The waterfall brought fresh, wet scents. The grass was bright as it danced in the soft wind, waving past the two trees and boulders situated next to the lake. Sunlight showered him with warmth, and a dragonfly buzzed around his skull before returning to skate along the water’s surface.
His wake was sudden, and it was missing something vital.
A wing that would normally be draped over the top of him. Limbs that would normally be threaded around his own. A feathery tail his own lizard one would be coiled around.
His waking was absent of the heaviness of another body threatening to crush him, or the gentle pulsating movement of lungs working beneath him as he attempted to crush them instead. It lacked a familiar and comforting scent, a heartbeat he’d learned to distinguish – a pattern that often beat in unison with his own.
Aleron…
As usual, waking from a decapitation was disorientating for the first few seconds, but he attempted to stand anyway.
Ingram whined and searched for his kindred.
His usually purple orbs turned crimson at the memories that slammed their way to the forefront of his mind. Even more so when he saw the Witch Owl kneeling on the ground right next to where he’d been laying.
He cared little for her wounds, which were still unhealed, unlike his own. Her injuries were insignificant compared to the soul-crushing agony he was experiencing at the very core of his being.
“You,” he snarled, stepping towards her in his monstrous form, all four of his limbs moving in perfect unison.
He didn’t give himself time to wallow in his loss, not as rage swept through him and threatened to break him apart from within.
Swiftly rising to her feet, she put her hands out to warn him back. A translucent, dusty black barrier formed between them, like a small shield.
It was similar to the dome that had trapped him.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t understand,” she beseeched.
He didn’t care for her reasons. He lifted up on to his hind legs so he could smash his forearm sideways across her barrier.
She winced, as though it strained her to hold it, and he ended up knocking it to the side with her following it. She kept it above her as she crawled backwards with her backside slipping across the dirt.
“It is all your fault!” he roared, shoving his entire weight onto her shield. She let out a cry when her barrier slammed into her and crushed her into the dirt. “I could have gone to him! I could have saved him!”
The Witch Owl let out a bellowing yell as she attempted to fight back against being pulverised. Cold coils wrapped around his neck and armpits, yanking him back.
He bashed against the ground and tore at the dirt and grass as he slid back.
“If I had let you go to him, you would have died alongside him!”
Getting to all four limbs, he shook his head to clear his dizzy mind, and turned his crimson sight to her. “Then I should have died with him!”
“I had to make a choice! I could not save both of you, and Aleron was too overrun with Demons for me to get to him.” He didn’t understand why her good eye, since the other was still swollen and shut, filled with liquid before a tear fell down her battered cheek, moistening the blood caking her face. “It was either you or him – you have no idea how hard it was for me to make that choice.”
“I was brought into this world with him. We always lived it by each other’s side, and we should have left it together!” When he sprinted for her, intending to bash his skull and horns against her shield, she turned incorporeal and made him go through her. “You should not have interfered. You should not have saved either of us!”
He knew Aleron would have felt the same way. If neither could be saved, then neither would have wanted to be without the other – or watch the other perish.
They would have happily crossed over to the afterworld together, laughing and teasing each other on the way. They were one being, a unit, a kindred bond that was supposed to reach over time and space.
A piece of him was missing: his other half.
It felt wrong to be here without him. The space next to him was too empty. The world was suddenly twice its size. He felt betrayed by Aleron’s loss, and he also felt like the betrayer.
He was cold, when usually he was warmed by another.
Aleron would have experienced the same loss. He didn’t need to ask him; he just instinctually knew.
Who would be there to not answer the questions he had? Who would blanket them in the middle of sleep if it were not his wing? Who would make him laugh, or huff with irritation, or sit with him when he gained new humanity and was struggling to adjust to it?
Who was Ingram… without Aleron?
He was nothing.
He sat on his hind legs so he could claw at his back, trying to get to his heart from behind and rip it out. Flesh and muscle flared as he gouged, and yet he didn’t cry against the pain when the turmoil within was far more excruciating.
“You should have let me die with him,” Ingram whimpered.
“You cannot say that to me,” the Witch Owl whispered, her bottom lip trembling. “I know you’re upset, but why must I bear this every time? A mother is not meant to lose her children! No one cares how I feel, having watched two of them die.” She covered her face with both hands, her loose corkscrew curls bouncing as she shook her head. “It’s not fair… and you all blame me for it when it’s not my fault. I’m not the one hurting you, and I’m not the one who has sent an army out for you. I’m trying everything I can to protect you, to save you.”
Ingram huffed, having no idea what she was talking about. He didn’t know what this ‘mother’ title was that she had apparently given herself.
She was the Witch Owl.
A strange woman that played with and protected them. He figured it was because she wanted to, since Aleron was wonderful. And if Aleron was wonderful, then so was he.
Why should she care for them beyond her own entertainment? Just as they hadn’t cared much for her.
“You, your brothers… There is only so much I can do as one person. I could not bear to watch you perish alongside Aleron, to lose another one of you.”
He stopped clawing at his back, pausing the need to dig into his broken, bleeding heart, so he could answer her. “Whatever this brothers thing are, I would have gladly traded them for Aleron.”
She pulled her hands away from her face to glare at him, her dark eyes narrowed. In just one expression, she looked both angered and exasperated.
“Aleron was your brother! All the Mavka are your brothers! You all came from me, and yet, when you grow your skulls, you forget who I am to you.”
Once more, he snorted a huff.
Aleron was his only bond and kindred. The rest of the Mavka were of his species, but there was nothing special there. Sure, he had no desire to harm them, but he would have gladly destroyed all their skulls if it meant Aleron did not… leave him alone like this.
“Merikh is your older brother, as are Orpheus, Magnar, and Faunus. Even Aleron was brought into this world before you.” She pushed her cloak to the side as though she wanted to reveal something. “And there are more of you, that is why I could not–”
Ingram turned before she could finish.
Faunus, he thought, heading in the direction of the feline-skulled Mavka. Faunus’ skull was cracked, and now it is solid with a gold scar. He escaped death, so maybe I can do the same for Aleron.