Em
Chapter 30
It wasn’t long before Aurora was up and moving again. Within a month or two, he was given the chance to leave Wren’s hut but rather than stay on his own, he preferred to stay in the company of the few he could communicate with. There were few who could speak to him and only three that he knew of, Wren, Bantrem and Shaah, that could speak fluently.
A year came and went.
It had been more than a few months before he began to look like himself again. He no longer sported the messy dusting of patchy facial hair and his hair had been cut back from the somewhat ridiculous length it had been before. Though he’s always been lean, his ribs no longer showed and his legs didn’t shake so much whenever he tried walking more than a few paces forward.
But the one thing missive was the, as Daniel had once put it, imaginatively the most ridiculous hat to have ever existed.
There were times when he forgot it was gone, often moving a hand up to adjust it only to have his fingers wave at empty air. But even if he started to look like himself again, feeling like himself was another matter entirely.
“Allik-“
“You know my name isn’t Allikeo, Len.”
The faeloren beside him tapped his paws together nervously, looking down at the snow as his ears fell in embarrassment. “I know.”
Len scarcely left his side, never running out of questions to ask or things to say about most everything Aurora could think of. Aurora had learned not to mind and the young faeloren was pleasant company after he’d spent so long alone. It was difficult to get used to but it had become something of a comfort.
“Why do you stay alone?”
“I don’t always stay alone. Am I needed somewhere else?” Aurora asked, looking up.
“No, to feel alone is not good. So, I stay with you.”
Aurora chuckled lightly, staring down across the village far below them.
“I don’t mind being alone but you are welcome to stay with me.”
“Thank you,” Len said softly, sitting down on the ground and curling his tail around his paws.
They were silent for a while and Aurora’s hand brushed over the knife in his boot, one that had been given to him by Shaah. Even if he still avoided the clan leader, most of the clan seemed to have accepted he was there.
“Can I see,” the Faeloren stopped, raising a clawed hand and pointing as if having forgotten just what it was called, “this?”
“My hands?”
Len nodded quickly, turning his own arm to where the pads of his paws were visible. Aurora shook his head, unsure as to what the young faeloren was getting at until he snatched excitedly for Aurora’s arm.
“You do not have them.”
“What are you talking about?”
He let go, lowering his head apologetically and pointed with his other paw to a smaller pad that sat back from the others. “This is them.”
“Len, we don’t have those-“
“Some in my clan do not. They,” he paused again, “are taken when they are young. The warriors, the ones who fight, do not have them.”
“Taken?” he asked, looking down at his wrists. “What do you mean?”
“The warriors do not need them. They do not run,” Len explained, pointing again, “they help with running. It is…when they are no longer cubs.”
“Why do you have yours?”
Len paused for a moment, eyes darting back and forth while he thought. “I am a healer. I let the others protect so I can save. It is…”
“Noble,” Aurora suggested.
His ears twitched. “It is noble. But you,” his said, head snapping up again, “were not with them as a cub. In my clan, you are expected for great things.”
Aurora laughed, shaking his head and looking out across the campsite.
“I don’t know about that-“
“Shaah, he does not have them. He was without them always,” Len declared, prodding again at his own. “It is not common. You are not common, Allikeo.”
“Aurora.”
“Aurora,” Len repeated, grinning in the awkward way that left the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth. “You will do great things.”
“I’m not so certain.”
They were silent.
Len’s ears perked forward. “The patrols have come.”
Aurora looked down below at the group of faeloren that rode back atop galloping stags. He squinted, watching as one of the stags fell, collapsing into the snow as its rider went tumbling away.
“There is blood.”
“Go find Shaah and tell him you all need to run.”
“Run to what place?” Len asked, head tilting. “Why?”
“Rowena.”
Len took off down the hill, dropping onto all fours as he’d seen many of the younger faeloren do, and headed down towards the mess of huts already swarming with startled clan members. Aurora followed, unable to keep up but moving as quickly as he could towards Wren’s hut in hopes of reaching her before panic made it too difficult for the blind healer to leave. However, he thought, would she leave in the first place?
By the time he reached the camp, the clan was already rushing around him, mothers hurrying cubs along towards the treeline while warriors called for their stags. Aurora skid around a corner to avoid one of them, stag snorting when Aurora briefly stepped into its path. He turned then, dashing into the healer’s hut.
“Wren-“
“I have heard,” she replied, more of a growl than anything that even remotely indicated fear.
