The International Terminal, Chicago O'hare Airport - February 25, 2006
This is the final boarding call for Delta flight 3412 to Bangkok. Final boarding call for flight 3412. All passengers should be on board.
The slight teenager watched the stewardess close the door. There was nothing in the world that would make her get on that flight. There would be a hundred mages dripping in occult knowledge...all trying to sleep with each other, ruin relationships, fight, and tear the other down. She just couldn't take it right now.
Damn Jou. Tink's flight had connected in Chicago. 'Lias had told her to get whatever flight she wanted, but the one with the long layover was cheaper. She knew he would never care, but it mattered to her. The difference in price was almost their full months rent. Sometimes the Ladder made her sick. They had everything while those that protected them, who would go into the Abyss itself for them, had fucking nothing.
When Jou had found her reading outside her gate, the first thing she did was offer to get Tink a pretzel. She may as well have been a Princess on a Balcony, throwing scraps to the masses. It was so hard to tell the difference between the Ladder leading, and the Ladder pitying. Tink had once been surprised to find out that Jou was of the Ladder; that was no longer the case.
The older woman started with the normal sob story. Something, somewhere, had happened and it was up to Jou to go and save the world at great personal expense. Again. Tink tried to be sympathetic, but the truth was she simply didn't fucking care anymore. If Jou wasn't going to care about herself, if Jou was just going to burn down her own life to save the rest of the world, it was her choice. It might be an Arrow's job to save Atlantians, but there were simply some people you couldn't save from themselves.
The melodrama continued. Tink really wondered if there was something wrong with Jou. Or rather, if there was something else wrong with Jou. Why did all this shit have to be worked out? What the fuck was wrong with her? Bitch just liked drama. It was great that Jou wanted her to know that she was loved and cherished and all that shit, but Tink really was done with it. Ho had stepped between her and her brother. Fuck her. But, man, if she wouldn't stop trying, stop picking. And, fuck, if she wasn't good at it. Bitch even brought up fucking Abbadon; total fucking cheating.
That was how Tink found herself in the middle of the Chicago airport on the verge of loosing her temper. She had long since stopped being a purely sympathetic mage, but the magic still reacted to her emotions. It was going to be fucking bad. Jou was smart enough to let Tink get to the smoking enclosure before they started again. They went around and around and around. Jou finally seemed to get whatever the hell the bitch wanted to hear, and went to make her flight. Tink was left to her thoughts.
Fucking retarded, that's what it was. All these all powerful creatures that can't even tie their goddamn shoes without fighting, fucking, or both. Fucking hell.
That's why she couldn't get on that flight. All Tink wanted was a family. She had her brother, and that was solid, not to be discounted. But all them, they all had a fucking chance. They got to look into someone else's eyes and have their very soul move. And they threw it away like it was fucking nothing. Greatest magic of them all, and they never even fucking noticed.
They said Bangkok was a whore-house. And, on Sunday, it was about to get a bunch of fucking whores. There was no way she was going to be one of them. Fuck. That.