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September Surprise Story Week: Skyler continued: Inquisition Collection: 569 words
See the beginning of this story here (LJ link).
See the second part of this story here (LJ link).
“Why do you want to go outside so much?” Louisa asked.
“The day that I go outside is the day that I know I'm free. We're all prisoners down here, even though it's to keep us safe from being a different kind of prisoner.” Skyler sighed. “If I wasn't here then I'd be in one of those Inquisition run boarding schools being taught how to be like everyone else and I can't help wondering if it would be better there.”
“I'm glad that I'm here because I have the freedom to be myself.” Skyler looked at her and found that she was staring down at the newspaper. “Natalie will never know freedom again and you don't seem to appreciate that we at least have some freedom. Maybe being stuck in an underground safehouse isn't free enough but it's better than being dead or forced into being someone else.”
He glanced at the newspaper before looking back at Louisa. “Natalie knew what would happen if her family was ever arrested. I did, from the time I was old enough to know what my parents were, but I never had a change to walk away. At her age she could have walked away if she wanted to and she chose not to. If I'd had the choice then I might not have done the same thing.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that you would have just stopped?”
“It's possible. I just don't know what would have happened if Natalie and I were in each other's shoes.” An image if Natalie floated in Skyler's mind, as she was when they'd last seen each other. “We were very different people and I think she would have dealt with living in a safe house much better than I have.”
“You don't know that for sure, Skyler. I think that when you've spent time away from someone it's easy to see all their good points but none of the bad. Can you think of anything you didn't like about Natalie?”
Skyler smiled. “I don't know that there was anything I didn't like. We were only friends for about six months and I think that during that time you're always on your best behaviour. She could be a bit of a know-it-all but I didn't dislike that about her. It's amazing what I learnt during our short friendship.”
“Then you really don't know that she would have coped better with living in a safe house than you. Six months isn't enough time to get to know someone that well.”
“Maybe you're right.” Skyler sighed. “She just seemed so much more mature than I was and I think she would have appreciated having a chance at life much more than I have.” He looked at Louisa. “I look at the safe houses and all I see is the chances that I never had.”
Louisa reached out and touched his hand. “I know I was lucky, Skyler, and that I had chances that other people didn't, so it might be easier for me to appreciate being alive that it is for you. When I've been here as long as you have I can imagine being bitter about what I missed out on.”
“I hope that never happens to you, Louisa, because I need someone who can still see the positives of living this life and I know that there are other people who also need it.”
© K A Jones 2011
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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That should say "Inquisition-run" above.
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That should be "chance".