Chapter Eighteen: Anger
It happened unexpectedly.
A good dream.
From when he was a small child.
He could see a woman with jet black hair standing in front of a well-kept stove, happily humming a little tune under her breath. His father, sitting across from him, reading the paper despite his hulking size. The man's unique teal eyes were mellow beneath his mop of curly black hair, and even though his face was expressionless, he was visibly happy.
"Mama," Xaphile called, happily lifting his arms. "Mama... hug!"
His mother's long black ponytail swirled when she happily turned and looked at him, sweeping forward with her arms stretched wide. Those arms... those warm, loving arms... they were going to -
"Big brother... help me..."
His eyes flew open wide and his mother's smiling face abruptly vanished like a cloud. His clawed hands were outstretched towards the ceiling, and that strange whisper echoed, almost seeming to linger in his ears.
"Big brother... help me."
Confusion made things fuzzy for a second, but when reality finally came back... it did so in a slow, painful manner. Taking a moment to sit up, he pressed his palm against his forehead and looked around the room... but his mother wasn't there.
Feeling a little sick, he lay back down, thinking about the dream with glazed eyes.
As sad as it had made him feel, it was a nice change from the usual nightmares, and he almost wished he could fall back into it.
Amelia brought him back to his senses, however, by opening the door of his room.
"Phil?" she called, peering at him with hesitant eyes. "Breakfast is ready... if you want it."
"What time is it?" he sleepily mumbled, rolling over and slowly stretching like a cat.
"It's very early in the morning," Amelia admitted, drawing his gaze. "I'm only waking you up because you haven't eaten anything in two days."
With a sigh, he slid out of bed and slinked over to the trunk resting against the wall, dragging out the first top he could find. It happened to be a hooded robe of some sort, but he didn't really care what it looked like.
Tugging it on, he fluffed his hair out before folding the blanket he'd been given.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Are we having guests today, too?"
"Yes," she mumbled, averting her eyes when his face darkened. "I understand that the news probably makes you uncomfortable... but, please, at least eat breakfast today. You can't neglect your health."
He was silent for a moment.
"Fine," he eventually said. "Don't expect much social interaction from me, though."
"I won't, but thank you," Amelia sighed, smiling in relief. "Feel free to join us once you're ready."
Xaphile kept his face bland when she quietly closed the door but scowled the instant she was gone.
Shoulders tense and mouth pulled tight, he contemplated his situation.
Ellameira Rochard didn't seem to respect him, because if she did, she'd have kept her distance since it was obvious that he wanted to be nowhere near her.
Five days had passed since she'd informed everyone that they'd be going on a trip, but since then, she had been looking for little ways to get involved with Amelia's household and daily processes and she'd succeeded every time, too, to the point where she was there nearly all day.
Because of that, Xaphile was hounded like crazy.
No matter what he did or where he went, even if it was only to the outhouse, he would spot an intense-looking Ella around each and every nearby corner, staring right at him with a suspicious expression.
It had gotten to the point where he'd been too annoyed to leave his room unless Amelia was nearby, but even with her around, Ella's hostility had continued.
The constant prickles of frustration and anxiety coupled with the way she was always watching him had seriously exhausted him, and before he'd even realized what was happening, he'd fallen back into an extreme state of depression.
For the last two days, there had been nobody for Ella to watch since Xaphile had done absolutely nothing but sleep.
His appetite had disappeared completely, his desire to do anything had become virtually non-existent, and since he hadn't really eaten much of anything at all throughout the week, he wasn't surprised that Amelia had woken him up today, despite the fact that Ella was coming again.
She knew how he felt and had still asked him, which was proof enough that she was worried.
Taking a moment to calm himself, he glanced at the creepy mirror hanging on the wall, mouth twisting a little.
His old human face stared back at him, smiling with bright blue-green eyes that twinkled happily. He'd asked Amelia about this same mirror a while back, but she'd told him that it was enchanted with illusion magic.
Supposedly, it had the ability to reflect a person's heart and warp their persona to match it.
