Nicolas could only ball his fist, sitting up was too much to ask to him by now, the adrenaline already worn off so he just laid there. Watching the night sky as Anton filled him with the details together with the surviving members of Alice’s group.
“We were attacked by those men led by the princess and princes of Algernon. We fought with all we could, but the tragedy from almost 10 years ago... no, what happened was incomparable to that. We lost half of the population, most from the knights and the volunteers, but sadly some children, woman and elderly lost their life too. And since Meriane is here, I think you already know that the King and Queen was also one of the casualties.”
Nicolas silently listened by the bonfire as he processed every word he heard. “Deaths… my fault… they’re dead and it’s my fault…”, he thought as the knights and Donnor’s men surveyed the cave under the waterfall where the temple stood.
“I don’t know you, but nonetheless, thank you for your help. Even though we lost some of our comrades, most will still get the chance to see another daybreak”, Donnor extended his gratitude as he sat opposite Anton.
“No worries, we did not do much anyway, and don’t worry, we have every reason to help your people.”
“Why should we trust them”, Nicolas blurted. “They tried to kill me twice... thrice, if you’ll count the one this morning”.
“That was a misunderstanding”, Donnor cleared his throat while awkwardly mixing the soup he and his men were preparing.
“Misunderstanding? A rain of arrows was just a misunderstanding?”, Nicolas sat up, finally regaining some of his energy back. He was about to scold the old man about everything that’s wrong with his argument when another knight came towards them, carrying someone.
Donnor disregarded Nicolas as horror filled his face, “What— What happened?”, he quickly assisted the knight and prepared a flat surface to lay down the injured.
All is going well, not until the prince roared, “What the hell are you doing here”, Nicolas burst in anger again as he recognized the knight. “Didn’t I tell you that I’d kill you the next time we meet?”
“Ni— Nicolas?”, Hunter exclaimed as the prince jumped and grabbed him by the collar, pinning him to the ground.
“Stop that Nicolas”, Anton ordered while Donnor kept tending the other person. “He made great contributions in the last attack as a knight. He’s also the reason why we managed to get here without delay.”
“Asset my ass, have you forgotten what he did? He’s the reason why Alisa died. Let me guess, you’re the one who told them where I am, aren’t you. I know I should have let you die in that cave. I should have killed you when I had the chance”, Nicolas exclaimed.
“THAT ALISA IS STILL HERE”, Anton also raised his voice. “Have you at least checked who he desperately carried here? he might have done a horrible thing in the past but he did all he could to atone for that”, Anton tried convincing him as he took the last slurp in his soup.
Nicolas turned around and finally realized that the person was Alice, beaten up and unconscious. “Are you telling me that that girl is Alisa? Are you screwing with me? I saw it with my own two eyes, SHE DIED, all because of this selfish moron”, He pushed Hunter back to the ground once again and this time, it came with a punch—a generous amount at that.
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Hunter could not do anything but defend his face with his arms. He had already accepted this possibility and he himself thinks there’s nothing wrong with Nicolas’s anger. The sin he committed was far more painful than any of the punches he received.
Anton already had enough when he decided to stop the quarrel. As he was about to stand up, the girl grabbed him by the arm, assisted by Donnor, as she greeted him weakly, “I see you’re still as handsome as ever, Sir Wilver”, before both of their attention was diverted towards the two boys.
Nicolas continued his frenzy, “The only reason he’s here is that his guilt can’t give him peace. Alisa... she was wrong to save you back there, we should have left you there, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE WHO DIED. If Alisa is here, I know she’ll agree.”
“Not really, because I’m not blind”, Alice uttered weakly, wiping her tears with a smile. It’s a mere whisper but it was more than enough to bring Nicolas back to his senses.
With his fist stuck in midair, he slowly turned around. The phrase echoed on his head as he saw Alice crying. It reminded him of the time when Alisa desperately smiled as she tried stopping herself from crying over her scrapped knee.
Finally, the silhouette of the two came from a blur into a fixed image: “Let him go, Nicolas; us saving him would be in vain if you kill him now.”
After all the years of bottled-up grief, his tears finally streamed down. He knew that they were telling the truth but still, a part of him felt ashamed and guilty and refused to accept it. He stood up and ran off to the distance where he cried himself off, distancing himself as far from them as possible.
Finally, the emotions he lost that night came back for the first time in years. He felt his chest lighter as all that it carried started to lighten. There’s an unexplainable pain in his chest, constricting in a different kind of feeling. It’s as if the whole, the whole that he tried to mend for too long in order not to fall apart, is slowly rebuilding itself. It’s painful, excruciating, yet somehow relieving.
Under the starry night sky, hiding under the shade of a tree on top of a small hill, Alice and Donnor found him, There are no cries but his pain can be felt through his silence. It reverberates into the cold night breeze as a glimmer of blue light dust gently swoons over him, keeping him company through his agony. Donnor and Anton had already filled her with the news and she could only imagine how dreadful and powerless the boy is currently feeling.
“I can manage now, Uncle, thank you”, she said, letting go of Donnor as he too went back to the cave.
Alice slowly approached the tree; the blue dust immediately tried to forbid her, but she only sighed. Closing her eyes, he took a deep breath, imagining her own soul scattered into the air. She opened her eyes to the majestic display, her soul joining the dust and dancing with the wind as she and Nicolas finally met eye to eye.
Nicolas tried to run away again, but his barrier could no longer stop her advance. Sulking on the other side of the trunk, he let her take the opposite space.
“Are you really Alisa?” and “Are you really Nicolas?”, they said in chorus.
"Yes," they again said in a jinx.
“Aren’t you angry or afraid with me?”, Nicolas wiped his tears as the gentle breeze swayed the canopy.
“Why would I?”, she circled the trunk and sat beside the boy.
“You’ve seen what I did, you’ve seen what I was capable off, and I— I almost killed you too, why wouldn’t you get angry with me?”
“I’d admit, I was afraid. But those eyes of yours, I knew you were confused and now I understand why you acted that way. Whatever happened, I’m still your best friend; nothing can change that. Besides, isn’t all of this because of me? If only I had the courage to go back at Gregoria, you wouldn’t have wandered this far. You wouldn’t have gone for this quest of revenge.”
“No, you have no fault in this. I left because I wanted to; I wanted to learn about this soul thing that’s been haunting me since then. All the things I did, my decisions, all of it are the things I wanted to do.”