“Why do you appear... unsure? Is it bad to be compared to them?”
“Huh, what?” She gave a little laugh as she rubbed at the side of her neck. “No, it’s actually really sweet. It’s just... I’ve never heard you laugh before. I was beginning to think you didn’t know how.”
His sight returned to its normal purple, and he lifted his skull slightly so he could look up at the light-blue sky.
“I have laughed many times.” After watching a fluffy white cloud for a few seconds, trying to remember the last time he’d made such a sound, he eventually sighed. “But no. I have not done so for a long while.”
He darted his skull down when she moved, bringing her knees up so she could wrap her arms around them. She placed her cheek against her knees and, while facing him, asked, “Since your Aleron?”
Although sadness washed over him, his sight didn’t change when a rather big blue butterfly landed on the back of her head. Once more, she didn’t seem to know it was there.
“Yes, since him.”
“Did you guys have a home?”
“A place that I go to rest and be comfortable?” he asked, tilting his head in thought. She nodded, making her friend flap its wings, but it didn’t fly off. “He was my home.”
“No cave or house in a tree?”
“We had no need for this. We slept in whatever place we found ourselves at the beginning of dawn, no matter where it was.”
“Where did you go and visit?”
Ingram tilted his head. “Wherever Aleron wanted to go.”
Emerie rolled her eyes, and yet a smile twitched the corners of her lips. “Okay. Well, where did he want to go?”
He didn’t know why this conversation wasn’t hurting him. Perhaps it was this hill, or her, or their colourful friends. Maybe it was even the warmth on his back from the sun, or the crisp scent of the grass mingling with her pretty aroma.
Either it was something, or everything about this moment, but he felt... tranquil within, despite the cold lingering sadness.
“Wherever I wanted to go,” he answered. When she groaned and rolled her eyes again, he let out another chuckle. “I don’t know what you want me to say, little butterfly.”
“I’m trying to get to know you, dummy,” she grumbled with a pout. “Where you went, what you were doing before I met you, what your hopes and dreams were.”
“Where I went was anywhere that had Aleron. What I was doing was being with him while we played in this world. My dreams were of him, and my hopes were that we would continue to explore.”
She sighed, before burying her face against her knees.
“It’s like you’re saying your entire existence revolved around him. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone that is so completely and utterly the centre of your world.” For a moment, his sight morphed to dark blue, but it only lasted until she turned her face towards him and shone those bright eyes, glinting with sunlight, at him. “What about your other brothers then? The other Duskwalkers?”
“We don’t know them well,” he admitted, his orbs their usual purple. “We always thought Merikh was... mean, but he also named us and let us rest at his home. Kitty was our favourite, as he often played with us. There are two other Mavka, but one did not like us in his territory.” Ingram scratched a claw at the side of his beak, suddenly feeling remarkably... guilty. “It may be because we destroyed part of his home.”
He could remember, very vividly, the day he and Aleron trampled over the impala-horned Mavka’s garden because they were curious about it. He had been lucky the charms around his human dwelling didn’t allow them inside it. So, they’d gone exploring through his garden and tore up plants to sniff and discover their scents, and plucked entire bushes from the ground.
The Mavka had become quite enraged at them, causing a fight involving all three of them – that saw the other one losing to him and his kindred. Then again, it had been an unfair fight. Not that they’d cared, though, since they’d been upset that they had to lick at their wounds.
They threw his skull between them for fun before losing interest in playing catch and walking off.
Any time they went near that particular Mavka again, it had not gone pleasantly. He hated them.
Should I be concerned that the Witch Owl wishes for us to go to his home? he thought, realising it was in the west – his current direction.
He shrugged, hoping it would be fine.
“Aleron and I did not know we shared a bond with other Mavka,” Ingram continued. “So we did not spend much time with them, only when it entertained us. All we did was be each other’s kindred, which was all we knew and wished to do. Nothing else mattered.”
“A life so shared it was like you were one being,” Emerie stated, and his orbs turned bright yellow as his tail tip curled in utter delight.
“Yes, exactly. We were one, and we shared everything.” Then he put his arm around her and curled his hand around her side, swallowing it up completely within his palm. “And when he is returned, you will then become our companion.”
His head jerked, sharply tilting, when her face paled and her eyes widened. Her mouth opened and closed as though she’d lost the ability to speak. She swallowed what sounded like a thick lump in her throat.
“I am only helping you on this journey, Ingram,” she answered, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap.
“I do not understand.”
He really didn’t. Emerie was now his companion. She was his friend, and he wanted to keep his new friend and show her to Aleron. His kindred was kind and warm, and he was sure to like her as much as he did.
“I don’t think I could handle two of you, to be honest.”
“Why not? We can protect you better together. Once we kill the Demon King and make the world safer, the Demons will no longer attack us like they have been. We can keep you safe in the Veil, and you can play with us.”
Her eyes opened even further, just as her cheeks darkened with a cute redness.
“Y-you said that you gained a lot of humanity when you came to the guild.” Her words came out with a squeak. “Aleron will not be as... smart as you. H-he may not understand that I am easily broken and hurt.”
Hmm, he thought, lifting his head and curling his hand around his beak in thought. She was right. Even Ingram had hurt her, and he had much more humanity than Aleron currently.
“Then... we will find him humans to eat, and I will let him grow until he matches me.”
Ingram’s tail tapped against the ground at his ingenious idea. He turned to her with his sight yellow in pride at himself, only for it to quickly snuff out to purple, then orange when she looked horrified at the idea of him feeding his kindred her kind.
He reached out and patted her head, and she was so frozen she barely reacted to it.
“But not you. I will make sure you are safe.”