Evil people, for example, would look grotesque like the darkness within them; good people would look like what they desired most, and because he wanted to go back to the time when Ella had been alive, to the time when he'd been happy, he only saw himself the way he'd been back then.
It was a period in his life that he could physically see, but not reach.
And it was cruel.
He gazed into the eyes that had once belonged to him, the face that had once been human.
The face he no longer had.
Then he moved forward, gently unhooked the mirror, and set it face-down on the floor, not wanting to see everything he'd lost being reflected back at him.
Irritable, he left the room and made his way to the kitchen, where a battered teakettle was whistling on the fireplace.
Amelia, Ella, and Gus were already sitting around the wooden table and an empty place had been set for one more with a plate of food waiting to be eaten, right across from the silver-haired girl herself.
Gus glanced up when he entered.
"Mornin', Phil," he hesitantly greeted, munching on a loaf of fresh bread. "Sleep well?"
Xaphile merely looked at the man with a blank face, and he obviously got the hint that he wanted to be left alone, since he returned to eating with no further talk. Amelia, on the other hand, either couldn't read facial cues or she simply didn't care.
"Good morning, Phil," she greeted, watching with glittering blue eyes as he walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed an apple. "I've prepared a plate of food for you."
"Thanks," he murmured, slowly sinking down into the seat. "I appreciate it."
With little fanfare, he picked up his fork and began to eat, gaze fixed on his food.
If he didn't look up, he wouldn't have to deal with Ella's doppelganger.
Or so he hoped.
Amelia stood up and moved to take the teakettle off the fire, pouring the contents into several different wooden cups and carrying them over to the table.
"Would you like tea?" she asked him; when he nodded, she set a mug beside him. "Careful, it's hot."
He gave her another nod and merely continued eating, not feeling motivated enough to talk.
He silently spooned the rice and vegetables on his plate into his mouth, but eating such salty food for breakfast felt weird on his American taste buds, and as he ate, he tried his best not to think about pancakes dripping in syrup, waffles with fluffy whipped cream... danishes, donuts, lattes, mocha...
"So, what were you up to these last two days?" Ella suddenly asked, setting down her silverware with a clack. "It's pretty suspicious if you ask me."
Irritation filled him, swift and hot, but he reluctantly lifted his eyes, glaring through his long lashes with a threatening expression.
"Excuse me?" he quietly inquired. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Ella," Gus warned, giving her a sharp glance. "Don't."
"It was just a question," she sweetly explained, smiling with an innocent expression. "Can't I get an answer?"
Xaphile was pissed now, but he decided to be the bigger person and responded as politely as he could.
"I was sleeping," he murmured, lowering his eyes and sullenly going back to his food.
"Well, I hope you're getting your beauty rest," Ella cooed, pointing her fork at him. "Don't forget, we're leaving day after tomorrow, so be sure to sleep as much as you can."
"Will do," he said, refusing to raise his eyes. "Now, with all due respect, please leave me alone."
"Why?" she snorted. "We're all friends here! Unless you have something else planned."
That was it.
"I'm planning on throwing this food in your face if you don't stop making jabs at me," he snapped, setting down his silverware with a glare. "You aren't my friend, nor will you ever be my friend, so shut up and leave me alone already, dammit!"
Her face darkened.
Folding her arms, she gave him a dark glare.
"Who was it that spared your life?" she inquired, tapping her arm with an irritated finger. "I could have lopped your head off, but I didn't, so watch your tongue."
His hair stood on end and his tail involuntarily fluffed out, throat emitting a quiet but completely uncontrollable growl.
He locked his throat and forced the sound to halt, but alarm had spread over everyone's features.
"If you thought your choice to let me go would give you the right to tell me what to do, you should have executed me," he hissed a little venomously, "because I'm not going to filter my mouth when you're the one trying to antagonize me."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You're more of a spitfire than I originally believed, aren't you?"
"Keep bugging me," he angrily countered, "and you're going to learn a whole new definition for the word spitfire."
Just as she opened her mouth to fire a retort, Amelia stepped in.
"That's enough!" she scolded. "I'm very disappointed. The two of you really shouldn't be fighting."
