Chapter 19

They burrowed deep in her mind. She would never see him again, she would never know happiness. Everything felt so cold, so lost. The abyss swallowed her, freezing sorrow smothered her every burning wound and passion. These people hated her, everyone hated her. Yaro was a blight on the world, a pox that needed to be eradicated. Why was she alive? Why was she born? It was sick, the whole world was sick, she made it sick. These people in her mind, if they wanted in so badly, she would let them, let them see what a horrible creature she was, let them know how much they needed to despise her.

She released her mental gate, consuming all those battering at it as they fell head first into her mind. She could feel them, their own minds, their fear of her. That was right, be afraid, hate this monster, she deserved nothing less. The more they moved through her mind, through her memories, through her emotions, through her very being, the colder they too became. They tried to leave, tried to exit her thoughts. They were the ones who wanted in. They were the ones who barged in. They were the ones who hated her. After each step they took to get out they would fall right back in, a sand pit. Why would they want to leave? Is this not what they wanted? She felt more enter her mind. No, it wasn't hers, it was theirs.

Their friends had come to bring them out of her thoughts. Five minds in total, five to view her for the monster she truly was. She let them- no, pulled them in. They too needed to hate her, loathe her, despise her. She felt them fall, felt them warm around her head. Memories of hateful words, beatings, abuse by the ones she called family, they were all open for all to see. They scraped at the walls of her mind, trying desperately to escape. They would feel it, the collective despair she held, anger she had for the world, the hate she had for herself. Let them see, let them see it all. Let them know all she had felt, all the burns, lacerations, bludgeons, and abuse she had received all her life.

Behind all her sorrow, all her hate, all her despair, she felt it. The ring. Faintly she felt its pull. Not strong, but there. No, she had lost, she was to be taken away never to see him again. Still it was there, pulling her to where she needed to be. She didn't deserve it, she didn't deserve to find him. Still, it pulled. She deserved to be beaten, to spat upon, to be hated by all. Still, it pulled. If she were to live, she would live to be hated. Still, it pulled. She would be hated, but not by everyone. Still, it pulled. There was one who, despite all she had ever known, didn't truly hate her. If she were to be hated, there is no one she'd rather face it with.

She opened her eyes, the five minds scrambling out of her head. She couldn't feel her hands, breath was cold. There was sobbing, but it wasn't her. The tsohtsi wasn't pinning her to the ground anymore. It was next to her, bending over one of the humi in blue clothes curled up on the ground. It was the one sobbing, they all were. They were all on the ground, curled up, and quietly weeping.

There was no time to think, only a mission to see through. The flames coursed down her arms and through her tattoos, searing the ice encasing them into mist. The stung, but was somehow tolerable. She ran over to one of the humi without a tsohtsi leering over them. The glove removed easily, there was no protesting in the slightest. The glove eased her and allowed her to find enough strength to take to the air. Her wings were broken, but she could use her arms to maneuver them enough. She flew far into the desert, out of sight from all.

The land below had an argument with itself, unsure if it wanted to be desert or jungle. Sandy dunes bordered thick treetops, their golden leaves falling revealing skeletal remains. There didn’t seem to be many towns, this area possibly completely wild. But, based on the old man’s home being hidden, Yaro supposed many towns were likely within the chasms cracking the land.

She was able to stay aloft in the air with just her flame sac for a while, letting her wings rest and heal with her tongue. The air was thick with fire, buoyancy no problem for her, only the direction. But the winds were favorable and the ring, now strong enough to pull her arm, gently guided her to it’s ultimate goal.

Her heart swelled as she got closer, the memories of being hunted like a distant memory, though they were only earlier that day. And then she saw it, the ring pointing her directly at the town where he had to reside. It was a defiance against the landscape, a bridge made of ground spanning one of the chasms, tiny buildings like a dolls house growing from it. And the one doll house, the one that would have the figurines, a castle of all things, old style with grey stone, turrets, courtyards, a reminder of story books.

The ring on her finger, no longer hidden and cherished like fine cutlery to be viewed and not used, nearly hummed with her anticipation. Under the green bubbles and red cracks of her aura grew the moss of theirs. It was no longer small spikes emerging from her cracks, but a full forest of obsidian trunked bare ivory trees. It grew in her heart as she approached.

