Chapter Twenty-Eight: Her Choice
Something was wrong.
Very wrong indeed.
Instinctively, Xaphile could tell that something weird had happened. After the exhaustion he'd wrought upon himself the previous evening, he'd figured he'd have been tired for days, but instead he had woken up feeling surprisingly well-rested.
It hadn't been until after everyone had started packing up that he'd noticed the weird atmosphere.
The mood between Gus and Amelia was bizarrely tense, and Ella kept looking at him in a different way than usual.
This new stare was completely different from the 'you-are-a-bug-and-I-am-resisting-the-urge-to-squish-you' stare she had employed until today. This stare just seemed... well, he didn't quite know what it seemed like. It was almost as if she didn't know what to make of him.
Xaphile watched the three of them ride their horses along the dark forest path with an uncertain expression.
Something was definitely wrong, he just didn't know what it was.
After about an hour of dealing with his building anxiety, he decided to breach the topic and drew his horse close to Amelia's. She had her nose buried in a book and seemed to be lost beneath its pages, but for some reason there were dark bags under her eyes.
He momentarily wondered if she'd slept all right.
"Amelia?" he quietly inquired, raising an eyebrow in perplexity. "Are you all right?"
"Huh?" she mumbled, looking up at him with glazed blue eyes. "Oh... yes, Phil. I'm fine."
He wasn't convinced, but he didn't press the topic since she didn't seem too eager to explain.
Not too far behind them, Gus was poring over the map, looking a little irritated, and ahead of them, Ella was sitting slouched on her horse, cloak drawn around her like a blanket.
"Are you okay?"
Her sudden inquiry made him jump, tail puffing out a bit from the shock.
"Er, um... yeah," he mumbled, shrugging a bit. "It's just, there's sort of a lot on my mind."
"Such as?" she inquired, looking at him a little more curiously. "Want to talk about it?"
His lips pressed into a thin line and he lowered his eyes.
"Fights," he said firmly, ignoring how she blinked. "I hate fights, I hate violence, and I hate yelling."
Amelia blinked, then closed her book and put it inside her bag before reigning her horse a bit closer to his. She gently gripped his arm, forcing him to look at her.
"I'm tired of this, so I'm just going to tell you as honestly as I can," she whispered, speaking so quietly that he was certain only he could hear her. "Ella thinks fear is a weakness, so she hides it with anger. And because she's very afraid of you, specifically, you've seen nothing but cruelty."
He processed that blankly for a few seconds, then tilted his head, ears bobbing a little.
"So?" he asked, speaking quietly as well. "That alone doesn't justify her actions."
"Indeed," she sighed, giving him an earnest expression, "but, I finally managed to talk some real sense into her yesterday. I finally got through to her with how unpleasant your current situation is, and because of that, I can assure you, she's genuinely sorry for everything she's done."
Anger flared up inside him before it faded into a sickening hollow sensation.
If anyone else had said that, he'd have brushed it off, but Amelia was bizarrely honest.
"Why would she be sorry for anything?" he demanded, looking at the distant sky. "You and I both know that she hates me with every fiber of her being. If she didn't, she wouldn't look at me the way she does. Like I'm... something worthless, something... filthy."
The word rolled off his tongue like a bitter musing.
"That's not true," Amelia protested, faltering when he looked at her flatly. "She... um..."
"I appreciate you trying to help," he said with a deflated feeling, "but after seeing what she did to me with your own eyes, how can you expect me to believe that she's sorry for it?"
"Because she is!" Amelia weakly protested. "She really is, Phil!"
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"Forget the fact that she whipped me until I nearly bled to death and then locked me in a cage the size of a closet for two weeks," he muttered, refusing to acknowledge her claim. "Even now, she looks at me like I'm vile... like she hates every fiber of my being. She's not sorry."
"That's not true," Amelia countered, looking more than a little depressed by his denials. "She's apologized several times. Doesn't that matter?"
"No, because she didn't mean any of them," Xaphile muttered. "If you had seen the expression on her face when she'd said it, you'd understand why I'm telling you this."
Amelia bit her lip, because no matter how much she wanted to deny it, she hadn't been there, so she couldn't say he was right or wrong.
"Phil, please," she eventually murmured. "I want you to talk with Ella. Just the two of you.
"What? You can't be serious..."
"I am," she shot back. "I want you to go out into the woods and just... talk with her. Things will flow more honestly after the conversation I had with her yesterday, believe me. She has a better idea about your situation and has begun to think about things she never considered. I'm sure she now has a lot she wants to get off her chest... so just talk to her. For real, this time."
