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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2200951" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 205: Questions and Arguements...Just Like Old TimesIt had started as simple small talk. Pointless conversation as Shadow was waking up, and Jyren was doing his best to make sure she wasn’t still angry at him. She was, but too tired to really care. They’d found a small room not far away, and idly sat on the single couch looking out at the passing stars in front. The ship was in hyperspace...and, apparently, would be for many hours.    Shadow had given up after about ten minutes, yawned, and rested her head on his shoulder again. Having been awoken so early by Tobias was still getting to her. Of course, she couldn’t just sit there for long, and eventually gave in and tickled Jyren. The attack lasted for a few minutes before Jyren laughed and managed to pull her wrists away, still pinned down and stuck.    “So...uh...where are we going?” he asked, finally catching his breath.    “It’s a um...” she trailed off a moment, struggling to get one arm free. She succeeded, and laughed as the attack continued, also speaking through their link as she did. [Celebration for the Crown Princess and her...ah...ticklish mate, apparently.]    At that, he froze. What other reaction was there? She managed an apologetic look and shrugged weakly, “After that...I get free reign to hunt Nine, though.”    “That’s good news, at least,” Jyren grumbled, finally sitting back up and rubbing the back of his head. He sighed, and looked at her again, “Is there nothing we can do about all of this?”    She hung her head and returned the sigh, “I...there is a way but...” she trailed off, then, on noticing that it seemed to get Jyren’s attention, Shadow looked out the viewport ahead of them and said quietly, “I am, whether I like or not, royalty...you must have seen royalty back in the Core Worlds. They...something...unions for political reasons.”    That got his attention even more. So much more, because Jyren picked up on the traces of her thoughts through the link. He managed a whimper, before mumbling, “No. No, that can’t happen.”    “Mother is a healer...she’s not a fighter,” Shadow said towards the floor, “It would be...expected of me. I know it has already been talked about.”    “No,” this time, Jyren spoke more firmly, almost angrily, “You can’t...you can’t leave...”    Carefully she avoided looking his direction, “I wouldn’t leave...I mean...I...he would come here...and I could still see you. Just...just when he allowed...”    “That’s not happening,” Jyren ground out the words through gritted teeth this time, not even completely sure why he was so angry all of a sudden.    Reluctantly, Shadow said, “I cannot see a way out of it...it is the only way to avoid the war.”    “Then we’ll fight the war.”    Silence. It lasted for five long minutes before the link started to become more active. Eventually, something came to Jyren’s mind and he said more positively, “Oh! I wanted to ask you something...what is this, exactly?”    Slowly, he pulled the small, Dragon toy out of his pocket. He’d kept it with him for some reason. Shadow turned back and looked at the small thing, and then said flatly, “It is an Oony. It is a toy of some kind. It doesn’t seem to do anything but waste space, though.”    The last sentence caused Jyren to actually feel hurt for some odd reason, “Its not a waste of space, at all!”    “Then what does it do?” Shadow turned to regard him carefully, a look of honest curiosity on her face.    “It...it...” he trailed off, trying to actually describe it in words. How could you? It was a toy! You played with it! And yet...she didn’t seem to grasp that. Such a simple concept made no sense to her. He sighed heavily and looked the other direction, “Forget it.”    “No,” she reached over to touch his shoulder to get him to turn back, “Please, explain it to me.”    “I can’t!” Jyren snapped back suddenly, “I...I shouldn’t have said anything! I should have known you wouldn’t understand! You never can understand anything so simple!”    “How am I supposed to understand if you just yell at me?!” Shadow growled, now angry, too.    “I said, forget it! It doesn’t matter!”    “If it doesn’t matter, then why bring it up in the first place?!” she glared at the back of his head, idly trying to burn a hole through his thick skull.    “Because...because...” again, Jyren sighed, “This was an important part of a life I didn’t even know I had! I thought that...I thought that you might at least understand that. I didn’t think you’d get angry and start yelling at me. I was wrong.”    “You were the one who started yelling,” she nodded simply, “If you’re just going to bring something up and then yell at me without answering an honest question then you should just keep your mouth shut.”    Jyren turned back to face her, an equally angry look on his face, “Its not something that can be explained! Not everything is that simple!”    “You just said it was simple!”    “Its not!” he growled, his face getting slightly red as the obvious holes in his words got pointed out.    She simply met his gaze, a cold, emotionless look in her eyes, “I never had anything like that, Jyren. You know that. If you wanted to bring that up simply to hurt me, then I applaud you for such a great success.”    Swiftly, Shadow stood and left the room, heading back out to the main cabin and ignoring everyone there to lay down and catch up on some sleep. Jyren just sat in the same room, staring down at the floor. She was right, of course. He was stupid to try to bring something like that up. Why did he get so angry, though? It didn’t make sense! Nothing did, in fact.    Sighing, he closed his eyes. It was like being a teenager all over again. He’d done that once. Twice was far, far too much for anyone to have to live through. One day, he was due for some payback from the Force. After all this negative feedback he’d been given for the last twenty years, he deserved at least something to make up for it all. It was funny, though, because it was right there in front of him, just waiting for him to stop sulking and open his eyes. But that took effort, and Jyren was too busy sulking to care about what might be right there.((Kind of short, sorry. Kind of tired today, and I'll try to get a longer and meatier update tomorrow. Again, sorry about the slowness and lack of action. Just stick with it a little while longer, we'll hit the payoff moment, then things gun it again.))</blockquote>

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