Chapter 171 - Fifteen

XXXVII.

Later, as the sun was starting to set, it was soon time to eat.

The plan was for Jed to catch the fish, while Bridgette gathered twigs and stones to set the fire.

Typhon and El were sitting next to each other on the shore, in the meantime. 

Sensing the tension in the air between them, Typhon was gazing out across the gradually darkening water's surface, mustering up the courage to say something. 

"Was today...fun?" He finally asked, turning to her sharply.

The bear cub had fallen asleep in El's lap, meaning she no longer had anything to distract herself with.

Her gaze was fixed downward. "Yes."

Typhon felt sick. Why was she acting this way?

"I-I-Is this about last night?" He asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Thank you," El said unto her bare feet.

"Thank you...for everything."

Typhon didn't understand, as she averted her gaze. Pushing him away, once again.

Bridgette let out a frustrated growl, angrily dropping the two sticks she was using to try to start a fire with, to no avail. 

"Why am I having so much trouble with this!?"

Jed approached her, hauling a basket of fish. "Setting fires is something you learn in ranger school, isn't it?"

Seeing this, El didn't think twice. She knew how she could help.

Raising one arm in the direction of the fire, and concentrating as she did before, a flame was instantly conjured.

Everyone saw it happen, and stared at El in shock.

Jed dropped the basket of fish, gawking and pointing. "D-d-did she just..."

Bridgette was speechless as she looked at him, then back at El with growing worry.

Typhon was angry at her callousness, more than anything.

"Why'd you do that?" He snapped at her. "Remember what the clock tower man said!?"

"These are your friends, aren't they?" El replied calmly. "So we shouldn't worry."

She glared at Jed, who appeared to be the more shaken of the two.

"What's the matter? Scared?" She mocked him, grinning as she rose to her feet, in doing so tossing the slumbering bear cub off her, into the sand. "Maybe it's best if you kill me right now, just to be safe."

"El!" Typhon grabbed her by the arm. "What's gotten into you!?"

Her voice was solemn, forlorn. "It doesn't matter," she said. "None of this matters."

She pulled free of Typhon, and made off running into the forest.

"Wait, El!" Typhon called out, then after a quick glance at a stunned Bridgette and Jed, followed after her.

Eugene had rung the clock tower bell for the second time that evening, so he was getting ready to wind down for the night. But as he was lying in bed, cozying up with a book like he always did, he got to thinking about those kids he'd helped out. He got to reflecting on his own life, and how much of it he'd lost to his duties at this damned old clock tower.

He slammed shut the book he was reading -- a sweet, inconsequential little story about a sleeping princess that could only be awakened by true love's first kiss -- and breathed deeply.

Simply reading of others' adventurers was not enough to quell his restless spirit anymore.

It was time he tried something new.

Feeling invigorated, like he was suddenly thirty years younger, he threw the book out the window, letting it fall into the canal below. He didn't even bother changing out of his nightgown before running down the stairs, out into the street. The people gasped at the sight of him, no doubt thinking he was a madman, but he didn't care.

He looked around, for anyone that might need saving, or with a quest for him to embark upon...

But then, it hit him. Like that angel, when she came flying face-first into the clock tower.

This is real life, he at once remembered, with startling clarity. This isn't like one of those stories.

I have to create my own adventure!

And it was then, at that precise moment, when the clock tower erupted in a huge explosion.

Eugene for the first time saw the upper crust of Khadez running for their lives, tripping and stumbling clumsily in their rich coats and long dresses, making them easy targets to be picked off by the merciless Ankh invaders armed with longbows.

The city defenders already lay dying in the streets in droves, leaving the townspeople utterly defenseless.

Even children were fair game, as the Ankh continued their bloody assault.

Something massive was looming overhead, casting a shadow over the entire town.

It was all happening so fast, but there wasn't time for Eugene to stop and make sense of it all.

One of the Ankh soldiers spotted him, so he tried to run as fast as he could. Knowing that, at his age he was unlikely to get far. That all those years of living secluded in the clock tower had left him in a horribly weak state.

Is my grand adventure going to end already? He thought, falling against a wall.

Something had slashed his side. Blood was draining out of the wound.

