Chapter 28 – The Mark
I felt like I'd entered a nightmare. Dante's face in the car reminded me how long this drive was going to be. This was going to be an endurance test and the silences to come would be unbearable.
I looked into the side view mirror and silently cursed at the sight behind us. Nate's car was blaring music as he tailed us, he could be seen nodding and mouthing lyrics to his favourite old skool hip hop tracks. He had taste, but still. I rolled my eyes and sighed and I felt Dante look at me briefly. Dante was always a sure driver, confident and focused, but I feared he was far from focused right now. He was anything but.
I wanted him to give up the weight of his troubles to me, if only for a moment. I could take it. But he'd been quiet since Nate blasted him about me. Subsequently I couldn't bear to hear anymore and chastised Nate myself. I'd blasted him to defend Dante and rightfully so. But Dante didn't want me to. He'd told me it was okay, he didn't need or want a mouthpiece, he could speak for himself and was letting Nate get it all out because though he didn't want to go as far as to say he was right, he thought his concerns had been legit. He would listen to any concern if it involved me, he'd said.
He'd called Jacey for me but I didn't want to know what her response had been despite the fact he'd turned on the charm. Scarily though, I would never have guessed from the way he spoke to her on the phone that he'd just killed a pair of demons. He was too convincing, I almost wondered what else he could convince a woman of.
I had no doubt that by the time I got back to work Jacey would ask me into her office, have a sit-down with me while filling out a standard procedure form of concern and tell me my work had not been up to par lately. In fact my 'work' was an overstatement, it was more like 'what work?' Just how much 'work' had I done in recent weeks? I hadn't done eff-all. I was being paid to do what exactly? Dodge demonic dangers Jacey didn't know existed and spend copious amounts of time with demonic milli/billi/trillionaires? She'd probably tell me it was time to terminate my contract. I'd probably be jobless, though Dante was dismissive saying he'd simply employ me. But no, I felt like that would be relationship suicide. It was healthy for us to work for different companies, I didn't need my boyfriend to be my boss and besides, I loved my job. I just hadn't been proving it lately.
After Dante and Nate were forced to work together to destroy those two 'legion' demons, Nate had been adamant he wasn't going anywhere and would follow us for safety. So as you know, he was currently tailing us. Dante was adamant we didn't need it; more specifically, I didn't need it if he was by my side, but you know Nate by now. He wasn't convinced and was coming anyway.
Nate's words had hung high over Dante. He'd been quiet for much of the journey. I would ask him if he was okay, he'd nod, say the odd monosyllabic word and man-grumble, but look completely preoccupied. His mind was not even on the road but we'd managed to make it home without his distraction proving dangerous. Earlier he'd said that those demons hadn't proved anything about my safety, but secretly I had a feeling he thought it had.
When we got to the house, Dante was quick to take my hand and walk briskly through the front door, effectively locking Nate out. But the agreement was that Nate would hang around, much to Dante's annoyance. Nate was not about to back down, and though they'd had words, Dante pretty much relegated him to a shed. There was no way he'd be let into his house but his hunter skills and weaponry would prove useful.
Thing is, despite clearly wanting to, Dante wouldn't lay a finger on him. He wouldn't do it because of me even though every part of him wanted to wring his neck just to get him off his back. But it was okay, I'd told him he'd get special dispensation from me if he really wanted it just this once. He smiled at that.
Nate had already come equipped with his various tools in the trunk of his battered car. It wasn't the one he'd driven me home in that fateful gala night, it was his trusty old car. I remember a really long time ago him saying he'd get a paint job done. Low and behold it still looked the exact same. Rusty and second hand. It wasn't even second hand, just Nate had obviously put his motorized best friend through one heck of a demonic hunting ride chasing demons across the country.
His car was a she. A she named Frank Castle. Yeah, Frank. Named after The Punisher; his favourite comic book vigilante antihero. He used to burst into the bathroom while I was in the shower and sit on the toilet while reading his publications.
Motorized Frank and her penchant for being his roady and carrying his weapons everywhere he went made her the Robin to his Batman, or his Batmobile, or both. Whatever. I remember back then he would talk to her, sleep in her, eat in her, pat her bonnet. I never knew she carried weapons for him, learn something new everyday.
