I decided to skip some of the gory parts that came after and went straight to the conclusion. "Losing my arm and my familiar, it put my magic into chaos. I was useless to him, so he ditched me. I don't know why he didn't just kill me. Maybe he thought I would die on my own. But I didn't. Instead, I recovered and taught myself to use my magic again. Once I was strong enough, I found him, and I made him pay."
"He's dead?" Keoni asked, a hopeful note in his voice, and I nodded. "That's good. I'm glad he can't hurt you anymore."
I hummed, and Keoni pressed his hand over mine, holding it against his cheek. "I'm sorry. I brought you out today so you could relax, and instead I made you dig up your past."
"You don't have to apologize. I'm glad we talked about it. I've... I've never told anyone before."
Keoni's eyes widened. "Really? Not even Draven?"
While Draven—the dwarf who'd made my metal arm, and one of the first residents of the Sanctuary—was a good friend of mine, even he didn't know the details of my past.
"He only knows that I lost my arm and my familiar at the same time. That's it."
Keoni was quiet for a moment. Then, he smiled softly, and removed my hand from his cheek. He pressed a kiss on my knuckles, then squeezed my hand. "Thank you for telling me. I know it couldn't have been easy."
While it hadn't been easy, it hadn't been as difficult as I'd thought either. A part of me had wanted to talk about it. I'd kept it all buried for so long, and ever since I saw Nolan again, the memories had been at the forefront of my mind, just begging to be taken out. Telling Keoni about them had made them just a little easier to deal with.
"It's almost lunch time. Wanna find a café or restaurant to get some food?" Keoni asked, pulling me out of my musings, and I nodded quickly. I hadn't been eating well the last few weeks, and my stomach had long given up on protesting my inadequate diet, so I wasn't hungry, but I guessed Keoni was.
We found a café with a good sandwich selection and comfortable seating, and placed our orders.
"If you have any questions about my past, you can ask me," Keoni said once the server had left. "Though you already know pretty much all there is to know."
That wasn't true. I'd heard about Keoni's herd, but other than that, I didn't know much.
"Your parents?"
"I didn't know my father. He belonged to a different herd that crossed paths with Mom's and resulted in me," he said with a grin, his smile softening as he continued. "My mom was great. She was strong, and badass, and when I was born like this, she declared she'd raise me. Centaurs believe in 'letting nature take its course,' but Mom didn't. She loved me, so she raised me with help from her closest friends. But when I was eight, she died from an illness. After that, her friends raised me, but when I turned of age, the herd told them they had to pick between taking care of me, or staying in the herd. They had partners and kids of their own, so of course, they chose the herd."
As much as I wanted to, I couldn't blame his mother's friends. They'd done everything they could for him, but they couldn't be expected to choose him over their own kids. Who would do that?
Still, I wished his herd had been kinder. Then again, we wouldn't have met if they had, so maybe everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
"Don't feel bad, okay? I don't. My life has been much better since I came to the Sanctuary. If I'd known about it before, I would've wanted to come here right after Mom died," Keoni said, his eyes bright and sincere, and I smiled. I could tell he meant it, and I was glad. This was why I'd built the Sanctuary, after all.
At first, it'd just been a couple of rooms, a place where I could hide from the world. I'd created it some fifty years after taking my revenge on Fredrick, and it had taken me another 200 years to perfect it into the place it was today. Or the place it had been before all these problems started cropping up.
The Sanctuary had started off asmysafe haven, and now it belonged to all the supes who lived there.
Maybe the reason I was so hesitant about accepting Nolan's help was that the Sanctuary wouldn't be just mine anymore. Once his magic was mixed into the foundation of the pocket dimension, the Sanctuary would belong to him as much as it did to me. I'd never thought I would share the Sanctuary with someone one day, and I didn't know if I was ready.
Keoni
After lunch, we went shopping. Or rather, I dragged Zephyr to a clothing store so I could buy a few shirts, and I made him judge them as I tried each one.
Zephyr didn't want anything, but I still found a shirt I thought would look good on him—it was black, his favorite color, but also had a pattern of tiny white witch hats, which wasnothis style—though I had to guess at his size since he wouldn't tell me.
Zephyr paid—I'd forgotten all about the need for money when I dragged him out of the Sanctuary—and then we took a leisurely stroll on our way home.
"Did you have a good time today?"
Zephyr hummed, sidestepping a human intently focused on his phone. Seriously, humans were obsessed with those things. I had one too, but I usually didn't know where mine was. Everyone I wanted to talk to was within walking distance, so what was the point? I kept it close these days only because Khush and Dustin were living outside, and I wanted to stay in touch with them.
"I didn't realize how much an outing like this could help. Thank you." Zephyr's voice was warm, and I beamed up at him.
"You need to take better care of yourself, or I will," I warned, and Zephyr was quiet for a minute.
Then, in a murmur I could hardly hear, he said, "I won't mind if you do."
