Rory POVy

Emalynn left me next to Silent Silas as she ran toward the town with Braxton. I knew she was growing tired of acting as a communicator between the elf and myself, but I didn’t think she would force me into an awkward position like this. Hell, she didn’t even tell us what area they were going to cover. I looked back at Silas to see his nose deep in his journal. Did he even notice that they just left us standing there?

“Hey, fancy pants,” I reached out and flicked his forehead.

“What?” Silas looked at me annoyed.

“Are you just going to ignore the fact those two ran off without us? No plan or anything in place.” I clicked my tongue at him.

“You're surprised?” He was unmoved by my irritation at the situation. “They are tired of our cold shoulder bullshit, so they are forcing us to figure out our crap while they get a moment alone to flirt to their heart's content.”

I looked back at where they had disappeared into the ghost town. Did Ema just set me up like this with no explanation? “Was this really necessary?”

Silas closed his book and tucked it away in his coat pocket. “Considering we are having a dialogue without arguing with each other, I would say they made the right move. Besides, Braxton said he would search the North side of town this morning, so we might as well search the South side.”

Why was he so cool about this? Maybe he knew it was coming. We have to talk eventually anyway, at least, that's what Ema had said a few days ago. She must have gotten tired of waiting for something to happen on its own, but was she out there flirting with Braxton? If she liked that brutish orc, all she had to do was say it. She must be trying to protect my feelings again. I can't let her sacrifice herself for me. A new wave of determination washed over me as I realized that my biggest obstacle was standing beside me. I didn't hate Silas, but I couldn't bring myself to trust him. I needed to find something likable about this guy for peace in our traveling group.

“If that's the case, then we need to fix our shit,” I said, abruptly.

“Took you long enough,” he muttered as he headed for the town.

I resisted the urge to punch this guy in his pretty little face. The last time we had an actual conversation I babbled all sorts of crap, shifted into my frenzy form, and laid naked on the guy. This whole thing was awkward. Silas has saved my life at least once, so I tried to push past this. I owe him for helping me even though he's an annoying bug face. Just try, Rory. He stalked off toward the south side of town. I ran to follow behind him as we entered the town’s gate.

Silas accounted for everything he saw like the abandoned carts and open doors. He wrote each finding in his journal as we moved along. It was clear everyone in the town had left abruptly. There was no sign of them being forced away. They seem to have left of their choosing. There were no signs of a struggle or forced entry. There wasn’t any evidence of a natural disaster. Could they have left in a panic? Something scary enough to cause everyone to run instead of trying to hide, perhaps? But, they haven’t come back.

“Everything looks okay. Why haven’t the people come back?” My mouth blurted out.

Silas looked up from his scribing to look at me as I was investigating a nearby cart. A horse had been tied to the cart at some point to pull the heavy cart of barrels. “Isn’t it obvious?” I shook my head, getting annoyed by his arrogance again. “Something has prevented them from returning. There are three hundred people out there in danger, and it’s my responsibility to save them.”

His statement struck me as strange. “Why is it your responsibility, Silas? This is something the army or the royal court should be taking care of, not a researcher like you.”

Silas stilled at my words. “You have your secrets, Red, and I have mine.” He didn’t give me a chance to see his face as he moved on toward another business that was left open.

His words confused me. Why would he have secrets about his responsibilities? I guess he was more than a researcher at the Wizard’s Guild. Maybe he has a place at court? Silas was fancy enough to be a noble’s son. N’ila could be part of his parents’ territory. It would make sense why he was so set on finding the town’s people. Why would he keep his status a secret?

“Okay, why are you keeping this particular secret?” I couldn’t hide my curiosity.

He didn’t even turn to look at me as I followed behind him. “Same reason you keep yours, Red. I want to protect people close to me.”

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“Hey, I never said that was my reason,” I argued.

“Really? You want to do this now?” Silas looked back at me with frustration.

Weighing my options, I chose to go ahead and push him. This may be what I needed to get past all of the awkwardness. “Yes, I want to have it out with you. Ema always says I need to talk my shit out, so let’s do it.”

“Fine.” He tucked his journal back into his pocket with his pencil. “Why me, Red? Why have you gotten so physically vulnerable with me on more than one occasion and then acted like I am a nuisance?”

When I said I wanted to have it out, I meant talking about the secret keeping, not the awkwardness between us. I felt myself wavering if I should answer that honestly or if I should be guarded. Silas looked at me like he was expecting to squirm at the subject. I thought of Emalynn and Braxton who had left us to have this exact conversation. If I lied, it could ruin this traveling party. There was only one way to maintain the balance between the four of us.

“I felt something…comforting about you. It drew me in when I was at my weakest.” My face became flushed at my words. “I thought you were safe. The annoyance was my childish way of trying to handle the vulnerability I shared with you.”

His face changed from frustration to something unreadable. “I can accept that.”

We were silent for a moment, unsure of what to say next. I can say the awkwardness wasn't as strong between us now. Would this be enough though? I can't say I trust him any more than I did before I said anything to him. We needed to build that trust if we were going to make it to Desfyra in one piece. Where should I start… There must be something easy to talk about.

