Dream Runners (ON HOLD)

Part 8

I figured I should go ahead and write this.....  Seeing as it's kinda straight forward.  I was kinda avoiding it since I have trouble getting Sang's feelings right, but I think this'll help her anxiety a lot, getting this off her chest, not to mention we need to get to know her a little better, no?

My question for you: What impact should this have on her and Blackbourne's interactions, if any? 

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We settled down under the tree I'd had lunch in the previous week. Raven's shoulder brushed mine, and after a minute of awkward silence he reached over to scoop me up and deposit me between his legs, pulling me back so I rested against his chest, his chin on my head.

"This is better." Was all he said, wrapping his arms around my stomach and nuzzling my hair. "Now tell me, my little Spitfire, what weighs on your shoulders. Why will you not talk to my brothers. What has happened that brought you here from Mother Russia, and why were you there in the first place. It's no place for a child like when I first saw you, and I know things were happening outside the Scapes. I heard whispers of a little girl, the local Boss had people watching her, keeping an eye on her both for her safety and to be sure she wasn't a spy. Many people ended up teaching her and feeding her, saying that she had a natural talent for everything. I know there are many girls, but it was you, wasn't it? You'd come, then you'd dissapear, and a year or more later you'd show up in another part of Russia. You caused quite a stir for some of the Underground." I smiled, knowing exactly what areas he was talking about. I'd loved Russia, it was one of my favorite spots that we'd lived. It was a place I could blend, and the place where I'd learned the most. The Underground, as Raven called it, had taken me in, and I'd sort of been adopted by any of the local 'bosses', being taught and trained in any way they deemed necessary. It was where I perfected my knife fighting, where I learned to shoot guns, where I learned to identify poisons based on textures, scents, and colors, as well as hack anything. I learned to pick pockets and break into anything. I learned about good, bad, evil, ugly, and everything in between. Yet they always protected me from the worst of it, showing me but not involving me, and never hunting me when I dissapeared, merely welcoming me when I was back. I told Raven about all of this.

I told him about Greece, and Africa, and Australia. I told him where I'd learned Arabic, how I could speak in any accent, how I nearly got arrested in China and we never went back there. I told him about the friends I'd made, taking drinks of my water to loosen my throat when I told how my I witnessed a shoot out in Southern Africa, and a man died to protect me-a man I didn't even know the name of, and how ever after that I didn't involve myself with any of the Undergrounds outside of Russia. I told him how when I was seventeen we came to America and moved about the states, and how as soon as I'd turned eighteen I'd left home, and come to Charleston. I told him how I'd come to love it here, and I'd stayed out of the gangs and off the streets, though I'd had to work at a seedy club. Last, I told him about McCoy and Hendricks, my old bosses, and the bad feeling I had that that wasn't the last I'd be seeing of them. We sat in silence for a few moments, and I waited for Raven to begin his questions.

"In all of that, you did not tell me about your mother or your father. You did not tell me how you found the dreamscape. Do you not trust me?" There was an edge of hurt in his careful words, and I tensed, turning to look up at him and cup his cheek with my hand, hissing as my back bent.

"No, Raven, no. It's not that, it's just not important. That part of my life is over."

"So is all the rest, yet you told me of that."