Aurora shook his head. “You are your clan need to run. If she is coming for me, she won’t bother with any of you-“
“You will come with us,” she said sternly, ears flattening.
He swallowed. “I will but first I have to deal with something.”
Wren turned as Len came sliding into the hut, shoving the blanket aside as he climbed awkwardly to his feet. He was panting, chest rising and falling as his paws began to tap anxiously together.
“Did you find Shaah?”
“Yes, we must run.”
“Go with Len,” he called, motioning vaguely towards the door. “I’ll catch up with your clan once things are safe.”
“Do not order me, Aurora. You may be helping but I can still swat you like a fly,” she growled falsely but then stopped, expression falling. “Be careful. She will kill you.”
“I know.”
There was a huff before Wren turned to Len, grumbling something Aurora couldn’t understand before the two were gone. Aurora followed shortly after, feeling for the knife at his side and cringing at the sound of gunshots. The blade, a short handled dagger, was the one thing he had to defend himself.
He didn’t stand a chance.
As soon as he set foot outside, it became apparent that the group that had come to retrieve him wasn’t anything short of a battle party. They were mounted, armed with more rifles than he could count and flying banners he’d never seen anywhere else but atop outposts or hanging dormant on the walls of the keep.
Aurora slowed once he saw them, unable to bring himself to hurry towards the stalemate lingering in the clearing. No one had been hurt that he could see and yet the Dravara fired off another volley only to have it strike the snow near the feet of the snarling faeloren.
“Shaah!”
The clan leader’s ears were pinned back as he sat atop his stag, a beast that, just like himself, had a darker pelt than most he’d seen. He was silent, eyes staring stonily back at the Dravara who rode forward, two riders, as they broke from the group.
“Aurora is our last chance at salvation. We have no choice but to flee,” Bantrem called, riding up to the other side of him.
Shaah turned then, eyes burning. “You will go with Bantrem. We will hold them off.”
Aurora swallowed, starting forward despite the growl rumbling in Shaah’s chest the moment his boots crunched further in the snow. Fear wasn’t something he even wanted to consider but seeing her again, catching sight of how the ice in her eyes syphoned every ounce of warmth that could have existed in her smile, was chilling to say the least.
“You look well.”
Aurora was quiet, eyes glancing to the hooded figure beside her. “Have you brought me a friend?”
She ignored him. “There is no point in fleeing. We will find you no matter where you try to run. But I’m feeling rather reasonable and should you give yourself up now, I will spare the remaining grimalkin. The stable boy called them that, didn’t he? I heard him say it to one of my men. Interesting name, isn’t it?”
His grip tightened on the blade, mouth dropping open to respond but stopping when he watched the hood fall back from the second figure’s head. “I should have known it was you.”
Betrayal cut deeper than any knife ever could.
“Aurora,” Daniel called, something of a croak. “Please, make this easy.
“Why should I? You left the Dravara and you left me,” he snapped. “Why should I listen to anything you have to say to me?”
Rowena spurred her steed forward a few paces, making the act of rushing forward and cutting the life from her even more enticing but a knife was useless against several dozen guns.
“There is no way to solve this where you get away alive unless you come with us. Are you honestly dense enough not to see that? If you fight back, I will see that you and every single one of the faeloren is…gotten rid of once and for all.”
“And what if I kill you first?”
She laughed. “I would love to see how that turns out for you. I do believe you understand how much easier this can be if you listen to me. But that’s just how things always have been. Do you understand now?”
“I understand but that doesn’t mean I agree.”
Her pistol was drawn then and behind him a wave of snarls and growls rose up from the gathered faeloren. They moved forward, paws padding softly through the snow as he was then flanked on either side by Shaah and Bantrem. “No one here wants to fight.”
She didn’t answer, chuckling as the pistol was lowered and her horse shied nervously at the sight of the advancing clan. Daniel swallowed, holding firm to his reins.
“Why did you come back?” Aurora demanded, staring back at him. “You were always a coward about these things. You didn’t give a shit about what happened to me, did you?”
Daniel blinked, looking hurt, and his mouth opened to speak but his gaze fell down to the snow. Aurora only rolled his eyes. “Are you afraid of me now too?”
“No, I don’t want to fight you, Aurora. Please…just make this-“
“Fuck you.”
“Enough, both of you.”
