Embers of the Lost

“Oscar, stay with me!”

“Oscar!”

“Oh, come on, please. Don’t leave me.”

Lily and Kiki pleaded to any power in the world until they landed on solid ground and Lily could jump down from the strange feline to examine Oscar closer. He was still, his breathing shallow and his eyes closed.

“Ozzy, wake up. Come on.” Lily threw her coat on the ground and laid Oscar carefully on it while nudging his cheek. Kiki tried tugging at his ear with her teeth, a high whine leaving her throat.

Nothing. Not even a twitch of a whisker.

“Oz… please…” Lily choked on the tears spilling over onto her cheeks. He couldn’t leave her here. She needed him.

Looking up at Xalina and Tanith who had landed nearby, Lily didn’t even have to speak for it to be clear she was pleading for help.

Neither moved. The expressions they wore were ones of sympathy and pain.

“No.” Lily denied their acceptance. “No!” Pulling the knife from the cat’s body, she attempted to suture the wound together but, with her shaking hands and unstable mind, only a few stitches held. Her right hand was covered in the blood she was trying to stem, while her left hand continued to shake the feline body trying to wake him.

A ripping pain spread through her entire body in an instant. As though someone was dragging a hook straight through her torso and wrenching her heart out in the process. It was torturous enough that the burn on her head seemed numb in comparison.

“Lil… he’s not breathing.” Kiki whimpered. Lily knew though, that pain had been the connection to his soul dying with him.

Curling herself over the two cats, Lily’s body trembled with pain and sorrow. Oscar wasn’t just a cat. He was a part of her soul, one of her closest friends, one who she could always depend on and now… his body grew colder by the second.

Misery consumed her and her hands crawled up to cover her head as her forehead leant on the body of Oscar, fingers tearing at the hair they became buried in. She didn’t hear the Dregana land beside Xalina and Tanith and speak to them. She couldn’t register the fact that they both argued against whatever had been said. She couldn’t even see anything but black fur and blood.

The turmoil inside her built up until it had to come out in more than just tears. An anguished, bitter scream left her, not even slightly muffled by the direction she screamed in. A flash of pure light circled out from her body, hot enough to burn everything it hit. The heat didn’t even allow time for fire to catch, it turned the plant life to charcoal instantly, Xalina, Tanith, the Dregana and the large white feline having to jump into the air to avoid being toasted. It only faded when the scream faded from her lungs and was replaced by a choked sob.

The Dregana didn’t land again, instead, she merely shook her head in response to a look Xalina gave her and flew off in the direction of the Xeomont Peaks.

Tanith approached Lily cautiously before kneeling beside her and wrapping her arms around the thin frame. “I’m sorry Lil.” She whispered through the tears and sniffs of the fairy.

‘Sorry’ did nothing for Lily.

She had been trying to help and Oscar had lost his life.

She could feel the ache of where his soul had connected to hers, like a phantom limb. Was it worth it? Looking up at her friends, Lily heard a part of her mind tell her it wasn’t. What was wrong with her? How could she think that?

Trembling, she turned back to Oscar’s body and gently placed it on the ground. “I need to bury him…” she finally uttered in a barely audible whisper.

“Here?”

Lily sat down on the ground and glanced around. The earth and trees were dead and scorched, hardly a pleasant place to be laid to rest. Placing her hands either side of Oscar, she pulled the corpse below ground and wound various plants into a beautiful shrine covered in colours of yellows and deep blues. Against their charred background, the colours seemed to sing to the world that there was hope and life to be cherished, something that Oscar certainly had always tried to remind Lily of.

“That’s beautiful.” Tanith whispered before pressing a kiss to the top of Lily’s head in a way that seemed almost motherly.

Lily half smiled before letting out a long breath.

“What now?” Kiki asked.

Xalina approaches to sit on the other side of Lily with an awkward expression on her face. “The Dregana said you can’t return to the mountains. She says you are too much of a danger to have around. I’m sorry Lily.”

Empty silver eyes turned to look at the dark-skinned female. “Really?” An angry huff of laughter left Lily’s lips. “I just risked my life to get you all out of there! I walked through that blooming grassland for so long listening to everything that was wrong with me! I’ve lost Oscar! And your wonderful tribe leader won’t even consider helping stop a pointless war?!”

Maybe the voices were right. Maybe everything she was doing was pathetic and no one would ever be on her side. Maybe she should just give up.

No. She couldn’t just give up. Oscar would have died for nothing.

Pushing herself suddenly to her feet, her face angry even as the tears glistened on her skin adding to its natural sparkle. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll find another way.”

“We’ll come with you… You need to heal.” Tanith started.

