Wizards: Tales Of Arcadia

If I Surrender

"What does it matter? You were attacking me!"

He growled, if birds could do that.

"What? I'm supposed to think I'm useful?" She looked at her arms, running her exposed fingers over the fabric. "That I'm smart? That- that I... I... Ugh! I don't know!" Angel crouched down, wringing her hands and burying her head in her knees.

Flapjack's eyes softened as he glided down to her hands.

Chirp...

Angel sighed. "I know that I can't be useless, that I've helped people. But with Douxie's reaction- he's obviously worried about me. I can't shake the feeling that he thinks that I need to be protected, coddled, guarded. Maybe I do....

"But that makes me useless, unhelpful, a burden, and I'm not- I'm not!" She clasped her hands behind her head. "It means that I can't do it myself. It means I have to take advantage of people. It means-" she cut herself off, blinking a few times. She heard Flapjack chirp but couldn't look at him. The wind stirred violently.

The memory of the pixie vision played through her head. Where everything she did made everything worse and in the end-

"I'm not her!" Angel yelled, startling them both. She sniffed and wiped her eyes, an apology on the tip of her tongue. But she had retreated too far, falling into the hollow of the tree she thought was solid. She muttered ow when something fell on her face.

It was her bow and quiver, still full of arrows. As Angel sat up, she saw the note that was left with her arrows. It was Elsa and Anna explaining that they filled it up after adding a surprise to the set.

"Remind me to thank them later, FJ." Angel got a 'whatever' chirp in response as she examined the new runes painted and carved on them. She recognized a few as binding and teleportation, but the rest she couldn't cipher. "Wonder what they meant-"

A wave a fear rushed over them, the two's blood running cold. Angel was only barely able to catch Flapjack and turn them invisible.

"I thought I heard her down here," a voice said. Her mind immediately recognized it as Douxie, but there was no way it was him. For one, there was no accent. Two, it was almost stagnant in emotion. There was possibly annoyance, but it was too small to tell.

"I know you're here," he whispered as he came through the brush, hair somehow neater than she last saw him only an hour ago. His hoodie was neatly folded over his arm, revealing tattoos painted down his upper arm.

Though Douxie was beautiful as always, the tired and worn out movements, the crinkles in his eyes, were replaced by poise and precise movements. Bright green eyes fell to hers, calculating. Angel glared back but refused to reveal her whereabouts.

"I suppose she isn't here to stop me taking over her lover's body then." That sentence nearly had her clawing his eyes out right then, with or without her magic. But it was still Douxie, the man she cared for deeply, in there.

She reached behind her to grab a loose branch, grass, the tree itself, anything to ground her rising emotions, only to find her bow and quiver. Would turning them invisible be a giveaway or did he see them right now anyway?

Flapjack was still trembling, though with either fear or anger, she was unsure. It was unclear what emotion she was feeling herself.