We Can’t See Eye to Eye
Lightfoot
* *
She tells me she has a proposition. Raven has a proposition for me. It’s unbelievable.
The last time I’d seen her, she’d been tearing a coin purse out of a thief’s hands, her face disguised in her customary black feathers but her eyes angry like a wild cat’s. Raven then returned the coin purse to a young boy in a feathered cap, his eyes starry and tiny vest askew. The thief, a scraggly woman, had barked out an insult and then bolted, and Raven had knelt down to the boy and whispered something to him. The boy laughed shyly, gazing at her with such wonder.
I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at me that way.
After the boy had left, I had dropped down beside her, surprising a startle out of her. It’s embarrassingly satisfying to sneak up on people. She’d been short with me, but when I was about to go she’d sensed it and suddenly spit out the words, “Will you meet me? On mercredi, just after suns set. In City Central.” I’d nodded.
And like the fool I am, here I am in City Central, and I have no idea what she’s about to say next. I don’t even know whether she thinks we’re on the same side or not; maybe she perceives me as a threat.
“I was wondering…” Raven pauses, her eyes narrowing under her mask. The shadows have become so deep where we’re standing that it almost looks like it’s not a mask at all, but just her face, an elegant blend of black feathers and underneath it, the soft barely-pink color of her lips.
“I was hoping you could help me--as in, come with me on a kind of stakeout. Patrol. More like a patrol. Just to check up on a certain area where I heard there was… crime.” She’s not looking at me, and I wait. The more still I remain, the more she shifts back and forth on her feet.
Without taking her eyes off of the city folk in the square, she continues. “Not today; it would need to be in two days from now--but at night, of course. I know it’s unusual for us to work together, but I know what you can do, and quite frankly I respect it. And I’ve been hearing these rumors around the city about a particular person. He’s…” She chuckles darkly. “He’s bad, and he needs to be stopped before he hurts someone else. I’d do it on my own, but I think in this case I could use some help.” She blows out a slow breath, and I can tell just from that how much it pained her to even ask.
I wait until she’s looking at me to say, “I can’t.”
Her head tips to the side, the fingers on one of her hands twitching. “Lightfoot, I know both of us like to work alone, but think of what we could do together, right?”
Together? I’ve given her opportunities in the past to come with me, to give me a hand, to sit in solitary silence for a while. She doesn’t take them, doesn’t recognize that when I slip into the shadows sometimes I wish she’d follow. I think she could keep up.
Plus, it’s not my job to go look for someone who might be doing something wrong. I’m not stalking people, I’m just watching. I don’t catch criminals or get into fights, I just nudge things in the right direction. I helped a young girl get her hair ribbon out of a tree branch, I lent a silver écu to a middle aged man eying a pair of shoes, I gave a piece of bread roll to a half-hairless dog. Bottom line, I don’t want to enforce the law, I just want to be a good citizen.
“Sorry,” I tell Raven, stepping lightly backwards, washing myself deeper in darkness. The suns have set fully and it’s dark. Alterations will be harder and harder for anyone to maintain.
She whirls on me, spinning and backing me up against the wall of the nearest building, her arms outstretched on either side of my head. In my periphery vision I can see the skin on the backs of her hands flash reddish scales, like a snake. If any of the rest of her skin is altering, I can’t see it. I hold my breath, knowing I’m not afraid of her but also unable to stop my heart from beating loudly in my ears.
“He hurt someone I care about. Does this mean nothing to you? I thought you wanted to protect the people in this city, I thought that’s why you do this--this charade,” she accuses. Despite her stance, which is clearly meant to intimidate, there’s not anger in her voice, but desperation.
I don’t look into her eyes because my blood’s rushing in my ears, and I don’t want her to be mad at me, but I can’t do this with her. Something about it doesn’t seem right. I try to pull in a breath, but it smells like her, richly sweet and also something earthy (corn?) and it feels like I can't get enough air. “I can’t,” I repeat, eyes pulled in the direction of the only skin I can see--her lips--which are screwed up in disgust as she shoves me against the wall once and storms away.
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