What feels right

“Layla … I’m sorry.”

Zayden lay helpless on the ground, pinned by the Hidreuze wrapped around his body, draining his elgrima dry as he felt the energy leaving his body. As he thought about how much he’d failed, he lost all motivation to resist.

Just as he’d resigned himself to his fate, a long tentacle shot forward, bashing the largest Hidreuze clean off him. He slowly drifted his eyes upwards, eyeing a set of familiar, human legs, a small body, tentacle-arms, and a face full of concern.

“Dad, you're okay! hold on!”

She extended her arms further, knocking the rest of the beasts away before rushing to stand defensively in front of him. Seeing her right there before him, alive and well, life rushed back to his eyes.

“Layla? You’re alive!”

She turned her head back to him with a large, bright smile, brimming with the gratitude of seeing him again. She didn’t have time for a proper reunion, however; turning back around, the Hidreuze were getting ready to attack again.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then proceeded to speak in a manner resembling high-pitched noise rather than human speech. Zayden watched as the Hidreuze looked to turn more docile, and began making similar noises back. He watched their exchange, trading noises back and forth that he couldn’t understand, but saw the creatures back down, and slowly begin to crawl away. Layla focused, reforming her tentacles back into human arms as she began to turn back around, speaking softly.

“They’re not under her control anymore, but they kept going because they were hungry; they’ll find somewhere else to feed now.”

Zayden attempted to step forward, falling over before sinking into his shadow, speeding forward before quickly jumping out, using the momentum to throw himself forward, embracing his daughter in a tight hug, catching her by surprise.

“H-hey! You don’t have much stamina or elemental energy left, you shouldn’t push yourself-”

Although utterly exhausted, he cut her off with the little breath he had remaining.

“Shush … just settle for a second; I missed you.”

As serious as she knew his condition was, his words broke down her exterior, causing her to start bawling out her own relief to be with him again.

“I … I missed you too …”

After standing there for a while, the two of them eventually sat outside the walls of the skull. Zayden leaned against it, breathing heavily as his eyes drifted towards Layla, speaking faintly.

“How did you … escape?”

Layla looked down, narrowed her eyes, thinking back, and answered.

“The chosen one stood up for me; she made Cecilia let me go. She said she could relate to how you feel, apparently; having someone special to you.”

Zayden thought back himself, piecing things together with his own experiences.

“She did mention she has a sister to look after. Don’t tell me she took that feeling and ran with it; that could have been a huge mistake.”

“She said it just felt like ‘the right thing to do’.”

Zayden chuckled at the thought, feeling like he was finally starting to get an idea of who this all-important ‘chosen one’ really was.

“Heh, I didn’t know the chosen one had such a bleeding heart. I guess she really is just a kid, putting her emotions first like that.”

In that moment, Layla also came to the same realisation, but couldn’t help but let out a smirk in response.

“Like you can talk.”

He smiled begrudgingly, not being able to say no to something like that.

“I guess that’s true.”

Despite the lax attitude, she could tell it was hurting for him to try and speak, letting her concern bleed into her exterior a little.

“You don’t have much energy left, do you?”

“Not really, no; they drained me pretty badly.”

He stood up slowly, stumbling forward as he did, before an extended tentacle caught him from the front. He held his chest carefully before taking a deep breath.

“I think I have enough left for a one-way trip, so we could make it back home, or we could go the opposite direction.”

“Huh? Why aren’t we going back? I know it’s not perfect, but it’s safer than being out here.”

“You didn’t just ‘escape’, you were rescued, right? Well, if I’m going to let my emotions lead the way, we may just have to do something insane.”

A little while later, Cecilia and Reyna were still riding ahead. Reyna was starting to have second thoughts about her situation, but she wasn’t exactly in the position to just up and leave. They’d both said nothing for a while now, but as she stared solemnly into the ground, she heard Cecilia break the silence.

“Ah, there we are! You can see the wall from here; we’re almost at the border.”

Looking past the woman in front of her, Reyna did indeed see a large wall, far off in the distance. The entire thing shone with a dazzling light, so bright that even though they were miles away, it still lit up a bit of the floor around them; that was undoubtedly the kingdom of light.

“Don’t worry, chosen one, once we’re inside you’ll be taken great care of. My family’s estate is quite sizable, and you’ll have as much food, clothes, and any kind of pleasantries you could ever want.”

Cecilia began to slow down her ride. Home was right in front of her, after all, so she felt more relaxed; there was no reason to rush anymore. They continued on, peaceful, and undisturbed, until a singular shadow dashed under the creatures legs, with a man and a girl popping out on the other side, landing in front of them. Layla grabbed Zayden before he fell back down to the ground, both of them turning back around to confront Cecilia, whose face burned with a mixture of anger and confusion.

“What? What are you two doing here!? What possible reason do you have to come back!?”

Zayden smirked, gently pushing away from Layla and standing firmly on his own, staring the woman straight in the eyes as he answered without hesitation.

“No reason. It just felt like the right thing to do.”