Beil yanked his head away in shock. As realization set in he backed up a bit and Nova started making ground ahead of him, having not noticed his action. He stepped after her so she would continue to not notice to give himself the time ge needed to think while his mind was reeling.
Was he falling in love with her? They had just met less than a week ago and for some reason he felt compelled to help her. Part of him knew that if he had done nothing she would probably end up dead, but the other half of him was sensing something else has compelled him. He had doubts that he was attracted to her right off the bat, especially as he had grabbed her with the intent of having a meal, but the instant she thought something it was like a hammer had come down on his heart.
He had not expected this result, nor what his instincts were telling him. She had the mind of an adult, her behavior and mannerisms, her gaze, all of it said that she was grown. But her mind in this world was new and inexperienced, and her body was that of a child. He felt utterly disgusted with himself for his own yearning. He stamped it down.
Besides, even when she had become a legitimate adult in a few years, she would never reciprocate him. He was nothing to shake a stick at. For his age he was not very powerful, it was just to be expected with time that he became as strong as he was, similar to a tree and how strong the trunk would become after so many years of growing it. At this point, however, he could feel the wilting that comes with reaching your peak and the only thing left is the fall. Meanwhile, she was just getting started. He refused to allow himself to step in the way of her chance at a far better life than living with a broken vagabond.
As a rambling man, his longing, his loneliness, would just have to stay and his fondness for her would be as a friend. It had to.
It had to...
Nova was starting to pick up on the weird mood he was exuding and turned to look at him. This had all happened in just a few seconds, even though to him it was more like a few minutes with how fast he was thinking, so he was able to glance at her with an air of nonchalance. Nova, for her part, was unaware of his internal struggle and thought that maybe she was just sensing things wrong. She had just gone through a lot so maybe she needed time to adjust.
She gave him a quick smile and turned back around, and as she did his mood slipped for just a second before he solidified his resolve. They traveled quietly, Nova just going with the flow and Beil stuck with his thoughts, until night fall where he pulled leaves and moss into a nest like usual, going about the routine he'd been used to for years, the only difference was that Nova had made her own little bundle next to it instead of sleeping under the brush like she did as a snake for the three days they traveled together.
He took notice of her choice. Next to his, but not up against, and with a lot more moss. He remembered doing that as a human. The softer the bed the better. And at least it wasn't cold tonight so she wouldn't need a blanket or anything, right?
Who was he asking?...
The night was quiet with a soft breeze, crickets, and dreams. When morning broke Beil stretched and yawned, used the knuckles on his right tallon to rub his eyes, and looked over at her to see how she faired only for his eyes to go wide. "Nova?"
She stirred, stretching out as well, but something was different than last night. She opened her eyes and saw her scales and whipped her head around to make sure she wasn't seeing this wrong.
"Did I turn back into a snake? Why, and when?"
"It seems," he said calmly now and relaxed into a sitting position, "that either you ran out of energy in the middle of the night and reverted back to save your own life, or you have to be conscious to maintain your human form. Tell me, does it feel like effort to be human?"
"No, it felt natural."
"Natural as in you are used to the body because of your previous life, or natural as in you do not have to think about keeping up with it because it just is?"
"The second one?"
He arched an eyebrow and his little grin returned. "Was that a question?"
"The second one," she repeated with more resolve. He nodded.
"And how long has it been since you have felt full?"
"Well we ate before we started the hike down at nearly sunset."
"Did that make you feel full? Two rabbits and some rice?"
"Not stuffed, but I wasn't hungry."
He sighed and she felt like she was missing some big point. She waited so that he could explain it but he continued to sit quietly, giving her time to think. By full, what did he mean? She hadn't gorged herself, but if she's not hungry doesn't that mean she's full?
Oh wait, they were talking about why she was a snake again. She was still waking up and she felt like a moron for assuming they were talking about only what full means. What triggered this was a lack of energy, so was it really necessary to turn back into a snake to save her own life? She didn't felt like she was going to just role over and die, but she was a bit lethargic and it was hard to gather up her thoughts.
Energy... wait hang on.. Oh!
"I'm out of spiritual energy."
"Precisely," he said in resolution with a look in his eyes that made her feel silly. She wanted to grin at him but instead she flicked her tongue out and sat tall on her neck. He stood and spread his wings. "I will hunt for you this time, rest for now," he said and took off flying.
