Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: Talk of Departure
When Xaphile walked to the shoreline, he was surprised to find both his aunt and his uncle waiting for him. Zelphira greeted him with a smile; Vordt merely folded his arms and waited until he'd stopped in front of the two of them. He immediately noticed that her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying heavily, and a spark of worry seared through him.
"Hi," he greeted, staring at the two of them with his ears flicking to and fro. "Wasn't expecting to see you today."
"Much has happened," she said softly, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him. "My sweet nephew... how I've longed to hold you like this. For many years, I've wanted to share embraces with you and your little brother, to cherish you as my own beautiful kin."
He blinked in surprise, but her hug was soft and warm.
He relaxed and slowly returned the hug, letting loose a sigh as a strange amount of tension left his body. Her hand rubbed his sides, since his wings made wrapping him up completely a bit difficult, before pulling away with the enchanting smile he'd slowly grown familiar with.
And it was then, for the first time, that it actually clicked with him.
This woman, the enchanting creature who'd stolen his breath away when he'd first laid eyes on her only a few weeks ago, was among the only members of his family that he had left. This woman, who was supposedly thousands of years old, was his aunt.
His father's elder sister.
The Queen of the Sky, Eastern ruler of Aerika.
And she loved him.
"Today, you and I are going to be having a serious talk," Vordt growled. "Zelphira has business to attend to here. While she takes care of what she needs to, you and I are going to chat."
Xaphile looked from between Vordt and Zelphira.
"What sort of business does she have?"
"It's personal. Now, go. Fly across the lake and wait for me."
Vordt's response was spoken so lowly that he knew better than to press for answers. Letting out a sigh, he nodded and smiled at Zelphira one last time before taking to the air. The flight across the lake was just as strained as the few previous times. He was relieved when he landed again.
For the next few minutes, he waited in the shade of the enormous trees until Vordt came sailing across the boiling water and landed before him. When their eyes connected, Xaphile frowned since something seemed off with his uncle's expression, but he said nothing about it.
"Sit," Vordt commanded, pointing at the base of the tree. "We must speak."
He nodded and wordlessly did as he was told, watching as the man aggravatedly paced back and forth.
"So. What now?"
"Now, we must talk," Vordt grumbled, coming to a halt and taking a deep breath. "We must make plans to depart the evening after tomorrow. Your training with magic will continue once we are on our way, and whenever it is possible, you will perform your muscle exercises."
Xaphile stared at him blankly, feeling intensely surprised.
"I was under the impression that we'd be staying a bit longer," he said slowly. "What changed?"
Vordt's jaw tightened, and he seemed to fight with himself internally for a moment.
Then his shoulders sagged and he sighed.
"Your aunt," he eventually rasped. "She has imprinted on the one you call Sinmir. She has been bound to him, forever, but even though he is willing to take her as his true mate, such a thing cannot be condoned without proper preparation. We must depart so Zelphira can begin her work on changing a few of our laws without her emotions and instincts interfering."
Xaphile's jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out of his head.
He literally could not believe what he'd just heard.
"Whoa," he spluttered, lifting his clawed hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up! Are you saying that my aunt is going to be marrying Sinmir?! Seriously?!"
"Not right away," Vordt sourly retorted, sullenly staring at the water, "but yes. That is the idea."
Xaphile put a hand to his forehead, dizzy with the implications running through him.
"He's gonna be family?" he wondered aloud. "Dude... I was satisfied with the best friends for life thing, but I didn't think he'd actually marry my aunt! Although..."
He paused, blinking as he thought about it.
Perhaps Sinmir was acting so friendly because he had fallen in love with Zelphira without telling anyone. It would have explained his loving behavior. Then again, that also raised a bunch of new questions, and frankly, there was also the gap of when he'd actually met her to consider.
Unless, on the night of the celebrations, he'd...
Xaphile shook his head free of that thought, ears dragging down low in mortification.
He wouldn't go there.
"Well, it's a surprise, that much is true," Xaphile eventually sighed, "but I guess, in the end, as long as they make each other happy... I'm okay with it. Sinmir's a good guy."
"It will take a very long time to convince our clan of that," Vordt grunted, eyeing him. "The Oracles are bound to notice something is amiss with my sister if he stays near her. Before we leave, he must reassure her that he will come back no matter what and her heart will calm."
"We're really leaving day after tomorrow?" Xaphile asked, lowering his eyes. "So soon?"
"Do you not wish to go?"
Xaphile thought about it, then shook his head.
"No, I do," he sighed. "I want to find my brother, but..."
"But?"
When Vordt raised an eyebrow, he leaned back and let loose a deep sigh.