“Ok. We need to keep talking. Um. What have you been writing in your journal about?” I shuffled forward

He looked down at the ground and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. Silas seemed unsure of how to answer. We were supposed to be scrounging the town for clues on what happened to N’ila. Yet, I am here occupying his time with trivial questions to build some trust. Now, I just felt bad for distracting him since we had a responsibility to help this town either way. I waited another minute, but he didn’t look at me or answer my question. We need to keep moving.

“Okay, you think about the answer while we keep moving. The newest footprints are headed toward the south entrance, so let’s go have a look.” I linked my arm to his and dragged Silas along. He didn’t speak at all as we neared the south gate of the town. The heat of the day had started beating down on us and made our walk more uncomfortable.

Outside the south gate, there was evidence of the town’s people, but the worst possible kind. All of my senses were assaulted like a gale-force wind giving me tunnel vision. I was unaware of Silas anymore because of the amount of decay and guts around us. There were about twenty dead bodies strewn about like a battle occurred. Flies and other flesh-eating bugs buzzed about the remains, which had been pulled apart by scavenger animals. Plants in the area had already begun to wilt from the surplus of mana from the abundance of elf blood in the ground. The whole scene was a horror story waiting to happen. This was a place where necromancers were born from the enraged spirits of the dead because no one had put their bodies to rest.

My instinct was to burn it all away. If they remained, the enraged spirits would have no tether to the world, and heaven would welcome them home. I could feel the rush of magic flowing through me. A spark of electricity snapped in my hand. I needed to take care of these disrespected people to save them from an afterlife of torture. My ring had begun to glow once more with my overwhelming emotions driving my actions. Right as I was about to fire, Silas stood right in front of me, blocking me from the horror show behind him. His lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was telling me. A tight warm grip on my arm made the magic tingle beneath my skin. I blinked, trying to focus on his words. He was trying to say something important.

Suddenly, a whisper of his voice reached my ear. “Red, wait. We need to know who they are first. They have families that need closure.”

Closure? It was an odd word to me because I have never experienced closure with anything. The closest I came to closure was with Jerico. I carried him to his guild master and returned to the forest where he died in my arms. If I could offer someone the smallest bit of closure, I should. The fog of emotion that clouded my mind cleared as I focused on Silas. I used his grip on my arm to ground me back to reality.

Collapsing on the ground due to the rush of magic leaving me, I managed to sit up. Silas had controlled my fall, so I didn't hurt myself. I looked up at him and nodded that I was okay. “Go. Identify them,” I sighed. Silas nodded, slipped on black gloves, and went to work. I wasn’t sure how he planned to identify decaying bodies covered in flies and grubs. I watched him for hours as he tried to piece the body parts together like a puzzle before jotting something down in his journal. The fancy elf didn’t shy away from the gross gooey bodies. He was determined to get answers for the people of N’ila, which was admirable.

Huh, I finally found something to like about the guy. He could be admirable. Was that why I got this sense of comfort and safety from him? Silas was annoying and arrogant, but underneath his prideful asshole self, he kept his word. He would live up to his responsibilities to the best of his ability, or at least, that’s what he was doing now. I could find a way to be friends with him if I could focus on that. We needed to try to be friends or Ema and Braxton would suffer on our journey to Desfyra.

It was at that moment that I got to my feet and shifted to my wolf form, leaving my clothes behind with my bag. I needed to extend an olive branch to Silas, and these people needed a burial place. Unfortunately, I don’t have the skill to build ornate coffins like elves usually had. What I could do was create holes for them to be buried in with my terran magic. Trotting toward the rack wall of N’ila, I used my paws to mark out twenty places to dig up about ten feet from the wall. It didn’t take long to dig out the holes with my tunnel magic. One after another, I pawed at the dirt for each person who had died. When I finished, the burial plots didn’t feel like enough for these poor people, so I walked into town to find a fabric store. With no one around, I shifted back to human form easily for a change and began collecting decent fabric to wrap the bodies in. It wasn’t spider silk or golden lamb fluff, but I selected some decent threads out of respect for the dead. I load the spoils into an empty abandoned cart. I headed back to the burial plots in wolf form, pulling the cart behind me.

Silas was there, staring at the plot on the ground. He turned back to see me pulling a cart toward the burial plots. His eyes looked at me with appreciation once he took inventory of the cart. Silas approached me slowly in my wolf form and crouched to look at me. “Did you do this for them?” He asked, pointing back at the dead.

I brushed my head against his hand to answer him. He chuckled, “Thank you, Red. It means a lot.”

The next few hours went by in a blur. I shifted back to help Silas bury the dead. We wrapped up each body, loaded them into the cart, and placed them into a burial plot. I was one plot short at the end, so we dug one more. We covered each plot in dirt, and Silas marked each grave with a numbered stone. Each number matched a number in his journal with a description of the person he recorded. It took us a whole day, but each person was laid to rest.

Before shifting back, I wanted to investigate the area for anything we missed. I had gone nearly a mile past the massacre site when I discovered the evidence of what happened to the town of N’ila. There was a broken wagon on the side of the road with another dead elf, but the smoking gun was the obsidian cuff on his wrist. The body wasn’t as decayed as the others, so the slavers hadn’t left the area too long ago. Moving such a large haul of people would be difficult under the best circumstances, but based on what we found, those elves weren’t going willingly. I ran back toward the town where I smelt a large fire burning. Panic set in, and I sped toward the fire. What happened while I was gone?