Having a moment to herself was a mixture of relief and anxiousness. It was as quiet as when she was in the caves, but only for a moment before birdcalls started up again once they'd settled from his takeoff. She tried to focus on feeling the level of spirit energy left in her core, that deep spot in her chest where it had collected when she's eaten those rats. It felt small today, like a compressed ball, almost like it wasn't there, and her body ached like the day she had first woken up at the entrance to the cave. At least this time she could see, and that's when she noticed that her usually glistening white scales seemed dull today, still white, but definitely not vibrant. Was she really dying just from not eating?
Twenty agonizingly slow minutes later, after she had curled up into a coil to doze off a bit to hold onto that last few drops of energy, she heard wing beats from Beil, heavier than usual. As she moved her head to see him reality struck her.
'Beil?' She couldn't project her voice anymore, only think it.
"Do you like what I caught? It took me a while to find one of these but I figured it would be better for--"
'Beil, I can't see anything.'
He jerked his head up and looked at her. Not only had she become almost grey, her icy blue eyes had actually become white and she had gone blind from not having any energy left to support the troll's healing spell. She was digressing at a far faster rate than a normal Kinsoul, and his fear for her was made tenfold when her head fell down to the rock she was resting on and she didn't move again.
His next movements were one after the other in rapid succession. First he turned back towards his prey, a really large bird with feathers like green stained glass and a beak that jutted out like a spear, and tore into it like a beast. He slit the fresh meat into several half inch slices and practically ran to her with it in his beak. At this point his owl instinct had taken over and he pried her mouth open only to feed her like a mama bird.
It took another ten excruciating minutes of doing this for the food to digest enough to release the spirit energy, and when it did she came to and practically gasped as it flooded her. All at once her eyes cleared up, her scales brightened, and her mind was coming back to her again. She looked at him and saw tears and relief, along with the blood on his beak and the bird carcass behind him.
"Are you okay," she asked, focused on him for some reason. He was a friend at this point but she was unaware of his deeper feelings and this reaction felt serious.
He laughed in disbelief, with a bit of manic mirth and, yesterday's resolve be damned, trotted over to embrace her tightly against his chest with his still bloody tallon. She was too shocked to feel disgusted about the blood, since she always ate her prey whole or cooked, and was about to accept and return the hug when he bolted away and grabbed the bird to carry it over to her.
"Thank goodness you were still able to absorb spirit energy, I thought I was about to see you leave this world, here, eat, you can have it all, I will find something for myself later," he said in one breath and she blinked.
"Oh, right," he said in realization when she hesitated and he slit the bird into many slices that she could fit into her mouth before backing away again. She looked up at him, then at the bird, then, back at him.
"Is something wrong?"
"Was I really about to die?"
His heart hurt. She sounded like a child, her voice soft and quiet, her body still in a tight coil, her head low, her eyes scared. He finally recognized that she really didn't think that she was going to die from starvation in less than a day.
"Your energy," he started skowly and she glanced at him, "is too powerful for your body."
"Too powerful?"
He nodded. "As a Kinsoul you are both lucky and unlucky that you have energy manipulation so early if at all. Lucky because your potential is exponential, unlucky because regulating yourself is going to be much harder than it normally should."
She was surprised to know that right now she cared very little about this information. His actions were what had really caught her attention. He had practically treated her with unrestrained panicked care, desperate to save her. Why? He had gone out of his way to save her not once but twice in one week, cried for her, took the time and effort to teach her the ways of this world. He was seven hundred years old, he had friends in that village, she was a stranger, a tiny moment in his life. Why was she suddenly so important to him?
On that note, why had the troll in the cave literally ended his life just so that she could see and leave his cave? She realized she had buried the severity of that action because she didn't know how to process his sacrifice.
She looked at the meat and her stomach and instincts told her to swallow as much as she could, but her mind was too overwhelmed.
"Why?"
Beil had sat watching the gears turn in her head, knowing this was unrelated to what he had been talking about. "To what is your question directed to?"
"Why did you do so much for me?" She couldn't picture herself doing something so selflessly without a good reason, people were not that generous, especially if they wanted to live a long time.
Beil studied her face for a while before he hung his head in shame. He had to admit his feelings or they would haunt him. He mumbled something and she moved closer to him.
"What did you say?"
"I said you are special to me. I didn't want to lose you."