Her wings still ached, but she had repaired them enough. They would take her enough, just like her leg from the beginning of her adventure. She snickered a snarl, poetry never mattered enough to leave her thinking.

She was almost there, diving down to the castle, ready to finally meet the one eaten from her memories. After all this time, she may find in complete her reason for going through all this turmoil. After all this time, she would get back the thing she was obsessed over and it would all come to an end. She dove harder. Those in the town would run and scream and she would swoop down, take him, and be off into the sunset. She just had to...

The landing was soft, a dry sandy ground that smelled of dung. A tower shadowed her, casting a bountiful amount of animal noises and smells from bleats to caws to cries. The ring pulled down. No one was around to stop her, they all must have fled at the sight of her descent. It would not be long before those like her pursuers would show up, she did not have the time to find a way below ground.

She knelt down, putting her hand to the ground and closed her eyes. A memory of how it felt flickered, the memory of what it was like to be strong in aura and feel everything. She had that memory and though she was not strong, she could use how it felt to focus. The sounds faded and the gritty ground was lost to the sense of life. Life of the tower that cried, life of the people inside the castele, life of those below her. A group gathered in relaxation, a pocket of them a kind of worried. And in that pocket, though she did not see, could not differentiate them from the mass of auras, resided by mossy obsidian and ivory spikes.

Eyes open, she raised her fist. The life down there was not too far, she was strong. She raised her claws up high, forming that spear to take what she wanted. Her whips wreathed around her arm, bolstering her muscles and her strength. It hurt, the muscles pulled so taught they might snap from the bone. 

With a scream, the meteor was sent into the floor.

The ground shattered in an explosion of dust and Yaro. It all fell down into a din of fear, the purple aura of those below choking with the dust. Time slowed. The stones fell in visible patterns. Yaro twisted to see, to see him. Her arm reached out, guided by the ring. He was within reach.

The dust parted for her and below she was met with a subterranean chamber housing a tree filled with orbs of light. And to greet her was an aura not only of fear, but of protective rage. It flows up, a wolf of moss and leaves. Another of those wolves, larger and with rippling muscles, bared foaming jaws. She would deal with them like she had the other. No, not now, she was too close. She just had to.

A whimper of lost air came as she punched the wolf in the side. The creature hit the wall thirty bodies away with a crash before falling limply to the ground. I doubt it’s dead, but that’s not the goal.

She dropped lower, focusing on any more threats surrounding her target. Four humi and two solumkerd crowded on the edge of the room, that was all. To the ring’s waited an ancient drake, large enough to swallow her hole. It encircled a smaller drake, young, a gorgon, and two humi. The old lizard bore teeth, a glow casting them in shadows from deep within. Yaro put up her arms and braced for the giant drake’s breath.

A presence came up at her, enormous yet contained in such a tiny area. A fairy raced at her and before she could so much as swat it away with a whip, the immense pressure crushed her. She struggled against the absurd ethereal limb, trying to pry herself open with both her body and her own ethereal limb. The strength, it was far beyond even that of the woman riding the drake. What were these beings of such great strength?

She shouted, “Let me see him!”

The breath came. It hit, hard, crackling and sizzling blue in a familiar brilliance. But, it was weak, not near the strength of her own breath, let alone of the jyk. THe fairy let her go, presumably sure that the flames would be enough to stop her advance. Her jaw ached from clenching. They were weak and now cloaked her in a wreath of flame. The descent came naturally, like swimming through boiling water. Let them try and burn her, let her skin flake away, this was nothing. As the sulfur filled her lungs, she inhaled the flame, filling her own flame sac close to bursting.

The breath dwindled. They were old, they could not keep up such a torrent as Yaro could. But she wasn’t close enough, she could not let her concealment be removed just yet. She had to fall just a little more, just swim a little closer. It was...

Yaro punched the drake in the jaw.

It fell instantly, the trail of smoke from its mouth falling limp with it. The ground trembled at the collapse. Yaro landed soon after, face to face with him.