He almost opened his mouth to retort a definite 'NO!' but he couldn't ignore the look in her eyes.
Those crystal blue irises were shimmering with too much anxiety and worry.
He felt depressed more by the fact that he was giving in than the fact that he had to talk to Ella.
"Fine," he sighed, closing his eyes. "If that's what you truly want... fine, I'll try."
"I'm not attempting to force you," she quietly told him, pushing her glasses up her nose. "I'm just worried, that's all. Things can't stay like this. We mustn't fight amongst ourselves."
He responded by giving her a simple nod.
"All right," he muttered, rolling his shoulders and shaking his long hair out. "I'll talk to her."
"Thank you," Amelia breathed, looking relieved. "I really do appreciate this."
Much to her surprise, though, he abruptly flicked his reigns and rode on ahead, long tail curling around the saddle as his mount sidled up next to Ella's. Leaning over, he tapped her arm, observing how she jumped and gave him a startled expression.
"Do you need something?" she sourly demanded. "What are you doing?"
He bit back his irritation and sighed, "do you have a moment?"
"Huh?" she snorted, giving him a scowl. "What do you mean?"
"Do you have a moment?" he repeated, quirking an eyebrow. "I want to talk with you. Alone."
One second she was staring at him with an sour, distinctly irritated scowl... the next, she looked almost like she was afraid he'd bite her head off. She hastily hid her face within her hood, taking on a very rigid posture.
"What do you wish to discuss?" she carefully inquired, voice wavering slightly. "If I may ask."
He didn't understand her reaction.
It was weird.
"I simply want to talk to you," he explained, choosing to ignore her odd wince. "So, if you'll come with me, let's take this opportunity to give the horses and the others a break."
"All right," Ella mumbled, dragging her horse to a halt and turning around; Gus and Amelia stared at her when she took her hood off. "We'll be stopping here for lunch. Feel free to dismount and let the horses graze. I have something I must discuss with Phil."
"Wonderful," Gus chuckled, eyes flashing with relief. "Don't take too long, you hear?"
Ella didn't respond, merely dismounted and tugged her hood on again when Xaphile did the same. For a long moment, he stood there, frowning at her... but then, he headed into the forest and she followed him without a word.
The two of them walked in silence, surrounded by the sound of birds, until they made it to a small clearing. It was there that Xaphile stopped so abruptly that she actually jumped.
Turning his head, he looked down at her, suppressing his frustration.
"What do you want to say?" he quietly demanded. "Tell me. No matter what I feel because of it, I will listen to every word you speak."
She started violently and gave him a stunned expression.
Then, for some reason, her eyes shifted in an oddly hesitant manner.
"The two of us have been at each other's throats," she grumbled, clenching her fists. "I... I have acted... horribly. Nothing I say can ever change what I've done to you."
"Then why are you speaking to me?" Xaphile softly inquired. "Why do you even care? Knowing it?"
She didn't respond to the question, so he sighed and turned away from her, glaring at the bushes.
"If that's all you wanted to say, let's go back now," he murmured, giving a quiet laugh that sounded devoid of real humor. "It turned out just like I thought it would."
"I'm not finished!" Ella snapped, clenching her fists when he stilled and once again turned his sharp eyes on her. "I just... I can't find the right words to express myself. No matter how many times I apologize, I won't... ever feel like it will amount to anything. I can't express how deeply I'm feeling about this with words alone."
"Then what do you want?" he growled, hackles rising. "If you have nothing to say but forced and ingenuine apologies, go fuck yourself. I don't want them."
"If I didn't mean what I was saying," Ella hissed in a low voice, "I wouldn't say anything at all."
"I don't believe you," Xaphile shot back coldly. "The last few times you've apologized, you didn't mean them, so as far as I can tell, you're not trustworthy."
That was it.
Stalking forward, she looked up at him with angry eyes... and he looked down at her, expecting nothing but yet another shred of proof that she was a terrible human being.
She was going to hit him.
He knew she was.
She had the same look on her face that his father had always given him right before going off.
He flinched when she abruptly lunged, but instead of a blow, he felt her wrapping her arms around his middle. Clutching the back of his shirt, she hugged him as tightly as she could, squeezing her eyes shut.
Xaphile became still in an instant underneath her touch.
She didn't move.
Merely held on.
