Her Soaked Feathers

The light she gave off was the only thing that remained of her. And soon, it wrapped around the hand of the sorcerer. She guided his gaze and his thoughts alike, almost seeming to whisper him the spell to use.

     Then Henox approached, while the thorns gradually tightened their trap, leaning his hand against one of the stems.

     He made but little use of spells unrelated to necromancy, having more affinity with souls than with the other creatures or more precisely, in this case, elementals.

     Feeling the bramble under his fingers, Henox closed his eyes so he could better focus on the spell. From his lips escaped murmurs in a language only known by the beings they were addressed to. Mimicking the moves of Griselde’s lips, as she taught them to him. When he learnt by her side…

     The surface of the bramble began to fissure under his hand. Spreading, widening. Until it cracked completely and became earth.

     Suddenly shattering, what had been bramble fell apart into dried clods of soil. The closest brambles shared in turn the same fate while, keeping his hand extended before him, Henox opened his eyes to behold the passage clear.

     One after the other, the thorny stems which had parted him from Gretel weren’t spared, disaggregating until becoming earth again.

     Not losing more time the sorcerer then stepped forward, determined. Getting through the walls which held him back until he reached the little one trapped on the other side.

     She was there, curled unto herself, crying hard tears.

“Let’s leave.”

     Raising wet eyes towards the sorcerer, the little fairy didn’t utter a word. He knew her hesitations, he knew her fears. Her remorse.

“Gretel… I’ve also committed crimes, just like you.” He paused. “If I hadn’t been obsessed with an absurd fixation, I would have avoided losing her.”

     In his voice, a hint of bitterness. He mid-closed his eyes before resuming.

“None of us is innocent, and whatever we do, we’ll always have this blood over our hands.”

“Then…” The little fairy began with a broken voice.

     Though he didn’t even let her continue.

“This said, you don’t have to suffer it alone.” He kept his gaze fixed on hers. “Let me share your burden.”

     And, uttering these words, he reached out his hand for a second time before him.

     She hesitated. She thought she would be able to hold back.

     Before flying away to land in the palm of his hand.

     Weak. Sincere.

“I have… I have the right?… I really have the right to… to stay with you?…” She stammered between her tears.

     The sorcerer approached his hand to him, until snuggling the little fairy against him. As if he wished to reassure her.

“Yes. You have the right to.”

     Sobs.

“Thank you… for having come for me… Thank you…”

“We’ll continue to travel together. Whether it’s only until the nightfall or for a wingbeat… never mind the ending world. As long as I would be able to stay by your side, then that’s what I’ll do.”

     Aware that they didn’t have the luxury to linger, the sorcerer raised his eyes to the brambles obstructing the passage.

“Are we going to… die? We can’t reach the boat any more.”

     Henox glanced at the earth now clustered near the path he had created.

     He smirked.

“Don’t give up.”

***

The Bergfolks were flailing at the helm, puppets dangling from the handles, trying to manoeuvre the ship out of their shackles.

     While the members of the crew were for many running on the board in all directions, the Loireag stood near the railing. She was the first one to notice the golem which just emerged from the brambles below. A golem on which shoulder the sorcerer was perched.

     Once out in the open air, Henox noticed the ship in difficulty.

     Well, well. So not only they had to join the ship but also to make it escape the brambles. This world wouldn’t let them leave so easily. Such affection…

     At least these same brambles offered them their way back to the Fairy’s Hope. The golem only had to set forth to the brambles.

     As it hung on to the thorns to climb, the sorcerer kept an eye on their progress while keeping Gretel in the palms of his hands.

     Once they reached the edge of the bramble hooked to the hull, the sorcerer used the same spell he did earlier to reduce it to earth debris. Which ones soon fell into the void.

     Deprived of its hold, what remained of the thorny stem began to fall backward. Before sinking along with it, the golem threw the sorcerer in the air so he could land on the board.

     Their friends didn’t fail to promptly gather around them while Henox straightened up, letting Gretel fly up to his shoulder.

“Gretel! You are safe and sound!” Tomoo rejoiced.

“Well done.” Lennac stepped closer. “The ship will be able to resume its way.”

     Everyone seemed reassured to see the sorcerer and the little fairy had managed to come back. Rejoicing for being able to cast smiles at each other. They lost everything, but they still hadn’t lost themselves.

     The story could have ended there. A few laughs. The feeling of having left a part of themselves behind. A few tears.

     They could have left this dying world and reach the stars.

     They could have.

     A shadow shaped above the ship. The watchdwarf screamed.

“Brambles!! Brambles on all sides!”

     Henox raised his eyes to behold them, some having stretched to the ship’s level. Others elongating from the ground as if to pierce the hull.

“They’re too far away.” He thought. “I won’t have the time to use my spell over them…”

     Kemishi clenched her hands against her heart while her comrades looked panicked. Over her features, a grim expression. Stiff.

     The highest brambles were already falling back towards the ship.

“…It’s the end…” Tomoo breathed.

     Useless it was to try to manoeuvre the ship. Useless to push the grotesque. The brambles would spear it before it had veered.

     A silhouette pulled away from the group. She approached the railing, gripping it before she pulled herself up on it, crouching down.

“Kemishi?” Lennac widened his eyes.

     The strands of her pastel green hair undulated backward, pulled by a weary wind.

     She didn’t utter a word as the gazes focused on her. Gretel watching without understanding what was happening. Barely did Kemishi dare to turn her head to the man she loved. However, she strived to smile at him. Feathers already appearing over her face.

“Live.”

     And as he rushed towards her to hold her back, the alchemist threw herself overboard. Leaving behind mere tears, as well as the horror in Lennac’s eyes while his hand clenched over the void.

“KEMISHI!! COME BACK!”

     The feathers with marine reflections soon entirely covered her body as so many petals while the latter grew, lengthened. Long wings formed on either side of her body, shaping the silhouette of a bird with noble features. An aquamarine beak. Longer feathers grew at the back of her head. Bigger formed a tail same as a bouquet of ribbons, their shapes curvilinear. Made out of water, they undulated under the pressure of the air.

     The aquatic phœnix swooped down to the ground.

“Forgive me Lennac… It may be fool of me, but I can’t watch you all dying and do nothing.”

     She cast a few glances on both sides. Even though brambles covered everything, she could still feel the presence of water.

     She let out a shrill, crystalline cry.

     The liquid – the only one still able to slip through the interstices – then tried to reach the figure of the phœnix. All around, water raised to the creature, allowing her to grow in scale.

     But she was half a phœnix, half an undine. And her mind began to dilute into the water.

“If I am not here, who will care to heal you…? Who will put you in your place when you keep on moving around instead of resting? To play with a squirrel that sneaked through the window, forgetting to take your medicine?”

     Fool. He always had been. Though if she lectured him sometimes, in truth she was happy about it. Since he lived with her, he had lost his empty soldier’s eyes. At her side, he had been able to be simple, he had been able to be himself.

     The wind whistled near her ears, yet she could still vaguely hear screams muffled by the water. Was it her name they called?…

     She already missed his smile.

     The world was ending. It would have been easier to all share the same fate. Perhaps it would have been less painful. Less egoist. Though…

“But a moment more, just a moment more. I wish for you to live…”

     As she bumped into the brambles, the phœnix was nothing more but water. Forming a single, gigantic azure mass.

     Under the force of the impact, the water heaved itself, forming an immense wave that rose. Gaining more and more height.

     Until lifting the hull of the Fairy’s Hope, taking it in its wake out of the reach of the brambles.