Unlikely Friends: Chapter 8

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They decided to walk back to the barn to give their scraggly manes and tails a chance to dry more before they arrived. And it gave them a few more precious moments together without the interruption of a gaggle of children asking questions and begging for stories to be shared. The silence that stretched between them was comfortable, barriers having been broken down that night so they walked side by side in leisure rather than uncertainty.

The wind sighed around them, chilling Milarose, though it wasn't from the chilled air against his damp fur. He had heard something, long pointed ears pricking forward with trained concentration. Icarus had passed ahead by a few steps before turning back to ask, "What is it?"

"Something's wrong," Milarose answered, and he felt a shudder ripple across his skin. He didn't give Icarus a chance to ask before he bounded forward and grabbed the kainu, an arm against his chest and one under his tail against the backs of his thighs. He heard Icarus let out a surprised sound, but it was quickly drowned out over the wind that roared in his ears. Was it just the wind? Or was it something else that screamed and wailed in terror. 

The barn sat dark and still as ever when they approached, but Milarose felt something was still deeply wrong. He didn't understand what it was until he flew near enough to see the door hung partially off its hinges. The smell reached him next as he touched down and all but dropped Icarus before leaping toward the barn. 

The door burst open and a dark figure ran at him, wild black eyes gleaming in the moonlight, hooves striking the earth with the surety of a drakiri with a purpose. Milarose had time only to leap aside, but still felt the sting of its horn graze his shoulder. 

He touched the wound and felt warm blood seem between his fingers. Rage filled him, hot as fire as he turned to face the intruder. From its figure he would guess it was a kainu, but there was something off about it. He didn't realize what it was until it staggered to a halt then turned to face him. Ropes of meat hung from its distended belly, silvery intestines turned nearly white in the moonlight as they dragged across the ground. The drakiri stepped on the ends, and though it stumbled it still did not fall. 

"Gods," Icarus murmured, and he saw the crazed drakiri's head swing toward him. It did not bellow, shout or make a single noise before it ran toward him, head down in a charge. 

Milarose crossed the distance between himself and Icarus in a single bound, snatched the attacker by the horn and grabbed its left hind leg. It screamed in defiance, legs churning as Milarose dug his feet into the soft ground and pulled it to a stop. His jaws parted and he snapped them shut around the drakiri's neck. The muscles in his jaw bulged as he bore down, the deep wet sound of bones and cartilage cracking between his teeth. 

Icarus stared at the scene, lips parted in a silent gasp, eyes wide with some unidentifiable mix of horror and gratitude. He saw now that the creature was a nightmare, rare in its own right and seldom seen in these parts. What was it doing here? 

When the nightmare fell limp in Milarose's jaws he opened his mouth. Blood and pink saliva dripped from his lips and chin to the grass beneath them as he stepped back. His breath came slowly and evenly, though his heart galloped in his chest like a drum. He had never killed a drakiri before...he would never like to again. 

He met Icarus's golden eyes as they stood there together with the corpse between them, until Icarus broke the tenuous silence and breathed, "The children!"

Milarose turned on his heel, barely remembering in time to shrink himself as he yanked the door the rest of the way open and forced himself into the barn. He heard weeping from the rafters and looked up to the hayloft. He took a few short breaths before he shrank himself further, as small as he could. He was still large enough that the old wood of the loft would struggle to support him, but he couldn't stand there and do nothing.

He clambered up the ramp, hearing the wood creak in protest under each step until he lighted on the loft. He tore hay bales away, sending them careening down to the floor. 

A young voice screamed, another snarled and as he pulled one last bale of hay, Milarose had a second of warning before two short, but strong dark horns rammed toward him. He grabbed one with each hand and dug his claws into the floor so he wouldn't be shoved back.

"It's me!" he grunted, struggling to control Rubin as he bucked and lashed his head. "It's Milarose!"

"Mila!" Sammal wailed, limping out of the deepest shadows of the hayloft. "Azrinal is hurt, bad!"

Cold terror gripped Milarose like a vice and he pushed Rubin aside with an impatient growl. He shoved through the rest of the bales of hay, but he had hardly moved before a blur of dark green struck out at him and he jerked back with a pained yelp. Sharp, hot pain and the overwhelming scent of blood filled his nose.

"What--" he started to ask before the same blur of motion drove him back a couple of steps. He realized what it was when he saw the dull gleam of golden scales in the moonlight cast from a space between two of the roof panels. "Helmi what are you--"

"Shut up!" the young dracus snarled. "SHUT. UP. Get away!" 

Milarose was stunned, at a loss for words as Helmi rounded on him again, taking purposeful steps toward him with bright teeth bared in anger. 

