There was the scent of a third Mavka, but Ingram couldn’t see or hear him.
“You almost hurt Reia,” the wolf Mavka growled. “I told you not to approach!”
Ingram darted his sight to the female named Reia before focussing back on his skull. He snarled and held Emerie tighter when he tried to approach, and the wolf Mavka backed off.
He was injured, stressed, and was surrounded by humans that, with just one claw swipe across their supple skin, could send him back into a rage. They were wise to not touch him or try to pry the female in his arms away.
“I’m fine, Orpheus,” Reia weakly laughed. “He just surprised me.”
“Speak for yourself,” the second female he’d pushed sneered. She pointed to her flat stomach. “Carrying precious cargo here. Last thing I need is to fucking fall over, then Faunus would be furious.”
He figured by the scent on her, the Mavka named Faunus was the one who was currently hidden away nearby.
However, that scent did cause his sight to morph to dark yellow in curiosity. It was familiar, and the only one he was truly… comfortable with.
“Kitty?” he asked, tilting his head.
She smelled like the feline-skulled Mavka with curling ram horns.
“Faunus now,” she answered, her brown eyes narrowing on him.
He has a new name? To be fair, he hadn’t really known what names were until only a few months ago – when he and Aleron had received their own from Merikh.
They all have names. He wanted to learn them all, liking that they had individual identities past their skulls and horn variations. His being the best, obviously, since he was the only one he’d met without fangs, instead having a beak.
“Fox Mavka,” Ingram said to gain his attention. “Your name. What is it?”
“Magnar,” he answered, wrapping a clawed hand over the shoulder of the dark-brown-haired female next to him. “This is Delora.”
There was a little flame hovering between his imposing deer antlers. Upon inspection, it looked like it was a flaming woman, who, oddly enough, had the same shape and hair as the female he was touching.
He turned to the wolf Mavka and noticed he also had a flame woman between his backward-spiralling horns. It was the same shape as the female in his arms.
He didn’t know what they meant.
“Reia,” the little woman said, placing a hand to her chest before doing it to the wolf one. “Orpheus. And the one over there with the frowning face is Mayumi.”
He looked back at the tiny woman, since she appeared to be the shortest of the bunch, and saw she had her hands on her hips. She was still annoyed with him, made evident by her furrowing brows.
“Ingram,” Emerie whined in his arms, although rather muffled since her face was cushioned against his chest. “Can’t breathe!”
He loosened his hold just enough to give her some room and turned his skull down while tilting it so he could see past his beak.
“Sorry, Emerie.” He moved his arm from around her shoulders so he could brush his claws into the side of her hair. “Are you in pain?”
“She is fine,” Orpheus firmly stated from the side. “I have taken her wounds for her.”
“Taken her wounds?” he curiously asked.
“I have healed her, and in doing so, I must bear her wounds for her.”
Oh. So that’s why he could scent Mavka blood coming from him.
Ingram’s sight shifted to a reddish pink as shame nagged at the nape of his neck. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, but a Demon did get me pretty good when I was in the water. I think you saved me, though.”
“I see,” he hummed, before shifting his form into his more humanoid one now that he knew everything was… okay.
He shouldn’t need to run anymore and saw no other reason to stay in his four-legged form. She’d never stated it, so it was just an assumption, but he changed for her comfort.
“Your name is Ingram, yes?” Magnar asked. When he nodded, Magnar’s skull drifted over the forest behind them. “Where is your twin? The bat-skulled Mavka.”
The blue shift of his orbs was so swift and sudden that it cut down his spine like a blade of ice. He didn’t know why he averted his gaze down to the pretty female in his arms, but he just couldn’t look at anyone else right then.
“He is gone,” he stated, his tone so cold with sadness that it burned.
“Gone?” Magnar asked.
“A horde of Demons came,” he answered, looking down at icy eyes that crinkled into sorrow – for him. “I could not save him, and the Witch Owl would not let me. She protected me to stop us both from having our skulls destroyed.”
When Ingram did look up, he noticed both their orbs had turned the same blue as the one that filled his sight. Even the gazes of the three females around him shone with sorrow and perhaps… sympathy.
The one who looked the most saddened by that knowledge was the one who stood by Magnar.
He didn’t understand why any of the humans here, other than Emerie, would feel anything for Aleron’s loss. They did not know him, to know the world was less bright and beautiful without him.
“Faunus told me about you two,” Mayumi said, right before he felt her delicate and gentle touch on the rounded joint of his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you were inseparable, and that you must miss him greatly.”
This was the first time Ingram had properly spoken to Orpheus and Magnar, but he and Aleron had spent many days and hours with Faunus. He was their favourite Mavka because he’d always been willing to play with them and teach them new things. He’d always been patient with them and, on the odd occasion, had chosen to rest with his back against the outside of their kindred cuddle.
Faunus had been an outsider to them, but they’d never known that he’d truly… cared. Not enough to detail them to another like this female.
Was this the bond the Witch Owl had tried to explain to him? That, although he did not know them and did not stay by their sides, there was room for fondness between all Mavka because of who and what they were?
It was too much for his mind to take in right now. He had questions, but he didn’t know where to start or what they truly were.
“It is why we are here,” Ingram said as he slightly lifted Emerie.
He wouldn’t say it was fine or brush it off, when his chest always ached at Aleron’s disappearance.
“Before we get into that,” Mayumi said as she stepped back and removed her unfamiliar touch from him. “I need to go to Faunus. There is too much of Emerie’s blood here right now for us to stay, even if we’ve removed most of it.”
“She could probably use an actual bath,” Delora added, curling into Magnar’s side as she gestured to Emerie with her hand. “And some rest. She looks like she’s been running for days.”
“We have a spare bed,” Reia offered. “However, she’ll need to have a scent-cloaking bath. We don’t have a ward at our home, since Orpheus can’t place one down for another eight years. The salt circle is being broken a lot these days because of the number of Demons scouting, so we try to avoid bringing more upon us if we can.”
“Scent-cloaking bath?” Emerie asked, her brows furrowing.