"But it's been a long time," he said softly, staring up at the distant canopies, "that I've felt... this safe, you know? This place sort of feels like home, somehow."
"Then, you no longer wish to leave?"
"Well..." Xaphile stuttered, breathing coming a little faster. "I-it's just that I arrived only a few weeks ago, and... and I don't want to go yet. I've barely seen anything here. And I... I..."
"It is all right!" Vordt snorted, holding up a hand. "It is all right. We will return once we have found your little brother. I can assure you, you needn't worry."
Xaphile nodded, rubbing his arms.
A long minute passed.
"So, does this mean that you are going to give up on finding the soul of your fallen love?"
Xaphile lowered his eyes as a slow ache washed over him and he touched the locket Ella Richardson had given him so long ago.
Vordt watched when he flicked it open and gazed at the photos within.
"I'm going to find her," he said softly, "even if only it's to say goodbye. And to tell her about everything I've been through. Everything she's missed out on."
"And where will you go from there?"
"I don't know. I'll figure it out after I get there."
His voice broke a little as he spoke, but he shook it off and blinked back the tears that filled his eyes. He masked his feelings to the best of his abilities and looked his uncle straight in the face, giving him clean eye-contact. Vordt didn't say anything, just stared right back at him.
It was then that he remembered Ella's suggestion.
Feeling oddly stupid, he decided to go for it: if they were going to be leaving, he might as well.
"Hey," he said softly. "Since you want to leave day after tomorrow, can we do something fun together for today instead of training?"
Vordt raised his other eyebrow.
"You wish to do something other than training? With me?"
"Yeah. I would."
Xaphile was slightly disheartened to realize that his uncle seemed extremely perplexed. To his credit, though, he seemed to think about it seriously. His ear flicked and his tail drifted from side to side as he rolled his jaw back and forth, looking to be contemplating something deeply.
"Here, in this place," he eventually said, "I am your mentor. I am supposed to be teaching you."
Xaphile nodded, but his damn ears betrayed his disappointment by drooping listlessly.
"Yeah, I guess," he said, trying to keep his response light. "Training would probably be more fun than lugging an idiot like me around, anyway."
Vordt stared at him, frowning intensely.
"You're no idiot," he snipped. "Sometimes I wonder about your strange mood swings."
"Shut up," Xaphile grumbled. "You don't need to remind me of how weird I am. Ella's been doing that enough as it is."
Vordt paused.
"You do realize," he said, staring him straight in the eye, "that she is not someone to be toyed with, yes?"
Memories of fuchsia bubbling with anger and, at the same time, mirth made him sigh.
"I know that. When it comes to her, though... I'm just... confused. "
"Want to talk about it?"
Xaphile hesitated, and he breathed deep before giving a reply.
"In the past, whenever I looked at Ella Richardson," he said, then grimaced, "I felt the same way that I do here. I felt... home. It was comforting and sweet. I could relax, and I could let down walls because I knew she would see past them anyway and wouldn't ever judge me because she understood me. You know?"
"No," Vordt bluntly told him, "but I can attempt to try understanding."
"Being with her was like walking into a room full of cold air on a really hot day," Xaphile said, trying to simplify things. "All my worries just kind of... evaporated. I felt calm and collected and cool."
"A balm for a worried heart," he said, and Xaphile wasn't sure if he was quoting something or what, so he didn't comment.
"Yes. Ella Richardson was my safe haven. I could rely on her... even though I'm not the type to trust blindly, with her I just couldn't help myself."
"I think I understand what you mean," Vordt muttered; his next words were delicate, but tense. "And what of the countess?"
Xaphile froze, wide-eyed and his mouth suddenly felt too dry.
Vordt raised an eyebrow.
"I'm afraid of what that look hides."
"It's," Xaphile said, and stopped; he looked down at his clawed feet for a minute, gathering himself, and when he spoke next he stared at his uncle's chest instead of his eyes. "If what I felt for Ella Richardson was cool and refreshing, what I think I'm beginning to feel for Ella Rochard is..."
"Hot," Vordt supplied. His tone was crisp like winter.
Xaphile had flashes of every moment that she'd been close to him over the past few weeks.
He shuddered.
"Burning," he said, feeling the words bubbling up inside. "And infuriating, really infuriating. She's not like the girl I grew up with at all."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I mean, Ella Richardson had this weird ability to make me feel like a person again. But Ella Rochard, I can't predict what she'll do or what I could do to get on her good side. It's like the littlest things can turn her against me, but she'll overlook huge things should have made her kick my ass."
"Really now?" Vordt asked, staring at him with half-lidded eyes.
