The wolves were attacking them all at once, one of them bit Adelaida's hand,
"YOUR HIGHNESS!" Annelece yelled.
Nataniel ran at it with his spear and stabbed it to death, "ARIEL! MAKE A WALL,"
Ariel made a gold wall right next to Adelaida. Jevelene stood behind him, "The wall won't last long. Just try to kill them all!"
Belzebub, Leviathan and Paimon looked down at them from the treetops.
The skeletons peeped out of the ditch, "Ugh, I wish we could help,"
"I told you, I can't. They will kill me first if they see me," Happiness peeped outside with them, "None of them there is my demigod, so I don't care,"
One of the wolves jumped on Ariel's chest and pushed him down. He quickly turned his sword to a shield and covered himself with it to avoid the wolf's claw. He punched the heavy shield at him and got up. Then, he passed the shield to Jevelene, "Cover us,"
"Okay!" She held it and almost fell down, "It's heavier than I thought!"
And he was holding it with one hand.
He looked at the other side, "Nataniel,"
"Yeah?"
"Freeze everyone for ten seconds,"
"WHAT?! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?"
"DO IT NOW!" Nataniel looked at the golden glow in his eyes.
"You have me!" His eyes glowed into a light shade of blue and turned everyone to ice, Adelaida, Jevelene and Annelece. Ariel ran towards them at his maximum speed and yelled, "Jump!"
Nataniel jumped and Ariel quickly pressed his palms over the ground, his hair turned golden with his eyes and all the wolves slowly began turning to gold as the gold wave made its way out of Ariel's body, "Wow, Ariel!" Nataniel landed but by then the gold wave had reached far away and soon the entire pack of wolves was turned to gold.
"UNFREEZE EVERYONE!"
And so he did. He turned all the golden wolves to a huge, cylindrical block, and Nataniel turned the ground to slippery ice, reducing the friction, they both pushed it into the portal. Jevelene looked at the huge block, covering half of the sky above her.
"Even his companion is so powerful," Annelece said.
"They make a great pair," Adelaida smiled.
Slowly, the gold began turning back to wolves, "I can't...I'm getting tired," Ariel said.
"JUST A FEW MORE SECONDS, HOLD ON, AJAX!" Nataniel pushed with him.
Ariel gave the magnanimous gold block one last push and felt the dizziness taking over him, falling on the ground in exhaustion. But the block was all inside the underworld.
"You do the rest," Ariel said as he lay on the ice.
"I got you," Nataniel ran to the portal and tried covering it with ice, to stop the wolves from coming back.
"That golden boy," Belzebub narrowed his eyes as he looked at Ariel.
"That strength at such a tender age," Paimon praised him.
Nataniel looked at Annelece, "Close the portal, now!"
"I can't! I tried but it's too big for me to handle,"
The ice covering began to break open. Nataniel was losing his patience with him, he grabbed him by his collar, "CAN YOU BE OF ANY USE?!"
"I'm sorry! That's why I told you it's too dangerous!"
He threw him away, "We're gonna end up with even more demons in here!"
Jevelene looked at the portal, "Well, how about we try closing it from the inside? The underworld has no spirit energy at all, just a little bit of energy would be enough to overcome the environmental spiritual energy and close the portal,"
Nataniel looked at her.
"What? No! What about after it closes? That person would be stuck inside the underworld!" Annelece said.
"I'll do it," Ariel got up, stumbling on his feet, "I can do that,"
"But you have too little spirit energy to overcome any energy," Nataniel said.
"I'll go with you. You can use my spirit energy," Jevelene held Ariel's hand.
"Very well, so will I then," Nataniel held Jevelene's hand, "We will do it together,"
"I'll come with you," Adelaida walked towards them but Annelece held her back, "You are needed here, your highness. Alkinshime needs you to survive,"
The ice-covered over the portal burst open and Ariel, Jevelene and Nataniel walked towards it.
But they couldn't go any closer since the ice currents from the underworld rendered their bodies numb and threw them back. Ariel and Jevelene fell to the ground, it was fatally cold. Nataniel looked down at them and then back at the portal, "It's fine. I can do it," He walked into the portal.
