I'll be here forever

chapter 60 | Calypso

earlier that day

I was having a really, really shitty day.

Maybe shitty isn't the word to describe it. It was much, much worse than just shitty. But I don't know a better word, and I don't care to find one, either.

First, Leo had insisted on stopping, because Festus detected a huge concentration of celestial bronze on the ground. Leo had gotten all excited about it, talking a little too fast about little too many things, so I had zoned out.

I didn't understand half the things he was saying, but if he was excited about it, let's do it, right?

Gods, I wish more than anything that I would've just told him to keep flying.

So he landed, and sent Festus on patrol, making sure there was nothing hostile in the area. We figured that he would be fine on his own. I mean, he is a huge, metal, fire-breathing dragon. What could possibly hurt him?

That was my first mistake. Feeling too confident, in my abilities, in Leo's, in Festus. Feeling almost safe. How could I have been so naive? So stupid?

Leo was taking things out of his tool belt when we heard Festus roar. He froze. We exchanged mildly concerned glances, and then we broke into a run in that direction.

We ran, because if Festus was roaring, something was probably going wrong.

We ran, Leo stumbling and cursing behind me as we did. He didn't sound too worried, and honestly, I wasn't either.

Festus was a huge dragon. Not much could take him down, we thought. And when the roaring stopped, we figured he'd probably won.

But when we stumbled into the clearing where the noise had been coming from, we were horrified by what we saw.

At first I hadn't quite known what I was looking at- and the shock turned to horror as I realized.

Festus was dead.

He was definitely dead. Lying on his side, oil spilling out and staining the grass. His perpetual warmth was now nothing but cold metal. The comforting hum of his engines running was gone.

There was nothing. Nothing but silence, and the tweeting of the birds flying over us.

"Festus!" Leo cried, the sound ripping raggedly from his throat as he stumbled and ran and fell to his knees by his head with a thump.

Speechless, I lowered myself down next to him too. The entire situation was almost surreal.

He was dead. He was really dead.

Festus always seemed invincible. He was a huge dragon made of metal that breathed fire; not much could even measure up. You begin to place so much confidence in something that it becomes untouchable in your eyes, but when that view is challenged...

Leo placed a hand on his snout, shuddering now that it was cold to the touch.

"Who did this to you?" he asked, his voice catching. I didn't think I'd ever seen him so upset.

And then, when Festus didn't answer, Leo leaned over him, hiding his face. I didn't quite realize what he was doing until his shoulders began to shake, and I realized that he was crying. It was a disturbing contrast from his usual manner.

"Leo... it's okay. You can rebuild him," I said quietly, still in shock, placing a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

"I- yeah. Yeah, I can," he sniffed, sitting back up. I caught a glimpse of his red and splotchy face. His grip on Festus tightened, and his eyebrows furrowed in anger.

"We- we have to find them," he said, his voice low, laced with pain. I couldn't even begin to understand how much this meant to him. Festus was a friend of mine, but he was nothing to me compared to what he was for Leo. He'd been there for him through everything.

And then Leo burst into flames.

I snatched my hand back, wincing as the fire singed off the hairs on my arms. Leo's face was contorted in grief as he stared at the dead, cold body of his best friend.

I tried to calm him down, but nothing was working. Now, I am a firm believer in pushing down your anger and grief until you can exact your revenge on the person who deserves it, so Leo's reaction was not one that I personally have experienced. I didn't really know what to say.

So, giving up on being nice about it, I knocked hard on Festus's exposed metal. Twice. The metallic sound rang in my ears.

Leo turned to me, surprised, angry. Still on fire.

"Calm down and put that out, before the thing that did this gets too far away," I hissed.

Leo blinked, interrupted, his mouth opening, then closing. He nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating; the fire flickered out. I did my best to subtly breathe a sigh of relief.

And then we heard someone. Not far to the side, someone started crashing through the underbrush, clearly running away from the crime they'd committed.

Without a second thought, Leo and I sprinted after them, regretfully leaving Festus's body.

As we ran, I listened. They sounded almost hurt, if I listened hard enough. Their steps were uneven, their gait inconsistent. If I had to guess, I'd say they were pretty seriously injured, probably from their fight with Festus.

I ran faster.

I heard the river long before I saw it; a grim smile spread across my face. They'd be trapped.

But the smile fell off my face when I heard a loud splash- they'd jumped in. We came up upon the river and skidded to a stop at the riverbank, and we waited. And waited. And waited.

They didn't come up, anywhere. And we waited, and we stared at the surface, hoping to catch even a glimpse of the bastard that killed Festus. We didn't. They didn't surface.

"They're not there," Leo said faintly, and I didn't answer. I thought that maybe if I looked hard enough, stared a little longer, I just might be able to see them. I just might be able to give them what they deserve.

But they didn't.

"Calypso?"

"Hm?"

"What do we do now?"