Mayne

Chapter 19: The Hidden Truth

     Ardor gently tucked Mayne into bed "she forgave me"

     "I heard you the first dozen times," Rime tossed a ball into the air and caught it "why does it surprise you that someone other than me is willing to do that?" He laughed "Eh, maybe I should have tossed you years ago."

     Ardor glared at him playfully "you're such an ass." He smiled "speaking of ass, guess who saw hers"

      "What!" Rime was jealous and excited all at once "seriously!"

     "What part of climed into the shower did you not understand."

     "The part where you were both naked..." his brow furrowed "then why are your clothes in the hamper soaking wet?"

     "Water got everywhere?" He shrugged "I don't know, I did wipe up...wait maybe I used our clothes to do that."

     Rime rolled his eyes and tossed the ball at him "what else did you talk about," he gestured for him to throw it back "did you figure out what you thought she was lying about?"

     Ardor started to answer then Rime raised his finger "if you repeat the same sentence again I will show her the photos you keep in the back of your dresser." Rime frowned as he mocked Ardor "Hey Ardor, what happened... she forgave me, What did she say...She forgave me, what did you do... she forgave me." He glared

     Ardor laughed "I'm not that annoying right now am I?"

    Rime nodded aggressively "and so much more"

    "Well, I learned that it's not a lie or truth thing but that there is something important they don't realize is in their heads."

    "Really," he caught the ball and leaned back on the bed to think "that changes a lot we thought was fact..."

     "I know, I have a lot of apologizing to do."

     "Do you know what she knew?"

     "She learned how to control the shield some time ago, a vision showed it wasn't going to come on for an incoming attack and she activated it."

     "But it registers that it never came on."

     "According to Mayne it came on in sections," he sat down beside Rime "it gets worse,"

    "How, what do you mean?"

    "The visions showed her the people as they died" he took a breath "she couldn't get the shield up in some places no matter how hard she pushed."

Tears started to show in Rimes eyes "the pain she must be fighting" he buried his head in his arm "the guilt..."

"Yeah, turns out we might be able to learn something from the areas she couldn't get it to respond."

Rime sobbed as Ardor comforted him "she's going to be able to get through all this and put it out of her mind as long as we are there."

Rime sat up wiped his eyes "so what do we know now?"

"The shield was tampered with or it would have responded to her."

"The shield worked off of several dozen generators that blended the individual portions of the shield together like camouflage fabric," Rime sighed "does that means that all it would take is messing up one generator?"

"No, they were programmed to be able to hold the entire shield up individually so if one failed the others would pick up the slack without flinching." Ardor frowned in confusion