Amends

Chapter 12: Remedy

Another night in the woods; another nightmare, only this time the tables have turned and it is Amantius who is unable to rise up from whatever attacked his mind

And it is up to Ingressus to solve the problem; but in doing so, he finds that not all Ardoni have nightmares so terrifying as his own, and how he wishes things were so simple

Author's note: we interrupt your break to bring you this chapter and some news. unplanned hiatus out of the way, this story shall now continue back on its weekly schedule until completion in six weeks and - fingers crossed, touch wood - we shan't have any other interruptions XD

it still astounds me that this story would have concluded five weeks ago had we not had any interruptions at all XD

anyway; ONWARD TO GREATNESS!

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Ingressus laid awake that night gazing into the gap between the trees. He and Amantius had paused for the night in a denser area of the woods still between Nestoria and Sendaria, and the small Nestoris had fallen asleep within mere minutes of his head hitting the soft mound of grass that he had gathered to comfort himself. The poor lad was exhausted from that day's events, let alone the walking that they had done. They had made good headway towards the Nestoria shoreline, but they were too far out to make it in the rest of the night, and it had become clear from the sluggish actions of the child as he dragged his feet as he walked that it would be better to find somewhere to stop. Amantius had protested, and insisted that he was fine, but Ingressus had put his foot down – he didn't want to run the risk of running into a night-time patrol while he and a small child were tired and inattentive.

They had gotten lucky the first time.

In fact, as he thought, he had come to realise that he had been lucky for the last few days. He couldn't quite believe that nothing thus far had gone horribly wrong, either through his own disassociated actions, or Amantius' keen eagerness. He could be grateful for staring up at the moon so clear that night. He could be grateful for a lot of things; but coming to no further conclusion as to where Achillean had gone was not one of them – just as much as he would find Nakiri and Jerome to be in a very similar position regarding him.

One thought wandered to another. He quickly went from his peace of mind being laid comfortably in the woods staring up at the night sky to smiling to himself thinking about Amantius' insistence on making a fire for the night. While Ingressus was not most keen about having something so blaringly obvious in the woods at night, he also couldn't get a word in edgeways as Amantius wouldn't sit still nor take a breath between his words, excited to show the Voltaris that he could make a fire entirely by himself. Of course, given the nature of the Nestoris boy, Ingressus could not get sense from him before he scuttled off to find some wood to burn and some wood to rub together. He didn't find both at the same time, and he hastily dumped a pile of wood between them both before running off again to find something with which to light the fire. In the moments that he had run off, Ingressus had cupped several handfuls of water from the stream and emptied them over the firewood.

He didn't want the fire in case someone spotted it, and he couldn't get a word in to warn Amantius of the dangers and the risk; but in the chance that he got after the boy had returned, he couldn't bear the potential disappointment from the younger, nor did he know how to deal with the upset from the child. Instead, he dealt with Amantius' disappointment with being unable to light the fire. He tried most furiously to light those logs. He rubbed those sticks together with such fury and vigour that Ingressus had thought he would pass out from lack of air.

"It is alright," he had told him after stopping the boy's arms. "We will survive without it," he said.

Of course, the small Nestoris may have agreed with him on the outside, but it didn't take a genius to know that, on the inside, he was disappointed in himself for being unable to prove that which he was so sure he could do – as well as embarrassed in his failure.