Her mistakes were her burdens to bear, and her life was the penance for them. She was all that remained of her parents and Gideon, and until she took her last breath, she would fight for her life and avenge them by killing Demons in their honour.
In the last eight years, she stopped being a foolish little girl who snuck out in the middle of the night where Demons lingered, and she wised up. She sought knowledge, drowned herself in books, and made sure she used her brain and common sense in everything she did.
At least, she tried to.
So, why was she here with the Duskwalker?
Had she made the right decision, or had she made another mistake? I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
Knowing Ingram was likely staring at her made her feel as if she was being inspected while at her worst. He’d even stopped walking, and she didn’t know how long he’d just been standing there, holding her, watching her.
A sob broke from her, and when she tried to wipe her face, she abraded her facial scars with the sleeve of her uniform.
“W-why did you s-stop?” she asked, her voice weak and hoarse.
Instead of continuing their journey, Ingram lowered until he knelt upon the ground. At the same time, he gently moved her, being careful of her wounds, until he forced her legs around his narrow waist. With her arms squished between them, he placed her chin on his shoulder, as he did the same to her, but with his beak.
He wrapped his arms snugly around her.
“I do not know what to say to take this pain away from you,” he stated with a dark tenderness. “But I can hold you, as you did for me.”
In the past, many people had brought Emerie in for a comforting hug, and it had done little to help. They’d told her they understood, or that it was okay, and she hadn’t been able to swallow their lies.
Yet, this Duskwalker did understand. He had loved, and he had lost. He had suffered torment and had come out the other side different and broken – just like her. He didn’t need to tell her, he didn’t need words.
That’s why, when she pushed her arms out from between them and wrapped them around his skull, a shuddering, hollowing cry broke from her. Gripping the small amount of fur at his nape, she heaved against him.
She buried her face into the soft scales on the sides of his corded neck, tightened all her limbs around him, and clung to the first being that truly gave her comfort from their sympathetic embrace. As much as it was soothing, it was painful in a way that was cathartic.
She sobbed against him, wetted his scales with her salty tears, and dug her nails into the backs of his rigid, spikey shoulders when she drew him closer. He squeezed her, and it wasn’t enough to still her heaving chest, but the pressure felt remarkable.
I want him to squeeze me until he pushes out all my pain.
Despite her unbecoming behaviour, she sensed there was no judgement. It allowed her to share this side she had never shown another. To share these cruel and unfair emotions with someone who was a monster, and yet was purer than anyone she’d ever known.
He was huge, and strong, and scary. His body was too hot to be human, too hard and scaley, and yet it created a blanket of security she hadn’t worn since she was a na?ve teenager.
Even his scent of burnt sugar and hickory bark smelt inhuman, like he was a part of the forest. Yet its pleasantness cut through the salty tang of her tears and gave her something nice to focus on.
“Even though you have a raven skull, I’m really glad you don’t have wings, Ingram,” she admitted on a muffled whisper, digging her nails harder into his scales. “They would have frightened me.”
“Aleron had wings,” he responded.
“W-were they made of feathers?”
“Yes. They were black ones.”
Emerie shuddered in repulsion at the thought; he would have reminded her of the Demon that tore everything away from her. In some of her nightmares, those soft, fluffy feathers turned into millions of sharp, tiny daggers.
“They were big and comforting,” he continued. “When I was inside them, they blocked out everything but him. The world disappeared except for us.”
Gosh. How can he make that sound nice?
Still, she couldn’t think of anything worse. Suffocating and wrong.
She’d take Ingram’s lizard butt and tail over a big set of frightening dark wings any day.
Ingram rotated his neck to look over his shoulder momentarily, noting he was making a very obvious trail through the tall grass. Occasionally, bits of fluffy greenery, like animal tails on thin bits of grass, swayed just slightly taller. Most of it came to the bottom of his lowest ribs, and he knew he would have lost Emerie in it had she been wading through it.
She wasn’t.
She was securely in his arms. From the moment he’d scooped her up in them, he’d enjoyed carrying her.
Her weight was light, and her soft body easily moulded to him. Her breasts and thighs jiggled a little at the impact of each of his heavy footfalls, and her feet bounced along with them. Her hair danced as it swayed in the air, and her eyelashes flittered like the fuzziest wings.
On his back, he hadn’t been able to view these things freely. In his arms, he could leisurely stare at her as much as his heart desired, and it craved for him to do so.
The only thing that diminished it was why he was carrying her. The blood-spotted white wrappings around her right thigh were obvious and unavoidable to look upon. They were always there, tarnishing his tantalising view of her.
I hope she will let me carry her like this in the future.
He would even like for her to request it, rather than him ask for it. For her to reveal she wanted to be held by him in this kind of embrace.
“I’ve been to that town,” Emerie stated, pointing off into the distance. “It’s called Greenshire.”
He drifted his gaze to the town situated in the middle of the valley they were passing. Since they were so high up, human dwellings were easily recognisable from their grey stones or their straw huts, even with the circle of log stakes protecting them from Demons.
It was a wise location, considering there were barely any trees except for a few small clusters of them here and there.
“The town is really well set up, and they actually farm land outside of it because it’s pretty safe to go outside the wall in the daytime.” Emerie pointed to a thick, lush area of greenery next to it. “Except for there. Those are the cornfields, and only a few are brave enough to pick corn since Demons can hide in there. During harvests, they send out soldiers first to kill them, but at least two people die every year while they pick the corn.”
“Then why would they?” Ingram asked, staring at the green stalks.
“It doesn’t look like it from here, but it’s a lot of food. To not pick it would mean most of the town would starve.” In his peripheral, her lips tightened into a flat line of disapproval. “However, they always send the poorest people by offering them the most amount of free food for doing it. I’ve always hated how humans exploit each other like that.”
“Should we go there to obtain food for you then?”
Surely he would be able to protect her while she picked this corn.
Emerie shook her head, causing her wavy orange hair to play across his forearm. “No. They’ll see us coming. I’d rather avoid human towns that can spot us approaching in case the guild manages to catch up, even if it’s unlikely. I also didn’t think to bring any money, and it’s rare for towns to have their farms outside of them like that one.”