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The six passports ink onto her chest two nights later. I spend the night with her on a couch. There’s nowhere else I want to be, not even my inbetween. I keep the Aradian heating pads, made from vengal leaf, applied. I picked up several from a day trader. Ryel’s a trooper, even as she grits her teeth and screams obscenities at me at the peak of her pain.
I attempt to take her hand but she bats it away and gives me the mean eye. The one my parents learned after I was born. I wake in the morning, curled on the couch. Ryel has her shirt pulled down inspecting the new marks.
I join her, inspecting more than the marks, and notice the bags under her eyes. She didn’t sleep a wink. “You should rest.” I place my hands on her shoulders and inhale her natural scent.
She tilts her head, blonde curls brushing against my collarbone. Her eyes smile under the weariness and she smells like a bouquet of Aradian flowers. “I know I said unkind things and you really owed me the truth, but I like the new ink.”
“So do I.” I leave her to sleep after pulling the covers to her chin.
Days turn into weeks and she proves to be valuable to the mission and brings hundreds of Canidan hybrids our way. The others don’t complain when I bring her into the fold, except Shiane. It isn’t a complaint really, but a sneer. Ryel shuts her down with a frosty glance.
Within a couple weeks we amass hundreds of hybrids. To hide our meetings from prying eyes we decide to meet with only a few who can take word back to the others. Preston doesn’t join the meeting as he stays largely in the shadows. I can’t help but wonder how much M’ra knows. It would be naïve to think Preston’s kept it secret.
Under the steady, dark night sky of Provence we meet. I shift my gaze over the small crowd and erect a shield surrounding us, blocking out our words and actions from possible pureblood oversight. “We are here tonight to assemble a protest.” The crowd of hybrids is silent as I play the memories of the protest in London from my comicay. “For our rights,” I continue, “the right to show our true selves, the right to be citizens of the realms we live in, the right to choose our fate and unify every realm. The right to take what is fairly and morally ours – Provence.”
Jine steps forward, her tiny, thin frame towered over by every member. “You are second class citizens because you aren’t pureblooded. You hide and hope the realm leaders won’t learn your true natures. We, too, hide our true natures. We complete meaningless tasks that don’t need our great powers. The realm leaders need to collaborate and communicate. We,” her voice rises several octaves, “have powers beyond the pureblooded. We realm walkers were born from hybrids and given the ability to mold matter and energy at our will. Stand with us!”
“You speak big, but can you promise no harm will come to us or our families? Can you promise us we will get equal rights and freedoms?” a troll hybrid shouts from the front of the small crowd. Half a meter or so taller than the average troll and Jine, his yellow tail splits at the end in green and blue.
I expected pushback, especially from the trolls. It doesn’t hinder why we are here or our shared plight. They are standing with us for a reason and it’s not to walk away. They want promises we can’t give, but we can offer something they’ve never had. It can only happen if we stand together.
Another hybrid, a female, tall and lanky with fiery red hair spits: “The realm leaders have never been friendly to hybrids, why would they start caring now?”
Heads nod. I need to do something to show them. Words aren’t enough. I gather the energy of Provence and spread it outward and push. The trees around the outer edges appear to move closer as I force Provence to grow. The desert sands of Drakonia, jeweled grasses of Verboten, prairie land of Canida, green sands of Navarin, and on and on, become part of this small place.
Mumbles erupt as the ground in Provence moans and the night sky shifts. My power is the one thing I’m always sure of, a confidence I share with them tonight.
“Stop!” shouts a young fae hybrid. She pushes a strand of hair nervously behind ears shaped more like an elf’s. “How does your display of ego-driven strength convince us we should work with you?”
I wave a hand over the expanded land and grass spreads. It sprouts from the barren rocks of Drakonia all the way around Provence. I didn’t do that alone, not that I couldn’t have. Shiane offers me a timid smile. I focus my gaze on the young fae hybrid. “If things don’t go as planned, I can create a realm for hybrids. I can offer you safe passage to Lols, without mind wiping and mind bending. All your memories would remain intact.”
I gently take her hand in mine. “If we can get the attention of the realm leaders we can revolutionize the realms. You wouldn’t have to live in fear.”
She wiggles her fingers in my grasp. “If you can create a new realm, how come you haven’t?”
It is a fair question. “Like you, we want to belong to the realm we were born in and use our connection to magic the way we were intended. To unify the realms; no veils, no curtains, no separations.”
“We aren’t truly part of a single realm, but many. We deserve our own realm. It is our right. We take Provence!” Ryel says, her voice booming over the group. It’s the first time she’s spoken, as she takes a step and joins me, standing at my side.
The redhead smiles and pulls her hand from my grasp slowly, not like it’s on fire but more like she’s uncomfortable with the touch. I think maybe she’s ready.
“Provence doesn’t belong to anyone,” a tall man says, unfolding his arms from his bulky chest. His pointed ears poke through his shaggy hair.
He is right and he is wrong. We and hybrids have a legal claim to the land according to the lawyers. No realm leader can claim it but realm walkers, who were hybrids first, had a rightful claim as Provence was created in the wake of the spell. The realm walkers are meant to be liaisons between the realms, not slaves to realm leaders. It gets sticky, but we have a claim and a working vision for the future.