It only took a few hours for the group to settle down and recover from the day’s events. As promised, clean bandages were brought to their room and Jay dressed her wound, refusing help from even Roselyn or Broderick. Barely a word was said between anyone as they night sky settled over the horizon and the wary group settled to a grateful slumber.
However, sleep didn’t come easy for everyone. Broderick had previously excused himself on other business for the night, leaving the girls to themselves. Roselyn, being unable to rest peacefully, decided to get some fresh air. As she walked to the balcony built into their room, she realized that she was not alone.
“Can’t sleep?” Jay asked. She was leaning on the balcony railing and casually smoking a cigarette, which she had somehow managed to obtain.
“Not really. What about you?”
“Never really could.”
“Oh,” the young girl responded uncomfortably. The conversation was becoming quickly becoming very awkward.
“You know,” said Jay, releasing a puff of smoke into the starry sky, “our lives can seem so strange sometimes.”
Roselyn was suddenly curious. Jay often started her statements rather vaguely and it always worked to get people interested in what she had to say. “What do you mean?”
“We meet the strangest people, do the strangest things, and make the strangest decisions, and there seems to be little we can do about all of it. Think about it. Remember what the guard said about their magic being limited? It was a lie. The Elzians have had and always will have unlimited supplies of magical energy. They simply do not like me and therefore refused to heal me because it was not life threatening. However, when I asked for a pack of cigarettes, they handed me one without question.” She flicked her cigarette, sending a shower of glowing embers to the ground. “It’s weird. No matter what world you are in, you can find these things. They are especially common in Elzia, and they hand them out like candy on Halloween.”
“I wouldn’t expect that of a supposedly flawless race,” Roselyn said, still unsure of where Jay’s ramblings were trying to say.
“Things like that don’t matter to such a long-lived race. Some beings are considered immortal if they cannot be killed by long-term means. If something doesn’t kill them in an instant, then they will live on. True immortals are beings that live through death. They die and their souls are reborn with all the memories and experiences of the past as if nothing had happened. Neither kinds of immortals on cheat death entirely, but neither of them fear it. Isn’t that strange?”
“I guess.” Roselyn knew that something in Jay had changed, and she dreaded to find out. Nevertheless, her curiosity was not satisfied. “What are you trying to say?”
“I guess I’m saying, if you’ve lived long enough, you just want it all to end. So many beings wish for true immortality but don’t realize the consequences until it’s too late. It doesn’t matter if their intentions are for others or for themselves, but once it is achieved, they just want it to be over.” Her grey eyes stared into Roselyn’s amber ones, but the intensity was gone. All that was left in Jay’s eyes was sadness. “It’s a horrible thing, you know, to look back in your lifetime and realize you’ve forgotten so much and then look ahead only to see that there’s so much left in store. Sometimes, we have to give everything up to get to where we want to be. Once we realize it’s the wrong path, we have to gain everything back and give it up again to fix what we made wrong.”
Something about what Jay had said sunk deep into Roselyn’s heart. A growing resentment began to pool in her mind, but she tried to push it back. They were, after all, sisters. Unfortunately, Jay’s words brought back bitter memories of a life Roselyn did not recall living and a man she wanted to love. She did not want to hate Jay or the man for what she had said, but it was not something she was willing to accept.
The young girl turned, knowing she would go back to bed with a heavy heart. “I guess that’s what sets us apart, Jay,” Roselyn sighed. “You, me, and my father.”
