could go well for you.” Mare had no idea if it would or not, but she hadn’t been practicing her lying all her life to fail her friend now. So she committed, “And, maybe it’s awkward and strange fro me to help, but I am here, ready to help. So, what do you want to say?”

Mare took the paper from him and looked at the backwards a’s and the misspelled words and lines of trying that dissolved into repeatedly writing the same word over and over and over like he couldn’t decide how to make a ‘b’.

“I just want to thank her for helping me. Maybe tell her that I like spending time with her. But if I can’t do it myself, then it’s sort of proving she’s wasted her time. And she’s got a whole lot better things to do.”

“Oh, shut up.” Mare dismissed him with a pointed glance. “So you need help. I need help all the time. You don’t see me running away from Ella when she’s hell bent on making me make storms. I line up and let her torture me for hours. And I get better. But I’m not good at making storm lightning. I’ll probably never be good enough to use it in a fight, but I keep trying, hoping that maybe I’ll get another tool out of it. And Ada knows you try.”

Kilorn rolled his eyes. Storm-lightning and word-making didn’t exactly line up in his head.

“Come on, Warren. Let’s write a letter.” Mare gripped the pencil and kicked his leg. He didn’t move, his mood pretty sunk. She kicked him again. “Hey, fish-boy, you wanna tell her thank you or not?”

“Fine. But… don’t make fun of me, okay?”

“Never-ever.”

“And don’t tell your brothers. They won’t let me hear the end of it.”

“Lips sealed. So what exactly do you want to say?”