The ring pulled up her arm and she let it. She touched his chest. It was him. He was... a humi? Not young, but not old. A scraggly beard hung at his chin, loose hair waved over his shoulders. He wore a blue cloak concealing a body and gave no reason to believe there was muscle or fat underneath. He smelled of dust and sweat. His aura, that thing she felt within her, it was... He was... so plain.

A voice said something far away. A shout? A call for help?

“You’re him?” Yaro asked.

He blinked his grey eyes, lashes fluttering. Yaro could not tell- he tackled her. He tackled her? He ramed his shoulder into her gut and they both went sprawling to the ground. Damp grass caught her as he laid atop her. Her flames dissipated, leaving behind. She wasn’t sure.

She let him push her down. But why would he do that?  Did he not recognize her? What was he trying to accomplish? The words could not rise from her throat as she stared at him. She stared into those pale eyes.

He asked, “XXwho are you?XX”

She couldn’t understand him? That same breathy language. What was going on?

The world faded away, leaving just her and him. She gazed beyond his eyes into his... There was something there. Wasn’t there? She felt no fear towards him. His aura, it was so comforting. It told her of a longing, a distance overcome, of something deep and forgotten. He too spoke, said things he had but could not reach. Those things, those ephemeral thoughts floating just above. They came down, ready to be pulled back in. She knew him. He was-

That force ripped her away. The fairy had come back, tossing Yaro like a discarded doll. She watched as he suddenly receded, those eyes, she recognized what they saw. The world came back, the fairy called out his name: “Ellis!”

The Yon-bound young azure drake came roaring, red flames licking his bared teeth. He spat at her while the fairy held. It called in its gurgling, “XXRun!XX”

The humi remained standing and actually started towards her. He radiated... concern? “XXLet her go!XX”

Both the fairy and the drake stopped in their tracks. The force dropped her. She could not bring herself to do anything but fall on her hands and knees, looking up at the humi, Ellis, running after her. It danced in his eyes. The words only moved her lips but did not escape her lungs “you forgot.”

He forgot! Fire burst from her palms, lashing at anything that came to close. The fairy backed away, the drake took a step back. And the humi, Ellis, stopped. He mouthed something, that link between them hanging something pleading in the air. She would not hear it. After all she had done, after she lost the memory of who he was, he didn’t even know her? What was even the point? Why would she bother with this whelp? There was no point, they were complete strangers. Her teeth bared, flames licked at her nostrils, sulfur burned her senses.

The hole she left above beckons her with light. One final look as he stood there- No, cowered there, crouching in fear of the monster before him. She can feel it, she could from the very second she touched him. He too thought she was a monster.

“To Yon with you.”

A beat of her beaten wings and she ascended to the surface, leaving her carnage behind. The dusty ground met her pleasantly, a coolness from a long time in the tower’s shadow. The smell of the beast’s dung fell away with their shouts. I’m alone. I traveled all this way,just to wind up alone

She sat and stared at the sky. The sayk was setting, red streaks clawing across clouds. It looked so warm up there. But what was the point? SHe would fly up there and then what, keep flying? Would she fly until her wings gave up and she plummeted to her death?

She never wanted to die. Despite what everyone told her, despite the despair that whispered to her at night, death never seemed a valuable option. She was to move forward, to live her life like everyone else. THat’s what Natrai had taught her. THat’s what she believed. But why did Natrai exist, why did she take her in to only rid herself of the monster Yaro. Natrai was old, she would die some day, why did she bother at all?

Could she be mad? She didn’t know who he was. Why would she imagine he didn’t also take some cursed deal?

They had forgotten each other. And she tried to find him, sacrificing everything in the process. And he- he was there with people, living a life close enough to others that they would defend him. He was not alone and had no reason to come and find her. He didn’t want to find her.

Tears tickled down her cheeks.

Cuffs latched to her wrists, numbing her mind. People, when did they get there? Why were they even bothering to apprehend her? Why not just kill her here and now? They were not the people who pursued her. They were not strong like the others, not armed like the others. 

She let them take her. She lets them shove her into a box and watches the landscape fly down and away. She stared blankly at Ellis’s ring.