Mana had opinions about humans. They were a crude race who could not unite, and yet who was she to talk about unity when her people were separated by forests and jungles?

  They say that humans were selfish and were people who in their short lives would accomplish many things to have meaning in their life. The Elven-kin lived as long as the trees. She was fairly young herself, and was still a kid compared to her kin. But she had seen what humans would do, how they react, and how they think during the few days.

  At least she thought she knew. She had been awakened lately. Awakened to the tragedy of a man who thought to himself as someone who was only good at saving people. How she wanted to tell him that was wrong, that if he wanted to save people.

  He should try saving himself.

  For the months she had been acquainted with this man. He was someone who helped out of duty. That was why it was so confusing to have someone help her like this.

  He was not bound by his duties outside of the fleet. They were not even in the same ship, and she should not be part of his concerns. But she heard of his excuses, his desires on why he would risk his life.

  With his life ebbing, she understood what he wanted to accomplish at the ticking of his life. A desperate man who knew that he was running out of time, vowing to save one life.

  It was a wish of a healer. If she could only move and do something for him. How lovely would that be?

  His warmth. His steadfast struggle. What kind of ‘person’ would not appreciate someone who was selfless enough to abandon his well-being for the sake of another?

  He was succumbing to the ‘silence’ and although he was a brilliant doctor. He was ignorant of the Artes. Will was the first thing to be attacked by the Artes that is cast by ‘silence’ and it came as a surprise to her that he was able to endure.

  It meant that his desire to help her mattered than what he was succumbing to. It was nothing new. She had seen good men endure terrible spells and hexes from those who harm them. Most endured through rage, and some out of determination.

  His desire was bright like a lamp in a dark spacious room. But she noticed that he was not looking at her as someone. She was a wish that he hoped would come true.

  It was heavy.

  His dreams.

  His hopes.

  He was willing to give his life away for the sake of those two. But if she could speak, if she could move. She would shove those two back to him.

  It was pathetic.

  It was awful.

  Seeing someone try so hard to accept their death while fighting the temptation to just end it as well was hard to witness. Though he was clueless that she could see him and hear him. He hid his thoughts and actions like a man would. Fearing that someone would see his weakness. Criticize him for his weakness at the face of hardship.

  It was that same manly pride that every race had. But as time passes, as he faces enemies, fights them, he grows careless, wearing his heart on his sleeves, too tired to hide his pride.

  He was no fighter. His hands were not meant to fight. But yet seeing him fight for his life, wielding a spear, using the advantage of his pistols to secure a critical blow. It came to her that he knew how to fight and kill.

  Bloody, but alive, weakened but standing. His piercing eyes looking at her, wary, worried of the harm that might have come to her. Sometimes, he would use his own body as a shield. If she was not around she was sure that he would at least be able to escape unharmed. His movements would be unhindered, and his strikes fierce.

  With a weakened body, he would have surely been suffering. Yet she had found out that behind the thin clothes he wore, was a body scarred with bruises, burns, and blunt wounds. But the wounds on his body seemed like from an old beating, a club perhaps?

  Sustaining wounds, he had suture himself. When it isn’t enough he would heat up one of his medical tools and cauterize his wound. All she could understand was that he was used to a harsh environment. Then again, she recalled that he came from the vilest place in Aon. He was taught by a man who was a monster even to the elven-kin.

  Was he someone who was hiding behind a mask? Or was this desire that he was showing nothing more than a layer of his mask? But she was sure that they wouldn’t know of their abilities that are kept secret.

  That’s why she could not believe this stupidity she was seeing. Nonetheless, she could not stop looking at him. What else was she supposed to do in times like these? She could not move. She could not speak.

  To see and hear without ever talking to the person was risking his life. To watch as he risks his life, fighting for a person who would not answer.

  The elven-kin are a race with stiff upper lips. Their bland expression and stolid demeanors made people think they are stone. But they have emotions, and gratitude was among they cherish the most.

  It was hard to receive all these gratitude from a dying man. But she was powerless to stop the healing of her body. Her race’s natural affinity to heal while in slumber was one of their weakness. They remain still without moving, the ‘spirits’ forcing their bodies to remain alive.

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  Honestly, she would fared better if she was not moved. But how could he know that? That was why she found it frustrating to look at.

  How the right choice he thought was not the right move for her.

  If he had decided to leave her in the ground.

  She would have healed faster.

  The world around her would sooth her wounds and the curse that plagues her would return to the earth.

  His judgment was not wrong, she might not be able to live as well if she was attacked, considering the monsters plaguing the forest.

  But who was she to complain when he was doing his best already? They weren’t the one to fault when her people barely informs what the elven-kin can do. Their secrets were theirs to keep, and she found no reason to believe that they would know as well.

