Chapter Seventy-Eight: My Nephew's Keeper
Xaphile was having extremely bad luck.
After only five minutes of walking, he'd gotten his tail caught on a fallen tree branch, bent one of his new wings the wrong way trying to get it out, and had actually fallen on his ass. Only to land hard on a particularly sharp rock.
"Fuck my life," he muttered, grumbling and rubbing his smarting rear as he trudged through the forest looking for signs of life. "Why can't anything ever be easy?"
That was a rhetorical question since he knew why, but still.
Xaphile sighed, rubbing his paint-smeared face in dismay, but just as he was about to steel his resolve and really start looking for other people, he heard a rustling noise behind him.
When he turned around, he found himself looking at Ella.
She was standing a good ten feet away, completely dressed with her hair soaking wet, but she said nothing.
"Are you all right?" he called, blinking when he garnered no response. "I thought you were heading off to take a bath."
No response.
Ella slowly began to back away, but Xaphile frowned when she lifted her trembling arm and jerkily beckoned for him to follow and headed back into the woods. Figuring something was up, he trotted after her, long ears flicking higher in curiosity.
She moved quickly and steadily, but whenever he tried to jog up, she walked faster to keep herself a good distance ahead him.
The odd behavior bugged him a little.
"Where are we headed?" he called. "Is something up?"
Once again, she didn't respond.
Xaphile followed her through the forest, feeling increasingly disturbed, but just as he was about to stop following Ella stopped in the middle of a clearing and slowly turned around, facing him.
As he drew closer, he noticed that her irises were strangely lifeless-looking and a flash of worry involuntarily swept through him.
"Hey," he muttered, stopping in front of her, "what's wrong? Seriously, are you all right?"
She didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't even twitch.
Unease swept through him and he gently gripped her shoulders, shaking her a bit, but while her head lolled back and forth, there was no change in her expression.
Almost... like a doll.
"Ella, answer me!" he snapped, tightening his grip. "Are you all right?"
"...un..."
He blinked at the odd sound she made, narrowing his eyes at her face.
Her expression was still slack, but for some reason, her lips were trembling a little.
Something strange was going on.
"What?" he whispered, looking at the strange haze in her eyes. "Ella... what's wrong?"
"R... u... n..."
The slowly whispered syllables made his blood turn to ice, and a strange prickle ran down his spine when an unusually cold wind swept through the clearing.
"So, you really came," a deep voice purred, making him jump. "I'm surprised."
When he turned around, the world went silent in his ears.
Xaphile's shoulders tensed as he stared at the hulking man before him, stupidly taking in his features.
That proud, eagle nose... those thin lips... those fierce blue-green eyes...
His hair abruptly stood on end and his tail fluffed out as the frigidity of an emotional shock swept through him.
"P-Papka?" he squeaked, mouth trembling violently.
The one before him was, without a doubt, his father.
Only, he had hair.
Instead of the familiar clean-shaven face and head, his father had curly jet black hair and wild sideburns. Not to mention, he was also a faery with horns, the tail, and large ebony wings that looked exactly like his own.
Xaphile watched as he approached, feeling a mixture of cold shock and strange relief.
"What did you call me?" his father's doppelganger casually questioned. "Papka?"
"I was told you were dead!" Xaphile interrupted, shaking his head. "The Grand Mother... she said that my little brother and I were the last! She said that you were dead! Even Ella and Gus said you were dead! It doesn't make sense! Does this mean they actually lied to everyone?!"
Olag's eyes narrowed, then something within them sparked and a slow smile spread across his lips.
"So, you figured it out, did you?" he questioned, spreading his arms. "Come here, my son. It has been a long time since I've seen you. I would embrace you."
Xaphile froze, not believing his ears, and as a cold shiver ran through him, he took a step back, regarding the man with mistrust.
"Embrace... me?" he asked, swallowing. "You're... you're not going to hit me, are you?"
A strange expression swept across his dad's face.
"Hit you?" he inquired, tilting his head. "Now, why would you ask something like that?"
Xaphile's mouth snapped shut and he winced.
Maybe his father on Atlas was different than the one on Earth?
Maybe... his dad on this world didn't hate him?
An unbelievable amount of hope and odd yearning filled him at the thought and slowly, ever so slowly, he began to walk forward. Shoulders hunched up to his ears, he took one step at a time until he was standing directly in front his father's hulking figure. His heart flinched when he was roughly jerked forward, but instead of being harmed, he was pulled into a casual one-armed embrace.