"You were gone. You said you'd protect us and you were gone! Rubin almost died! Giada's sitting back there catatonic because he gutted the thing and it still got up and attacked again! He won't let anyone near him. You were GONE!"

Milarose's throat tightened as he heard the accusations, the rage in Helmi's voice. He had been gone. He hadn't been here, where he should have been. None of this should have happened, if he had been here he could have locked the door, he could have killed the nightmare before it ever had the chance to get in the barn. This was his fault.

"Please let me see Azrinal," he started, but Helmi cut him off by growling fiercely. 

"No! You lost the right to him, if you can't protect him, I will!" Helmi snarled. "Why don't you just leave! We can clearly defend ourselves better than you ever could!"

"Helmi, stop it!" Sammal wailed. "Stop fighting! Azrinal needs help, Helmi please! Milarose can take him to Eirwyn like he did for my leg, he needs help or he'll die!"

"Then he dies!" Helmi shouted back, turning to face Sammal. She recoiled from him as he advanced on her, cowering in a corner between hay bale and wall. "Drakiri die all the time, everywhere! You're not a baby anymore so stop acting like you are!" 

"Helmi that's enough!" Milarose snapped. "Leave her alone. Now!" When his command was not followed he stepped forward, but he didn't have to so much as lift a finger. 

A shadow moved deep in the hayloft and Solpor emerged with a limp form hanging from his mouth. Helmi realized what was happening and turned to stop the young q'lin, but Solpor turned sharply and lashed out with his hind leg. The piercing claws would have parted flesh easily if the kick had connected, but Helmi leaped away with an outraged hiss. 

"I can't believe you said we should let him die," Sammal breathed, her voice shaking. "He's just a baby!" 

"Then his parents should have loved him more and not left him to die in the first place!" Helmi howled, his voice cutting the dark loft like blades. His chest heaved with labored breaths, the only sound left in the barn, and when he realized everyone stared at him in disbelief, he walked to the ramp and descended to the first floor, stalking not for the door but for the stalls. 

Without a word, Milarose stepped forward to receive Azrinal, taking him gently crom Solpor. The vice around his stomach tightened when he saw the extent of what had been done to the babe. In the shaft of moonlight he saw the child's body covered in deep gashes that exposed dark red flesh beneath, the white of his mane and the white socks on each leg were stained with blood that had crusted over, though it was still wet closest to the wounds. The child's chest rose and fell slightly with labored breaths, and one half of his face was incredibly swollen.

"What happened?" he choked out past the tightness in his throat. 

"The nightmare broke into the barn," Solpor said. Azrinal was crying, it must have heard him. We were all downstairs together in the main room and we couldn't get up the ramp fast enough. He was trampled by the nightmare." 

The tears that had pressed at the back of Milarose's eyes blurred his vision and fell as he held Azrinal to his breast. He heard the bubble of blood in the child's nostrils with each shallow breath. What if he died? Milarose would never forgive himself...never. 

"Take him to the healer," Solpor said. 

"I can't leave you again, what if there's another?" Milarose rasped. 

"I'll stay with them," Icarus said from the first floor. "I'm no soldier but I can fight well enough. Go, take the child. We'll be okay here." 

That was how Icarus came to stand at the barn doors watching the sapphire hide of the dracus fade out of view on the horizon. He closed his eyes and let out a trembling sigh before he turned to look at the nightmare on the ground. He narrowed his eyes as he approached it, avoiding the puddle of dark blood that had spread from the gored wound on its belly. Around its shoulders on the darker chestnut saddle, he saw the sprouts of glowing mushrooms. Its eyes were shot through with black, its mouth open, expression twisted in rage even in death. This nightmare was from the mushroom forest...where Icarus had come from.

A pit sank into his stomach and he took a sharp step back, tail lashing in defiance of the very idea. This nightmare did not follow him, he did not get that child nearly killed, this was not his fault it was a freak accident! It had to be. 

"Gods be kind to him," he breathed, head hanging low, ears flat against his skull. "He's only a babe… he hadn't even opened his eyes yet. Please let him live."

Icarus watched over the children for four days, and though he couldn't chase down a deer and kill it he was quite proficient at hunting mice. With all the ones that lived in the barn and those in the fields nearby, it wasn't difficult to keep everyone fed. Their spirits and moral however was a very different story.

Giada hadn't come down from the hayloft since the incident. He had slept up there and had not come down for food, though Icarus had made sure Rubin brought him water in a bucket at least. Rubin had assured him that Giada drank, but Icarus still worried. He knew what trauma could do to a drakiri, and he also knew what being alone after trauma could do. Icarus would have encouraged Sammal to climb up and spend time with him but she too had been injured that night. The knee joint on her leg was swollen and she had been put on strict bed rest so it would heal.