  Ever since she woke up, she had allowed it in her mind to accept what he was doing. Though there was no trace of desire when she is unclothed by him to wipe her body, and take care of her needs.

  It was humiliating.

   To be seen fully without clothing, every crevice of her body, and even her private parts exposed was an offense to them.

  He would take care of her when she defecates. When she needs to urinate, and when she unintentionally does both unconsciously. She heard no single complain, and not a stir.

  Her lips had been stolen so brazenly, but she understood that there was a need for her to eat. She was like an unmoving infant that needed a guardian to care for her. If he had cared about the chastity of her lips, then she would have died choking, unable to breath.

  She wondered if the illusion of beauty of the elven-kin had been broken for him. That the beautiful long-eared women would no longer feel sacred to him and pure after seeing her shat and piss.

  She started wonder if she had beauty because of resistant he was.

   But in some days, when at his weakest. She would find him staring at her body, his eyes filled with desire and craving.

  His eyes could burn through her. When she saw his desire, she thought that she was about to lose her chastity to him. But again and again, he had shown the will to endure.

And as he endured he berated himself for having thoughts for his patient. She knew her beauty, and how her body attracts men. He could have done every desire, and yet he had done nothing, choosing to remain as a professional.

  And if he did, she would have made sure to have him become her myra, forever rooted until he returns to the earth.

  In some nights, she appreciated the warmth he give. During the days where he would walk under the light of the sun, she was glad that he didn’t give up on her.

  But it was still painful. The world, no, the jungle hunts him down. He could barely sleep with predators coming for him, and the more he keep on moving forward, the harder it becomes for him.

  He had survived because of how effective his pistols were. He was running out of bullets, and his weakening body was draining him of the physical strength he needed to fight. Each wound made him weaker, and though she had seen the lengths of how far a human body could do.

  He was at his limit. Even the drugs he had been taking could no longer support his body.

  Even now he fights.

  A beast two heads taller than him glared. The beast swung, he ducked, and pierced the spear on the beast’s thigh. He pulled the spear back, drew his pistol, and took a shot.

  The beast shielded with his arms. Arms still raised, the beast went for a tackle, and Gabrio rolled to the side, and thrusts the spear again. The beast blocked using the palm of his hands. With the spear lodged on the beast’s palm, the beast elbowed the shaft of the spear, and grabbed hold of him, slamming his back on the dirt.

  He spat a mouthful of blood. His shirt wetted as the wounds that he had sutured and cauterized reopened at the impact. Drawing a pistol, he shot the beast right in the chest, the recoil of the pistol, flung his arm to the side.

  The beast, bleeding, lifted him again, and smashed his back on the tree. His face crumbled, and as the beast went for the neck. Gabrio drew his knife, stabbing it furiously on the web of the beast’s fingers.

  Dropping him, Gabrio, like a maddened god, stabs the knife on the beast’s heel, then he rolled to the side, mounted the back of the beast, and stabbed the beast against and against on the back of its neck.

  The beast raged, throwing Gabrio away like a sack. His face was bruised, he was spitting blood, and his eyes were squinted, he coughed madly, his hands were shaking.

  The beast roared, running at Gabrio with fury of a maddened bull. Gabrio, lifted his knife, and then was slapped on the chest by the beast. Gabrio held on to the arm of the beast, then dropped down, drew the third pistol on his belt, and pointed it at the chin of the beast.

  He pulled the trigger, the bullet piercing through the jaw, the skull, and the brain, causing an implosion inside the beast’s head as the bullet pierces through the back of the beast’s head.

  The beast twitched. Gabrio crawled to the beast, and drove the knife through the ear of the beast, again and again.

  The wet sound of a knife going through flesh again and again. When the beast’s head was disfigured, Gabrio crawled to where Mana was again.

  He crawled, moving using his elbows until he reached Mana. His barely opened eyes scanned Mana, and the worried look on his face faded away as his eyes then became unfocused.

  He leaned on the ground, coughing out blood, he inhaled and exhaled loudly, while blood dripped out of his nose. He fought the heaviness of his eyes, he reached out for his pocket, and shakily tried to inject himself with the drug that had been keeping him alive.

  Powerless, face down on the ground, a pool of blood slowly forming under him.

  How many times had she seen such sight?

  The flickering eyes that didn’t want to give up. The bloodied clothes, and the unconscious movements and flinches as his body suffers the pain.

  Again, on the ground, barely alive after fighting the beast. Mana could only pray, that the spirits healing her would mend him.

  Yet the spirits didn’t move him, and stayed with her.

  He laid unmoving, helpless, alone, and even more beaten than before.