Chapter 9: Breaking

After a second embraced for the impact, we weren’t dead, though we might as well have been. Before I even opened my eyes, I felt numerous tiny hands gripping tightly onto our entire body. They held us suspended on a furry surface, our body that wasn't nestled into the fur chilled.

We weren’t at all where we were before, we were back in the woods, not even on a path. After a moment for us too come to understand what had just happened, the furry body and hands both collapsed and dropped us to the muddy and leafy ground.

I heard something else drop beside us, but Jassen was more interested on what had been holding us. He stumbles forward on all fours to gain distance before flipping to see the creature. In the dim night light I couldn’t quite make out what it was at first, but Jassen had. He called out to it, Leif, and demanded to tell us what had just happened.

He was slumped on his side, covered in mud, and breathing heavily. In short stuttered gasps he tried to relate what he had done. But this was before Xanrei sprung forth from the dirt and started berating him, making outrageous claims that didn’t quite apply or make sense for the situation.

‘Shut up you stupid drake,’ Jassen shouted, ‘if it weren’t for you we wouldn’t be here in the first place.’ I could feel our face was flush with rage, Jassen nearly spitting as he spoke. I was still trying to make sense of what had occurred, one moment we were about to be shot and stabbed by an angry mob, the next we were nearly frostbitten in the middle of the forest.

Jassen had his attention fully on his anger with Xanrei, to the point I felt him jump so slightly when Leif tried to speak again. His breathing, though still labored, had calmed enough to make more coherency with his words. ‘I run. F-f *huf* fast. We are no l-longer near the village... there is no longer-er a threat to your l-lives.’

Xanrei whirled herself back into a tizzy, blaming us for the mob almost killing us. Jassen screamed at her, ‘our fault! It’s your fault you Kecheh worm, you’re the one stealing from others. Letting you follow is almost worse than Fa’oon, you’ll kill me without even thinking!’ He stood cold after his rant, immediately apologizing to me through mind.

Kill him, I had not thought that he paid mind to that so much as I did. Was this why he left home, so he wouldn’t make his family sad when I killed him? My heart began to ache, was this what he thought of me, not actually as his Cha but as death itself hovering over him? I could hear him in the distance, repeatedly saying he didn’t mean what he said. But I didn’t truly hear him, my own dark thoughts overpowered his voice. I recoiled into myself, tears and pain ran down my face. It was true, I will kill him. All this time we have both known, that eventually I would be the one to take his life. I tried to ignore this for so long, focusing on the present only. When Jassen had resolved to leave home, claiming it was for the both of us, I stood by him, hoping for an adventure that would take my mind away from the inevitability.

Why did I even have to exist. Jassen was born from his parents who created life, while I was born by taking his life. It was not fair, Jassen did not deserve to have his life cut short because he decided to wander a little ways from the town.

I’ve heard Jassen tell the story only once before, how he had the ill fated meeting with my “parent”. He was a child, no older than eight. He was wandering the outskirts of Iwfa, the town he, and eventually I, had grown up in. He had heard since he was smaller, the reverence his family had for the phoenix. Upon seeing a phoenix for the first time in person, he could not help himself but approach. Decrepit and malformed though it was, his child ignorance let him approach my progenitor with glee. It was repel in the way it was perched on the tree’s branch. He told of how he thought that if he could bring it home how proud his parents would be. So he climbed the tree to try and get to it, a mistake that any other being would not have made. It should have been obvious to him, that the fiery creature was dull and had growths on it. Even most Nel know to stay away from a Geforis, for there is no warning when they might infect a new host. But all was lost when the Nel Gheforis noticed Jassen’s unabashed. Jassen recalled that flew off at the sight of him, but not before spraying him in a musty mist.

It was not until after the infection, when I had started to manifest, that it became known what had happened. Most had resigned him for death, even his parents having a noticeable change in behavior. I could not imagine what I would have felt, or others of my kind had felt in the past, when they had achieved all the intelligence and all the capacity of thought from their host and realized what they had done. No one asks to be brought into life, but there is something awful when you remove a life to make room your own. It was miracle of The Divine that I was somehow able to gain cognizance and hold myself before I completely took Jassen. Nevertheless, I’ve still assured him a shortened life with my mere existence.

After I calm myself, I come to realise that Jassen was in conversation with Leif. Though Xanrei was there and vying for attention, It seems Jassen’s rage had subsided to cold disregard for her input. How long had I been resigned to sulking that Jassen had calmed down and they were able to begin talking calmly with one another.

Upon noticing my return from sorrow, Jassen gave me his memories of what Leif had told him. Apparently Leif’s ability was to move as though time stood still. He used this to get us out of the town, taking us up while he ran. I couldn’t tell, as his legs were obscured by his blanket of fur and mud, but he had injured himself in the flight. Jassen also relayed how he had had managed to carry us. With every Isynx, they have symbiotic creatures who live within their fur, Ohbz. They were little, hairless, large-eyed, thin, Ulmi humi-like, Nel who are born, raised, and die in the Isynx's fur. They have enough mind to do simple commands of their residential Isynx, but are incapable of much self-thought beyond instinct. They were what had held us to his fur, and the speed at which he moved was what made us so cold.

My mind was still numb from my time spent despondent. But through my murky awareness, I felt a new presence. Once more we were to be tested, a threat I noticed before any other had. Yet my detection of threats never seemed to do much but have the coming conflict occur quicker. I still let Jassen know about the new curiosity near us, hoping this time we might be able to prevent disaster rather than just know about it.

To be expected, Jassen broke the conversation and abrasively shouted into the woods, announcing his knowledge of the mysterious oo’s existence. Whoever it was did well to mask itself, I was only able to pick up that it existed and could not tell its intentions in any matter.

A humi dressed in extravagant attire stepped out from behind a tree, 'I apologize for my eavesdropping, but you all were so feisty that I dared not intervene. Allow me to introduce myself,’ he took a deep and formal bow, ‘My name is Col Ufun, a pleasure to meet you all.' He then strode up to Xanrei as though he were a old friend, ‘and of you don’t mind my harsh saying, you should not be so roughly quibbling when in the presence of such a strapping young lady.’ He outstretched his arm, covered in fine silky black cloth, offering Xanrei to perch upon. With a clumsy flap of her wings, she bounded up and covered his arm with sludge from her talons and tails.

Her head wavered as they looked into eachothers eyes. His charming mystique had her belch niceties. Leif, as undaunted as tipsy Xanrei, inquired if he could fetch a doctor from another town to help him.

‘I’m sorry my friend, but I won’t do that,’ Col spoke. ‘I’m afraid I’m unable to enter any village on the account that I’ve had a run in with the law. I can’t go into much detail, but I assure you that what they say about me is false and unjust.’

With each word the stranger spoke, I felt Jassen’s mind become both more at ease. I felt that It must have been such a pleasant change of pace to have a stranger in the woods be kind to us rather than steal from or attack us that Jassen had lost himself a bit.

‘If you don’t mind me asking, what had you done to warrant the local hospitality of Pojin.’ His words, though sweet, were somehow prickly, and did not sit well with me. But this worry didn’t seem to occur to Jassen who promptly accused Xanrei of having us run out. ‘Interesting, and what had you stolen from them?’

‘Nothing!’ Xanrei chirped, ‘they said I stole from one of them at a well, but we had only just arrived there that night. A bunch of liars, probably just didn’t like me for my tails. If I were bigger I’d show them. They'd never do that to my cousin. She’d burn them all to a crisp’

With great politeness, he let her finish before continuing, ‘I see, and don’t worry, I believe you. For you see, my dear Sahhas, It couldn’t have been you sealing from them, for that twas I.’