Aarti

Aarti watched Kerr eat, elbows propping her chin and balanced on her knees. There was a certain level of serenity to be found in the way the dog chewed through choice cuts of beef. It was worth all the anxiety of spiriting it away from the royal kitchens. A small smile curled her lips at the thought of the turmoil that must have occurred when the roasts disappeared.

The pleasant thought of that helped hold down the anger that always seemed to be bubbling just underneath the surface. Aarti gave a mental sigh as she felt it slowly sink down towards her center. She didn't know why she was angry; she just was. She had been for nearly as long as she could remember. The only time she wasn't angry was when she was planning things with Lucy and San.

Even as a child, she knew that the planning was only a way for Lucy to distract herself from the increasingly lethal experiments she was subjected to and for San it was a way to avoid thinking about his slowly increasing physical abilities and what they really meant. Aarti had just been happy that she wasn't angry for once.

Her anger was her weapon. She'd never thought about it that way until she met that Amazonian container who'd told her so many wonderful, whispered stories that time she'd been getting her Quell adjusted. The researchers had always been adjusting her Quell. That was why so many Amazons had found their way to the labs; there was something in their physique that repelled the Quell in ways the researchers couldn't really understand.

Aarti always wondered about her meeting with that container. Had it been arranged as part of some surreal experiment? She'd known of others whose tests had been more mental than physical. A lot of them had disappeared into the labs and never returned to the creches.

Being a failed experiment was the boogeyman of the creches. That thought had always sparked Aarti's anger, even now years later. Her grandmother had recently told her that it was alright to be angry about what happened. Her mother and grandmother still held a deep grudge about it as did most of the other Amazons.

Aarti broke out of her reverie when Kerr's alert head swung towards the entrance of the cave. Then the sleeping one was reached towards her and tossed her underneath the dog.

Aarti blinked in surprise. One moment she'd been leaning against a dog leg, and now she was ensconced underneath the dog itself. She glanced around, eyes focusing on bright dot that seemed to be hovering a few feet away.

As she watched, the dot elongated and expanded into a glowing outline of a door. Then an actual door phased into existence amidst the weird blue light. A few seconds later, the door swung open.

"Keri! Keri! We're here! See? Aw, dude," came an exasperated male voice.

It was followed by a lanky teenage male, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt. He was always wearing worn black boots and a matching cowboy hat. He skip-hopped into the cavern, looking back at the door that slowly widened.

A dog similar to Kerr muscled its way in. It was almost as large as Kerr but had a sleeker look. Its brindled coat was tan and brown, seeming to move under the torchlight. One of its heads was carrying an embroidered pink pillow, clutched firmly in its jaws. The other held an empty bowl. The middle head ignored the other two and instead surveyed the cavern coolly.

A thick, broken chain dangled from the collar on its neck.

"I have come to visit. Feed me," the dog's middle head said as it approached Kerr.

"Keri," the middle head began.

"I have brought Bastian. He can teleport," Keri growled out as the empty bowl landed beside the half-full one. "Is this beef?" The hungry head butted in, snatching a roast out of the bowl and dragging it to hers.

"Hey!" Kerr's hungry head snarled. "I was eating that!"

"Not fast enough else I wouldn't be eating it now," Keri's middle head protested as her hungry head happily tore strips off of the roast.

"Now, Keri," Kerr's middle head tried.

"Why do I smell girl? I know I smell girl, and it's not my girl. My girl wouldn't leave me with just two torches," Keri's sleepy head muttered as it dropped its pillow on the ground and slowly lowered. "Oh, that's why. There's a girl underneath Kerr."

"Well, that's my girl, and who cares what your girl would do," Kerr's sleeping head growled as it cracked open one eyelid. "I was having a nice nap."

"And I came to visit," Keri's middle head said. It lowered itself to peer under Kerr. "Is that your girl? Why is she hiding?"

"And I knew you were coming?" Kerr's middle head finally huffed.

Aarti's mouth worked, but words just weren't coming out. She stared, wide-eyed at this feminine version of Kerr. Their conversation sounded exactly like the one Lucy and Court had had a few months ago when she'd snuck a communicator call to the both of them. Court had been complaining about some annoying guy and Lucy had been complaining about Court complaining.

The tone was the same. Her mind whirled at the implications.

"Why are there two Kerrs?" She finally managed as she levered herself out from under Kerr.

Aarti had thought that Kerr would be smelly up close but instead, he exuded a fresh woodsy scent. It was like falling on a forest floor, pleasant and earthy. That line of thought was dispelled as she glanced at the boy who'd accompanied the dog.

"If she's not your dog, then why are you here?" Aarti asked.

"She needed a ride and her girl bought one off of me," Bastian shrugged. "It's not like it was difficult, and Keri only wants to stay for an hour or so."

"An hour?" Aarti's voice trailed off as she glanced at the dog and met its knowing eyes. "Oh…an hour…"

She grabbed the boy's arm and tugged him towards the entrance to the cavern.

"Have you ever spied on Amazons while they're training? It's fantastic."