He looked up to the sky, dyed an ominous red, and could swear he saw an angel. A beautiful angel, hovering high in the air.

Meanwhile, Elias du Cavalier's jail cell quaked from the impact, shedding loose bits of debris from the ceiling. The other prisoners in there were wailing and crying to be let out, while he remained calm, holding his hands close to his chest.

If he was to die in this place, he would do so with the proper dignity of a gentleman.

As for the part he had played in bringing his master's plan to fruition, Elias could only pray for forgiveness.

XXXVIII.

El was still running through the woods as night fell, when the ground beneath her shook.

The force caused her to fall, and go rolling down the slope of a hill, through the grass and dirt, until she landed in a murky, brown puddle-filled ditch with a splash.

"My, how pathetic," she heard the white serpent whisper, and froze.

When she tried to stand up, she winced from a pain in her foot and only fell back down.

"Show yourself, snake!" El spat, turning to look in all directions, the dim light exuding forth from her body piercing through the darkness.

"You've had your fun," the white serpent continued. "Now it's time for us to go..."

"No!"El cried, her messy mop of mud-drenched hair slapping the sides of her face as she shook her head. "I'm notgoing anywhere with you!"

"When the earth shook just now, that was them. They're here."

She heard Typhon calling out to her.

"It's okay, El!" He persisted. "What happened last night...I'm over it! You don't have to beat yourself up anymore!"

El wanted to scream back at him, telling him to go, but that would only give away her position.

But what she wanted, more than anything, was for the ordinary life they'd built together to continue. Even if she did have trouble fitting in. And even though Frogman and Jed gave her eerie vibes, showing her now more clearly than ever that people were capable of tremendous cruelty.

As long as there were good people like Bridgette around. Or, the old women that taught her how to cook, and sew, and told her stories.

Most of all, someone like Typhon. The one she loved.

In honor of all the kindness she'd been shown, El felt a duty to protect the good people of Bethel. Even the ones she had yet to meet in her short time living here.

That was why she held up both her hands, to again rouse the mysterious power within her.

"Foolish girl!" The serpent snarled. "What is it you think you're doing!?"

At once, the grass and trees around El were set ablaze, filling the air with thick smoke.

"This fire will spread until it consumes the entire forest, and the villagers will have no choice but to run."

When an overhead branch snapped because of the blaze, the serpent fell down with it.

It landed next to El, looking at her with a wide, angry grin.

"Idiot! Our brothers will still wipe them all out when they come here looking for you!"

El leaned her head back, to stare up at the quickly burning canopy.

"That's why...I'm going to give myself up," she said. "That way, I might be able to make them stop, or at least buy enough time for everyone to escape."

"You would throw your hard-fought freedom away for some dirty humans?!"

El herself wasn't sure what motivated her, other than a notion of what was wrong and right. To let innocent people die just for her sake was unthinkable.

She gritted her teeth through the pain of her wings piercing out through her shoulder blades.

I'm sorry Typhon, she thought to herself, in tears as she struggled to get up on her feet, leaning against a tree trunk for support. 

Move forward. Live your life without me, and be happy.

Just as she flapped her wings and banked into the sky, however, at last second the serpent lunged and gripped unto her neck, with its razor sharp fangs dripping with venom.

Panicking, El was sent into a spiral, slamming into trees and being whipped by fiery branches.

Flapping her wings wildly to try to right herself, her body started to go numb.

Her head was spinning, costing her all sense of her surroundings within the growing inferno.

Finally, having lost all control, El plummeted. 

Like a falling stone she hit the ground, so hard that it knocked the wind out of her.

Through blurred vision, she glanced around. The air was simmering hot, and filled with the crackling of burning wood. For as far as she could see, the fire had spread.

I have to keep moving, she urged herself. If I don't reach the others in time...

As she struggled along, reduced to a slow crawl, she could hear twigs snapping and feet shifting in the grass. As something, or someone, was prowling nearby.

"Typhon..." She groaned, in a barely audible whimper. Don't come.

It wasn't, however, as El stopped when a pair of boots suddenly appeared in front of her.

Glancing up at the figure wearing a green riding cloak, in a dreamlike haze she thought she saw the face of a boar, upon the man of a body,  looking down at her.