We made our way, and I took a few detours through hallways to give Layla a break. She hadn’t moved from her spot on my back, but sometimes I could feel her flinch or pull as debris and pebbles and wires snapped and pulled and fell around her. My wings covered most of her, but they could only bend back so far.
We grew near and I actually picked up his scent in the hallways. He apparently had gotten out and wandered around for a bit. So, as much as I could, I followed the scent without breaking through anymore walls. He usually had a purpose when he did this, and likely was confronting someone or something. Basically if I went barreling through a wall I was likely to disturb some-or-other process of information that he’d later use to help us out. The more information the better.
So it was that I found myself near a pair of doors, listening through the crackle and zip of technology to Rod talking. Layla shuffled, picked up her head at the lack of motion, and I flicked an ear back to show her I was listening. Raised a hand to hopefully signal her to stay quiet. She did, leaning forward as we both listened.
“I’m here because I was curious,” Rod was saying. His voice was relatively unmuffled, meaning he was close to the door. Or wall. “You’ve seemed to make a lot of progress, so why wait until now to kidnap the girl? Shouldn’t you have had her under lock and key this whole time?”
Layla shuffled on my back, drawing in a short rush of air. Thankfully it wasn’t loud, and there was no more of it.
“I had to wait,” a voice answered. I recognized it as the same voice of the projection, the paranoid one who thought I couldn’t get out. Although this version sounded…rougher. Angrier. More tired. More real. “She wasn’t ready. And under the protection of her family, I could do nothing. They did not want her dragged into this. Once she left the mansion of her own will, she was free game.”
Layla curled against me, snorting air through her hands. I thought I heard a sniffle, but kept still. Hopefully she’d keep herself still for just a bit longer.
“So Darius was your ploy?”
“Darius is a friend. He believed in what we were doing and had been watching the girl from afar. As I said, once she was out from her house she was fair game. She remained none the wiser, Darius having already created a Bond with her. He was able to convince her to trust him and come with him, where I was supposed to pick them both up and explain to her what her real potential is.” Layla curled up further on my back. Pressed her face into my fur and began shaking her head. “If I cannot free Darius in time and he cannot convince her to return with him, then you have robbed that girl of a chance to die fulfilled, know she had contributed to the greater good of multiple worlds. How will your stomach be then?”
Ok, that was a…weird comment. I was going to have to squeeze Rod for context.
“Just fine. Because you’ve lost all justification for your actions, now. You’ll have to drag her, kicking and screaming, and she’ll be fighting back because now she knows.”
Dammit, I hated when he gave me dramatic cues. Even so, there was nothing more to be said. “Hang on, kid,” I grumbled, tightening my wings back against her. She barely moved except to grab my fur, and I tore through the wall and grabbed Rod. I caught sight of the man, who looked more real than the projection, staring at me wide-eyed and in horror. He said something I didn’t understand and I shot him a look as I pressed Rod to my front and coiled my legs, his hands grabbing hold as I leapt into the air, both hands forward.
There was shouting and alarms blaring behind as I began to dig upward. I clawed my way through I don’t know what, the voices replaced by the scrape and whack of my claws digging upward, of my hind claws latching into the walls of the ‘tunnel’ and continually pushing me upward.
We broke through the surface, tearing up the ground behind an old abandoned shed. I crawled my way free, double-checked to make sure I had both Rod and Layla, then spread my wings with a hard flap. I waited a moment for Layla to readjust, grabbing onto my extra shoulders in the back. A few test swings and I was in the air, wrapping my arms around Rod and letting Layla adjust without risk of falling far. Once I felt they were holding good enough, I leaned forwards and pushed, taking off through the air.
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Despite everything that happened, despite the reasons and the plagues on the mind, soaring was…glorious. I hadn’t done this in so long, just unfurled my wings and let the currents carry me. My passengers were barely a weight against me, tail unfurled and skin pulled back to allow the feathers contained to act as a rudder, leather wings beating the sky. The wind was rushing this high up, rustling through my hair, my flattened ears, my tight arms. Until this point I only ever had my dreams of flight, and even they had faded a long time ago. The moon shone bright in her sky, stars glistening and glinting at us. I could have flown to them, built up the speed and power to escape. To finally be free. Really free.
