I didn’t think people could live here.
She wondered if it was the green glittering ward surrounding them like a dome.
“She’s scary when she’s serious,” Mayumi admitted on a laugh.
Emerie turned back to the two women standing before her.
Mayumi pushed back a few of the many black strands that had fallen from her high ponytail, like she had a choppy fringe she’d haphazardly cut with a dagger.
“Here, I’ll wash your back,” she offered.
She came around, knelt behind her, and wiped at her back. She occasionally dipped the cloth into a bucket of water Emerie hadn’t known was behind her.
“I don’t see the point,” Reia stated. “Her clothes are soaked with blood. When everything settles down, I’ll give you some new clothes to wear. What size shoe are you? If you’re a nine, you’re out of luck, because that’s my size.”
“Yeah, and I stole all her sixes,” Mayumi mumbled. “And I’m not giving them up to no one.”
“I don’t care,” Emerie stated, puzzled about why the hell they were talking about shoes. Yet, the… normality of it was easing her anxiety, and she wondered if that’s why they’d started it. She eventually shrugged and played along. “An eight, I guess.”
“Long week?” Mayumi mused behind her, yet her voice was soft in comparison to before.
She let out a deep, exasperated expire. “The longest.”
Coming out of a bloodlust frenzy could either be startling or bring on a wave of grogginess.
For Ingram, who was terribly injured, his reawakening was slow. An elbow jutting into one of the wounds on his side caused a quiet whine to escape his chest. There was pressure all over him.
His red vision morphed to white from pain and confusion at his surroundings. He also didn’t like that there were two Mavka around him, one standing over him imposingly, while the other lay upon him to keep him pinned.
His rapid breaths began calming. He slipped his head one way and then the other across the ground, trying to make sense of his surroundings.
The sun was bright, but it was descending over the horizon – although the forest would make that feel like it was happening sooner than it actually was.
To his right was a fenced garden, and a little behind him was a human dwelling connected to it. To his left were trees that were obviously thinned out by someone cutting them down. The grass beneath him was soft, and the freshly cut swaying stalks tickled the underside of his skull.
Once he observed his environment, it didn’t take him long to figure out where he was. The green, glowing dome above filled him with relief at the safety of being in another of his kind’s protective ward.
“He appears to have calmed,” the fox-skulled Mavka lying on him stated. He gingerly lifted off him, but it was obvious he was ready to shove his weight back down if Ingram suddenly attacked.
“He has,” the wolf-skulled Mavka answered with a nod of his head, stepping back to give them room.
“Hurts,” Ingram choked out, his voice deeper and distorted due to being in his monstrous form. The release of pressure on his torso allowed him to assess just how heavily wounded he was.
There were many slices down his back, shoulders, and tail, as well as numerous bite marks around his neck. The multi-limbed Demon had been in his element beneath the water, and Ingram was surprised that he’d been able to escape him.
The only thing that had stopped him from drowning was that he was able to hold his breath for many minutes. The water hadn’t been too deep, so he’d been able to kick off the bottom and leap out of the lake. Not all the way, though, and the muddy edge had been difficult to climb over.
He remembered little, but enough to give him some orientation of his memories.
Hissing shrieks from under the water, sharp fangs, and a second, smaller Demon that had tried to take his prey.
Prey… Ingram shot to all four limbs, knocking back the fox-skulled Mavka.
“Emerie!” he yelled, searching for the little orange-haired female.
A small distance away, her scent fluttered to him. If his orbs could have turned any whiter, they would have, when he noticed the tangles of blood in it.
He bolted in that direction, only to be slammed to the ground by the wolf-skulled Mavka before he barely made it three metres.
He growled at Ingram when he dug at the dirt to be freed. Did I hurt her? He needed to check on Emerie, to make sure she was alive and unharmed.
“Calm, Mavka,” the wolf-skulled one snarled.
“Release me,” he whined. His groan of effort ended with the bubbling of a snarl.
Just in front of him were multiple humans, but he could barely see the bright glow of Emerie’s hair between their bodies. They were crowding her and weren’t giving him a chance to make sure she was okay from a distance.
She was quiet. Why was she quiet?
He didn’t care about his wounds, not with the way his heart frantically pounded at him to check on her.
“Our females are there,” the wolf Mavka snapped. “There is too strong of a blood scent to allow you near them.”
Red filled his vision. He stopped struggling forward and instead wrapped his tail around the Mavka’s ankle. He yanked back and to the side, surprising him just enough to pry him off. Before the fox-skulled Mavka could stop him, he slashed his tail to the side, colliding with his calves and knocking him over.
Once more, Ingram bolted forward.
He had no interest in the other females here.
Since they hadn’t expected him to suddenly approach, they didn’t have time to react.
He pulled one wearing a pink dress to the left and her blonde hair fluttered as she fell. The one wearing brown pants with her long black hair tied back stumbled when he pushed her to the right. The woman wearing a long dress and sitting next to Emerie on a set of steps flinched, gasped, and turned incorporeal like a Ghost when he gave her a fright.
His colourful little butterfly had just been lifting a spoonful of a liquid meal to her pale-pink lips when he got to her.
“Hey!” the blonde one yelled.
She was ignored as he reached down to Emerie, knelt, and placed his hand on her shoulder while the other one cupped the right side of her face.
“Are you okay?” He checked the front of her with his gaze, not seeing any new wounds but smelling the tang of coppery blood on her. His orbs reddened as hunger stirred, but it wasn’t enough to make him fall back into a mindless state. It was diluted and stale. “Why can I smell blood on you, Emerie?”
The worst of it seemed to be gone, washed away, and he was thankful for that. He could breathe through it, and his worry let him fight past his gut giving empty grumbles.
Before she could even respond, he pulled her into his arms to hold her. Her liquid meal fell from her hands and onto his thigh, but thankfully, it looked as though it was almost finished.
Emerie gasped but gave no protest as he squished her face against his chest. With one arm around the back of her head and the other around her hips, he darted his gaze a full circle around him.
The wolf Mavka’s orbs were bright red as he lifted the blonde-haired, pale female from the ground by scooping her into the cradle of his arms.
The fox one had righted the long-haired, thin female, whose fawny colouring had paled at almost falling. However, he was quick to move to the female who was now standing on the steps with space between him and her.