“No. Leave me alone.” Lily snarled. “Go protect those who can’t protect themselves. I don’t need you.”

Lies. She knew even in her anger she would come to regret those words. Pushing away her only human friends wasn’t clever but she couldn’t stop herself. Turning away from them she began to stalk off, ignoring the way they called after her, and then shedding further tears when she heard Xalina’s wings beat against the ground as they took off.

“Lil…” Kiki started.

“If they aren’t with me, they might not get killed because of me.”

“Lil, Oscar didn’t…”

“Yes, he did. He died because I took risks and I stopped paying attention!” Lily snapped. A growl shook her from the train of thought. It was considerably deeper than Kiki’s and Lily realised that the great white striped beast was following them.

“What do you want?” Lily sighed, receiving no answer besides the beast walking closer and lowering itself to let her climb onto its back again. Exhaustion wasn’t new to her now, but it made her body ache and her grief made her want to curl up and never wake again. The ache of her head was vicious as her emotions calmed down a little. With a nod, she clambered onto the feline and laid forwards into its fur to wrap her arms around its neck.

She didn’t know where it was going to take her, but she found she really couldn’t care less.

With her eyes closed, Lily couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not. All she knew was the sight of the knife sliding into Oscar’s body repeated like a reel, showing her the scene from different angles and all leaving her too far away to save him.

Useless. The voices whispered to her like echoes she couldn’t escape. Pathetic. Failure.

She was pinned again. Bound to the spot with leather straps around her wrists. Finnigan was laughing as he held Oscar by the scruff and blood dripped from the feline. The laughter surrounded her, high and vicious.

“No!” Lily bolted upright as her dream woke her. Anger and pain blurred together overshadowing the confusion of her location.

She was in a rickety wooden shack by the looks of it, sitting on a bed that creaked with every minor movement and had sheets on it that were full of moth holes and dust.

It didn’t matter though. Her mind was on something else. She had to stop Finnigan’s family. The anger she felt as the images flashed through her mind again of Finnigan laughing as Oscar died pushed her out of the bed, dislodging Kiki from where she had been curled up on Lily’s lap. Instantly, Lily snatched up the satchel she had kept with her and pulled out the box she kept Lucretia in.

“Tigiri katachi” Lily barked as the mouse fell to the ground. The moment Lucretia transformed back into her human form, Lily shot spikes of ice out of the walls, floor and ceiling until they dug into the female’s skin just slightly, preventing any movement. “Try and fight back and they’ll all go straight through you…”

Lucretia smirked, “Sure. You’re nothing but a scared child. Agor…” A loud scream of pain finished her sentence as a spike shot up through her foot, slicing through flesh.

“Enough!” Lily raged. “I’m done with all of this! This war is going to end one way or another.”

Lucretia snarled at the white-haired fairy, though something in her eyes changed. She could see the truth in Lily’s posture. The girl who had been so timid and manipulated was not in her right mind and she was broken and desperate.

“You’ll never stop it.” Lucretia spat at Lily, winceing as Kiki jumped up to swipe her nose with claws in retaliation.

“Liche!” Kiki hissed, her own emotions as unstable as Lily’s. “We’ll stop your whole family! In the name of Oscar, I will scratch you all up if I have to.”

The door to the cabin slammed open behind them and without thought, Lily moved out her hand to bind the intruder with ice as well. The intruder was nothing she expected. It was a masculine figure, standing about six and a half feet tall and glaring at her with baby blue eyes. It was human shaped with a goatee and black hair on the top of its head, however, it also had two animalistic ears, a long-striped tail, claws on its fingers and fur covering its body even though it wore shirt and trousers for dignity.

“What in wings name is that?” Kiki chimed.

“What? Well, you’re very rude.” The male grumbled in a deep baritone along with a roll of his eyes. “I’m who brought you here. You both passed out so I found shelter suitable for human skin. Your welcome for the burn treatment by the way.”

Raising a hand to tenderly touch the burned and damaged skin where there were once long white locks, Lily narrowed her eyes, flicking them down to look at the striped tail and back up to the baby blue eyes.

“Are you…” she started, “that big cat?”

“Tiger.”

“Sorry?”

The male chuckled and shook his head, “I’m a tiger, it’s my species. But yes, it’s a kind of ‘big cat’. My name’s Axel.”

“Ok, I’m dreaming.” Lily shook her head. Either that or the plains of insanity had really made her mad. Glancing at Lucretia, she wrapped her mouth in vines so she couldn’t utter any spells and Lily turned to walk outside, releasing the strange humanoid cat and into fresh air.

Or not.