"I am very, very, very sorry for what I did to you," she hissed. "I know nothing I do or say can ever take it back. I messed up so badly that it left you with scars, and even after I found out that I'd messed up, I continuously drove you into a corner. I can't explain how sorry I am because it goes beyond what words can express. All I can do now is say I'm sorry... and I hate myself for it."
Xaphile's body quivered for a few moments before he roughly gripped her shoulders.
His long nails dug into her skin when he tried to force her off of him, but she refused.
"Let go... now!" he snarled, struggling to drag her arms off of his body. "Liar! Don't act like you regret what you've done, and don't touch me so familiarly... get OFF!"
"I won't!" she snapped, tightening her hold. "I won't let go until you know what I'm saying is the truth!"
"Let go of me," he spat, speaking in a seething tone. "WHY DO YOU KEEP TORMENTING ME?!"
"I'M NOT TRYING TO ANYMORE, YOU BLASTED IDIOT!" Ella screeched back, squeezing his torso. "EVER SINCE I REALIZED WHAT YOU WERE, I'VE ONLY BEEN TRYING TO FIND A WAY TO JUSTIFY MY OWN ACTIONS!"
"THEN WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!" he roared, voice causing birds everywhere to take flight. "ANSWER ME!"
"Because I can't!" she croaked, making him twitch. "I realized it several days ago! I can't justify them, because everything I did to you was wrong! You were suffering from the loss of someone who was so dear to you that her death completely broke you! And I, without knowing anything... without giving you a chance to explain yourself... I jumped to conclusions and added to that pain, horrifically!"
"If that's the case, you would know that just being near you is a reminder of everything I've lost," he angrily retorted, tail slashing through the air. "So let go! LET GO OF ME AND STAY AWAY FROM ME!"
"I WON'T!" she spat back, clenching his shirt. "I WON'T LET GO UNTIL YOU KNOW ME WELL ENOUGH TO STOP COMPARING ME TO HER! I'M NOT PERFECT LIKE SHE WAS, BUT I'M NOT AS COLD AND HEARTLESS AS YOU THINK I AM! I WANT YOU TO KNOW ME LIKE YOU KNEW HER!"
His whole body went numb
Hs sharp nails dug even deeper... but then, he abruptly let go of her and his body went limp beneath her arms.
After a moment, she hesitantly opened her eyes and looked up at him, but instead of trying to acknowledge it, he kept his head tilted back, looking straight up at the sky.
"Why?" he eventually croaked. "Why would you say the one thing... my heart can't take?"
He looked down at her, begging for an answer, everything inside him demanding one.
Her eyes glinted and she averted her gaze, refusing to look at him any longer.
"I'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely. "I... I... really don't even know why that slipped out of my mouth. I don't. It came out before I could stop it."
He merely looked at her.
"Remove your hands from me. Now."
"No. I won't let go."
"Let. Me. go," he commanded, face beginning to contort. "I can't take any more of this. I would rather die again than hear anything more come out of your mouth."
Ella's eyes flashed with barely-hidden fury, and before he could blink, she jerked back and slapped him across the mouth.
His eyes went blank when his head snapped to the side. Slowly lifting a hand, he touched his stinging face before looking down at her again.
"Stop RUNNING!" she screamed, glaring with frigid eyes. "FACE LIFE! DON'T RUN FROM IT!"
"Why?" he demanded, giving her a glare. "I'm already dead."
Her eyes sharpened in an instant and she gripped his shoulders, mouth pulling into a snarl.
"Halt your foolish talk!" she barked. "You're alive right now! You're breathing! Do you feel my hands on you?!"
"I do, and I get where you're coming from, but... think about it," he croaked, shivering violently in the face of her stark rationality. "This is... this is all impossible, right?"
"Yes," Ella fiercely retorted, fingers tightening in his shirt. "It's completely impossible, yet somehow, it happened to you! This is real! YOU are real! Dead in your world or not, you are ALIVE in MY plane of existence! If you get hurt, you'll start bleeding for real; if something happens and you die again, you will probably stay dead! So, do not give into your weakness!"
"It's too late for that!" he cried, trying to shrug her hands away from him. "I have never once been strong! I'm not like you! I'm not some powerful warrior! I'm not a fighter!"
She shoved him violently to the ground and he landed hard on his back.
His tail smarted for a moment, but he had no time to focus on the pain since she straddled his waist and pinned him against the ground, and when he looked up, her eyes were literally right there, gleaming like pink blades, and just as sharp and intense.
For a long moment, they merely stared at each other, but then, her cold expression shifted into something else... something unfamiliar.
