Happy Holidays! Before any of you wonder, yes I did have another version of this up. Thinking of Raspberry's review made me realize that i posted the unedited version. Oops! In other news...good news! I got a laptop for christmas, so perhaps the updates will be more consistent now.

Also, I noticed that the reviews were a little sluggish last time, and it worries me. Was it a bad chapter? I realize that their relationship jumped, but I think I will smooth that out in editing. I am at a soft part of this story though, and I'm a little lost. I would appreciate some good criticism so i can tell if I'm going in the right direction. Thanks!

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11. Vision

The silence in the kitchen was nearly edible.

Vieve’s family was hunched over a table covered with vegetarian delights: salad and turkey burgers. Her mother sat across from her, and kept shooting her furtive glances. Bastion just looked confused. Her family had obviously realized that she wasn’t crushingly depressed anymore, but they couldn’t quite figure out what had brought on her about face. She was burning with a manic energy as she picked at her salad, and they looked as if they were afraid to say one word to her, in case it was one word too many.

Finally, Bastion coughed. “So…where did you go today, Vieve?”

Vieve looked at him, not exactly grateful for the interruption to her thoughts. Sira was hiding in the woods behind her house, and it was very distracting. She hadn’t really noticed her parents surprised faces when she burst in and sat down without saying anything. “The market.”

Bastion nodded and her mother attempted to look normal. The result was a weird half-grimace.

Her father looked over at her, making a better display of polite interest than his wife was. “See anything interesting?”

“Not really.” He looked crestfallen, and Vieve knew that her shortness was making them worry. She hadn’t talked to them in a few days, after all. She racked her mind for something to say. “Oh, but something weird happened. I went by Jordan’s booth, you know, to get some ice cream, and Ben was there, and he talked to me! It was…totally bizarre.”

She watched as her family’s faces changed to genuine surprise. They had been prepared to look surprised, just to keep her talking, but there was no need. None of them had ever heard the boy utter a word.

“What did he say?” Bastion said, his face a mask of awe.

Vieve hesitated. “Uh…well, he was kind of nasty, actually. He scoffed at me for mourning Joli.” She didn’t mention the bash on Joli’s heritage; the subject upset her family just as much as Joli.

Her parents surprised expressions quickly switched back to the awkward positions at the mention of Joli, but Bastion just looked angry. “I always wondered about him, you know, whether he was shy or just a jerk. Turns out he was a jerk.” he said.

Vieve giggled.

The sound dispelled the tension at the table immediately. Her mother shot her a quick look, and then started laughing. The hilarity spread, and soon they were all chuckling. When her father’s wheeze finally died off, normal family dialogue began immediately. Vieve found it fairly easy to tune out their words and still seem involved once they were no longer sensitive to every movement she made.

Her mind, in its freedom, wandered to Sira. They had come to the camp together all the way to the entrance, and then he had split off into the forest. She had to describe to him three times what her house looked like before he knew it well enough to find it from the back, but when she had gone to check, he had been kneeling genially in the trees behind her home. He had agreed to wait, perfectly happy to simply watch Ferraras pass his hideout.

She wondered if he was bored yet. He probably was, and she thought it was prudent as hostess to keep him occupied. So when Bastion rose from the table, empty plate in hand, Vieve got up too. After she washed her plate, she appraised her still chattering parents. “I’m going out for a walk…okay?” They looked at her in surprise. “Not that I want to stay away, but I’ve been in the house for a few days, and I need some fresh air…” Her mother nodded carefully and her father gave the prerequisite ‘be careful’, and she left.

She rounded her house to find Sira waiting for her in the trees, eyes shining with excitement. He slowly stood up and brushed his pants off, then looked at her. “Ready?”

She shivered a little, suddenly nervous, but nodded. He lead the way to the edge of the trees. “What do you want to see?” She asked.

“Everything. From what I’ve seen, it is completely different.” Vieve wondered what he meant, as he had only seen some houses so far. “Do you guys have Elders?”

“Yeah.” Vieve struggled to catch up to her graceful friend. “They’re not old, though. Most of them are pretty young. The name is just a tradition.”

Sira looked a little taken aback. “That’s weird. Our youngest is fifty seven…” Vieve just grunted, concentrating on trying to fight through the brush. Then Sira stopped. “Where are we?” He asked.

Vieve peered around, and recognized the main trail into the forest, off of the main circle. “Hmm…”She said. “We’re in a bit of a thoroughfare. Lets go back and take some alleys.” They backtracked, and Vieve carefully lead him into an old alley between two stores. Its entrance was blocked by an elaborate sign, so not many people knew about it.

When they reached the sign, where light was leaking through from various fist sized holes, Vieve let Sira look out. “That’s the main square. That large building on the opposite side is our ‘town hall’, where the Elders meet and people get together to trade and gather things to sell. Next to it is our little doctor’s office. It’s unofficial, since no one here has ever gone to med school, but its good for minor injuries. And over there is our meeting circle…”She pointed to the clearing, on the opposite side, where they had the bonfires.