The air outside was damp, dark and close. Worst of all it was incredibly familiar. Spinning around to face Axel. “Why are we in the Densewood?!” This place almost killed her last time.

“Because no one would follow us.” Axel replied calmly, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the doorframe of the cabin. “And I’m a bigger animal than anything in here so I’ve been marking it as my territory.”

“Eww.” Kiki grimaced at the idea as she sat on Lily’s shoulder. Lily, instead, shook her head.

“No. This makes no sense.” Lily frowned. “How are you a half-cat? And why would you help keep us safe, you don’t even know us. Are you a spy? Are you even real?”

“Wow. How long were you in the Plains of Atilavox?”

“Where?”

“The empty plains around that jail you just destroyed.”

“Oh… about a month apparently?”

Axel nodded slightly with understanding dawning on his features. It unnerved Lily. Finnigan had been understanding about everything and it had been a lie.

’This one’s a liar too’

It was the voice of her image echoing in her mind again. Even outside of the plains, it was loud and clear.

Sitting himself onto the ground, taking away the intimidating height he had, Axel crossed his legs and looked up at her.

“I’m real. I’m from the mainland. My race is called Vilankuri; we are animals who can turn into humans and have elemental powers.” He began to explain.

“That’s how you can walk in the air?” Kiki chimed.

“Yes. My magic revolves around air.” Axel nodded, running his fingers through the quiffed hair on his head. “I’ve been locked in their place for years, and I’m banished from my home, so figured I’d help you out.”

“Sure…” Lily clearly didn’t believe him. She wouldn’t be naive again. She wouldn’t be tricked.

Her attitude caused Axel to laugh, “Can’t imagine being so jaded at your age.”

“You know nothing.” Lily snapped.

“No. I don’t.” He agreed with another chuckle. “I know nothing about you other than the fact you freed an entire jail of people who had been put away for disrupting the ‘natural order’ of this island. And that, little ice queen, is impressive.”

Lily bristled at the nickname. “I’m not an ice queen.”

“Maybe. But you’ve made an enemy out of a lot of people and I love a good adventure and fight so I figured I’d see how this goes.”

Lily and Kiki exchanged looks.

“So,” Kiki tilted her head. “You helped us, because you think that us trying to stop a war might provide you with some fun?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’ve been locked up with only myself for company for almost two centuries; your stint in the plains have nothing on me,” Axel grinned in a way that was both unhinged and playful.

“And this is supposed to make us trust you?”

Axel shrugged. “Trust me, don’t trust me. I don’t really care. But I am the only reason there’s no dark-dwelling predators surrounding this place right now.”

Lily glanced around the Densewood. As expected, she couldn’t see far, but she could appreciate that she didn’t feel like she was being watched by something just out of reach.

“Fine.” Lily huffed, “Be a guard cat if it makes you happy. Just don’t get in my way.” Pushing passed the male and back inside where Lucretia glared at her instantly.

“Tell me where these people are.” Lily held up the scroll with all the family names on it. Pulling the vine away so Lucretia could speak, Lily snarled as she received a face full of spit once more.

“Fine, stay in here and freeze.” Lily grumbled with a roll of her eyes, before turning to leave the cabin.

She didn’t like this.

There was no escape.

Lucretia was inside. Axel outside. And viparterkas lingered out of what Axel was currently claiming to be ‘his territory’. Ignoring the man, Lily took herself up into the treeline with Kiki and settled down in the canopy, her legs pulled close leaving just enough space for Kiki to curl up between them and Lily’s torso.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Kiki whispered tearfully.

“I keep hoping I’ll wake up to find all this a bad dream. But, it’s so hollow in my chest. It feels like part of me has been cut out.”

“I know.”

“You feel it too?”

Kiki hummed her confirmation before curling up tighter into a ball as Lily folded herself over to rest her forehead on her knees and allow more tears to spill.

If Lily had thought she had cried a lot during her time in the plains, it was nothing compared to the tears which fell every time she was out of sight of anyone but Kiki over the next few weeks. Each day, trying to convince Lucretia to tell her where her relatives lived failed, the woman even taking to spitting food back in Lily’s face.

Frustration settled into her core alongside the desperation and hopelessness rippling from the empty part of her soul. The only part of her that did any healing was the burn. The skin knitted together nicely with the strange medicine Axel created from plants unknown to Lily, but her hair made no sign of growing there again. She may have that panel of hair missing for the rest of her life; though the symbolism and irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d lost a part of her soul with Oscar’s last breath, it might as well show on her physically.

Axel didn’t speak much, in fact, he spent most of his time in the tiger form she had met him in. He was easier to be around in that form. Lily trusted the animal in him much more than the human.

