My dearest Sparks.
Greetings and salutations from the far, futuristic and wonderful world of Bottled Embers, and a very merry unbirthday to all!
I hope you missed me. I ReAlLy missed all of you.
Okay, right to it, here I give you yet another odd perspective in this (supposedly) dual-perspective tale.
I was stuck, writer’s block is not fun, and thinking of asking a fellow writer for advice on how to tell this part of the story in Logan’s voice without making it too ‘he-said-he-said” and realized I could just write he said right off the bat, it’s not like I’ve not taken other perspectives before. (Possibly an unnecessarily convoluted sentence there, sorry - not sorry.)
I’ve been (re)watching Rick and Morty. And a line I really really love, is ‘I’m sorry you think you deserve an apology.’ That probably makes me look like a horrible person.
(Maybe channeling a little too much Rick there Jen.) 🤨😐😶
Oh well, as for the story…
Just a few reminders, new chapter = new graphics. Tom and Logan are fraternal twins. With Logan the ‘runt’. Tom is the eldest, and heir to their father’s title…
INDEX | Chapter 8 | Scene 1 | Next Scene → Coming soon.
Previously: At the conclusion of the last chapter we saw Misty grappling with Penance while finally starting to wake up to Cathy’s lies and the way the PG has been manipulating her all along. In her anger and disappointment, in perfect vindictive teenager style, she purposefully destroys a fellow soldier’s knee during a sparring match.
Tom glanced back the way he had come, through the crowd of rollicking, prancing bodies, and thought a self-congratulatory thought about shadows and invisibility, on how he had managed to navigate the throng without bumping into a single person. He’d left his friends Sam and Kay to enjoy the techno-aria and walked across the dancefloor rather than around it, just because he could, to get them all a round of drinks. He could just make out the area where Kay’s crazy breakdancing forced all onlookers to back off and hear Sam’s trilling laughter over the contralto-beats and wondered if they would have exhausted their energy by the time he returned and spare him the argument over whether or not he was yet drunk enough to join in.
Tom rolled his eyes and turned round without paying attention to what was behind him and right there, a pretty young waitress in a mini-skirt with short magenta hair, tripped and slammed into him, dropping her tray of sticky ice-cold drinks on his head.
“Oh.” She squeaked, too softly to be heard over the pumping music but her mouth held the shape while her body radiated tension as she realized what she’d done. Thomas took a deep breath and stifled his own irritation with a most winning smile. Sympathy for the waitress whose paycheck would suffer under the weight of the fruity sticky sludge dripping down his face and back, overpowering his indignation and spite, just.
It only took a glance for Tom to see just what had happened. She’d tripped. Some idiot at the nearby table had his leg sticking out into the walkway. To be fair it had a metal frame sticking out of it, some kind of external fixation for a bad break, and a set of crutches standing neatly beside his chair. The soldier, or ex-soldier likely from the state he was in, looked Polynesian, Maori, or something from the tattoos, big guy, even to Tom.
Tom wondered for a second if he’d been injured in the line of duty. The soldier had his forehead pressed against the linoleum, apparently barely conscious and he mumbled constantly in a voice that confirmed he’d had more than one or two drinks too many.
While Tom surveyed the miserable soldier the mortified young waitress began to apologize profusely, plucking the cloth out of her tiny apron and veritably shoving it in Tom’s face in an attempt to clean up the mess.
First, Tom gently grabbed the girl’s hand to stifle her overzealous dabbing and muttered a platitude, then promptly, dropped to the ground to help her pick up the shattered glasses.
“Sorry again…” The girl said, straightening up when they were done.
“Thomas,” He smiled, as he added his handful of shards to her tray.
“I’m Marcy. I’ll give you my number, in case you ever want to make me feel bad about this some other time.” She shouted in his face to make herself heard over the deafening dance music. Thomas smiled at the offer, gave her a noncommittal shrug, and walked off to the restroom to clean himself up and hopefully salvage something of this rare night out.
“I’ll catch you later then,” she shouted after him. Tom lifted his hand in a salute but did not look back. He didn’t have time for girls. He entered the restroom as two other guys walked out. The light was pretty dismal, but at least it smelled clean.