Sira nodded slowly. “I like it.” He said simply. It struck Vieve as strange that he should like it any better than his own camp. “Alright, so now what?” She giggled in an exceedingly girly way, making her blush. Embarrassed, she lead him back the way they had come.

Leading him down an alley and then into another area of woods, she showed him some of the other homes, pointing out Clarissa’s and her aunt’s. They spent some time at the small lake that lay directly behind Clarissa’s house, splashing their legs in the water and observing the abundant life that lived in the water. After Sira had pushed her into the lake twice, Vieve finally insisted that they leave, and they went back to exploring the village by the back alleys. After several more minor stops, she finally snuck him down the alley outside Clarissa’s dad’s bakery. There, she left him hidden and ran in to get some pastries. Soon, she was back, and they were munching as they sleuthed out the town.

Eventually, Sira stopped her. “What’s your favorite place?” he asked.

She looked at him quizzically, then thought. She knew what she would say, but it was a tradition, and no one but Joli…Then Sira turned his eyes on full power, and her defense collapsed.

“I call it The Spot. It’s Joli’s and my favorite place. You want….do you want to see it?”

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As they trudged down the path in the forest, Vieve was surprised to find that she felt no true regret about betraying The Spot’s integrity. Sira was the biggest thing that had happened to her in a long time, and if Joli couldn’t understand that…

When they reached the place where they had to turn off the path, a twinge of guilt touched her stomach. But one glance at Sira’s mildly confused expression quieted it.

“I take it…this spot is not in camp.” He said as a branch nearly caught his head.

“Nope.” She said calmly. “Keep guessing.”

“Tree house.”

“Non.”

“…clubhouse?” She shook her head.

“ Clearing. Ditch. Swimming hole.”

“Closer…” Vieve muttered. She was concentrating on keeping them on track in the underbrush.

He grumbled for a minute, then said, “I’m out. Just assure me this: You are not dragging me into the woods to rape me and kill me, correct?”

Vieve flushed a dark red. Keeping her head to the ground, she let out a shaky evil laugh. “Mwahahaha. Now that I have you in my grasp, there’s nothing you can do to stop my master plan…”

He was silent a minute, the only audible sound the swishing of their feet in the leaves. Then, “You’re blushing. You have raped and killed someone, haven’t you?”

Vieve whipped around, finger to her mouth. “Shhhh….it’s a secret.” Her voice came out unintentionally serious and nervous, making her joke seem grave. His original mask of shock soon turned into playfulness, though, and he shoved her. Stumbling, she said, “Nothing will help you now. Nothing!” With that, she bolted ahead, aiming straight for The Spot. She could hear Sira barreling along behind her, stumbling over the foliage. Soon, she broke through the trees and looked back. Sira rolled out a few seconds later.

He landed on his back. Looking up at Vieve, he said, “You’re pretty fast.”

“Thanks.” She said as she helped him up.

He opened his mouth to say something, but his jaw dropped in awe before he got it out. Vieve watched as he took in the reflection of the leaves on the water, and the reflections from the sparkling water dancing around the grass. Walking over to the falls, he idly ran his fingers through the water. “Beautiful…” He whispered. With a groan, he sat down behind the water. Vieve laid down on the grass beside him.

After a few minutes of silence, curiosity overtook her. “So, what do you think?”

He turned his head to look at her. “This place? Its amazing.” He gave her a staggering smile. Her heart thumped unevenly.

“And the camp?”

Sira sighed. “It’s so different. You have no idea.”

“Is it better or worse?”

He shook his head. “It’s…not really even comparable like that. We have a much smaller clan than you….probably half the people. We aren’t as traditional, either. Some of us work in Kidrik; my uncle is a well known chef around here. But there are other, more traditional aspects of ours. We have some gypsy ways…the children all grow up together, running wherever they please. Our houses…aren’t like yours. And we don‘t cover nearly as much space.”

Vieve turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”

For a second, his liquid black eyes burned at her before he looked up at the water. “Ours is more of a camp than a town, like yours is. We’re all bunked up in this one little clearing. It’s cramped, but fun.”

Vieve nodded. “And the houses?”

“I dunno…it’s just that….they’re…”, he took a hesitative breath.

Before he could finish, a muffled bang burst in Vieve’s ears. For a second, a blinding pain shot behind her eyes. It left behind a headache that made her squeeze her eyes shut with a moan. When she opened them again, her eyes swam with the sight they met.

Sira’s eyes were closed; he looked like he was sleeping. Spreading out from where she and Sira were sitting was…death itself. The grass was curling up, falling to ash, catching on gray fire. Everything alive was falling over dead; the water stopped moving, the air turned still. It spread rapidly, until Sira and Vieve on their little patch of green were the only living beings in the entire gray-black orb that was once the Spot. Vieve gasped, horrified. It was, after all, her emotional attachment to Joli. She watched all her beloved memories die, and Sira still hadn’t awoken.

She tried to scream, and found she couldn’t. So instead, she fainted.