"I wasn't fighting," Ella innocently explained. "I was just concerned since he seems a bit mad."
Mad.
As in, crazy.
Yup, it was official: he wasn't sticking around.
Xaphile wolfed down the rest of his food and abruptly set his fork down before standing up and looking at Amelia, muscles rigid.
"Thank you for breakfast," he stiffly said, face twitching. "I'll be in my room if you need me."
When he turned and tried to stalk out of the kitchen, Gus stood up and caught his wrist.
"Don't mind her," he soothed, ignoring how Ella stiffened in obvious offense. "She can be a bit crude when she's suspicious of someone's intentions, but once she gets to know you, she'll be much more civil. Trust me."
"Please let go."
"Before I do, will you agree to help me with some preparations?"
Xaphile turned and looked at him blankly.
"What kind of preparations?"
"For the journey we'll be taking soon," Gus explained. "There are many things we still need to gather, and some of them are fairly heavy. I could use your help."
"Fine," he grunted, tugging his hand free. "Come get me when you're ready to go."
Then he left the kitchen and pointedly went back to his room, closing the door behind him.
Setting his back against the wood, he glared at the floor, not wanting to think about anything. He could hear hushed speaking and the clanking of fine china as the dishes were cleared out, but footsteps sounded down the hall just as he was about to head over to the bed.
They stopped in front of his room.
He moved forward and glanced behind him when the doorknob turned, but when it opened, instead of seeing Gus... he saw Ella.
His eyebrow twitched when she walked inside and closed the door again and it took all of his self control to keep his face devoid of expression.
"Let me make one thing clear," she sneered, walking up and jabbing a finger against his chest. "I don't like you, and I definitely don't trust you, but Amelia and Gus have both expressed that they do trust you and will continue to trust you. For that reason alone, I am going to be watching you closely."
Bile rose up his throat and it was suddenly three times harder to bite back his irritation.
"I have no desire to see your face," he quietly informed her. "If you want to spy on me, do so where I can't see you. Now, with all due respect, please leave."
He lifted his arm and pointed at the door with a sharp claw.
"You've gotten fairly cocky," Ella calmly noted, clutching the front of his shirt and glaring up into his eyes with a sneer. "Makes me want to hit you."
"Then go ahead and hit me," he shot back, lip curling in disgust. "If that'll get you away from me faster, hit me as hard as you can. Either way, I still want you to get the hell away from me, so make your choice already and leave."
"What if I say I don't want to leave?" she asked, eyes cold and calculating. "What will you do?"
Yup.
He lost it.
Before she could react, he gripped her wrist and jerked it free of his clothes, and when she tried to swing at him with her other hand, he caught it in a flash and roughly shoved her against the wall with her arms pinned high above her head. She squirmed, but couldn't get loose.
He was stronger than her.
Ella's eyes widened a little when he bared his sharp teeth, face wrinkling up in absolute fury.
"Do you really want to hang around me and find out what I'll do?" he quietly demanded, leaning so close to her face that their noses almost touched. "I'm done with you. You may have the same face as the girl I loved, but you aren't her. You don't know me anymore than I know you. So don't think I'm going to be nice after everything you did to me."
"U-unhand me, this instant!" she squeaked, kicking him in the shins. "Right now!"
He ignored the pain in his legs and merely tightened his grip on her wrists.
Not enough to hurt her, but enough to let her know who was really in charge.
"Your personality is disgusting," he growled. "Making threats, physical assault, kidnapping, and harassment... utterly disgusting."
"Then what do you want me to do?" she spat. "I've asked you once already how to atone for what I've done, and you told me to live!"
The hole in his heart somehow became even colder and angrier.
"Fine," he hissed, letting go of her and abruptly stepping back. "I have two more conditions for you to atone. Never touch me again, and from this day forward, I want you to stop talking to me unless absolutely necessary."
"What?" she asked, actually looking surprised; she absently rubbed her wrists as she stared at him. "Of all the things you could ask for... why would you request something like that?"
"Because seeing her face on a woman like you makes me feel physically ill," he said honestly, watching in grim satisfaction as she stiffened. "I get that you have a fucked up history, but it doesn't give you the right to treat me like a punching bag. I won't deal with your hostility, I won't tolerate your attitude, and I will never like you."