"You are not... alone," she said lowly, eyes glinting with an unfathomable expression. "Do not act like you are alone anymore. You have others who will lift you when you are down... those who will support you when you are weak, and who will walk with you through adversity. Do not insult them by threatening to take your own life, for they are the ones who make you strong."
"That's not true at all!" he spat, feeling something within him cracking right down the middle. "Nobody on this plane of existence even knows who the fuck I am!"
"We know you!" Ella snapped. "Amelia cares for you! Gus cares for you! Lean on them!"
"I can't," he retorted, eyes starting to sting as he stared at her. "After Ella died, I stumbled through life one day at a time, trying to keep my balance... trying not to fall... because I knew, deep down, that if I did... nobody would be there to help me up again. I've fallen before, so many times, but nobody was ever there when I needed them. Aside from her, not one person!"
"You stood your ground, though!" she shouted, glaring at him. "Stand your ground again!"
"HOW?!" he finally cried, making her flinch back a bit. "How the hell are you supposed to stand your ground if everyone wants to bury you beneath it?! I'm not strong like you! I couldn't even protect the girl I loved! Despite everything I did, it wasn't enough!"
His voice broke on the last word and he clenched his teeth.
He raised his hand and covered his eyes with the back of it, mouth trembling as he fought it back. He could feel it happening. It was coming. And he could do nothing to stop it. All the feelings he'd been holding back... the loss... the agony... the fear... it began to break free.
All over again.
"I wasn't enough," he whispered weakly, voice coming out as nothing more than a watery breath. "I wasn't enough... not by a long shot. If anything, I'm actually what got her killed.
Ella's eye twitched when she saw the first tear slide out from behind his hand and down into his dark hair. As he lay there beneath her, more tears trickled down across his cheeks, leaving trails of glistening pain across his skin.
When he finally lifted his hand and looked at her again, his feelings had been laid bare.
"I'm not strong," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "All I do is pretend that I am. If I was strong, I could have saved her.... if I was strong, I could have dealt with the pain instead of trying to escape from it... if I was strong, I could have picked up the pieces of my heart and tried to move forward. But I couldn't. I couldn't do any of those things. And in the end, it was my stupid concert tickets that got her killed."
"Even if it was your fault, isn't that more of an incentive to keep living?!" Ella demanded, staring at him with a highly disturbed expression. "Don't disrespect the memory of the woman you loved, moron! You have to be strong! Live for her!"
"How?" he whispered, yearning for an answer. "I'm lost without her. I really am. I gave her my heart, and she took it with her when she died. She... she was my everything."
Ella's eyes remained glued to his face for the longest time. She watched the tears that dripped off his dark lashes and down across his elfish ears. Tail lying limp off to the right side of his body, he continued to look up at her, waiting for an answer.
It was then that she blinked.
"How, you ask?" she asked, giving him a sharp expression. "I wish to show you my sincerity. I will show you that I am not lying to you about the regret I feel for my actions. Then, once I know I am forgiven, I will make you trust me."
"What?" he croaked, not understanding her reasoning. "How does... that... I don't get it."
When he tried to turn his head away, she grabbed his left horn and forced him to look at her.
"As long as you are near me, Xaphile Heseroph, it does not matter if you are weak," she said firmly, giving him a very steady expression, "because I am strong enough to lift you when you fall."
His whole body jolted.
Mouth trembling, he shook his head and his bangs fell across his eyes, hiding her face from view.
A strange, maniacal smile involuntarily broke out across his lips and he let out a tearful chuckle.
"Why?" he asked, breaking down into breathless sobs. "Why? You hate me, right? I'm a monster... I'm weak and ugly... just like you said. I have horns and a tail, and I'm not human, I'm gross... a sorry excuse for a man."
"Must I show you?!" Ella snapped, giving him a glare. "Must I show you my sincerity?!"
"And how will you do that?"
Lifting her hands, she set them against his cheeks, and for the longest time she merely stared at him intensely. He could see wheels turning in her eyes, but when more tears trickled out from under his dark hair and across his pale skin, Ella brushed a few of them away with her thumbs.
Then, she leaned down and forcibly crushed her lips against his own, sending an electric shock throughout his entire body and making his mind go utterly blank.
His throat quivered and his heart began to palpitate to the point where the irregular beat thundered in his ears as he lay there, frozen in place. The tears that had welled up trickled out, but aside from that, no more of them sprang free from his eyes.
