“If this is true, then where is he? Or is it like how Mavka are brothers? We often venture near each other, but we don’t remain in each other’s presence for long.”
“He is… in heaven,” she answered sadly.
Tilting his head, Ingram leaned forward a little. “Why do you look saddened by this? Can you not just visit him, or is heaven far away?”
Emerie didn’t know why she found his words funny. Perhaps it was because it allowed her to say Gideon was gone, without having to say just how permanently.
“Yes, Ingram. Heaven is far, but I’ll visit him one day.”
“Once we destroy the Demon King, I can come with you, so you are safe. We can find Aleron along the way.”
Tears dotted her eyelashes, and she blinked them away as best she could. The fact he wanted to keep her safe was sweet, but that wasn’t a journey he could come with her on. She didn’t want to tell him that, in case he took it the wrong way – like she didn’t want him by her side.
However… something he said allowed her to avoid it altogether. Something that had her gaze darting to him and her features crinkling into a deep frown.
“What do you mean, find Aleron along the way? Where is he?”
She’d assumed he was dead. Was I wrong?
Lifting his skull towards the sky to gaze at the stars beginning to sparkle, his orbs turned blue. “He is in the afterworld. But I will find a way to go there and bring him here, so I can see him again like you will see your Gideon person.”
Her eyes bowed with deep sympathy.
She didn’t know if telling the truth would be wrong, but she did know false hope was a bitter curse. One that was better lifted before it was too late.
“Heaven is the afterworld, Ingram.”
“It is?” he asked with a high note of curiosity. He darted his raven skull to her. “Then we can find them at the same time. We can do this together.”
Emerie reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him and making him turn to her. This conversation was too important to have while walking.
“People don’t come back from the afterworld, Ingram. It’s not a place you and I can go while we’re still alive.”
“You don’t know this,” he argued defensively.
“I do,” she answered, making her words stern. “I know you want him back, just like I want Gideon back, but that’s not how life works. Death is permanent.”
He dismissively wagged his head from side to side. “For a human, perhaps.”
“For everything. It doesn’t matter what creature, whether they be human, animal, Demon, or even a Duskwalker.”
“The Witch Owl said that Mavka are life and death. That we are limbo.” When she opened her mouth to refute him, his blue orbs turned bright crimson, and he jerked forward to growl. “You are wrong, Emerie,” he snarled, his voice changing into the monstrous one she’d always heard, but it was startling with him more humanoid like this.
She flinched and threw her hands up like she was warding him back and surrendering. “Okay. I’m wrong,” she conceded, unwilling to further upset him.
If that was what he wanted to believe, then she would let him. Who was she to say otherwise? He was a Duskwalker, and humans knew very little about them.
Maybe he was right. She was even hoping that was the case, and if not… well, that was his battle to face. If she was still alive for it, she would just try to comfort him through it.
It was said there were five stages to grief: anger, denial, depression, bargaining, and acceptance – although not necessarily in that order.
She knew, for certain, Ingram was stuck in the denial phase. She wondered if his level of humanity was capable enough to transcend into acceptance, or if he would be stuck in this state forever.
Hope could be a cruel master. It could make people do reckless and stupid things… like a Duskwalker asking Demonslayers for aid.
Or trying to kill the Demon King.
At least if I stay with him, I might be able to convince him not to do anything… foolish.
Sitting on the ground with his tail curled around his crossed legs, Ingram kept his arms folded across his chest. Although his body was facing Emerie, his head was purposefully directed away from her.
“If you keep sulking, I’ll treat you like a kid,” she playfully bit out.
Orbs red and his tail tip tapping against the ground in irritation, he huffed in answer.
“Awww, come on. Don’t be like that.” When he didn’t settle, she walked in front of his face and put her hands on her ample hips. “I already said I was sorry.”
Ingram rotated his head until it was behind him and threatening to come back around the other side. In his peripheral, he noticed she stuck her tongue out at him.
He’d never seen her do this before, but her scrunched-up features informed him he was upsetting her. Then it was even more obvious when she threw up her hands, rolled her eyes, and stormed out of sight.
It was done at him in retaliation.
So Ingram spun his head around and did it back at her, sticking his purple tongue out past the tip of his beak.
“Rude!” she exclaimed, plopping her arse upon the grass. “How dare you do that back to me! You’re lucky you’re cute, otherwise I wouldn’t offer for you to come sit next to me while I sleep.”
“I do not want to be near you,” he grumbled, hating how his tail coiled in delight that she’d called him cute.
She’d never called him that before, but he remembered Raewyn, his Elf friend, had done so and explained what it meant. Cute, adorable – he liked these things.
She had better not be pacifying him, though. She’d been doing that all evening.
I can return Aleron to this world. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, but he refused to believe anything else regarding it.
He didn’t like that she’d tried to convince him otherwise.
In his mind, he could not exist without his kindred. So, if he was still here, then a part of Aleron was as well. They were one, and that would cross time and space. It was the only reason why the ball of ice in his chest hadn’t frozen his heart and stopped it from beating.
It was the only reason he was still moving, and wasn’t a crying heap in the forest, waiting to be eaten by Demons.
“Come on, bird brain,” Emerie cooed, patting the spot next to her. “You know you want to.”
“Bird brain?” he rasped, rearing his head back. “You insult me and expect me to come closer?”
Her lips curled in humour. “It wasn’t an insult, Ingram.”
He unfolded his arms and pointed a claw at her. “Only Merikh calls me this. I did not understand it before, but I think he meant I was stupid.”
Now that he looked back on those times, Merikh, the red-orbed Mavka, only said this to him when he did something silly. Actually, he said it to both him and his kindred.
She propped her elbow on her bent knee and rested her cheek against her enclosed fist. Her humour brightened, making her blue eyes glow.
“Did you know that birds are a highly intelligent species?”
“No? They do nothing but peck at the ground and squawk.”
“That’s not true. They can scavenge and puzzle food from humans even if we have preventative measures in place. They set up traps to lure prey like small rodents. They even remember faces, and tell each other who to avoid and who to befriend. We teach them to carry messages for us. Ravens, in particular, are very wise creatures.”