Rod thumped once against my chest and I looked down, spotting the hard bones of an old chapel and understood. Couldn’t fly forever. So I angled down. Made a slow, circular descent onto the grounds nearby and immediately felt the tingle upon arrival. Faith.
Humans called it faith, at least. And it didn’t matter which terran god they believed in. Any building that housed worship and dedication to a religion, or god, or practice, had a certain amount of native magic built in. Just like every other building in this place. The more intense an emotion on terra, the more that emotion became a part of it, the foundation or very bones. And it didn’t have to be buildings, it was just the most common.
Faith is a sort of protective energy, a barrier against the unknown. Or a light through the unknown. Either way, it somehow worked out that terran Faith magic makes all things revert to primal form. Basically, if you weren’t born with it, Faith magic robs you of it. Makes you powerless as long as you try and keep up the charade. Which is probably why Keepers made their bases inside Faith-painted buildings.
Rod gave a shiver as his feet touched down, but the magic here was muted. The chapel – at least, I thought it was a chapel – was old and falling apart. Hadn’t been used in years. Maybe longer. Stone arches rose up out of the ground like a grey ribcage, the roof worn away by time to expose the bones, a few of which were cracked or had chunks missing. The front and back were still whole, the sides of the building in various states of decay. Vines had wrapped around the edges, either waiting to reclaim the whole thing or trying to keep it together just a little longer.
Yet, despite the destruction, the decay and degradation, a stain-glass window set into the back wall was still whole. Still sent glittering colors of light down below, a last bastion of a time gone by, guardian of it’s purpose.
Rod carefully walked around the markers we landed in, gravestones with names worn away by the years, the bones here only known by the ones who buried them. I waited for Layla to move, to slide off, but she stayed stuck to my back like a permanent fixture. I wasn’t sure if she was still frightened, still emotional, or simply didn’t want to set her feet down in a graveyard, so I walked away from them before kneeling and giving a short flap of my wings.
“Layla?” I prodded. “You can–”
“It’s my fault.” The whisper was barely audible, even to me. Her face was buried between my shoulder blades, and the statement was peppered with sniffles and grumbles. “It’s my fault.”
“It’s not.” It was doing my best to keep my voice soft. Comforting. It was…a bit harder with my current figure.
She nodded. “It is. I…I should have never…All of this is my fault. I- I- I should never have left the mansion.”
I bent a wing backward a bit, gently tapping her on the top of the head with the thumbclaw to get her attention. She shuffled, peeling her face from my back and shifting. I glanced over my shoulder, able to see enough to see her face looking at me. I offered a short smile.
“You didn’t know.”
She shook her head. “I should have.”
I tilted my head. “How?”
She shook again. “I…I don’t know. But I should have listened. They tried to tell me. They tried– I– They were right. I couldn’t…I wasn’t…”
I flicked an ear. Shuffled a moment, tilting one of my wings down in an ask for her to follow. She looked at the wing and back up at me, and I gave a small emphatically shake. She let go and slid off and I tucked my wing, turning to her.
“Listen,” I said, trying to stay eye level. “You chose your path. You had your goals. And every reason to have them. This is not the bad thing. You have new information now. You have new reasons to make new choices. You cannot change the past. The future is undecided. So you must ask yourself what you desire now. What are your choices now?”
She took a small, shuddering breath. “I…” Shook her head. “I don’t know. Go back home?”
I nodded. “This is a choice. But it is the one you want?”
She hesitated. “I’m just…” Wrapped her arms around herself. Looked at the ground. Tears began to fall, gently. Silently. “I just…I want…” She stood there, unsure.
So I waited a moment. Allowed her to do what she had not done in a long time.
I allowed her to grieve.
I stayed silent while she cried. I put wings around her when she began to wail. I covered her when she fell to her knees, allowed her to grab my arms and squeeze and scream and shake. I let her do what someone had once done for me. What she needed to do in order to feel.