He clutched her shoulders when his brain finally reconnected, struggling to push her off, but instead of letting go, she snatched his left wrist and pinned it against the grass; he tried to turn his head, but she grasped his long black hair, locking him in place. He struggled against her a bit more firmly, but she merely tightened her fists, forcibly pressing her face to his.
Keeping him from moving.
His heart continued to go nuts, a myriad of painful emotions sweeping through him.
Confusion, shock, outrage...
But all of it was wiped clean when a strange flash of heat seared through his lungs.
He coughed against her mouth when a strange glowing blue aura surrounded his body, muscles tensing as a strange sensation began to travel up his throat.
He couldn't stop her... his mind had gone numb, so her lips moved with no trouble against his, shaping to them in perfect rhythm.
That is, until a strange light erupted from his throat and exploded down her own.
Ella choked and jerked back, gasping in shock and alarm as the strange luminescence roared into her body. She clutched her throat, staring at him in horror.
He was in agony, convulsing beneath her as whatever magic he'd conjured roared out of his maw uncontrollably. The horrific part was that it was all seemingly being sucked into her lungs.
Ella coughed and struggled to breathe, planting both hands on either side of his head, struggling to wait it out.
As quickly as it had happened, it was over.
The light vanished inside her and his heart violently skipped three beats in a row before everything within his body returned to normal. Panting, she stared down at him with accusing eyes, but when he finally turned, he glared at her with venom.
His tears had stopped, but he was stunned and angry.
"You... y-you!" he spluttered, face heating up. "You... how dare..."
Before he could finish, she purposely crushed her lips against his a second time, glaring daggers that clearly warned him to shut up. He shivered violently beneath her steely gaze. When she finally pulled away again and tossed her hair, he looked up at her, face bright red.
"To parrot a phrase... I dare quite frequently," Ella said firmly, gripping his shirt and leaning close to his face, "and right now, despite whatever you just did to me, I'm making another one right now."
"W-w-w-w-what the fuck are you talking about?!" he squeaked, blinking at her with a genuinely frazzled expression. "Get off me!"
"No," Ella retorted, gripping his horn with a firm gaze, "because that was my first kiss. The fact that I just gave it to you, of all people, is the proof that I am sincere. Now, from this point on... prepare yourself."
"F-for what?" he whispered, giving her a wary expression. "D-don't you get any weird ideas..."
She smirked, raising her silver eyebrows before leaning down close to his long ear.
"You no longer have the decision to end your life, Xaphile Heseroph," she whispered with a determined expression. "This is no longer about the fate of the southern forests... this isn't even about you finding true happiness. As of this moment... its about what I want."
"And what do you want?" he growled into her ear, making her smirk again.
"Do you really want to know?" she chuckled darkly, reveling in the way he shivered. "Hmm?"
"Just say it!"
"Fine," she said, pulling away and giving him a predatory grin. "Simply put, I want you to keep living. You need to promise me that you'll at the very least attempt to move forward... in a normal fashion."
His jaw dropped, flaming face darkening with horrified fury.
Neck bulging, he could barely choke any words out.
"And WHAT exactly makes you think I owe you?!" he finally squawked, feeling like he would blow a blood vessel at any possible moment. "What the actual fuck is WRONG with you?!"
"Nothing, aaand, nothing," she sweetly retorted, batting her lashes before she gripped his horns and straddled him more securely. "I'm not saying this because you owe me, I'm saying this because I always... get... what I want."
The words were threatening, but something within her eyes had changed, he suddenly noticed.
Instead of the hateful, mistrusting sneer or the glare that always somehow seemed to avoid looking directly into his eyes... there was a cocky smirk and a gleam in her eyes that vaguely reminded him of a tigress in a playful mood.
She was actually meeting his gaze, eye for eye, without any hesitation whatsoever.
He looked up at her for a long moment, too dazed to comprehend what was happening... what had already happened.
I really don't get her, he silently droned, feeling completely out of it. She's totally nuts.
"So, do we have a deal?" Ella demanded, leaning close with sharp pink eyes. "Well?"
His lips curled... but then, he gave in, if only because it would get her off of him.
"FINE!" he barked, turning his head away. "Whatever you say! Now get the hell off me!"
"Good," she muttered, obediently scooting off of his chest and standing up. "Glad we see eye to eye. Now, let's return to camp."
Rolling to his feet, he turned and dizzily attempted to stumble back towards the horses.
The scariest part, however, was Ella... because when she followed him, he could feel her eyes on his back. Considering what she'd just done to him... he knew she was crazy enough to try doing more.
And he REALLY didn't want that.
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