A strong hand patted his back, emanating unfamiliar warmth, and that heat broke him a little.
Not once since his mother's passing... not even once had his father ever hugged him.
A flood filled his eyes and he lunged forward, clinging to his father with shaking arms.
"Papka..." he croaked, shivering. "You're really alive!"
"Of course I'm alive," Olag snorted, "but first, I need to know the truth. Are you really my son? I was informed that you have somehow become human."
Xaphile felt his heart sink.
Letting go and taking a step back, he lifted his eyes and met his father's gaze clearly.
"Yes, and no," he said slowly. "I am Xaphile, but whether or not I'm the same one you knew, I'm not exactly sure."
"You're not sure? Why?"
"Well, its because I used to be human. I... I think I came here from another world."
His father's eyes narrowed.
"Another world, you say," he muttered. "Tell me, what led to you being here?"
"I... I died," Xaphile weakly explained, "but instead of staying dead, I somehow woke up the way I am right now. I don't really know why."
"And how did you die?"
Xaphile lowered his head.
"I killed myself," he weakly admitted. "After the girl I loved passed away, I had nobody to rely on, and there was nothing left for me to care about. So, I gave up."
There was silence for a moment.
"If you've already given up once, why did you bother coming?"
The harshness in his father's voice made him flinch but the question was a good one.
He didn't really know how to answer it until he remembered that he had a little brother, because that reality alone was his motivation to move forward.
"In the beginning, it was to fix a mistake I made," he mumbled, then took a deep breath and lifted his eyes. "I didn't have any reason aside from that, and if I'm going to be totally honest, until Zelphira's announcement, I was struggling badly to find meaning in life."
"What happened during her announcement?"
The question was abrupt and very dark.
"I found out that on Atlas, I have a little brother," he explained, taking a deep breath. "Back on earth, my mother died trying to give birth to him. Neither one of them survived it. But on Atlas, my little brother is alive... but he was captured by someone."
"And you want us to teach you our ways so you can properly rescue him."
It wasn't a question.
"Whether I'm taught or not has nothing to do with it," Xaphile instantly corrected. "Even without the knowledge of who I am, or even how to properly control my body, I would go looking for him. I may not have actually met him the way I am now, but---"
"I've heard enough," Olag growled. "The lie you're weaving disgusts me."
Xaphile blinked when he casually lifted his left arm and held it to the sky, fist closed.
Rapid footsteps filled the air behind him.
Not even a second later, an agonizing ripping sensation smashed into his spine, right in the small of his back.
Xaphile's eyes went round as the force of the unexpected blow knocked him off his feet. He somehow managed keep his footing and hopscotched forward, but there was a heavy pressure blooming behind him.
After he caught his balance, he slowly and very shakily managed to glance up at his dad: eyes wide and blank, he slowly turned to stare over his shoulder.
He had forgotten she was there.
With the shock of meeting his father, he had totally forgotten that something strange had been going on with her, too.
Ella's pale pink eyes were still void of any expression and they had no sheen whatsoever, but now, tears were running nonstop down her ashen cheeks.
Flooding her chin and neck, staining her shirt with saline, she was crying without a sound.
Without a single change in her expression.
"Ella?" he wheezed. "What... are you... doing?"
Not saying a word, she jerked something out of his back as hard as she could and the force of the retraction spun him in a circle, sending him sprawling onto the dirt.
Xaphile let out a single scream before he stopped, unable to breathe right, and when he glanced up, his hazed mind registered what she was holding.
A dagger.
She'd just stabbed him.
And she was coming again.
He rolled out of the way when she lunged at him and her blades buried in the ground where his face had just been.
Wheezing, he stood up and
Through a fog of intense agony, he watched as she flew towards him a third time.
"What are you doing?!" he choked, dodging a few of her swipes. "Ella, stop!"
But she didn't stop.
Wouldn't stop.
She came at him like a woman gone mad from every direction.
When she threw one of her daggers at him, Xaphile practically broke his own spine in an effort to bend backwards: the deadly weapon sliced through the air just above his chin, making him tremble with terror. Eyes large, Xaphile continued ducking and dodging, heart thumping rapidly against his chest.
He had no choice but to keep moving since he just barely managed to avoid her attacks each time.