Now I know he would never touch her up. No, not his beloved Motorized Frank. That paint job would change her, and to him, well, she was perfect as imperfect as she was. He wouldn't even disrespect her enough to fuck a girl in it. Never. She meant that much to him, she had been his first car, the one he'd saved every last penny to get. She had gone the distance with him and had been his greatest companion. He'd pushed everyone else away apart from the one thing that allowed him to keep on moving wherever he needed to go. That was Motorized Frank Castle.
When he'd shown me his weapons, I had never seen anything like it before. They all looked like ancient artefacts that belonged in a museum, but they were apparently biblical weapons known to work on fallen angels and though it was explained to me that demons like Dante were not of fallen angels demon status, the weapons were just as effective on them all.
I had worried that night. Dante didn't sleep, he sat up on a chair and watched me lie there as I watched him sit there. He was a silhouette against the light of the moon by the window, a beautifully formed silhouette and I propped up on my elbow as I looked at him and asked him if he was okay. He'd taken a deep breath and nodded telling me to go to sleep and I noticed that he was just in the deepest thought imaginable. As for sleep, it took me ages before I finally did.
But when I woke, I found him facing the window. He was just in his trousers and had a naked torso. I sat up watching him and my eyes zeroed in on his back. The little light provided in this room allowed me to see something there. Deep red, painful looking, some parts had developed a darker pigment and as I strained my eyes more to see I noticed it connected to make some kind of pattern. Pattern...? Like a...tattoo of some kind...a mark maybe?
But then it hit me.
Malcolm had a large tattoo that was all over his back and snaked towards his neck, you could always see it slyly peaking from his collar. He'd said once that Dante would never deliberately scar himself for anything. He had his reasons but I didn't know them. And now... He was leaning over the window ledge, his upper torso heaving, he made a small sound and heaved in obvious pain.
But not just Malcolm had one, Hall did too, his entire arm was covered. I was yet to know about Ida.
It alarmed me because it looked both intricate and incredibly sore. On a human body I just knew that person would be in excruciating pain, but on Dante...
As I got up and walked closer I could see how much the mark had slightly risen on his skin. The shapes we almost three-dimensional, they didn't lie flat, they looked like a form of Braille.
"Dante?"
He spun around and gulped. "Ariel...thought you were sleeping."
"For barely a few minutes. What is it?" I asked of the pattern of pain on his back.
"What's what?"
He knew what. I knew he knew. "Your back..."
He backed up as I got closer. "It's nothing. Believe me. Just go back to bed, it's fine."
I looked at him and shook my head, "Don't give me that, please. I know it's not nothing, I saw it. Whatever that is on your back you clearly know something but you don't want to tell me."
He paused for a moment then sighed.
"It looks painful." My God, if he was in pain...
"Ariel..." he started, but he clearly couldn't finish.
"It is, isn't it?"
He blew out a slow breath.
"Let me see—"
He stepped back.
"What is it? What's wrong? Dante, you're scaring me."
"It's okay, I swear."
"Don't swear to me when you're lying to me. I can see right through you. I'm not stupid and I'm tired of you keeping secrets. You said you wouldn't do that anymore. You said I could take it. Now something's wrong so just tell me, please."
He looked me in the eye and slumped back in his chair, head held in his hands.
I knelt down in front of him and took his hands away forcing him to look at me.
"Tell me,"
He shook his head.
"Let me see then."
He objected again, "No."
"You're gonna show me, Dante. You are or I'll do the one thing you're afraid of and leave if you don't. I'll get in Nate's car, I swear it."
His head jerked up, anger and disbelief on his face. "Don't you dare joke about something like that just to get a reaction out of me."
"It's not a joke."
"Calling my bluff now, are we?"
"I'm serious."
"Not with him, Magpie."
My eyes shot to his neck as I noticed something coming from around the back of it towards the front. I went to touch it but he jerked his head away. He pushed me away, his eyes changed and he told me to leave him, he'd be alright. But he was lying to me again. As I got up and stalked for the door, that was when he immediately followed me stopping me from leaving. I turned to him as if I was going to be confrontational.
"You can't keep secrets from me, Dante. You can't. We've come too far for you to be doing this now. Something's wrong, I know it, I feel it."
"Stay there," he said as he backed away facing me. I stood there watching him and as he finally stopped and stood there he turned his back to me, "Put on the light."
I held still for a second hesitating, I took an audible breath
"Turn it on." He demanded. "You wanted to know, right? No more secrets."