In truth, it had been ages since he’d dragged himself out of the dojo. It was his safe space, his base of operations since Elle went missing. He didn’t do much teaching these days, preferring a more administrative role, which gave him plenty of time to conduct his furious search, tracking down leads and questioning potential witnesses behind the scenes. For all the drama Tom had made about Logan isolating himself, in the early days of the search and afterward, as Logan climbed down the deep dark well of rum-fueled depression, Tom had done much the same himself. Just not as openly. He had his father’s legacy to consider. The eldest No’Gard son, couldn’t afford to look weak.
Tom turned on the faucet and let the water run. He looked at himself in the mirror and felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn’t like looking in the mirror. It wasn’t that the drinks were fruity and glitter-infused, or that the yellow, red, and blue, mingled into a rainbow on his white t-shirt as it dripped off of his tightly braided hair, the blonde color a perfect offset.
He’d kept his hair long, braided back to keep it out of the way, for the past two years. He said it was because there was no point in cutting it again, it simply grew back out with every fractional release of his Manorian raw energy, but he’d successfully kept it short all his life despite that, thanks to a very good relationship with his barber.
Tom shook his head, eyes burning with anger at the boy staring back at him until he couldn’t stand to look anymore at that boy pretending to be all grown up. That insecure little boy disgusted him. The muscles upon muscles, from a lifetime of training, so he wouldn’t ever seem as weak as he felt, so he wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. The thin blonde stubble from a beard that was not yet full enough to grow out. It was just the wrong color and texture for Manorian hair. The rainbow sparkling hair now… The braids would have to come out again if he planned to ever stop sparkling.
No, it wasn’t really any of that. It was the hair itself. It was the real reason he’d kept it after all, the reason he’d told no one, ever. He’d kept his hair because of the way Elle had looked at him differently when she first saw it long. Why must everything lead back to her? Tom balled his fists on the wooden cabinet. It was the way Elle had instantly trusted him when Luke and Logan did that terrible thing. No matter how they tried to rationalize it, no matter their excuses, it was such a terrible thing to do, especially to a little girl, and then he just stood aside when they tried again…
Tom cupped his hands in the basin of cold water and scooped some up to wash his face. He briefly considered asking Kay if she’d mind if he ran over to her place to clean up, but no, if he left now he would find some excuse not to come back. In the end, he decided to just wash his hands and face and put his jacket on. Chances were no one would notice anyway.
Upon reentering the bar area Tom was struck by how everyone seemed so desperate to be having a good time, as if they had to make the most of this opportunity the way Logan had thrown himself into his fighting career lately. It was great seeing his brother finally coming back to life and moving on from the loss that had driven him so close to taking his own life. No matter how it looked to the uneducated, an underground fighting ring wasn’t a dangerous self-destructive spiral for Logan like it probably was for most of the other fighters there, but that kind of thing only stayed underground for so long. Tom knew that once Logan’s reputation inevitably started to grow, the PG would have to step in. Every fighter worth a damn ended up in the PG eventually.
Tom hummed along with the pumping nightclub music to distract himself from his upsetting thoughts and flawlessly picked his way through the flashing lights to the bar. The soldier was still there mumbling to himself, now softly, now louder, sometimes booming laughter, shaking his torso with each guffaw into the tabletop.
Tom called out to the bartender and held up three fingers, then turned his back to see if he could glimpse Sam and Kay while he waited.
Next Time: We continue this glimpse of Tom’s night out, and find out what the Maori ex-soldier is rambling about.
Thanks so much for reading! If you like, please:
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and as always, I love hearing what you think so, feel free to:
I do like that you are using Tom to bring us back into Luke, Tom and Logan's orbit. Using the invisible narrator to convey Tom's thoughts and to start filling the gaps on the family, feels right I think. Doesn't upset the apple cart of the direct first person dialogs from Logan and Misty as a continuous thread from the beginning. This was a nice, low key scene without too much drama to setup Chapter 8!
Good stuff as always Jenny-I have been anxiously awaiting a little bit more! On Tom's backstory so thank you