"Yeah! And, and we've even been through similar things and I think our insecurities are really similar, too, and I think she sees bits of herself in me because we both have these weird walls, you know? And Sinmir thinks that Ella wants to set up mutual walls we can both hide behind, because apparently having walls is enough to make two people have a connection, and-"
"Xaphile-"
"And with Ella Richardson, it was a give and take," he said, desperate to get these words out at long last. "She gave me as much as she took, but with Ella Rochard I can never tell what our dynamics are. She goes out of her way for me all the time but she never asks for anything in return, only I feel like she still manages to take things I don't even realize I'm giving, and she's become totally domineering and weird and she's constantly telling me she loves me, and I just don't get her and she's confusing and every time I feel like I'm getting somewhere she does something to throw me totally off-base!"
His breath was coming quick in his throat at that point.
"So Ella the countess is a firestorm, and Ella the fallen was a cool breeze," Vordt said dryly. "One was comforting and very well cherished, but the other moves you more."
"That's not true," Xaphile protested. "Ella moved me. She really did, in so many ways."
"So you say."
"Earth Ella made me feel like I was where I was meant to be. Atlas Ella makes me feel lost. "
"But isn't being lost something of a thrill?"
"Isn't the oddity of feeling safe pretty thrilling at this point in my life, too?"
"I guess in your situation, perhaps," Vordt allowed, "but did you realize that, in a sense, you and she are strictly lost together? At the same time? I am sure she is just as confused as you are."
"I have absolutely no idea what to think, okay?!" Xaphile finally snapped, gripping his horns in frustration. "I'm still trying to figure out why she makes me feel so... so strange! She says she loves me, and she says she won't give up on me, but I don't understand why! What is it about me that she likes so much?! I'm not anything special! I'm boring, and plain, and... and... a schmuck!"
Vordt stared at him.
"A what?"
"Shallow," he reiterated, rubbing his face. "I'm shallow. I'm not someone who can handle the responsibility of taking care of other people. I can barely take care of myself!"
"So, you'll disregard her feelings, then?" Vordt demanded in a low, strangely unpleasant tone. "You will allow your insecurities to prevent you from acknowledging her struggles?"
Xaphile thought about it carefully.
"Look," he finally said, tail thumping against the ground in consternation, "I can't acknowledge the fact that she loves me until I'm sure about where I stand in life. Right now, I feel like a puzzle with a lot of pieces missing... how can I possibly accept Ella's feelings for me when I can't even figure out my own? About anything? Everything's literally a jumble in my head and my heart!"
He buried his face in his hands, feeling a little ill.
Everything he'd said was true.
He couldn't possibly acknowledge Ella's feelings until he'd figured out, or at the very least resolved, some of his own emotional issues. To put it simply, he wasn't ready for any sort of relationship. That was all there was to it. He just was not ready for a relationship.
"Do you think about her all the time?" Vordt asked, voice displaying a startling lack of emotion.
Xaphile couldn't answer that.
He did think about Ella a lot, but it wasn't like she occupied every thought he had. Much of the time he tried not to think of her, tried hard to put her image out of his mind when it inevitably popped up a dozen times a day, because he knew the alternative would only lead to pain.
Or was the constant avoidance of a subject the same thing as obsessing over it?
Suddenly, he wasn't sure.
"Actually, I guess I do think about her all the time, even if it's only to tell myself not to," he said in a blank tone, feeling dismayed, "but that sure as hell isn't the same thing as loving her."
"Love is like friendship on fire," Vordt countered. "You should know that better than anyone."
Xaphile swallowed hard, feeling the blood drain from his face.
He knew it, and Vordt knew it, and they both knew that this train of thought was far from being realized. This was a topic that had been touched on many times but had never been fully explored. He knew, somewhere deep down inside, what that faint ember was.
And he dreaded it.
He dreaded every single moment that it lingered within him.
During his last conversation with the others about a possible future with Ella, he hadn't wanted to pursue the implications of his own feelings, but he knew that he wouldn't have come to Ella's rescue if that spark of warmth hadn't been there.
He wasn't ready for it.
He didn't want to acknowledge the feelings that had been set alight deep inside his core, because he knew that if he fanned them...
Everything would change before he was ready for it.
And that... that scared him.
Hugging himself, he licked his lips, clawed fingers tightening on his arms.
"I don't get myself at all," he somehow managed to force out. "I just... I can't figure this out."
"You will, in time," Vordt muttered, and silence descended between them. "Matters of the heart would be complicated enough even without the strange circumstances concerning your life."
Xaphile sighed and ran his hands through his hair.
