The Brass Society | Snippet

"Losing him was blue like I've never known. Missing him was dark gray all alone. Forgetting him was like trying to know someone you never met. But, loving him was red..."

Lottie didn't love him. She didn't love anyone. If she had a love, it was for her practice, her talent and drive. The adrenaline and prizes that would come after the sacrifice of her never-ending nine lives. If she had a love, it was her city and all the traitors within it. It was the abnormality within the normality of her business within the city of brass and metal. This man, he was just an intrusion into her life. A pest swatted away each time he tried to get close. He would always get too close. Almost to the point where the buzzing of his insistence would be a constant in her ear. Annoying, just borderline annoying. She wanted him gone.

However, as the days turned into weeks of his presence still in the city, she couldn't ignore him as easily as she would have hoped. The silver glaring from his pilot's badge did little to convince her he was in her city of brass for good reason. Obviously he didn't wear it publicly, unless he wanted Quinn on his ass as well; but the quick glint of the proud personal status was still there as it peaked from the inside of his leather pilotman's jacket. Her disdain for the man only grew, well aware of the war happening between the rivaling cities and completely floored that he would be brave enough to step foot into this city. Apparently he was brave enough to shamelessly flirt with her as well. This detail also going well noticed by her. Loving him was red, so red that she couldn't see half the time past the blind emotion that would cloud her thoughts and piss her off to no end. She didn't want to love him, didn't want to develop feelings, or come to terms with them after finding that the pinching tension in her chest and stomach were "butterflies" as Myra had explained; after seeing her gaze linger just a little longer on the man as he left them to their devices one night.

Yet, as she would find herself slipping from her practice, thoughts drifting a little too far away from the goals of her current theft; she couldn't deny anything any longer. She needed to face these feelings, needed to go up to him and tell him to fuck off along with this red blindfold of emotion he seemed to instill upon her; seemed to have wrapped so delicately around her eyes with the gentlest of touches and softest of silks. It was a plausible plan, something that only took an hour or so of planning before she were to meet with him atop the rooftop of the library. Then she would, as politely as possible, tell him to leave the city and herself. To forget she ever existed. It was a completely feasible plan, until he kissed her atop that roof with the sunset painting the background with glowing oranges, sundrop yellows and insatiable reds. Loving him was as red as the blood that flowed from the victims of the city's war. Loving him surpassed the red of the velvet pouch she always carried her prizes after a successful theft. Loving him was as red as the rust that cracked and crumbled against the once pristine brass of the city's grandest towers. It was something she never thought she'd experience and it scared her, and yet losing this, losing him was a demon that only bared its teeth in her nightmares.

She knew it was going to happen in the end. Everything in the beginning of this potential relationship told her she was going to lose him. The demon that threatened to tear her apart from the inside had no control once she found herself giving into the kiss that one fateful night. She watched him leave in his ship, after the airforce had found that he was from the rivaling city as a spy; it was either jail, death or to leave in peace. She regretted everything in that moment, watching the ship disappear into the horizon, the red in the sunset almost hurting to the point of tears. Losing him was like a blue she had never known. A blue that border-lined black, a blue that lined the depth of inky blackness within the ocean where the most fearsome creatures hid. It was a blue that settled in her bones and left her feeling hollow. It was a blue she had to move on from, it's what she had wanted from the start right?