My hands came over the base of the lamp beside me, sliding up to the neck of it as I felt for the switch and with my hand wrapped around its thin neck, I pressed the button. The light dimly flickered and for a long moment I paused as my eyes scanned over his back and my eyes watered. I just stood there. I walked over to him but he heard me and spun back round to face me.
"Please..." He said recoiling.
"That's what the legion demon did?" my voice was shaky, I couldn't believe I managed to get any sound out.
What surprised me was that he shook his head.
No?
"What? I don't understand...who did that then? What is this?"
"It's a mark, Ariel."
I took a moment to look over his face when he said that. Sometimes he was a shield, other times he gave himself away. But those times of giving himself away were incredibly rare and this was one of those times. I couldn't tell how bad it was from his face, but his reluctance to say anything was the truth-teller here. "What kind of mark?"
He was surprisingly forthcoming now. "An underworld mark."
"What does it mean?"
"It's a key." He said.
I exhaled softly, but anxiously at the same time. "Malcolm has one." I noted.
He nodded, "Yeah..."
"So does Hall."
"I know."
"But you don't. Until now."
"Until now." he repeated.
"Key for what?"
"Just, you know..."
"No, I don't."
"Ariel..."
I shook my head, I had a feeling...
"This was happening before, wasn't it? Before those two appeared. When you were all uncomfortable in bed. That's what that was. Your mark was developing on you all this time. And Nate...when he said your time was coming, he knew, didn't he?"
He just looked at me before looking away.
"But you stopped him from telling me."
"It's not his place to tell you anything. It's mine."
"But you wouldn't tell me though, would you? Why couldn't you tell me before?"
"Because I know what this means."
"What does it mean?"
His harshly spent breath and slow shake of his head indicated he didn't want me to ask.
"You're leaving me, aren't you?"
This time he looked at me, tensing his lips and soon averted his eyes looking anywhere but at me.
Oh my God...he was...
"Aer...I..." he shook his head, he couldn't continue and I felt my legs go from beneath me but I grabbed at the nearest table and held myself up.
"I watched you sleep." He said. "Weird but, sometimes I wonder if that's the only time I'll see you at peace, when you're not awake, when you're not consciously thinking of what could come after you during the day. I watched you lie in that bed and look at me before you fell asleep. I watched you and thought how can I do this to her. How? How can I be so selfish when the inevitable is coming? How can I let us get so deep only to rip what we have from right under us? How can I hate myself any more than I do?"
"Dante—"
"Don't even try and defend me, Ariel. Don't. I don't deserve it. I've done a bad thing disguised as being your protector, your lover, your man. On the surface it all looks like I'm the good guy while Hunter Ex out there is the bad one, but think about everything he said, Ariel. All the things I've done. I took you on this journey with me, I put you in this danger, I did that. And I'm the guy you defend? Look what I've done to you. You wanna talk about love but do I even know what that is? If I did would I have done this? It's like everything I do is to make up for everything I've done to put you in this position. Your life is worth more than ours together. As long as you're okay, I'm okay. But..."
"What..." I drifted off composing myself now. Or trying to...I pulled myself together, "What are you saying?"
He wiped his hand over his eyes.
"No, you know what, don't say it, I don't wanna know." I nervously laughed, but he wasn't joining me. He just...swallowed and I saw him fight something in him as he stood there.
"I think I know what you're saying..." my eyes watered, "I don't want you to say it."
"I don't want to say it."
"Then don't! Look how far we've come! Look! My things are in that wardrobe, my toothbrush sits right next to yours in that bathroom, my shoes are in that corridor next to yours, my key to that front door is cut from yours, your body has been with mine in that shower, this bed is ours together. I have made a bazillion burnt meals in that kitchen and you ate it anyway, I have made love to you all over this house, we chose this! Us! Don't you dare say any different. Please don't..."
"Ariel...Believe me, I don't wanna have to go there with you—"
"THEN DON'T!" I screamed. "How can you come this far with me, fight this hard for us and then walk away from me?"
"Because it's the right thing to do!" he finally yelled. "I've asked myself that all day and all night, then I watched you lay there and I knew why I did everything I did for you. I don't regret a moment of it, I wouldn't take a second of being with you back, if that's all I have of you I'll hold on to that memory for the rest of my forever-life. Nothing will replace you, nobody can but if anything happens to you it will be because I was selfish enough to keep you. I tried for you, I tried. But at what expense? Yours? Listen to me, I'd much rather live without you than live with myself knowing that something happened to you because of me. I wanted to milk every minute I had with you. I can't chance it. I can't chance you."
