Page 18 of Lyric of Wind
“Mmm, not particularly. A few looked me up and down and closed their doors, that kind of thing. Your dad, man, he is just an absolute delight. Not sure how you put up with him.” Raven shrugged nonchalantly.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing much. Just sneered at me and called me fake, I’m guessing because I’m not Fae. Don’t worry, I put him in his place.”
“What did you say?” Kellen sighed, though amusement danced at the edges of his annoyance.
“I just held up my pinky. And looked at his pants. He stormed off. It was quite fun, actually. I love making men like him upset.”
“Have a lot of experience with that?” Kellen eased the stall door open and instead of stepping outside of it, he gestured for Raven to join him. For a moment, she hesitated, and he could see her actively weighing the consequences of being cornered in a stall with him, but the beauty of the Alicorn must have outweighed her concerns. That or she no longer considered him a threat.
Which pleased him, though Kellen wasn’t quite ready to examine the reasons why.
“With what? Making small men with big egos embarrassed? Only a lifetime of it, doll.” Raven threw her head back and laughed, though there was an edge to it, which intrigued Kellen. He wanted to unravel her stories, to find the core of Raven, and understand why he was so transfixed by her.
“Why?” Kellen asked, stepping back to give Raven space as she entered the stall. Riker turned to greet her, and a soft smile hovered on her lips as she reached out to brush a tentative palm against the Alicorn’s side. Kellen instantly felt jealous of the animal. A breeze blew through the open door that led to the pasture on the other side of the stall, where Riker could come and go as he pleased, and Kellen caught sight of the other Alicorns milling about in the field. Riker must have communicated to them about taking safety measures, as normally at this time of the morning they would be taking to the skies for their exercise.
“Because when you’ve got nobody to vouch for you, men like your father see me as an easy target.”
“What does this mean? Not having someone to vouch for you?” Kellen asked. Instead of drawing closer as he wanted to do, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms while Raven grew more confident with petting Riker.
“Why are people always so interested in things that are none of their business?” Raven countered.
“Isn’t that how we form bonds? I believe it’s called getting to know each other. Becoming friends, even?” Kellen arched an eyebrow at Raven when she shot him an acerbic look.
“I wouldn’t know,” Raven muttered.
Kellen stayed silent, waiting her out, and finally she rewarded him with an annoyed sigh.
“We’renot friends, Kellen.Idon’t have friends. Friends are…a liability. I’ve got acquaintances, okay? Like a team of people that kind of work together to help each other out but not, like, tell our deepest secrets to and have sleepovers and shit. It’s not like that.I’mnot like that.”
“Who hurt you?” Kellen asked, finding that he desperately wanted to know. The wounded look that sprung into her eyes when she whirled on him made every bit of his inner protector scream to attention, and he wanted nothing more than to help her. Which was crazy, really, since he had his own problems to deal with. What Kellen needed to do was protect his people, not dally with some human who had zero interest in forming alliances with him.
“Who. Hurt. Me?” Raven enunciated the words with such careful precision and deadly cold anger that Riker shifted, stomping a hoof and nickering softly in warning. Kellen stepped forward to run a hand across the Alicorn’s back to soothe him, though there wasn’t much he could do for Raven. “Whohasn’thurt me, Kellen? Everybody lets me down. They always have. It’s much easier to not trust anyone. So, really, at this point? Nobody hurts me anymore. They can’t because I don’t let them.”
“Your family?” Kellen guessed, continuing to stroke Riker, hoping to keep Raven talking.
“My family?Whatfamily? I’ve been on the streets since I ran away from my last foster home. The closest thing I have to a family is my fringe family, Kellen. That’s the people who live on the streets. We look out for each other. But we don’t ask questions. And we never get too close. Do you want to know why?”
“Yes,” Kellen answered honestly.
“Because when you’re called to identify the body, your heart breaks. Over and over. After a while, you don’t let yourself care anymore. It’s much easier that way.” Rage filled Raven’s eyes, but no matter how much she postured that she didn’t care, Kellen could see it. Deep down. She cared way too much. At her core, Raven was a vulnerable, broken woman, who’d never known love. It was something that, at the very least, he could be grateful to his own mother for. She’d never let him down, and he had to imagine the absence of a presence like that was catastrophic for a young child. Kellen took a moment before responding.
“That makes sense.” Kellen kept his tone even. It wasn’t sympathy Raven was asking for, and even though he felt it, Kellen wasn’t going to offer it. “Do you know why Alicorns are so cool?”
“What?” Raven scrunched up her face in confusion. Clearly, she was expecting him to push his line of questioning.
“The Alicorns. Do you know one of the many reasons they are so cool?”
“Because they’re flying magical badass unicorn beasts?” Raven asked.
“That, of course, is one of the many things that make them cool. Another is that there is no…how do I say it? Patronage? No, that’s maybe not the word. Basically, Alicorns are born after the entire community looks after their nest. They’re quite literally grown and tended to by everyone. No mother. No father. It’s a collective creation of new additions to their tribe. They all just look after each other.”
“Really?” Delight filled Raven’s face as she turned to wrap her arm around Riker’s neck. “Is that really true? How can there be no mother or father?”
“It’s magick. Ancient rituals. They decide together to bring in young ones. It’s a mutual agreement, and they all take part in looking out for each other. Almost like planting seeds, I guess. Growing a garden.”
“Fringe family,” Raven muttered against Riker’s neck.