This had never happened before. Other than the sun, nothing had ever been a bright-yellow light – especially not in a dark place like the Veil.
He stepped back as he returned his sight to the females who had… died to come here. Worse still, they were looking in the direction the blast had come from.
Delora had her mouth covered to stifle her sob, and her eyes crinkled tightly, as though she was in utter agony. Reia, on the other hand, was biting her lips so hard they’d disappeared within her mouth, as tears easily bubbled and then fell.
“Where is Emerie?” Ingram asked, taking another step back so he could head towards the declining path they’d take to get to the surface world.
Both females turned their gazes to him.
Their sorrowful expressions deepened. And, in doing so, his orbs whitened impossibly further.
“I’m so sorry, Ingram,” Reia sobbed through trembling lips.
His scales and spikes lifted as dread puffed him. No.
He refused to accept her apology, refused to require one.
Before anyone could stop him, he turned and shifted into his monstrous form. On all fours, he sprinted down the decline.
“Ingram!” Magnar roared.
He knew why he was being called. He knew why they held fear for his sake.
He didn’t care.
He didn’t care if it was too dangerous for him to venture into the Veil by himself. He had to return to Faunus’ ward, to Emerie.
He needed to make sure his little butterfly was safely where he left her.
Have to go back. Have to go to her.
His chest was tight with anxiety, and every quadruple stomp of his limbs only made it twinge and sting further. It forked agonising pain all throughout his torso.
The speed with which he ran was harder and faster than he’d ever achieved. Any Demon that did attempt to intersect him was lost the moment he spotted their scents within the dense forest. He easily evaded them.
By the halfway point, his beak had parted so he could frantically huff around agonising breaths. His muscles burned from the exertion as he sprinted, yet the returning foreboding white mist cooled his skull.
Having to dodge tree after tree only slowed him down. He wished he could borrow his kindred’s wings for just a moment so he could fly over the Veil.
He worried any second that delayed him would mean he was too late. He couldn’t be too late. He refused.
She will be there. She had to be there.
Ingram could not lose another person he cared for.
His heart could not be filled with two people who had left him.
He first passed a green glow that came from a distance within the Veil. Then a yellow glow glittered between the trees before him, and his legs and arms found a way to double their speed. Less than an hour had passed, the distance long, and each second of it had been… terrifying.
The unknown of this terrified him.
As soon as he broke into the narrow clearing that separated Faunus and Mayumi’s home from the tent they’d placed down for him and Emerie, he skidded to a halt. His claws tore up the earth, leaving behind gouging marks.
Faunus and his female were waiting for him, as if they’d known all along he would come. The fact there was no orange hair brightly glowing in the sunshine alongside them sent another chill of dread down his spine.
His spikes lifted threateningly. “Where is she?” he snarled, but it was so mangled with a whine that it came out twisted and even hurt to produce.
Mayumi clung to their younglings tighter. Faunus stepped in front of her with his arm out protectively, his orbs white with worry in Ingram’s direction.
“She’s gone,” Mayumi stated softly, like she didn’t want to utter those two words.
A wheeze echoed out of him, and he stepped to the side. “Where did she go?”
Her features, which had been saddened, instead twisted into a guilty cringe. “Emerie, Reia, Delora, and the Witch Owl left to face the Demon King.”
Ingram lifted his skull towards the middle of the Veil. He didn’t think it was possible, but his heart hollowed out even more.
“Then I will go to his castle.”
Why did she go there without me? He’d meant to go with them. He was meant to be the one to fight the Demon King, to get revenge for Aleron and make the world safer.
It was his fight, not hers.
He’d been hoping to figure out how to make her stay behind so she would be safe from harm. Convincing her had been a battle his lack of humanity hadn’t been successful in winning. She was too… smart for him, easily redirecting his thoughts.
Usually, it was to soothe him when he was feeling despondent or angered.
It didn’t help that he didn’t always understand.
“It’s too late,” Faunus stated, voice low. “We all saw and felt the explosion.”
Ingram wasn’t listening, at least not properly. He was too busy skulking away from them to go in the direction of Jabez’s castle, backing up to put space between them.
“Stop, Ingram,” Mayumi exclaimed. “She won’t be there.”
“Then I will go find her!”
“She’s not gone from here – she’s dead,” Faunus beseeched, his voice cracking in sorrow on the end.
“No,” Ingram choked out, his sight shifting to blue. He reared back on his hind legs so he could cover his skull with his hands, his claws and fingertips pressing down hard. His body quaked at the loss and grief that bled into his veins like venom. “You were supposed to protect her. She was supposed to be safe here.” The gaps between his fingers turned red as his sight changed into one filled with fury. “I left because you all promised she would be here when I returned!”
So this is what happened when a promise was broken. This was how damaging and betraying it could feel.
Faunus’ orbs shifted to bright orange in guilt.
“She sacrificed herself to protect us all,” Faunus stated, as he curled his arm backwards and around Mayumi to pull her flush against him. “She was the only one who could do it.”
“I would have done it!” Ingram roared. “I did not mind if I died so long as the Demon King did as well. I would have just gone to the afterworld to be with Aleron!” Once more, he wheezed as blue flickered in his reddened sight momentarily. “Emerie… she… I did not want her to die for me.”
At first, he had not cared. He would have killed her himself if it were the answer to his problems.
But now? After everything they’d shared?
He couldn’t think of anything worse.
“You wouldn’t have been able to stay conscious!” Faunus yelled. “You would have fallen into your bloodlust and hunger. You were too unpredictable, too unreliable. You wouldn’t have even remembered the task bestowed upon you.”
It was true. What the feline-skulled Mavka said couldn’t be argued with, but…
Not her. It should not have been her.
Ingram looked down at his claws, but the shaking of his hands made him feel dizzy. He retched when it felt like his heart was trying to crawl up from his throat so he could vomit it. He dug at his chest, right over it, unsure if it was to keep it from violently exploding from him, or to rip it out himself.
I cannot do this, he internally whined. I cannot lose another I care for.
Aleron’s loss had been devastating to his psyche. The only reason he’d survived it was because he believed there was a way to bring him back. Mavka were a part of life and death, this he’d always known; he’d been told it dozens of moons ago.