Until Eternity // An Eternals Story

Twenty

Emris spent the rest of the day attempting to regain that sense of freedom she'd felt and channel it into her magic, enabling her to fly, but she hadn't been able to move even a centimeter off the ground since that first time. By the time she and Druig called it quits, the sun was already beginning its descent.

They walked back to the village in easy silence. Emris didn't feel the need to talk, and she was grateful Druig didn't try to force conversation, either. She was contemptuous with replaying that moment of flight time and time again in her head. As Druig had said, Emris hadn't even felt like she'd been using her magic. It wasn't like when she moved objects with her mind. That she could feel forcefully; it was something physical. The magic left her skin and wrapped around the object. But flight? It was the same thing as walking, almost. Second nature. A feeling.

And she would do whatever it took to capture that feeling again in order to truly fly.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

They had just crossed into the boundary line of the village, Druig at long last deciding to speak.

Emris glanced at him side-long and gave him a frown. "No."

Druig made to sling his arm around her shoulder, but she danced out of the way. Wagged a finger at him and said, "Uh huh. Don't even think about it. This right here?" She splayed her hands in the air around her, waving them up and down. "It's called personal space."

Druig's lips curled to one side. "Forgive me," he teased. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with my near proximity."

Emris made a long face and looked the length of his body up and down slowly, as though she were inspecting him. "You?" she questioned. "Make me uncomfortable?" Emris leaned towards him and her eye flickered the span of his face. "Never."

She spun back around before Druig could react and continued on her way, a slight skip in her step. She smiled to herself as Druig's faint chuckles met her back, and then eventually she had peeled so far ahead of him that she could no longer hear them.

Emris found the hut that housed her bed for her time here and entered it with a pleased smile fixated on her lips. 

Sprite looked up from her book when Emris entered. "Haven't seen you all day," she remarked.

Emris collapsed on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. "I was training with Druig."

Ermis couldn't see Sprite, but she felt the girl's surprise in abundance. "Did you just say training?" Sprite marveled, "with Druig?"

Emris turned her head to look at Sprite. "Is that - okay?" she asked slowly. Emris hadn't thought that Sprite would be angry with her spending time with Druig.

"That's not what I meant. It's hard for me to envision Druig helping anyone but himself," Sprite explained, her book forgotten beside her.

"What do you mean?" 

Sprite shrugged. "I'm just surprised, that's all. Though, I have noticed the liking he's taken to you, Emris." Sprite gave her a wary look, one that screamed caution. "Just be careful, alright?" The girl sighed and picked her book back up, her troubled eyes leaving Emris and finding the words on her page. "Druig is - unpredictable."

Emris turned away from Sprite and fixed her eye back on the ceiling. In all honesty, it wasn't Druig that she had to worry about. Druig she could handle; Emris felt as though she knew his mind like the inside of her own. They were alike, him and her, and if there was one thing Emris could do, it was unpredictable. What she couldn't do, though, were feelings. Affection, emotion - dare she even say, love - that Emris couldn't think about. Couldn't bare. Emris couldn't wrap her head around feelings of love. Perhaps it was because she had grown up beneath the experiments of a mad scientist, but she believed it stemmed to something even deeper. Something that her subconscious wouldn't let her reach, because it was far too traumatic.