Aurora glanced over, glare gone as he smiled and bowed as best he could without the hat. “Forgive me, my lady Rowena. It won’t happen again.”
Her teeth clenched and for the first time in a while, something snapped behind the calmness in her eyes. “It’s so much less interesting to shoot you, Aurora. You’ll have to forgive me for that.”
“Don’t-“
A crack cut Daniel off.
It would have hurt, he thought, if the shot actually hit him but he heard the whizzing as it struck the snow and realized she’s missed entirely. Rowena’s eyes narrowed down at the arm grasping at her wrist, throwing Daniel’s arm off and turning back to Aurora.
A scream.
But the scream wasn’t human and instead Aurora only watched as her horse fell, hooves lashing in the air until the beast’s hind legs gave out beneath it. It fell with a hollow crash in the snow, legs still flailing out to the side while Rowena rolled away from the body of the animal.
Daniel’s horse fled a moment later, carrying him off towards the ranks as Rowena climbed slowly to her feet. For a moment, no others moved until her hand raised slowly, closing into a fist and then came the thundering of more hoof beats than Aurora could count. Fear, he thought, seemed like a more natural feeling.
“Coward!” he shouted, trying to focus on the image of Daniel fleeing instead of the horde approaching him.
They didn’t stand a chance but they never had.
Aurora was pulled back as Shaah and the others charged, thrown behind them as the faeloren met the approaching Dravara. He tried to find her, pick out the one figure on the ground, but Rowena had disappeared into the chaos. On foot, neither of them would stand a chance but he assumed she wouldn’t stay that way for long.
He, however, was doomed.
She wouldn’t leave, he knew that much and the more he stood, too frozen by the sight of the battle in front of him, the longer he thought about just what she would do. It was difficult to deter her and if she’d come all this way, she’d come to kill him. But death wasn’t a blessing she granted quickly and if she wanted him to pay, he’d suffer long before she allowed him the mercy of it.
“Aurora!”
The voice brought him back into reality though just who had called him was a mystery. If he was going to die, it seemed like a waste and an insult just to sit back and wait while a battle raged around him. He moved forward, knife in hand until he reached the body of a fallen Dravara, prying fingers way from the gun still clutched. But Aurora didn’t make it far before he was stopped by an all too familiar sound of metal striking metal.
He froze.
Aurora’s eyes flickered to the woman now atop a pale horse, weapon raised out towards him. He swallowed, raising the pistol in his hand and watching as her smile only widened in amusement. “Pull that trigger and you will be dead before you even hit the ground. Lower your weapon, Aurora. It’s over.”
He smiled back, heart hammering in his chest. “I won’t go down without a fight but you know that, you’re counting on it. Go ahead, shoot and see what happens.”
“We both know I’m a better shot.”
The weapon lowered as his arms raised out on either side of him. Her smile twisted so beautifully, annoyance melding with something he almost mistook for fear or perhaps simply shock. Aurora grinned then, staring back into the cold of her gaze.
“Fire away.”
“Rowena, stop. He doesn’t need to die.”
Aurora didn’t have to turn in order to know who had spoken and, in fact, he knew that voice better than any other. He sighed, eyes closing as he stayed facing her. “Have you come back now? I saw you turn and run. What made you come back, Daniel?”
“Please-“
“She may kill me but not before I put a bullet in both of you first,” he hissed, eyes flashing open again to Rowena.
Daniel ignored him. “You told me we were here to capture him alive-“
“As an officer of the Dravara, you should have been prepared for anything-“
“Not this,” he cut in, voice shaking. “And I’m not an officer anymore.”
Rowena’s smile tightened. “You should have known. I came here to end this and I still plan on doing so.”
The weapon was lowered just enough to where it was no longer pointing dead at his chest as her eyes went to Daniel. Aurora swallowed harshly, gripping the pistol tighter in one hand. He couldn’t risk turning, not while staring down the barrel of a gun and into the face of a woman spiteful enough to use it.
Daniel’s hand came up to rest on his shoulder. “Aurora, please-“
“Get out of here. None of you are welcome and if you think I’m coming quietly, you have another thing coming. I would hate for you to get hurt, Daniel, but then again, you didn’t seem to care when I was framed. Did you?”
Rowena cleared her throat then, holding tightly to the reins of her horse as it shied sideways. “You’re right, Officer Norton-“
“And still you kept the title-“
“Interrupt me again and I will be sure you never say another word,” Rowena warned.