After getting a dose of her speed for himself, though, he understood why so many people were afraid of her. Ella was a very dangerous girl. One wrong move, and he would end up dead, he had no doubt about it.
She swung her daggers again and again, swiping at his body without mercy, but each time he slid out of the way, somehow escaping unharmed. He kept his eyes trained on her as she continued the onslaught, staring straight at the tears washing heavily down her cheeks and dripping off of her chin with every move she made.
Then he noticed her eyes.
While it was true that they were oddly lifeless, there was something glimmering within them that made his gut clench.
In that moment, he knew... he knew for a fact that she wasn't doing this on purpose. He could see it in her eyes that this was hurting her even more than it was hurting him.
She looked like she was breaking.
Like her heart was being crushed.
"Ella!" he bellowed, baring his fangs as he continued dodging her attacks. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but if you don' t stop, I'll have no choice but to fight back and disarm you!"
She didn't respond.
Merely kept attacking.
He had no other choice.
After memorizing her attack pattern, he took a battle-ready judo stance and finally waited for her to come again.
When she swiped at him, instead of dodging like he'd been doing, he brought his hands up and caught her wrist, then turned and threw her light frame over his shoulder. Snarling, he slammed her into the dirt, then dragged the dagger out of her hands and chucked it to the side.
When she tried to scramble for it, however, he lunged atop her.
"Will you just stop it already?!" Xaphile finally screamed, struggling to hold her down. "I have no clue what's gotten into you, but you need to snap the fuck out of it!"
She didn't cease her struggles.
Face screwing up with fear and anxiety, Xaphile did the only thing he could.
Lifting his hand and angling his fingers, he chopped her shoulder with accurate precision.
She instantly wheezed and fell still, head thumping against the ground. He waited for a few seconds, then checked her pulse and sighed, going limp himself.
Aching and burning, he slid off of her and rolled her over, but she was definitely unconscious.
For several moments, Xaphile knelt there, then he lifted his hand and touched his back before staring at his fingers.
They were covered in blood.
"So, you killed her," Olag grimly chuckled. "Human to the very end, it would seem."
"Excuse me?" Xaphile choked, looking at him in stunned disbelief. "I didn't kill her."
"Oh?" his father sneered. "Then why does she lie so still?"
"Because I knocked her unconscious," Xaphile squeaked, hackles rising. "Speaking of which, what the hell is going on here?! You didn't bat an eyelash! And this isn't normal for her!"
"She was doing my bidding," Olag explained, making him draw back. "That girl was completely under my control. It's a pity she didn't finish the job I gave her. Now it seems I'll have to break my promise to my idiot sister and erase you from this world myself."
Xaphile's heart went cold and he felt a horrible sensation sweep through it as he looked at Olag's smirk with a blank expression.
"Erase... me?" he asked, not understanding. "Why?"
"Your existence in this world was a mistake, and it's my job to make sure it's corrected."
Those words destroyed him.
He stood there in shocked pain, heart cracking as he was thrown back to the moment he'd first heard those same words.
He could see the glass patio doors... could see his father's expression.
"Shut up, Xaphile. You vere a mistake."
The hatred he'd seen then was once again rearing its ugly head in the same manner and it crushed all feeling out of him.
When Olag lifted his arms, the whites of his eyes turned black and high above them, the sky rapidly darkened. Xaphile glanced up, watching as a wall of clouds swept across the heavens in a black wave.
A raindrop hit his nose, then another, and another, and soon, it was raining so hard he could barely see.
"I guess you aren't different at all," he croaked. "You're the same as you always were."
"Silence, imposter," Olag hissed. "Just lie down and DIE!"
Plant life suddenly exploded out of the ground, crisscrossing around his body so violently that the ensuing gust kicked the rain out around his drenched form.
Xaphile bent low on his knees in preparation for an attack when the rain around the winged man froze and hovered in place.
Then, with an arcane flourish, those frozen beads came flying right at him.
Xaphile yelped and turned his head away to shield his face from the onslaught, but then he saw the man's claws swiping at his throat and lunged out of the way.
It quickly became apparent that Olag was trying to kill him, for the man was striking would-be lethal blows. The attacks were only avoided thanks to Xaphile's quick intuition and power of observation.
Olag was fast, though, and he was wounded, so hardly a minute passed before he was sweating.
