Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 63

"Who will we become? What if father was right and this-" Gesturing to all of us makes him deepen his concern, "This is some echo of what you 'should' be. Father always said we weren't to his design, are you prepared to risk this? If completing the cycle changes us?"

Verando changing wasn't something I had considered, though frankly, I'd not given much thought to him completing anything. It had seemed secondary to every other hellish point of our lives and I'd been consumed with attempting to get the youths back to their own time. But, thinking on it now, it would come up in very short order that we would have to make a decision on what to do with Fenrir. 

"Killing Helen is not an option." Tyler's voice is stern, almost raspy with it's emotion. 

"Nobody is killing Helen." Verando snaps, giving the white wolf a sharp look that makes her take a step back. It's not submission that subdues her but the shame and regret of hurting someone in her family. "It's honorable that you would sacrifice your life. It would appear you really have learned something, going for Nic was good battle tactics to provoke a fight. To bad about the water."

Cas snickers, "What? You don't bathe in the future?"

With a low growl, I scowl at the man and Darrius whimpers, cutting me off as I carefully rock him back into sleep. 

"You tortured me." Verando reminds me, it wasn't something we'd gone into beyond cutting off Caspian's arm. At the retort, Cas slinks backwards much as Helen did. Shame, regret, he wraps his arms around himself with a wince. 

"I'm... I'm sorry." 

Blinking, I stare at him, bewildered. I wasn't expecting an apology. 

"We need to have a meeting, we have to make some decisions." Verando concludes. "It's quite obvious this is not going to go away, we aren't very far from the location to open the Dragon's realm. We will send the younger versions home and then we will figure out what to do about Caspian but not a moment before. We can not keep altering the time line, we can not keep putting Darrius in this amount of stress."

Exhaling shortly, his gaze returns to me. "Triggering Darrius can't be good for him. We have to think about the after effects. I need your guidance on this."

Nodding, I press my lips to the boys hair. "It would appear altering the time line is affecting your position in the plains of time. Sending the past versions home should take the strain off."

Caspian shoulders the younger Randy, clearing his throat as he takes a slow step forward. I flash my teeth, warning him to stay back. "Randy and I have been talking. What if we came here for a reason? You obviously don't remember the past or don't want to, you need us.. I think you should make a decision about my future before you send us back. You're going to stop traveling, right? So there would be no way to have this opportunity again. If you have to kill me-"

Practically snarling himself, Verando rolls his eyes once more, tossing his hands in exasperation. "Nobody is killing anyone, for the love of the bloody gods. We're all naked for gods sakes, can we stop standing in the woods and go back? You drive a man to drink with all this nonsense." Taking a step, he stumbles, nearly collapsing as Helen rushes to help keep him upright. Cursing under his breath, he flinches once more. "Damned magic users."

Caspian fans himself dramatically. "Damn Randy... it should be a sin to be that mouth watering. Why don't you ever talk to me like that?" He elbows the youth who shakes his head in exasperation. "You get... really... good looking. I get my arm chopped off and go crazy, how the hell is that fair?"

"I'm not good looking now?" Randy mumbles, offended. 

Caspian scoffs. "Not like that!"

Slumping to the ground, Verando sits with a shaky breath. I quickly move towards him but he puts his hand up to stop me. "It's not the magic I assure you.. I'm just-" Setting his jaw, he glowers at the group before looking back towards me. "I was almost pushed into the river, we are still quite close and it's just getting to me."