“You came here to kill me, why waste time?” he answered bitterly.
Her eyes narrowed again. “I will kill you, Aurora, unless you better learn self-control-“
“We both know I’m well beyond that.”
An eerie silence fell as the smile, the same that sent shivers down his spine despite the fire burning in his gut.
“Do it then, kill me,” he snapped, arms raising out to the side again.
“I never wanted it to be like this-“
“Are you actually feeling remorse now?”
Rowena’s aim fell slightly. “Not in the slightest. I have nothing to feel remorse for, Aurora. I’m simply saying that shooting you seems far too-“
“Ruthless? Cruel? Brutal? I can think of many words to describe it but I certainly wouldn’t think you could care about any of that-“
“Impersonal,” she cut in, smiling coolly still. “It’s far too impersonal when you would look so satisfying with a knife stuck between your ribs. Shame, I didn’t bring a knife.”
Daniel stepped up beside him then, swallowing harshly. “Please, don’t kill him.”
“You’re right that it was never part of the plan for him to die.”
Aurora’s attention whipped to the man nearby, boring holes into Daniel’s head with a glare when his gaze remained far too focused on the ground. He didn’t want to be saved and certainly not by someone who had been too cowardly to defend him in the first place. However, dying didn’t exactly sound as inviting as it had in the past.
He really didn’t want to die at all, not anymore.
Daniel smiled, glancing up for the first time at Aurora while the two stood facing her. He felt Daniel’s hand grab for his sleeve but he was far too focused on Rowena to tear away.
“Right, then-“
“But…now it seems there is simply no other way.”
“No, please-“
The sound cut him off before Daniel could finish, a crack that echoed out across the field that had once been filled by opposing forces but had since been nearly emptied as they fled.
His eyes closed out of reflex, flashing up a moment later to glance at the smoke twisting in the air in front of her gun. Daniel gasped then, eyes staring wide and in horror and for a moment and Aurora could only assume he’d been hit. Panic flashed into his mind, blocking out something else that should have been there, but Daniel didn’t appear harmed.
However, when he glanced down, Aurora fully grasped what happened.
It was almost amazing how quickly blood spread across the front of his jacket, originating from one spot, a seemingly insignificant hole in his abdomen. Aurora glanced up, raising a shaking arm to fire back only to have the bullet sail harmlessly above her head. The pistol fell from his hand with a hollow clunk, the final sound he heard before everything rushed up and then shattered away into a quiet ring.
He didn’t remember hitting the ground.
Right then he should have collapsed into the snow, left to die while the clan left him behind and would have had someone not caught him first. His eyes locked on hers before whatever ability to focus he retained slipped away and his eyes were staring up at the sky. Aurora felt his hand over the wound then, warmth slipping through his fingers.
He fell back against Daniel, head resting in the crook of his shoulder.
The retired Dravara officer lowered him to the ground then, eyes still wide in horror as his hands scrambled clumsily to press against the wound. Agony, that’s all everything had faded into. He couldn’t bring himself to cry out or perhaps he did but everything was still too quiet aside from the sirens blaring in his head. It was all consuming and for a moment he wondered how long it would take before the pain would fade.
That was all he ever wanted.
Rowena had come to kill him and while he didn’t know much about how quickly someone would die from a gunshot; he knew it would take much longer than what was merciful. But it was difficult to focus on anything aside from the agony pulsing through his body and the ringing in his ears, still echoing with the sound of the shot.
Aurora looked up, gulping down a breath and looking up at the face of Daniel above him, wide eyed and horrified, before his head rolled sideways and he was staring off at the trees again. His fading attention focused on a figure, much smaller, leaner than any of the faeloren and somehow achingly familiar, that stood back and simply watched. For a moment it was a girl and his expression cracked away into a smile, recognizing the face and the eyes that had stared up at him while her dress turned scarlet beneath his hands.
He tried calling out to her but the name froze in his throat.
It changed quickly and suddenly it wasn’t the girl standing there but the outline of a figure far too tall, too unfamiliar, to be her. It was an illusion, a delusion created by whatever remained of his waning consciousness, perhaps. But the figure had to be real, he thought however briefly.
Aurora wasn’t sure how long he stared but then his eyes were closed only to open again, but the figure was gone. Air caught in his lungs, breath coming out in a wheeze until it was hacked away a moment later. It didn’t seem so insignificant anymore.
Things fell silent then, slipping away.