He said this last part with such hostility of his own that she grit her teeth, glaring up at him.
"Oh?" she haughtily sneered. "For some reason I doubt that. I mean, I do have your lover's face, after all."
"You have her looks," Xaphile coldly agreed, "but you are literally everything she wasn't. Vindictive, cruel, and utterly ruthless. There isn't a nice bone in your body. Get over yourself."
Her face turned crimson.
"So what?" she snapped, throwing her arms into the air. "I don't like you, either, but at least I tolerate you! That's something you should be grateful for!"
He snarled like a wild dog, making her flinch.
"Shut up!" he barked, roughly gripping the front of her shirt. "It's that kind of shit right there that I hate! You keep talking to me as though I should be grateful to you! The only thing I have to say thanks for are the scars on my back and the bruises all over my body!"
"What about your life?!" she shrieked. "Huh?! What about that?!"
He was so close to blowing his top it wasn't even funny.
"I'M NOT GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE, YOU STUPID BITCH!" he roared into her face, shaking her a little bit. "I killed myself once already for a fucking reason!"
She gripped his wrists after he stopped jerking her around.
"And yet, you're still here, alive and breathing, for my sake, no less!"
His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and his vision went hazy, a huge red flag.
Hands shaking, he let go of her and backed off, turning around and glaring at the wall before he could black out and go nuts.
He'd never before had any sort of desire to punch a girl in the mouth as badly as wanted to right then, and the realization that he even wanted to made him feel a little sick beneath his rage.
He took deep breaths through his nose, getting himself under control, before speaking again.
"In all actuality," he hissed, "you're wrong."
"Wrong?" she demanded, frowning. "How am I wrong? That was the deal we made with each other. You promised to wait until it was certain that I would be fine."
"I couldn't care less about what happens to you. Even if you absorb her memories, I won't be sticking around, regardless of the outcome."
"What? But... what of me?"
He turned around, looking at her frowning face with a decent amount of contempt.
"Don't delude yourself into thinking I care about you," he growled. "I don't give a shit if you have her face or her memories. You aren't her. You will never be her. And now that I'm aware of it, I feel no warmth towards you. Once I've spoken to her, and once I know where she really is, I'm following her there."
Ella's face went blank.
"You would damn Nimika, the entire southern portion of this country, to death," she whispered, looking as though she couldn't believe her ears, "for your own personal desires?"
He smiled and gave a barking laugh that was devoid of any real humor, showing his sharp teeth.
"Considering the greeting I was given when I first arrived," he chuckled, "I doubt it would be such a bad thing. If every single town is as bad as this one, I say to hell with all of you. I'm not going to suffer for the sake of your disgusting people."
"Disgusting?!" she shrieked in outrage. "How dare you!"
"I dare quite frequently," he retorted, gently pushing her aside and roughly opening the door. "Since you won't leave me alone, I'll do the honors and leave myself."
"Hey, don't you walk away from me!" she screeched. "Halt!"
He wanted to ignore her, but his temper snapped a second time and his footsteps stopped.
"Why?" he demanded, not turning around. "Don't you remember anything you said to me the night we made that promise?"
She stiffened.
"What does that have to do with you walking away?"
"Everything. Why the fuck would I talk to a hypocrite?"
"Hypocrite?" she choked, mouth falling open. "Oh, this is just priceless! Pure comedy! How in the name of Asgrog's Forge am I a hypocrite?! Do tell!"
"You're just like that cat girl you mentioned," Xaphile muttered. "Perhaps even worse. In a way, what you've done to me is similar to what she did to you. I don't associate with people who can't see when they're in the wrong."
"If me being in the wrong keeps my town safe," Ella spat, "I'll gladly be wrong!"
He turned and looked over his shoulder, tail flicking around.
"You said you hated lies, right?" he questioned, giving a furious smile. "Well, then, here's the truth, Ella. Your town can rot off the face of the world for all I care, so be careful. If I figure out how to use my magic, I might just decide to make that a reality if you don't stop being a bitch."
