2403 Looking in the Mirror (Part 1)

"You tried to kill my son in the past and I'm pretty sure that you've helped Night to some degree." Elina said. 

"I'm thankful for what you did to help my children during the War and for what you are doing now for Solus, but that doesn't mean that I have forgotten nor that I trust you. Whatever your agenda is, I'm warning you. Touch even one of my daughter's hair and I…"

"You what?" Dawn said after the silence lasted for a while.

Elina was looking for an answer but nothing came to her mind. Every threat sounded empty and childish even to her, killing her speech right on the delivery.

"There's nothing you can do." Dawn took the words right out of her mind. "You are just a small, magicless woman who'll die in a few decades. Your existence will be recorded in history books as a footnote, your only achievement to have given birth to the forefather of a new race of murdering monsters.

"I'm not going to deny my past actions or make excuses for them. Just know that your son and I are no different. We both do what we believe is best for our family and we don't give a damn about the rest of Mogar.

"The only difference between your son and I is that I'm much older. If you don't believe me, take a tour of the cities that Verhen raided. You'd discover that many mothers consider him no better than you do me."

"Maybe you are right." Elina shivered harder but refused to step back. "But Lith, Tista, and Solus are my children and if you do anything to them, I'll find a way to make you pay even if it cost me my life."

"What you consider a threat is only strengthening my resolve." Dawn replied. "You are reminding me of the reason I do what I do. It's because my mother needs me. In a way, you two are very similar as well.

"I won't deny that I have an agenda for following Solus, but it's not what you think. I want to learn from her how she deals with her condition and discover if there's a better way to coexist with a host than the one I used my whole existence.

"Everything else is irrelevant. I admit that I would love to peer into Solus' secrets and understand how she can be so similar and yet so different from a Horseman but my mother asked me otherwise.

"And just like your son, I value my mother's opinion too much to endanger our relationship for something so trivial." Dawn took a pause, noticing that Elina was covered in a cold sweat.

"You are a brave woman and have my respect, but be careful. There's a thin line between bravery and stupidity while facing an opponent much stronger than yourself and today you almost crossed it."

The Bright Day shapeshifted back into Nyka and Elina felt like a huge pressure had been taken off her. She could finally breathe, her lungs burning and her heart thumping so hard that it seemed to be seconds away from bursting out of her chest.

"Good gods, you'd better sit down." Nyka brought Elina a chair and helped her to sit down.

"Thank you." Elina had just stood up for a while yet she was panting and felt more tired than after working the whole day in the fields. "How could you do that?" 

"Do what?" The Vampire asked.

"Bonding with Dawn." Elina replied. "You are a sweet child, Nyka, but if anything happens to Solus or Dawn uses anything that she's learning now against Lith in the future, it will be on you."

"What?" Nyka took a step back as if she had been slapped.

"If you really care about Solus, you should have thought more about her and less about yourself. You should have let her and Tista travel alone."

Nyka wanted to point out many things like the fact that Solus could learn from Dawn as well but she realized that nothing she could say mattered.

At the same time, Solus was showing Lith the room she had chosen for herself and using hard-light holograms to arrange the furniture in several different dispositions until she found one of her liking.

"I must admit that finding you here was a bit of a surprise to me." She said after they ran out of small talk.

"Why, is it something so thoughtful of me that it's out of character?"  Lith asked.

"No, that's in character." Solus chuckled. "The surprise was you taking an active role in picking furniture and comparing colors instead of finding yourself a corner and doing some magical research. I know how much you hate this stuff."

"I do hate it, but it's better than the alternative." Lith sighed.

"What do you mean?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"I mean that I'm not ready to go back to work without you. Every time I have a doubt or I think I've devised the perfect solution to a problem, I find myself asking for your opinion. I'm not used to the silence that follows and it makes me even more painfully aware of your absence." He replied.

Solus experienced the same when she had dealt with a difficult patient and before making her speech. In their relationship, Lith led and she followed. It had become so natural to her that making the simplest of decisions was heart-wrenching.

"How is that any different from your honeymoon?" She asked.

"This is completely different." Lith shook his head. "Back then I was just trying to relax. Taking a break from the chaos that my life had become in a similar way to when we split up for my dates with Kami.

"If I wanted you back, all I had to do was to make a call. Now, instead, you have walked away from me and if I want you back, I have to suck it up." Lith shrugged.

"I'm doing this because I'm having trouble adjusting to living without you and because I prefer learning all about the 100 shades of red that exist on Mogar rather than facing the silence in my head."

"Do you want me to postpone my trip?" The words came out of Solus' mouth before her brain even registered them as a thought.

"No. You are right, like always. This is the perfect moment for you to experience Mogar on your own and for me to learn and be less reliant on you." Lith had promised himself that he wouldn't do it, but he stepped close and embraced her anyway.

"I don't want you to be trapped in a life where you can't be as happy as I am but at the same time, living without you is damn hard, Solus."

"Do you miss the tower that much?" She joked to not make her voice crack while she returned the embrace.

"I don't care about the tower. If once you recover your body the tower becomes fully yours and you start living on your own, it's not the awesome powers and facilities that I'd miss but my better half."

"I'd miss you too." Solus clung to him for one more second before letting him go.