The earth beneath him kept shifting and writhing, as if alive, but he thought nothing of it until two vines wrapped around his legs and ensnared him, keeping him from moving.
He looked up just in time to see Olag's fist coming at him.
The crack of his jaw resounded through the forest so loudly that he momentarily wondered if his lower mouth was still attached.
"OW!" he roared, tears stinging his eyes. "FUCK!"
He barely registered that Olag had leapt into the air, but when he did he instinctively covered his head and rolled out of the way. The muddy earth was slashed by his father's claws.
Xaphile watched with huge eyes as he rose back to his feet, using one of his vines to tear a young tree clean out of the ground.
"You know what?" Olag sneered, growling with a vein bulging in his forehead. "I tried to kill you quickly to keep you from suffering, but you're being a real nuisance. Just die already!"
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Xaphile yelped, propelling himself into backhand spring and cartwheeling off to the side in order to keep the massive trunk from flattening him. "Stop it!"
After it crashed past, he saw too late that Olag was charging at him yet again.
Before he could fully get upright, a massive arm slammed into his gut and he went stumbling backwards. With a savage snarl, his father slammed him into the muddy ground on his back.
Choking, coughing, Xaphile struggled to crawl back to his feet, but Olag stomped on his chest.
"Don't get up," he growled. "Just lie down and sleep."
Xaphile stared at him.
And as he did, all he could do was wonder why this asshole had even married his mother.
"You never should have had children," he hissed, glaring at him with hatred in his eyes. "Do you want to know the real reason I killed myself?"
Olag's angry face shifted to a somewhat perplexed one.
"The real reason?" he snorted. "Are you trying to say you lied?"
"No, I didn't lie. I just left out the most important part since I didn't know if you were the same kind of person," Xaphile sneered. "Now that I know there's no reason to hold back, I can be honest."
"Do tell. I'm intrigued."
The sarcasm was heavy.
"In all actuality, the biggest reason I killed myself back on earth was because of you," Xaphile said coldly, narrowing his eyes when Olag stared at him blankly. "Every single day of my life, I saw what the death of my mother did to you. I saw the kind of monster you became."
"Monster? What do you mean, mo--"
"Shut up! I'm not finished," Xaphile malevolently spat. "I endured everything you did to me in silence. I never felt like my life would amount to anything because you always said it was worthless. But the biggest reason I killed myself wasn't because your words affected me so badly."
"If that's the case, what was it?"
"It was because I finally understood you after the girl I loved died," Xaphile angrily explained. "And that... that scared me more than anything. I didn't want to become the person you did."
Olag scowled.
"Your father wasn't like that," he hissed. "How dare you speak ill of him."
He couldn't deny that the response was an odd one.
Why had Olag referred to himself in third person?
"Look in a mirror sometime," Xaphile calmly retorted. "You're exactly like that. I'm not daring to do anything, I'm just saying it how it really is. You were a monster back on Earth."
"I'm not your father, you dumb ox," he snapped. "You call yourself his son, but you can't even recognize that I'm not him!"
"Eh?! Then who are you?!"
"I'm your father's brother!"
Xaphile's eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock.
"You're my... my uncle?" he whispered blankly. "You... you're not my dad?!"
"Fool. As if such a thing matters when you're about to die. Just lie still and sleep."
The realization that he'd been lied to triggered something within him. He didn't know what it was, only that it made him unbelievably angry. His heart skipped a sickening beat, and without warning, his vision blurred and something evil awakened inside him.
The forests seemed to zoom forward in a dizzying fashion and his ears started ringing.
His body was slowly turning to stone, felt as cold as ice, and for a long moment, he couldn't even gather himself to say anything. Then, a single word began to take shape inside his heart, building up until it was unwillingly ripped out of his mouth.
"Why...?" he whispered, staring at nothing as the agonizing pain of this betrayal began to turn into rage. "I don't understand... why are you doing this to me?!"
His heart thundered in his ears, working faster to tolerate the surge of strange sensations that had ignited inside him.
The one who'd pretended to be his father jumped and leapt away, watching with wary eyes as the rain falling around his body suddenly halted and began to gather in midair.
The floating droplets drifted away from him as if the gravity around his shivering form had vanished.
"What are you doing?" Vordt barked, shadowy eyes jolting open wide. "You... I was told you couldn't use magic!"