Solpor had been more present than usual, making himself known by lying right by the door when he wasn't hunting mice with Icarus or letting Sammal rest against him. He didn't say much, but Icarus knew it was to keep Helmi at bay. The dracus didn't say a word to them, and in fact he would sneak out of the barn early in the morning and sneak back in late at night. No one knew where he went, but they were relieved when he was gone. 

The morning after the incident, Icarus had cleaned up the blood and icor that stained the floor of the barn, spreading fresh hay over the floor and replacing the bedding otherwise. He had also dug a shallow grave for the nightmare, just so its corpse wouldn't attract too many pests and wouldn't be there to scare the children. He had considered saying a few words over the unmarked grave, but had thought better of it. 

On the morning of the fifth day, Icarus woke to the sound of wind overhead. It didn't sound like the normal wind that rattled the shutters, so it had woken him easily. 

He stood carefully from the bed where Rubin and Sammal lay with him, placing his hooves slowly to avoid stepping on tails. Only then did he move to the door. They couldn't repair the lock themselves, so Icarus had improvised with hay bales. Now he moved them out of the way just in time to see Milarose touch down on the grass outside the barn. His blue eyes were dull, expression weary, and as he landed his legs crumpled beneath him and he collapsed to the ground in a heap. 

"Where is he?" Icarus fretted as he trotted out of the barn to Milarose's side. "Is he alive? Is he well? What did Eirwyn say?"

Milarose was quiet for a long moment, long enough in fact that Icarus thought he must have fallen asleep. But the dracus took a deep breath and finally said, "He is alive, but Eirwyn has no confidence he will remain that way. She is doing what she can for him, but there was massive internal bleeding, head trauma, lacerations from the hooves, and blood in his lungs. She told me to come home and she would send word in two weeks."

"Two weeks!" Icarus balked. "Two weeks? Could she work any slower?" 

"I'm certain she is doing what she can as fast as she can," Milarose said, grimacing as he pushed himself to his feet. He walked toward the barn, but when he tried to shrink himself the magic would not come. He hung his head in defeat and nosed open the doors, moving to lay so his neck curled around the barn and rested on the bedding where Solpor and Sammal slept. Is back half and tail were outside the barn, but he didn't care. He was too tired, and the flight there and back had utterly drained him.

"Can we talk?" Icarus asked as Milarose settled, but the dracus's breathing had already slowed into the pattern of sleep, each exhale gently stirring the hay beneath his chin. 

Icarus tried to remind himself that Eirwyn lived a very long way away from here. He hadn't seen the other kainu in a long time, so long in fact that he had been a young adult when last they met. She had been the healer to help pull him out of the spiral he had fallen into after Ezra'el's murder. She had healed the wounds of his body and helped teach him how to heal the wounds of his soul. She was very skilled, and he was sure there was no healer more skilled to help that poor child. 

Still, Milarose returning and immediately and with such little explanation stung a bit. Perhaps it was unreasonable for him to expect them to talk immediately after what must have been an exhausting trek. They could talk more later when they both had clear heads.

He picked his way back into the barn and laid in the crook of Milarose's neck beside his shoulder. He saw the familiar reed mat wrapping that Eirwyn used to cover poultices that she made for wounds on the cut Milarose had received from the nightmare. Hopefully it didn't pain him too much. 

Icarus woke later that day when he felt Milarose stir. The children had gone, probably returning to their stalls or going about their chores to keep the barn clean and try to coax Giada into eating. None of them had been successful thus far. 

He stood and moved aside so the dracus could stand as well, backing out of the barn. Milarose remained still for a moment, his face stern with concentration, eyes narrowed. Frustration came over him after a moment and he turned away from the barn entirely after a long moment. Was he struggling to use magic still? 

"Milarose, I'd like to talk to you about Giada," Icarus started, taking a few steps toward the dracus. 

"What about him?" Milarose asked in a voice so devoid of emotion and consideration that it stopped Icarus in his tracks. He hadn't even turned to look at him…

"He...He's been in the loft since you left," he said. "He won't come down and the ramp isn't stable enough anymore for me to go up."

Tension built in the dracus's body, evident in the irritable flick of his tail and how his shoulders tightened, but when he spoke it was again with that disinterested tone that cut Icarus deeply.

"I'll handle it when I get back." 

Icarus's breath caught in his throat and he looked away from Milarose. He didn't know what to say, or if he should say anything. So he just turned back toward the barn with his head held high. The children didn't need to know of his worries. 

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