280Chapter 34... The beginning of the end. Brace yourselves.
ALL THE WRONG REASONS
Myka: Because I choose to be
Freyl wasn't surprised by the "Why…?" that he got in response, even when it stayed uncompleted, but only because he'd made no prediction of Myka's response. He reckoned he could completed the question with his own words anyway—Why did you force that kiss on me?—but having completed it, he had no inkling how he should answer it.
The first answer that came to mind would hurt Myka, he knew, no matter how truthful it was. I don't know. He had no better alternative at hand, even without the threat of a host of menacing lichs at hand. In any case, he would have found the actual question intended by Myka no easier to answer. Why do you make me feel this way?
His unwanted chorus burst forth, distracting him even further. why waSTE time I aWaIt ComE sWiFtLY
He tried to make light of it, as he often did when he was backed into such corners, and managed a rueful laugh with his answer. "I really should start thinking harder before I do something, shouldn't I?"
Myka didn't join in the laughter. He looked like he was performing the funeral rites for a beloved person. What if he asks me to think about my motives here and now? That alarming thought hustled him into trying another tactic. "Look, we have to deal with this,"—he made a sweeping gesture at the circle around him, which seemed to have grown thicker with bodies in the time that they'd been talking—"so I really don't want to think about anything else."
As if happy at his acknowledgement of the lichs, the voice butted in again. It was shouting now, deafening him with its insistence. LEAVE him COME to me COME NOW
Even without the unseen and unheard heckler, he reflected that if he lived to tell the tale of how he and Myka had a heart-to-heart talk with an audience of lichs, he'd either get a sea of awestruck gasps or laughed out of the room. In any case, he decided that they didn't need any more sentimentality. Let that brusque bully of a Freyl take over, and there'd be no more awkward mention of reasons and feelings.
"Whatever happened, happened, without any of us wanting it to," he said sternly. "You're not allowed to blame yourself."
"I'm not blaming myself." Myka unsheathed the sword, and stared hard at it. "I'm taking responsibility."
He felt a twinge of sadness that he was just a responsibility to Myka, but nodded encouragingly anyway. "You're already doing that by being here."
"I'm not here because I feel that I owe you something, Freyl."
Freyl felt his heart lurch; it was as if Myka was addressing his unspoken thought.
"I'm here because I choose to be."
His heart jumped again, right out of his chest, the way it felt.
"Because of love."
His heart was now in his throat, judging from how hard it was getting to breathe. There were so many things he could have said or thought or done. Somehow, his panicked mind decided to focus on two small things. Firstly, he noticed that Myka had said sayang—the most common of the words meaning 'love' that he could have used—and not damba, the word for the bond between Talent and Muse; and secondly, he wondered what would've happened if Myka had said cinta. He thought he might scream, or faint, or something just as foolish and dramatic. Whatever the possibilities, they paled beside what happened next.
In one accord, the zombies sighed, and slumped into motionless piles like puppets whose strings had just been cut.
And for the first time since he'd seen the shard burrow into his arm… it was quiet inside his head.
Eryk's already uncharacteristically sombre look intensified into a creased brow when he came within sight of Freyl and Myka. Granted, he wasn't expecting them to be exchanging jokes, or even looking particularly cheerful, but the looks of suffering on their faces seemed rather an extreme reaction to their situation. Something had definitely happened between those two while he was away. He resisted the urge to ask them why they both looked like a penned calf longing for its mother's milk, and announced his arrival instead with a whistle.
When he had both of their attentions, he said, "I saw some of them, but for some reason they all avoided me."
Freyl merely nodded, seemingly not surprised at all by his information. He made a sweeping gesture at his surroundings.
Eryk took a better look at where Freyl had pointed, and made an Oh of realisation. The circle of zombies was now almost three times the size it'd been.
"They're all coming here," Freyl confirmed grimly. "And I have a strong feeling that the longer I stay here the more of them there'll be."
They all had much the same thought: What next? – but only Freyl said it out loud. "What if they… change? If they start attacking others?"
The swiftness of Eryk's reply showed that he'd already made a decision on the same matter. "I can destroy them all."
"NO!" Both Myka and Freyl said the word in unison, and loudly enough to send a wave of agitation through the mass of lichs.
"There're too many of them," Myka reasoned. "It'd take too great a toll on you."
Freyl was more brutal. "You won't survive."
True to nature, Eryk was obstinate. "I'm willing to pay the price."
"I'm not!" Freyl snapped, and when the two gave him startled looks, added, "There'll be more, there's no doubt of that. And then what? We'd have lost you, and Xenpa would still be damned."
Eryk had no good argument to counter this, but his expression said he was going to disagree anyway. Freyl cut him off with a brisk "No more arguments!"
He took several deliberate steps in the direction that the lichs apparently wanted him to go. The circle flowed around him, each lich adjusting its distance to give him room to move, yet keeping him penned.
"There's only one thing to do," Freyl said, continuing to walk away. "I have to leave this place, and take them with me."
His silent retinue shuffled faithfully around him, dogging his steps. To the other two watching, it looked like he was leading them, but he knew the truth. They were herding him to wherever the voice was telling him to go.
