Mural of Spite

Cordelia heard the knock at the door, but chose to ignore it. She continued to type away at her computer, grumbling to herself about not knowing why she still kept this job. People bothered her at all hours of the day, she had difficulty finishing her lessons because children decided they wanted to act up in class, and she didn’t even get that much money for this job. Still, though, any money at all was good, especially since she didn’t have much. As the door opened, she hit her head against the monitor and saved her documents before closing out of them. Why her?

“Miss Brooks,” she said, snapping her head over to look at Serian. No one was allowed to call her by her first name. It was out right rude, especially when she held a position of authority. Granted, she didn’t respect authority much either, but she would have liked to at least have some respect. She had always thought that fear made people behave… apparently it didn’t.

“… Surely, someone could make a boat, and we could go back to the mainland…”

Great. She got stuck with the stupid questions. They didn’t even pertain to her class. Why was he bothering her with this? Couldn’t he have bothered someone else about it? “People already have,” she said bitterly, glancing at her blank computer screen. She had things she needed to get done, and entertain Serian wasn’t one of them.

"We could easily get off this island, and get things back to normal. And, if the 'normals' don't want us to..."

An eyebrow rose, unsure as to where this was going. She turned to him fully now, her jaw clenched as her stomach began to feel like it wasn’t there. She folded her hands on her lap and listened to the last thing he said about anything worth having is worth taking. “What are you going on about?” she asked, her voice low and her eyebrows furrowing. “What’s your point, Serian? I’m a busy person and I haven’t got all day, so get to it.” Hopefully that would cover up how worried that statement had made her.

“… because I have to, or because I WANT to?"

“Because you have to,” Cordelia said, not needing any time at all to make up her mind. “I’m a teacher and you are to respect me, regardless of whether you think you need to or not.” Putting up with children all day was definitely worthy of respect. She probably had the hardest job in the world! Who else had to go through so much difficulty just to teach teenagers who didn’t even care?

“… Why can't we just leave this island, and take back what we deserve? We payed our dues. Now it's time for them to pay theirs."

Cordelia sighed, lifting her hands from her lap and resting her elbows on her desk. Her fingers splayed and covered her face, running through her dyed, rusty colored hair. She looked at him, not entirely speechless but rather unsure what to say. “You’re free to leave this island at any point in time,” she said to him. “Others have and others will. Why are you even talking to me about this?” Both of her eyebrows lifted and she rested her chin in her hands, completely confused and still unsure what he meant by all of this. She hadn’t lived on this island her entire life – she had only come once her powers showed up and had only stayed because she had been offered a job. She could leave at any time, and so could the rest of them. Even so, though, she had a feeling this ran deeper than that.

Oh, wow, he was easy to upset. Cordelia’s face hardened. While she was all for revenge and loved how freeing it felt, he seemed a bit too driven. She wasn’t scared of him or anything, but his point very quickly got across. There was a part of her that agreed; people couldn’t be forgiven for such heartless mistakes. “And how, exactly, would they know we were any different?” The woman stood up, her eyes remaining fixed on him as she did so. Her arms folded over her chest and she walked out and around her desk, feeling too trapped behind it.

“I grew up with them and to my knowledge, they could never tell the difference.” Then again, perhaps she had been lucky. Her powers had shown up when she was able to take care of herself and knew the proper course of action to take. “You could show them what we’ve gone through – but that would be hypocritical, don’t you think? The time for revenge has passed. If anything, our ancestors only had the right to achieve vengeance against their ancestors. As angering as it is, there’s no point in hurting people who don’t even know we exist.”

At that point Cordelia issued a shrug, hopping up onto one of the black lab tables and sitting there, her feet touching the ground. “Sorry to say, but if you wanted revenge, you would have had to have been alive a few centuries again.”