Flapping the coat a few times, the dirt easily falls off of it, like two poles of a magnet. My bare toes and heels wiggle around in the cold soil; the soles of my feet were at least covered by the black clothes I woke up into after that giant gelatinous egg.
"You're really leaving me just like that?" A weak voice calls out.
Surprisingly, that thing's still alive. Any normal Lycan-kind would've died around early morning.
"How can you leave... such a dainty thing... like me here", she pants in an effort to speak. It looks like she can barely talk, what with her face red with fever. It should be sheer willpower that she has yet to faint at the moment.
The auburn wolf's humanoid form is a female with bloodshot eyes. The silver may not have killed her outright, but the blood loss or an infection might, given the magnitude of her wound. A pair of gold and green eyes pierce mine. Her fiery curly hair looks lifeless. One can't tell whether the smudges on the tips of her hair were because of the natural red color or because of the dried blood from her wounds.
"Hey, mister", she laughs softly despite herself. "You oddly look...like a little sister of mine."
Little sister?
I squint my eyes at her. One word about their dreadful Alpha's order and I will end her, with or without the necklace's prevention.
"But that can't be right? You're...hair is black", she hisses as she clutches her wound. "Your eyes are also black. But somehow...you look like a replica of her."
"..." What a coincidence. So do you...
I observe her appearance much openly in the soft morning light, not saying anything but beginning to draw a few ideas stemming from my doubts.
You look like the person who took me out of the dungeons.
Without turning back, I walk away. The blue tear does not stop me, only because it knows what I plan on doing. To be honest, I'm not sure what has gotten into me; I gather enough firewood and a few fruits to fill both our stomachs.
I do not miss the stunned expression on the Lycan girl's face when I come back to sit down in front of the campfire's dying embers to stoke it and feed it wood. She stares at the few fruits I place in front of her.
Looking at her dumbfounded mien like this, I question where that shameless little thing last night had gone to.
"Thank you", she whispers, before she begins eating slowly. She faints as soon as she finishes though. Relax for even a millimeter and you'll end up knocked out like that.
I search the area for water for a while and finally found a younger tree that looks like it would die in a few years or so. It had a thick trunk capable of storing a lot water inside. Given it is a bit far from our location, I use a shadow vine to grab a few large leaves from its tree. I struck the trunk and wait for the water to drip out before transporting the whole thing back to where we are.
When the water comes, she's still asleep. I walk over and stand in front of her unconscious body.
It's so easy. If I wanted to kill her right now, it would have been so easy. I had my doubts but when she didn't die from silver poisoning. I was already half sure she's a half-Lycan. Looking at her human form now, there is no longer any trace of uncertainty—
Letitia Ashraf, how far have you fallen to trust your well-being in the hands of a stranger like me?
Left alone like this, I wonder if she was betrayed by someone in their camp. But that doesn't have anything to do with me, does it?
I kneel down and grasp the back of her head, titling it so she can drink some water. In her half-conscious feverish state, she instinctively does because of her most probably parched throat.
I eye her neck that moves as she swallows the cool liquid. It would be so easy to use a shadow blade right now and slice through it. Let alone a fight, she might not even be awake to witness her demise.
Then maybe Laris would know how it feels to lose a sister.
As I contemplate such dark thoughts, Letitia coughs when she chokes on the water. It looks like I tilted the leaf too much.
'...you look like a replica of her.'
"…"
I sigh. For the sake of interrogating her, I'd need her to be conscious enough to answer. I won't kill her until then. Besides, even though I blame Laris and his comrades, he still got me out of that damned dungeon.
Unconsciously, I become gentler in handling her. I check on her fever, placing a hand on her forehead. The fever doesn't look like it'll go down anytime soon either. I plan to look for a few herbs but things didn't go as according to it.
My gut is turning—another premonition.
I stuff the fire out immediately, and turn to Letitia. I stare at her for a second.
"...This will hurt", I mutter.
Dividing a shadow blade again and again until it's the thinnest needle I can muster, I readily press it on to her skin after tearing the bloody parts of her garments away. If my guts are right, then it should be the same hunting pack that wounded her.