Something was not quite right in Xenpa. To say that the village was in chaos was an exaggeration, but it wasn't also entirely true that the village was completely at peace. There was an air of unease that hung over everything – seen in barely-there creases on foreheads and heard in distracted voices and quickly-ended small talk. And the cause of it was clear – no one said it explicitly, but everyone knew.
The Firstborn had gone missing.
Only one person was largely oblivious of the general disquiet. A greater concern filled his thoughts to the exclusion of any other, summed up in one single sentence that repeated itself incessantly in his head. He couldn't deny it any longer – he'd read the scroll over and over again, until he almost knew the words by heart.
Such pairs find each other attractive, but their union carries other risks…
He was one of them. And so also, he realised, was Eryk, and even Freyl. The chances that the three of them had somehow found each other were small, but it'd happened. Right here was one half of the couples that the scrolls spoke of, who were meant to be together despite all odds – himself. Only he was convinced by now that his other half was not Eryk, but Freyl, and not just because they were Talent and Muse to each other. He was finally at peace, having accepted this, yet it also brought new uncertainties, not least among them the question of where all this left Eryk, and another burden even harder to bear: the nagging doubt that perhaps the bond that he felt with Freyl wasn't mutual.
And if you care so much about him, why did you leave him?
He couldn't answer his own question. So he kept quiet, kept his head low amidst all the chaos in the village, all the while feeling that something inside him was slowly dying. No one took notice of his mood – or so he thought.
"It's killing you, isn't it?"
That challenge—because that was what it was, despite being worded as a question—came from Eryk, who'd cornered him in his room at the end of the day.
His first reaction was to try to distract him. "And just what is killing me?" he retorted, keeping his voice calm. "I feel just as healthy as you look."
Eryk didn't play the game. "Why are you still here?" he asked, in the same challenging tone.
"Where else would I be?" he countered, still trying to avoid the real question.
"With him."
He could have kept it up with 'Who, him?' but he didn't even make the effort. Eryk had clearly seen through him.
The youngster kept up the offensive. "I know you wanted to leave with him. I could see it in your face."
"But what about…" He wanted to say 'us', but it came out differently. "What about you?"
"I want you to be happy." Eryk was defiant, but a catch still managed to enter his voice when he said the next sentence. "And it's obvious that you're not happy here with me."
"Eryk…" He couldn't say anything apart from that.
"I know." Eryk was smiling, but he could hear the pain in his voice. "Since we came back from the Touchstone," he added, without being asked. "Maybe even before that. I'd seen it, but I won't let myself accept it."
Make it better. Make him stop hurting. Make this stop. The demands in his head were urgent, yet he had no words to give to them, and so Eryk continued to fill the air with his anguished words, spoken through lips locked in a travesty of a smile.
"And after that day at the swimming hole… I couldn't pretend it wasn't so anymore."
He reached out, wrapped his arms around the smaller-built Talent. Eryk didn't reject the embrace, but neither did he hug him back.
"I want you to be happy," he choked into the healer's chest.
Myka couldn't speak. All he could do was to hold on to Eryk, and hope that he understood what he was trying to tell him, because he wasn't sure he understood it himself.
"And if Freyl is the one who makes you happy then you should be with him." Eryk pushed him away a little, as if he was already trying to create a distance between them. Myka refused to let him go completely, stubbornly grasping his arms.
"I love you, Myka." Eryk's voice broke at last. "I can't help it and I can't make it untrue," he gasped out, determined not to dissolve into tears.
He stopped for a moment to take a few deep breaths before continuing. "But I can be strong," he said quietly, and broke free of Myka's grasp at last. "Strong enough to let you go."
"You know I love you too," the healer managed to say at last.
"I know." Eryk's eyes held no accusation. "But you love him."
He had no words left, and no will to resist as Eryk draped his outdoor wear around his shoulders with a brisk "The sooner you leave the faster you'd catch up with him" and dumped his boots at his feet.
Eryk watched, hands on hips, until he got the footwear on, and then ushered him outside, where a rucksack awaited by the main door. The bag was slung onto his shoulders, accompanied by a recital of its contents – mostly food, a knife, and other travel essentials. Myka was overwhelmed, but he wasn't allowed to dwell over it; Eryk literally gave him a push on his way.
He began walking, still facing Eryk, and every time he wavered, he got a vigorous shooing motion. After a while, he turned away from him, but couldn't help looking back again.
"Go! Don't dawdle!"
.
.
.
Every time he turned back to look, he got a shouted piece of advice.
"Don't let him bully you!"
"Tell him off when he's being a jerk!"
"Take care of each other!"
.
.
.
Even when Myka was out of earshot he continued.
"Tell him how you really feel!"
"Don't squabble!"
And finally, a broken "Don't forget me."
.
.
.
And when Myka was finally too distant and too small to see, he sat down, hugged himself, and soaked his knees with quiet tears.
Eep. It was… a sad ending? My sincerest apologies to Team Myka x Eryk (and Eryk x Freyl). What happens next? Too many loose ends? Ehhhhh…. I guess I can think about this some more… depending on your response, of course.