He ignored the shock that flashed across her face and stalked off down the hall, making his way towards the exit, but when he tugged the front door open, Amelia hastened over and caught his arm, small hands shaking.
"W-where are you going?" she asked, biting her lip. "Please, Phil, don't do anything rash."
"I won't. Let go of me," he calmly told her. "I need a breath of fresh air before I lose my temper and do something all of us will regret."
She was reluctant.
He could tell by the way she was holding onto him, but in the end, her grip slackened and he walked outside, slamming the door and dragging his hood up.
People stopped and stared at him when he stalked down the street, glaring at the cobblestones with tense shoulders. He tried to calm down, taking deep, cleansing breaths to clear his head, and when he finally managed to blink his rage-blurred eyes back into focus, he let out a sigh.
He'd only been that angry a few times in his life.
It was stressful.
"Phil, wait!"
Gus.
He sighed and refused to turn around when the blonde trotted up, breathing a little heavily.
"You don't really mean that, do you?" he asked in dismay. "I understand why you're angry, but there are more pressing matters to worry about."
"Like what?" he angrily snapped, making the blonde jump. "Like writing me off as an enemy and executing me? Or trying to send me back to where I came from?!"
Octavius said nothing for a long moment.
"It's not that simple, kid."
"Yeah, you think I don't know that?! Nothing is ever simple!" he snapped, quivering violently; then he faltered and the fight left him. "Look, man, I don't know you or anyone else in this town. Probably nobody in this world. I mean, I died, Gus... I took my own life and I remember every single moment of it."
He trailed off, lifting a hand and touching his temple.
He really could remember everything.
The agony from the bullet entering his his brain.
The little sparks of his mind and body dying.
"And yet, somehow, I'm still alive," he bitterly continued, "in a world where the very reason I took my life still exists, but represents everything I hate!"
"Are you referring to Ella?" Gus asked, eyes widening slightly. "I don't understand! First you said you loved her, but now you -"
"She's not the girl I thought she was!" Xaphile angrily interrupted, baring his fangs for a moment. "They look alike, but they aren't the same people!"
And the moment he said it, the reality of the statement winded him: she really wasn't the same girl.
His shoulders sagged as a tidal wave of sadness sent his fury running for the hills.
His Ella was still nowhere to be found, and... and he was still all alone. All he really wanted was to see her, to hold her, to go back to the way things were, but...
But that was impossible.
She was dead, he was dead... they were both dead, and for a single moment, he actually woke up to that reality for the first time.
It triggered a panic attack.
His tail went limp, fur fluffing out, and his vision clouded over as he began to shiver, breathing coming quicker as the fear filled his entire being. The walls of the city seemed to close in on him, and all he could do was stand there, locked up in total terror.
There were long periods of time when he'd feel as though he was merely half asleep, but then, thoughts of his own existence would loom out of nowhere just like it was doing now and his mind would suddenly wake up.
During these moments of jarring lucidity, he would get hit with waves upon waves of raw, unadulterated fear that stretched on endlessly.
The fear had always been there, nagging at him, never really gone, usually resting deep in the furthest corners of his mind, but now, like some sort of monster in the night, it grabbed him.
Consumed him from the inside.
He was just beginning to see spots from not breathing right when Gus set a hand on his head.
The man's touch broke through his panic attack.
"I'll speak with Ella," Gus said in a soft, soothing voice. "If you're really so unhappy that you can do nothing but wish for death, we should be treating you differently. You're correct... we don't know you, and you don't know us, but our actions up to this point have been very wrong."
When the blonde man ruffled his hair with an unexpected gentleness, he began to calm down, rapidly beating heart slowly returning to a normal pace.
Once the panic attack ended, he took a deep breath and let it out.
"I don't have... the courage to talk about this anymore," he hoarsely whispered. "I still need time to clear my head."
When he turned and began to walk away, Gus watched him go with a solemn demeanor.
Xaphile's shoulders, broad as they were, seemed heavy despite his rigid posture.
Like a great weight was crushing them.
And for someone so young... the sight was a sad one.
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