"Aargh!!!" Letitia starts to struggle as I muffle her screams with shadow vine. It's not that it helps cover the sound. In this quiet forest, a scream seems quite louder than usual.
Very soon, a howl reverberates right back, around more than half a mile away. With an expressionless countenance, I finish sewing the open wounds, at least enough for her not to bleed to death at the moment. I glance at her fainted self, her face a mess of tears and blood. She'll need medical attention or a potion real soon though. Although the vitality of a Lycan-kind is not to be doubted, the wound I checked didn't seem to heal at all, though it may have been because it's a bite wound with a Lycan-kind's saliva. On the other hand, the spearhead wound on her hind leg was no longer bleeding.
In the meantime, she'll have to settle for my shadow needles stitching her wounds.
A few wisps emerge from the ground as a larger shadow vines come to wrap themselves around Letitia's body until only the head was exposed—I didn't want her to suffocate after all the effort I put in.
Facing the southwest, I stand there ready to quell my bloodlust, but Aovialutre's necklace started tugging me again. I couldn't ignore it even if I wanted to.
Fine. I'll see for myself what you want me to see.
With that, I start running, careful to disperse the air everywhere. I can't get rid of the metallic smell of blood, so might as well redirect the air as we run, to mislead the hunting pack.
Growl!
A wolf faster than its packmates was already at my heels. Though I ran whilst my shadow vines moved along with me, with Letitia in tow, we were still found. You can't expect such much cover from this forest anyways. It's also quite easy to catch sight of her flowing scarlet locks as we run. It looked as if a brick-red flame was dancing wildly in the wind.
I should have shaved her head.
Unbeknownst to everyone, Letitia shivered a little—she seems to have just felt something malicious! Her wolf's instincts are shouting for her to get as far as possible, yet unfortunately, the unconscious her cannot fathom exactly who she should stay away from at the moment.
The blue tear jerks to a direction—the thicker part of the forest was just ahead. But something feels wrong. The air seems to get colder and colder; starting from the feet, slowly the cold air rises until I can feel it painfully hitting my cheeks.
Odd. This place is really odd.
Sharp claws come for me as a wolf jumps at my back. I turn around, fluidly coating my hand with a long shadow blade, and waving it to cleanly cut its front paws.
A wolf that can't run is useless.
I slide a few feet back due to momentum, my body lowered into an attack position and my other hand holding the ground for support.
The blue tear suddenly drops lifelessly, bouncing a few times on my chest as it fell back down. The hunting pack surely does not care. They barely notice as their yellow eyes are all on me, slowly closing in like a group of predators stalking prey.
Do I look like easy prey for you guys? Your worst mistake was thinking I am prey.
The ground slowly seeps something black, with me at its origin. This hunting pack looks like the veteran kind. They avoid stepping into my shadow, therefore, I can't limit their movement. I don't stretch my shadow far; just a several feet in radius. I want them to think this is my capacity. Should they lunge at me, I will pierce them through with shadow javelin, and if the others the decide to run, I'll immediately catch them in my domain and give them the same ending.
Yet the leading wolf seems to have thought of something. Its eyes held a certain glint if only for the briefest moment.
The earring clipped on its ear flashes and lapis lazuli type of stone gets thrown near me.
What...?
"Ugh—!" I clutch my head. It feels as if there was static jamming the inside of my brains, affecting both my sight and thought process. My ears are ringing. It made thinking very hard, much less concentrating. My shadow vines were writhing along with me as I nearly pound it to the ground.
Letitia grunted as she fell from my shadow's hold.
I swear, I could have almost sworn those hunting wolves were snickering!
What is this, what weapon is this?!
Unable to resist, I lay there, tightly clutching my head as a wolf growled near my face, its saliva dripping on my face.
Faex. What a disgusting way to go.
My bloodlust and the hatred reflected in my red-rimmed eyes made me more a target to them. In the hunting pack's eyes, I seem to have been labeled as part of the rebel camp by then.
Swoosh—!
Just when I was about to be bitten to death, an arrow shot out from somewhere and accurately hit the blue lapis, breaking it into many bits and pieces like it was nothing.
Vera...?