“You could just get rid of her and go searching for the others.” Axel brought it up one night after he had brought back a hunt and cooked it over a fire so Lily would be able to digest it.

“No. I’ve never killed anyone and I don’t plan to start now… and if I did, I wouldn’t start with her.” She added in an undertone, the face of the man who haunted her nightmares flashing in front of her eyes. No, she’d start with Finnigan. The very thought of him these days burned hot with rage mixed in with the numb feeling of grief for Oscar.

“Whoever’s made such an innocent face able to look that venomous really has it coming, huh?” Axel whistled lightly as he laid back on the ground, tearing off meat from the bone of his prey. “What did they do?”

“That’s not your business.” Lily grumbled, folding her arms across her chest defensively.

“Ok, got it.” Axel shrugged with a sigh. He never asked too much which honestly made him tolerable to have around. He never followed when Lily walked off to find a quiet space to cry, and he had never come within five feet of her in his humanoid form.

“You could use that mind control spell?”

Lily looked at Kiki who had finished her portion of meat and was looking at the cabin with her head tilted to the side in thought.

“That only controls physical actions,” Lily shook her head.

“There’s a spell to force someone to tell the truth to any question.” Axel piped up.

“Really?”

“They used it on me when they first caught me, kept using it until I passed out and took tiger form, then I refused to change back so they muzzled me and left me there.” Axel growled, his admission filling Lily with a softer emotion than anything she had felt in weeks.

“I’m sorry. No one deserves that.” She whispered.

“Oh, not such an ice queen?”

“Shut up.”

Axel barked a laugh before sobering and getting back on topic. “’Fitipra’ was the incantation they used on me then.”

“If I use that spell I would completely take away her free will.” Lily pointed out.

“Having her sit there in the dark until she gives in is just breaking her will.” Axel countered. “Better to take it for a second and have her hate you for it after?”

Lily mused over the reality of that statement for a few seconds in silence. “We can’t let her go after though, can we?”

“No.” Kiki chimed. “We can’t. And we’ll have to stop any in the locations she gives us.”

“How do we stop so many people?”

“Keep turning them into mice for now, I suppose.”

“Then what? Keep them?”

“At least they can’t kill anyone else as mice. And if they escape, I can catch them.” Kiki chortled at the idea though quickly looked guilty at Lily’s defeated words.

“So, they’ll be our prisoners…”

“We’ll come up with something better I’m sure.”

“You think? Everything keeps getting worse, I don’t see how this wouldn’t do the same.”

“You want to stop a war, you can’t be as nice as you want to be.” Axel interrupted sternly.

Lily dropped her head into her hands, arms supported by her elbows against her thighs. “I know. I just… I don’t like it.” Kiki nuzzled into Lily for a while, providing her comfort and companionship. Finally, Lily sighed in defeat. “Ok. The truth spell it is.”

Stepping back into the cabin felt like stepping up to execution. Lily knew that the moment she did this, she would cross a line she could never come back from. To take someone’s free will from them completely, to control them outright… even she hadn’t felt that level of control loss when she had been bound by Finnigan. Despite the pain, the terror, the weakness, she had still been able to have her own mind.

“I’m so sorry.” She whispered as the vine pulled away from Lucretia’s mouth and Lily pressed her fingertips to the woman’s forehead.

“Fitipra”

Having control of someone was strange. It felt like a war within your own mind, like your brain was being pulled in all sorts of directions and it was difficult to stay in control. It was painful, and there was a sickly part of Lily that knew it was exhilarating. Mostly though, it was loud. The screams of a mind trying to fight her out were almost as loud as the echoing voices from the plains. They brought tears to Lily’s eyes as she persisted. She didn’t want to. She didn’t like it. But she’d committed to stopping this war, Oscar was dead because of it, she couldn’t turn back now.

Tell me where the Byrnes are!

Lucretia resisted, Lily’s eyes boring into hers, then she parted her lips and gave five location names. “Quintegia, Mythanissiam, The Fae Greenwood, Fangawa and Kita-Utara”. The horror and anger on her face was unmissable, but Lily withdrew, having gotten her information.

“Tikusoma Svica”. The moment Lucretia transformed into a mouse again, Kiki pounced on her and put her back in the container, slamming it shut with her paw.

“So, we have places to start…” Kiki sighed.

Placing Lucretia’s cage back in the satchel, Lily swung it over her shoulder, “Yeah. Let’s go.” Lily’s eyes were dull, as though a part of the spark of her life had gone. Was that new? Or had that happened when Oscar died? Kiki sighed softly and followed her out of the cabin.