Will I ever really figure anything out? he wondered. Do I even want to know the answer to my feelings? I think, in order for me to really know what I want, I have to find Ella's soul. I have to find her and we need to talk. Maybe then I'll be able to make my choice.
"If you wish," Vordt said after a while, looking a bit uncertain, "we may bond over the gift of song. To lessen the worries of your mind."
He raised his head, blinking in surprise, before he looked at the man in confusion.
"Bond over the gift of song?"
"I am saying that we might sing ballads of personal favor to each other."
"Oh," Xaphile muttered, realizing that he wanted to sing together. "All right, sounds like fun."
To his shock, Vordt actually smiled a little.
It was small, but genuine, and it tugged one side of his mouth up in the queerest of ways. His uncle's eyes danced for a moment, in a way that was oddly unfamiliar, and then his mouth opened, the tips of his long fangs glinting in the sunlight.
His teeth were extremely sharp, almost beastly, like that of an animal. Xaphile had a fleeting moment of self-questioning as he wondered whether or not people thought such things about him when he opened his mouth to speak, but then... Vordt hummed.
And the entire world rippled with deep, powerful sound.
It was so pitch perfect that it didn't even sound real.
Xaphile gaped, eyes widening and hair standing on end as his uncle began to weave a wordless melody, haunting and so enchanting that it made his whole body tingle. His hair stood on end, goosebumps rose up all over his arms and legs, and his tail quivered.
It was as if time had halted.
He was locked in a perpetual state of enchantment for an ageless ten minutes, and by the time Vordt finally stopped singing, the forest was dead silent.
No birds, no animals, not even the wind stirred.
"Oh, my God," Xaphile finally breathed, blinking rapidly in shock. "I... I've never heard anything like that before. Ever. Your voice is... it's freaking unreal. That was amazing!"
"It's a skill that you yourself have," Vordt pointed out, then scratched at his left horn with a long claw and stared him down. "I have just gifted you with the song of our blood kin. Passed down from parent to child, that melody will someday become your own. Now, you may choose a song with special meaning to you and gift it to me, as I have just demonstrated."
Xaphile stared right back.
"You keep using the word 'gifted' but are songs really that special?"
"Indeed they are. The act of singing for another is greatly cherished among our kind. It is a demonstration of trust and care, only a step below allowing another to touch one's hair."
Xaphile digested that silently.
He thought deeply about a song that would be good enough for his uncle, but no matter what he chose, it wouldn't sound nearly as good as what he'd just heard and it made him feel self-conscious.
Vordt's voice was like a diamond, beautiful and sharp, but hard and unwavering as it moved along its path; his was like water, bending and shifting, following a new path with every note that left his lips. It wouldn't sound half as clear, but he resolved to do his best anyway.
In the end, he decided to go with one of the songs that had been special between him and Ella back on earth. The first time he had ever heard it, he had immediately resonated with the lyrics, but he'd sung it only a handful of times.
Closing his eyes and tapping the rhythm out with his hand, he took a deep breath.
"I wanna sleep next to you, but that's all I wanna do right now," he belted out, quivering with a deep vibrato. "And I wanna come home to you... but home is just a room full of my safest sounds. 'Cause you know that I can't trust myself with my three A.M. shadows... I'd rather fuel a fantasy than deal with this alone."
Vordt tilted his head when Xaphile slowly opened his eyes, sightlessly lifting them to the sky.
Singing always had this effect on him. Getting lost in music was, perhaps, one of the few things that could set him free of his problems.
"I wanna sleep next to you, but that's all I wanna do right now," he sang softly; then he took a deep breath, building power in his lungs, "so come over now... and talk me down!"
Vordt leaned back, watching him with as he sang his way through the verses. Each lyric jumped out of his mouth with rich, pitch perfect notes, and unlike his uncle, who had sung crisp and clear with no fluctuations or even the slightest vibrato, Xaphile's voice rippled strongly.
It echoed through the air like a pool of water that had been disturbed by a single stone.
When he finally finished, Xaphile blinked himself back to reality to see Vordt nodding approvingly.
"That was enjoyable," he said simply. "It was different, but not at all unpleasant."
It was the closest thing to a compliment Xaphile had received from him.
Good enough for me, he silently thought.
"Now," Vordt said, leaning forward with a gleam in his eyes, "I have a ballad I think you might enjoy. It is one that our clan sings traditionally every winter."
"Sounds interesting," Xaphile murmured. "Show me?"
"With pleasure."
And so, it went.
Xaphile had to admit, spending the day singing songs with his uncle was something he hadn't pictured happening. But, he was going to enjoy it to the fullest.
No matter what.