"You think I'd leave you like this? To go it alone?"
"I know you won't. You're stubborn as shit and—"
"I love you." I said for him.
"I know."
"If Nate is right, do you want me to go with him?"
"Never in a million starlit years. If you do just one thing for me, stay away from Sydes." I shook my head as it all dawned on me, but he grabbed at my arms, "Listen to me, stay away from Sydes. Call Malcolm, he'll come for you. Stay with him, he won't let any harm come to you. He's your best bet and he's with Nera now, you'll have friends, but promise me you'll stay away from Sydes."
"How can I promise you that?"
"Really?"
"He's not lied to me yet."
"But I have. Is that what you're saying? I can't do this to you anymore. I can't. I was kidding myself."
"Are you trying to get me to hate you?"
"If it makes it easier for you."
My heart was sinking as I tried to speak but couldn't. "Are you kidding me? I could never, you hear me?"
He eventually sank back down in the chair and took me by the waist as I stood between his legs and lay his head on my tummy. I stroked over him then looked out the window. My hands touched over his neck and slowly down his back and I felt him flinch as if even that simple touch was painful against his mark. I didn't want to think about what was going to happen, and his reaction to my touching his mark distracted me long enough to think of the pain he was in and to be fearful for him. "What will it take for the pain to go away? I don't want to see you like this."
"I can take the pain." He said. "There's a pain worse than this anyway. Don't make me say what that is."
Bonus – Dante
Magpies were glorious, beautiful little birds. They were apparently annoying, curious things too. I had my very own glorious, beautiful, frustrating, curious thing, and she was currently sprawled on the bed, white sheets scrunched up to her waist giving me the shape of her naked back touched by dusky moonlight .
I wondered how she didn't feel the cold like that. No doubt she was lost in her dreams now. I'd closed the window for her having watched her shiver only slightly and every part of me wanted to pick her up and hold her 'til my warmth became hers. I knew if I joined her in that bed I could warm her up in seconds. The heat under my skin was innate to me, true, but she was also the reason why that fire just kept on burning. I could never go cold on her.
But I was avoiding sleeping next to her. I knew she would touch me, I knew she would run her hands down my back. I knew she would feel what was there if she did. I knew she suspected something. I was avoiding that bed; If I got in there with her I wouldn't want to leave and knowing what I had to do, it would only make things a lot more difficult.
I had this human thing called feelings now. Fucking feelings. I could huff all I wanted, shake my head all I wanted, disbelieve how she had happened to me so quickly but the fact remained, a little piece of this human world was now all over me, a part of me and was mine. A frustratingly stubborn, beautiful little magpie owned me, and I was currently looking at her laying on her stomach lifting her knee up as she glided her cheek across the pillow before settling now.
Part of me wanted to damn my feelings no matter how much if this life's infinity had been given over to its joy. But demons of the First don't succumb to human emotion like this. This was considered more an affliction than a joy.
Ariel...the one thing in this damn world who could reduce me to this... Someone like me...was this. This admittedly scared man, this...changed man? For the better? Well, some would say no, in fact most who knew me would say no. Hall would say no, Ida too probably, every demon I ever knew and every demonic force I'd ever lead in various armies would tell you no.
Even if I wanted to debate whether I had changed for the better, the feelings thing alone would answer my question. It was not for the better, I was weaker, I was clouded, I had compromised her because of it and I knew that. I knew that and yet...I stayed. In fact during a time when I'd wondered what it would take to tear me away from her, I always thought it would be death. But I was from the First, and someone would have to actually find a way to kill me. I was convinced it would take death to tear me from her.
Until today.
Until I'd pulled a demon who'd planned to hurt her from her body. Until I realised what kind of danger I put her in just by being with me. You wanna find a way to kill me? You just did.
There is a moment you dread and you dread it because you can see it coming a mile off. You don't know how to stop it, if it can be stopped at all, and you find every way imaginable to put the brakes on that moment. To hold it off. But no matter how hard you think, no matter how many should of's, could of's, if I's, how's about's...no matter how many angles you look at it, you always come to the same place. The inevitable. The place you don't want to be.
