Aquagirl (Fem. Percy x YJ)

98

"Tula?" Kaldur blinked at me as I stepped into his room. "What are you doing here?" He messed with the sleeves of his trial shirt, a silky thin material that wouldn't get in the way of a knife. Blood would show up well on the white fabric. Hopefully, it wouldn't.

I stepped forward and took his hands. They were soft, though I could feel the tendons in them "You are my friend, Kaldur. Is it wrong for me to visit you?"

"Today? Yes."

Shaking my head, I pulled  him closer. He knew as well as I did that the time before a trial was when friends and family were supposed to visit. Maybe it did not happen often, because there's not often trials on torture and treason and why visit someone when you know you will see the person again? There was no such guarantee for Kaldur.

He was too thin, too lanky. I could make out the edges of his ribs under his shirt. Even my subtle glances caught glimpses of the not yet healed injuries on his stomach. Were they old or were they new? Could Kaldur have done something like that to himself without his mother noticing? Or had they been that bad that it was taking them longer to heal than they should have?

After an awkward pause, he hesitantly pressed a kiss to my head. Warm arms and equally warm hands pressed against my back and shoulder, holding me close to his chest. I froze. That had to hurt him. There was no way it would not.

He sighed. "I do not notice it, Tula." I looked up at him, wondering if I had said it aloud. But no, I had not. Kaldur had always been good at reading us, I wasn't sure why I thought it would be any different. "It has been a constant for such a long time." A soft sigh slipped out of him. "I can only hope it will be over soon."

"Do not let your mother hear you say that."

"You will end up telling her anyway. Everyone does." Kaldur pulled away. I wanted to move with him. The urge to hold him and comfort him was as strong as it could possibly be. I wanted to tell him I wouldn't speak to Sha'lain'a about this. It would be a lie, but to reassure him I could lie.

"I'll only need to tell her if..."

"If I do not die today," he finished. The weight around him was almost tangible. It was heavy and crushing, not like the pressure of the ocean, and I wished I could slip some of it onto my own shoulders.

He turned to look at the bed, back to me and the door. Clumsy fingers picked at the fitted bedsheet. A blanket sat folded on the other side. The back of the shirt was almost sheer. My mouth went dry when I saw the scabbed wounds, nearly healed, on his back. Depending on how bad the punishment was--and if the council had pressured the king into it, it could be bad--they might whip him. Or brand him. Or any number of things that could make those injuries hurt all over again.

Once when I was younger, there'd been a break from lessons to watch the administration of punishments in the square. I could remember the screams as the whips broke skin and scales. The people who were held down and hit over the injuries. The man who brutally murdered his wife and children screaming as hot metal was pressed into his flesh and left there for us to throw stones at. He didn't die. The guards never let them die, because that was their punishment. Their repentance came in the form of work.

Those events were rare, it was the only time in my memory, and there were only four people. But the closest their crimes came to treason was the one was scamming the city-state medics. With treason, Kaldur would die by his own hand. His repentance would be snuffing out his own life. His punishment: whatever the council and the king decided on, and sometimes what the administrator thought of as appropriate to add on.

"You will be fine," I lied with a smile.

Percy

Garth drew his fingers over my cheeks, dusting the skin with the pads of his fingers. His purple eyes glimmered. He leaned in and kissed me. I couldn't help but pull away.

"I know you want to go see him," I said. There wasn't a reason for him to have crawled into my bed like he did without that. He wants to see him, but he also doesn't. And I couldn't figure out why.

He blew out a breath and pulled a blanket over me. "He will want to know about you. If he...If he dies today, which he probably will, he will not be around for you. He still loves you, he never stopped, Percy. Whatever happened, whatever he did, I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do to keep you safe. He might have even been right."

"He tortured me!"

"And look what it's done to him." His voice softened, "Tell me right now that if you had to torture him that you wouldn't be trying to kill yourself as often as he has. That you'd be better off if your positions were reversed." He didn't wait for a reply, knowing I didn't have one. Not one that had any weight or conviction behind it at least. 

I watched him pull on his shirt and fix his hair back in a ponytail with a green hair tie he'd stolen from my dresser.

"Tell him I love him," I said. Garth looked back at me, surprised. "But I can't forgive him. Not yet." And does it even matter if I ever would? Garth said it himself. Kaldur would most likely die before the sun set. If I did not forgive him before that, then it would never change.

"No one is asking you to."

I'm cranking out chapters because I want to finish this book, so here you go

I hope you enjoy this, and remember to leave a like or a comment if you do.

See yah