Control

Indigo heard footsteps behind her, but didn’t think too much about it as they were at an ice cream shop. Within seconds of hearing the footsteps, she felt the fur on the back of her neck rise as goosebumps covered her body. Before she could move, there was a soft, gravely whisper in her ear, “Well, well, well – if it isn’t my favorite dog,” said a sarcastic voice. Indigo froze, but only for a second. She set down her spoon, filled with chocolate ice cream, and slowly turned to look up. She knew it was Forest.

Forest leaned against the colorful shop wall, paws in pockets. Indigo, hiding her nerves, smiled. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite fox.” Forest stared at her, unblinking. Indigo's heart was racing, but she refused to show fear.

Forest took a step forward as Indigo held her breath. Suddenly, Sage stood up, her chair squeaking across the tile floor as she moved to stand between the two of them. Sage was fiercely protective of Indigo.

Forest chuckled under his breath and stepped back. He could get to Indigo in a matter of seconds if he wanted to, but it was quite amusing to see Sage standing there, with her chest puffed out, ready to fight if necessary. Forest had to give Sage credit for her loyalty to Indigo. “She certainly doesn’t deserve it”, he thought to himself.

Indigo stood. “Forest, what do you want?” Forest sighed, looking down. “I want you to know how badly you ruined my life.”

Indigo tried to speak, “There is something I want to talk about, Forest. I want to tell you….”

Forest abruptly cut her off with a wave of his paw as he said, “I don’t really care what you have to say, Indigo. But what I do care about is myself and getting what I want. And what I want is for you to always be looking over your shoulder, wondering if I’m there. If I’m right behind you like a shadow, you can’t escape. Asking yourself, is this the moment Forest gets his revenge?

Indigo could feel her anger welling up, and her paws started to tingle. She took a deep breath and somehow found control. She would not let him get under her fur. Indigo stepped back as Sage moved closer to her in solidarity.

Forest’s face flickered with surprise, but just for a second. He had been expecting Indigo to be more anxious, angry even. He was counting on that anger.

“Hmmm,” he thought to himself, as he looked at her, “She’s maturing.” Forest realized he may need to rethink his strategy. While he still wasn’t fully sure how he was going to get his revenge, he had thought that, at the very least, he could get Indigo to lose control of her powers, which would inevitably cause her to destroy something.

He knew the “City” was aware of her incident with the purple building. After all, she did blow a hole in the side of it. He also knew the “City” was lenient with younger ones who were just learning to use their powers. Indigo had not been given a violation for the incident with the purple building, but a few more like that, and well, that could be a different story.

While Forest’s full revenge was still being thought out, he wouldn’t mind at all if Indigo had to spend a few days locked up because she couldn’t control her powers. He had been hoping today would cause another incident. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.

Forest smiled at Indigo, winked, and walked away.

Indigo and Sage stood there staring at his back as he whistled a familiar tune on his way out the door. Sage’s glare was like a dagger in his back. Indigo’s stare carried relief and sadness. Norm quietly got up from the table and moved to stand beside them.

Norm looked at the girls, then to the doorway, and back to the girls. “Indigo,” he said softly, “you controlled your powers.”

“I know,” she whispered back.

Sage started to giggle. Norm and Indigo, perplexed, turned to look at her.

“What?!” Sage said, while laughing loudly, “That was CRAZY!”

Sage started hopping from one foot to the other. “Well,” she asked, “what are we going to do now? Indigo, you want to make amends with Forest, but he clearly has no intentions of doing the same.”

“That’s for sure,” Indigo sighed.

This plan to reconcile with Forest was going to be a lot harder than she thought. They sat back down at the table to finish their melted ice cream.

As Indigo drank the ice cream out of her bowl, she looked at her two best friends, one of whom was licking the ice cream from her bowl, and said, “Scratch everything we’ve already planned. We must start over. How can we get through to Forest?”

Norm, her older, wiser friend, with a sly smile on his face, said, “I think I have an idea.”

Indigo smiled back and said, “Let’s hear it.”