Sure, I'd come home from work and I knew from the look on her face that she knew something was wrong and I took it as my responsibility to reassure her that everything was fine. But this is Ariel, my little magpie, the smartest most stubborn bird in the tree. She knew. I knew she knew. But I couldn't bear to tell her.
In the darkness in which I exist, she was my light. A beacon. I could see her, everything about her; she glowed. Like trillions of infinite multi-colored lights constantly changing due to its mood, like a brilliant display of fibre optics, she was a walking thing of beauty. If you could see what I saw when I looked at her, I promise you, you would be as taken in as I am. If she was anybody else I'd have taken that light by now. Consumed her. But not her. Never.
Part of me thought I could see all those colors around her because I was in love with her. After all, what is it you humans say, love makes someone beautiful. When she laughed her lights were different, a brighter version of themselves. They sprinkled and danced and hopped and skipped and spluttered and flayed about, it was like a display just for me. I could watch her and everything about her for days.
She made me realize I had the capacity to feel something beyond what I knew as a demon. After all Sydes was right. Fuck, I actually said it. He was right. He was right to say it wasn't in our nature to feel the things I felt for this girl. Because it wasn't. She was my biggest surprise, she was my brightest awakening. And that scared the shit out of me.
I'd never felt so useless in my life, so small, so...weak. So unable to be the man I wanted to be for her. I wanted to be the man who kept my word, who promised her all I felt she deserved and delivered on that promise. But you know, hell...
I had never been very good at keeping my word back in the day, I was good at deceiving people. You could even say I deceived her too. And maybe I did, but my God I wanted to keep every damned word I made to her. Every one. I had a knack of keeping things to myself, I'd been doing it for many long years before her. And by the looks of it I was practising it all over again.
I sat there and watched her as she lay there among those crisp sheets, one slender arm flung up over her head against the pillow, the other lay like a carelessly forgotten limb.
The moment I saw her eyes succumb to dreams was a moment that gave my physical pain a place to disappear to. I didn't feel anything painful watching her, just wondered how the hell she could be so beautiful like that, how the hell I had struck it so lucky.
Hey, I'm not gonna say I was always bowled over by her immaculate dream-like state, sometimes she drooled, sometimes her mouth was wide open like she was prepared to catch flies and collect dust along the way....but in this instance, she was a picture. A picture I wanted to mentally capture as many times as I could because I knew there weren't many nights left for me to witness this.
I'd gotten up for a split second, careful not to make sounds against wooden flooring because she was a light sleeper. Whenever I moved, she moved, she had the most acutely aware response to me. It was a pain just taking a piss at night because she'd make that noise and scrunch her face up like 'where are you going?' all the time, but I loved it otherwise.
She looked like the first night I ever brought her here, hair as dark as a thousand leafless tree's in Fall flung thick and tousled all over the pillow. She looked only slightly different tonight though. For a moment her brow knotted, all peace from her face. Being in the face of danger could change the peace of your thoughts. Somehow I doubted she was embracing dreams, I felt like she might be fighting nightmares.
I lied to that ass of a hunter Sydes when he'd said those legion demons coming after her proved I couldn't protect her, I dismissed him when he said it proved she was in danger because of me.
I lied.
I told him it proved nothing. But it did. And for a long moment afterwards, with Ariel's hands touching my face trying to wipe away the stains of almost-black blood over my forehead, pressing her sleeve over me, I just looked at her. She was here because of me. Some dickhead had put his hands on her because of me. I mean for fucks sake. How had I let that happen?
Had it not been for me demons would not be her reality. Who could I blame? Could I really blame her for not listening to me? No. I knew that. It wasn't her fault. She was stubborn. That was my Ariel. I had an idea what I was getting into when I pursued her from the very beginning.
She was defiant and determined and fiercely passionate, these things I got from the start. I mean, she demanded to speak to the boss the very day I met her not knowing it was me, she wouldn't even accept my offer of a dress in favour of getting her own, she went to the gala that night by herself as opposed to with me. I had an idea even then but it didn't stop me going for it. I liked all that. I can't fault all the things that made me fall in love with her. She angered me, challenged me, divided me, and ultimately claimed me.
It was after killing those two legion members that I knew what had to be done, and as I drove us back home with her asshole ex trailing us, I struggled to think how to...
My world would be slain without her. I would give my soul away should a demon take hers. The longer she stayed with me, the more likely that outcome would be. To love her was one thing, to be selfish was another, but to love her selfishly...I'd been doing that all this time. I couldn't do it any longer.