"No, Mister Nataniel! Don't go alone, you'll get stuck there!" Adelaida yelled as she ran towards him but the ice currents stopped her from reaching him.
"Nataniel, no!" Ariel got up and fell on his knees, he couldn't walk anymore, "NATANIEL!"
Annelece joined his hands and prayed. Nataniel jumped into the portal and it sucked him in, as he reached in, all the wolves ran at him, his eyes glowed blue and his hands gave out a sky blue light and the portal began closing.
Jevelene ran towards him, "NATANIEL, DON'T GO!"
"NATANIEL! YOU CAN'T ABANDON US! COME BACK HERE!" Ariel crawled towards the portal,
He smiled as they saw the wolves slowly reach him, she couldn't hear but she read his lips. The portal shrunk into nothingness, bursting into a huge snowball, leaving behind snowflakes, that slowly drizzled on the snow beneath their legs. Jevelene fell on her knees,
"NATANIEL!"
Ariel pressed his wet face into the snow, "Nate..."
Memories fell like snowflakes in the sky, it seemed as if time had stopped. In that dark dying forest, the sound of falling snow over his golden body, as he lay in its soft embrace, but nothing felt colder than losing a soul born out of ice.
"I love you, Jevelene," He remembered that train ride,
"I love you too,"
"I love you three," He was there, but his face was already blurring out of his memory,
"This is your younger brother, Nataniel,"
The world was already rearranging itself. Even when everything seemed the same,
"I'm asexual,"
He couldn't hold his tears anymore, and teardrops melted the snow beneath him, it was an unexplained fear, fear of never seeing him again, never hearing his stupid Finnish accent again, not seeing him playing naked in Moscow's frozen ponds in January, not seeing him sitting alone in on the cold bench, reading by himself because the class was too hot for him, he was always by himself, white skin, black hair, and empty blue eyes, the world inside them felt feeble.
Were they even friends? He only took him for his sila, but never once he heard Nate complain about it even though he knew it. Perhaps, because, he felt he finally had a family that loved him, even if it was just for his powers, it felt amazing to not be alone after two hundred years of solitude.
Everything was losing its meaning, and everything else gained some meaning. The snow reminded them of him. The cold, the ice, the frozen lakes.
. . .
All the elves came out of the little ditch and spread around, "There are no demons here anymore, this forest is ours again! Thank you so much, demigods,"
Ariel faked a smile and looked around as they made food and little houses for themselves near trees and brooks. Happiness walked towards him, "Are you okay?"
Ariel ran away and Jevelene followed him.
He sat before the lake where they met those sirens, their dead bodies floated over the water.
Jevelene quietly sat beside him, "What did he say when he was in that portal?" Ariel asked.
"He said, "You are my best friend,"
Ariel looked down, "I'm sorry, Jevelene, I can't do this anymore. Nataniel was my family, even if we weren't blood-related, he was still my brother. And I lost him. You know, I once had a friend. He was quite different from Natanaiel but quite similar too. He fell in love with a demon, and he left. Leaving me alone in an unknown town, knowing what we had outrun and how much people had hurt me in the past, he didn't care because, in the end, he hurt me pretty badly too.
Nataniel, however, never hurt me. Everything he ever did was solely for me, he gained nothing out of it. Think about it, you came here because you wanted to meet your mother, I followed you because I love you, but he, he had no reason to be here. He just came because I asked him to.
But in the end, because of my stupidity, he left too. I should have never asked Annelece to open a portal, we should've just run away,"
She patted his back, "What do you want to do now?"
"I want to go back home to Moscow. I have lost my will to fight. Can we please go back, Jevelene?"
She hugged him gently, "We'll return tomorrow itself,"
"Thank you. I love you, Jevelene,"
"I love you too," She smiled.
"...I love you three,"
-To be continued
Dear Ms Lady Demigod II
End of Arc I
The second arc starts after I'm done with some other projects :]
You've covered half of this book.
Hope you enjoyed it! ;]