"Why?" Xaphile asked again, a little more loudly. "You're not my father... so why do you hate me enough to want to kill me? I never did anything to deserve it. You had no right."
"I had every right," Vordt spat. "I am your guardian by law! Your keeper!"
Xaphile's heart seized and rage unlike any he'd ever felt bubbled up his throat like acid.
Slowly rising to his feet, he stood in place, breathing heavily. The floating water droplets hovering around his body floated away from him as he rebelled against his feelings, and tendrils of his soaked black hair were swept up by the strange aura around him, weightlessly drifting up towards the sky.
"You had no right," he whispered, voice quivering violently. "We're still family. No matter how you felt about me, doing this was unforgivable, and you had absolutely no right."
"I HAD EVERY RIGHT!" his uncle roared. "YOUR LIFE IS MINE TO DO WITH AS I WISH!"
"SHUT UP!" Xaphile roared back, flinging his head up. "MY LIFE IS MY OWN! YOU DON'T OWN ME, AND IF YOU WANT TO KILL ME, GO AHEAD AND TRY! I FUCKING DARE YOU!"
He had to get it out of him.
It would consume him if he didn't.
The feelings within him needed to be let loose.
He only knew one way.
Lifting his arms, he clamped both hands to his head and drew in a ragged, shaking breath.
And screamed in fury.
When he let it loose, it came out as a screeching howl that didn't sound even close to human.
Something within his soul snapped as he howled out the anger and agony coursing through him.
Once he ran out of air, he took a deep breath and screamed again.
"What are you doing?" Vordt gasped, backing away in shock. "A mortal shouldn't know how to do this! It's impossible!"
"SHUT UP!" Xaphile screamed, flinging his arms into the air, fists to the storming sky. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! I'M FED UP WITH EVERYTHING! FROM START TO FINISH, I'M FED THE FUCK UP! I'M DONE!"
He heavee for air and let out a third scream of anger.
It echoed out across the forests, reverberating against the trees, ripping through the ground, and rebounding off of the world's plants, making all of them vibrate with the power of it. His uncle staggered backwards and clamped his hands over his sensitive ears with a hiss.
Xaphile took a deep breath, fists going tighter as the strange haze completely engulfed his mind.
Then he screamed again: long, piercing, otherworldly - the sound avalanched through the air and the power of it somehow ripped the sky above him.
Darkness began to gather all around, the sheer power of his scream taking the very light away and pulling it towards him.
High above, the weather began to go nuts.
Lightning flashed in every direction, causing an endless amount of thunder to roll through the silver rain forests, coalescing into a continuous fury and mixing with his screaming, becoming apart of it.
His fifth scream went beyond sound to something else entirely.
When it left his mouth, the earth cracked open in ferocious, jagged tears and shafts of blue light shot toward the sky from the chasms in the forest floor. The curtains of light vibrated, danced, and with gathering speed were sucked into the aura around his body.
Then, it was over.
A jolt of power rattled the air around his body, and the ferocity of the concussion tore the darkness away, returning light to the world.
When Xaphile finally stopped screaming and lowered his arms, his eyes were obscured with a black haze and strands of soaked hair. But then, for some unfathomable reason, the ebony strands began to turn white right before his eyes as a strange ripple bleached them from the roots down.
His uncle's eyes widened and returned to their normal color with a jolt as the bizarre shift in his appearance stretched to his mane and tail.
Xaphile touched his white hair, then let it slide through his hands, since he didn't care.
It seemed like forever before his mind started up again, but when it did, his emotions had formed into a solid bar of hatred that held one word.
Hate.
Ice radiated from his body and froze the ground completely solid.
"What is your name?" Xaphile growled, looking straight at his uncle with a murderous gaze.
"Impossible," Vordt breathed, staring at his snowy tresses with stunned eyes. "Your hair... that magic is... no! This is impossible... you... you're not one of us, so you shouldn't be able to--"
He clamped his mouth shut when Xaphile's large pupils shrank to small yellow slits: a whirlwind of dirt and vegetated debris abruptly flew around his body like a hurricane and he flashed forward.
Within the blink of an eye, he was standing only an inch away from the adult, who instantly jumped back, startled.
"What... is... your... name?"
The words were spoken slowly, angrily, and with a deadly calm that chilled him to his core.
"Why do you desire to know?"
"So I can tell Zelphira the name of the person I killed once I finally calm down."
Dead silence reigned free after he said it.