This girl deserved to live. She deserved to have the things humans dream about. I would be taking all that away from her. She deserved more than me. Much more.
I couldn't even look at her when she asked me if I was leaving her. Never would I want to. Her face broke a part of me, near enough shattered me. If I knew any other way to keep her safe you think that would even be a thought in my head?
I stood there, barely able to stand for the pain that pushed through my back. I was unable to ignore it, my pain was designed to be felt and to stay at the forefront of my mind so I wouldn't forget about it for a single second, about what it meant, but I pretended to, to save face for her. I didn't want to worry her, but I listened as she spoke now, she'd held my breath to ransom as I listened to her. She was frightened that her conclusion was right, and fear had put a tremble in her voice I couldn't bear to listen to.
But I was unable to feel my pain in that moment for all the words she was saying. I stood there and listened to her demand I see how far we'd come together, I listened to her describe her belongings next to mine, how we'd made love all over this house as I thought damn, we'd christened the hell out of this place, didn't we? Was there even a spot where I hadn't had her? Her print was all over this house, she owned it with me, and as I watched the fear in her gaze as she forced me to see us through her eyes and forbid me to dare to say any different, I pretended not to be affected. I wasn't going to show her anything. It wouldn't make it any easier for her or for me. If I showed her how hard this was, she could convince me not to do the one thing I had to do. And I had to. For her.
She would never know what this was taking out of me. Thirty-one human years and I was being struck for the first time by something so alien; feelings. One of the best things about being a demon was having none. Well, that's what I thought. We weren't supposed to so tell me why I did?
She told me she could never hate me. I looked up at her and she said it again, I sank down into my chair and reached my hands over her waist, pulling her into me as she stood between my legs and I bowed my head on her tummy in submission to her. I swallowed hard at the feel of her hands stroking over me, her hands touched over my neck and slowly down my back and I almost got up not wanting her to feel that part of me. The part I hated so much right now. The part of my back that was burning through my skin, so much so that if I had a blade I would have sliced the skin right off. But I knew it wasn't just superficial, but coming from inside me. My demon mark. I flinched anyway, that simple touch of hers was agonizingly painful against it.
"What will it take for the pain to go away?" she asked quietly. "I don't want to see you like this."
I didn't want her to see me like this. If I was honest with myself that was the other reason why I had to do what I knew was inevitable. Yes, this was painful, but I told her the truth about my affliction. There was a greater pain. "I can take the pain." I told her. "There's a pain worse than this anyway. Don't make me say what that is."
I knew I could suffer more.
In my mind I'd been saying goodbye longer than tonight. I'd been imprinting her image in my head every day since she moved in. I knew I was on borrowed time. I'd imprinted her laugh into my memories, her eyes that creased and danced when she laughed, her angry face that made her look incredibly hot to me, oh that look...it inspired all sorts of mischievous, fucked up thoughts. Damn, definitely had to remember that one.
It was funny how quickly I'd met her, how quickly that first encounter came and went, but the amount of time it took to say a simple goodbye was never so quick. In fact it was never simple. Simple goodbyes...was there such a thing? It was a long drawn out process that you just wanted done with like a rip from a band-aid. The longer it took, the harder it got. And I had taken so long it was now almost impossible.
That word killed a person to say, it was a word you worked yourself up to say. A word you knew if you ever said it, you couldn't take it back. That's why it was so hard, you had to find the right time and you had to know when that time came. Men never knew how to say goodbye, women never knew when to say it, but when you had to...
I didn't want to say it because it hurt like hell. Nobody ever does. You mourn long before the word comes out. This was a woman I couldn't live without, but I would have to force myself to be without. I didn't think I would ever be ready but if I waited any longer it would never happen. But one of the most painful goodbyes is the one that comes out of the blue, the one you don't explain.
I would make sure I explained why, I would make sure she knew why I was doing it. Why it took everything from me to do it. Why it broke me in two. In three. In a million.
This thing was a losing fight right now, I was developing my key and until I figured out how to win it, this was the only way. Magpie's were resilient little birds anyway, they always found their way. Always.
:(
Hello!
Okay, so I didn't intend to do a POV switch, it was a spur of the moment thing. This is a one-time thing too. The POV switch is unlikely to happen again. Maybe it feels disjointed, I don't know...but it's done, so there :P
Thank you so much for reading this far :)
-Blu
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