Chapter 7

"Aster?" A red haired Fairy poked her brother. "Aster?" She poked harder. "Come on, get up or you'll be late for your meeting." She shoved him now.

Aster sleepily blinked open one eye to reveal deep blue irises, yawning lazily he closed his eyes again and promptly fell back asleep.

"Aw come on." Ayana groaned, face palming. "Wake up you oversized cat." She tried again, pulling his waist long, blond hair.

"I don't want to." Aster mumbled, turning on his face to get comfortable.

Ayana crossed her arms and glared daggers at her older brother, "Don't push me, Ast."

Aster yawned again but got up and sat on the bed, elbows balanced on his knees. "You know I don't give a damn about those meetings, they're boring and filled with stuck up people." He continued in his emotionless, lazy tone.

"You don't give a damn about anything but you can't miss this one, you've flunked the last three." She stated importantly.

Aster peered at her from the spaces through his hair. "And that's none of my business."

"You're the Hero of the East of course it should bloody be your business!" Ayana half yelled, throwing her hands up.

Aster frowned and the laziness in his attitude faded away like it was never there, he looked, sharper, colder like he wasn't just fast asleep a couple minutes ago. "I don't like you swearing." 

Ayana sighed. "Fine I won't but promise me you get off that bed?"

Aster emotionless face darkened. "I hate promises." He growled.

Ayana bit her lip, she shouldn't have brought that up. "Sorry, just please get off your bed and go clean up, I have to go now or I'll be late for school.

The emotionless mask fell across his painfully handsome face again, "Fine, I'll go, as long as you agree to stop getting into fights." He got up, towering over his sister.

Ayana's cute face darkened dangerously. "I don't get into fights." She crossed her arms grumpily, looking away.

Aster sighed, his robe was slightly parted and he placed his hands on his younger sister's shoulders. "You broke a guy's nose…"

"Because he called you a robot!" She interrupted fiercely, tears in her deep blue eyes.

"Hey! Hey, it's okay." He said softly, the closest he could ever get to showing his emotions, his voice was still blank though, pulling his sister into a hug.

They've always been together, Aster taking care of his sister after his parents went on missions after missions, they were never around but then they went on this one mission to find an underground waterfall, that was upside down and under water and never came back.

The entire thing had sounded like a hoax to Aster who was only seven then and was clutching his five year old sister with one hand and they watched their parents swim away on sea horses.

He remembered begging them to promise him that they would come back and they did, they promised but it didn't mean shit. A couple weeks later, torn pieces of their clothes washed up the shore and Aster just forgot how to feel, his sister was the closest thing he had to feeling alive so she was the only thing he cared for.

"I've told you to stop getting into fights because of me." He scolded in a blank voice, staring at her with dead blue eyes.

While Aster coped with the trauma of his parents death by shutting things out, Ayana did by overfeeling everything.

"I wanted to punch him too." She said in a hard voice, clenching her jaw.

"Come on, you should go or you'll be late for school." He patted her wild hair. "Is Aunt Rose still in?"

Ayana stepped away, her moment of weakness gone. "No but she left breakfast and she said she'll be back to cook lunch." She informed him,  already going out. "Even though she knows I can cook perfectly well." The teenage Fairy scoffed. "She just wants to be around you."

"You aren't supposed to say that."

"Why do you care if I do? You don't care about anything!" She exploded, she knew her anger was unreasonable but she did not want to share her brother. He was hers.

"It's time for school Ana." Aster repeated in his dead voice, walking towards his bathroom. "Besides I'll soon leave for my next mission."

"Big brother?" Ayana whispered, halting Aster's footsteps. 

"Hmm?" The Hero stopped but didn't look back.

"That's why they killed Mama and Papa right?" Her voice got tinier. "So that they could use you however they wished."

"I don't know Ana." He replied in a deathly quiet voice, taking off his robe to reveal a well muscled body and baggy pants underneath. "And I don't care." He said tunelessly, walking in the bathroom and closing her out.

Ayana grinned, despite her grim situation. "I'll kill them, I'll kill everyone of them that made you into an unfeeling Fairy." She said through clenched teeth, tears pouring down her eyes.

She missed her brother, the one who would show her eagerly the things he made out of water. She even had some of the sculptures he'd made for her when they were kids by crystalizing water but that older, caring brother was gone, all gone and it was all the East Council's fault.

Wiping her eyes, she started out the door. She was going to get revenge for her ruined family, her dead parents and her perfect older brother who was turned into a pawn.

Aster cleaned up quickly, methodically, like he was programmed. Truly, the guy who had the broken nose was right, Aster was like a robot, a powerful one.

The bottled up rage and helplessness fueled him to push himself to the limit and when he got to his limit, he pushed harder and broke them.

He knew the East Council was terrified of him, a little ironic because it was because of them he turned out like this. He knew he could take them all out if he wanted to but he didn't.

He was the strongest Water Fairy to have ever lived but he didn't care, if they told him to do anything for them even questionable things like cut off the water flow to the South Village so that they would have to pay more to get water shipped to them from the East, he would because he didn't care either way.

Besides they bothered him a lot when all he wanted was to just be alone, as long as no one touched his sister or tried to hurt her, he wasn't just fine existing.

He pulled on black slacks and a black, silk undershirt, throwing a pure white, trench coat over it.

He laced up his boots and used a comb made out of ice to straighten his long hair. He'd stopped cutting the vibrant gold locks ever since his parents died and if Ayana didn't crop it every now and then, it would have been trailing on the ground.

He walked to his door but before he could touch the door knob, it flew open and his very flustered Aunt was on the other side looking very guilty.

Aster just pinned her with a dead look, not really seeing her, come to think of it the only person's face he ever truly saw was his sister's, everyone else's was a blur.

"Good morning Aunt Rose." He said in that inflectionless voice, he was looking at her but the only thing he could see was the blurry outline of her puffy orange hair that hurt his eyes.

"Oh Aster!" She exclaimed, toying with her hair, her skin tight dress a little too revealing. "I had no idea you were awake."

Aster didn't blink, he had expected her to be behind the door because she was always over eager to come get him out of bed in the mornings, wearing tiny little dresses he couldn't even see. "Ana woke me up this morning, I have a meeting with the East Council." He told her in that cold voice.

Rose looked like she might like to melt, she was getting desperate, her nephew would be leaving the next day and all her ploys to get him into bed with her always failed woefully, it was almost like she was invisible to him. "Oh, when will you be back?" She raised a hand up, trying to show off her assets, her wings fluttering coyly behind her.

Aster easily towered over her, his big arms moving fluidly under that leather coat that drove Rose crazy. If Aster could show and feel emotions, Rose would have been devastated with what her nephew thought of her.

Aster was disgusted, or would have been if he cared but instead Rose was like a distant buzzing that disrupts his peace but was too far away to stop and he was too lazy to try.

She was nothing like his mother, her older sister who was a quiet cheerful Fairy with a head full of red hair.

He turned around without answering her, taking huge strides that ate up the hallway. "When I am."

As he flew towards the Council building, he wondered what the powdered idiots in there wanted from him this time, probably to sabotage the missions so that the East Village could gain more or for him to be a spy.

He would do it, he didn't care.