TBATE| The Demon of Elshire

Chapter 17 - Past scars

Claire Bladeheart Pov

As I watched the double doors open, my expression shifted from hope to a genuine smile of relief.

'He's okay!'

Firae waved to me and I motioned for him to come sit by me. "Is Arthur alright?" I asked, scooting over to make room for him on the couch.

"Yeah...he's with his family right now."

"That's good. Why didn't you go back to Elenoir...or do you live in Sapin?" I asked.

Firae sank into the back of the couch and I could tell that something was different about him. He didn't even bother to get flustered by how close the two of us were like he normally did.

"I live in Elenoir, but my guardian is away right now."

'Guardian? Does he not have any family?' I wondered as I looked over to the boy only to notice the horrified expression that I'd somehow missed earlier.

'Something definitely happened down there...'

"Do you wanna talk about what happened?" I asked.

Firae put his head down. "When I went into the hole, I caught Arthur and used my explosion magic to steady our fall so that we didn't take too much damage. But when we landed, we heard running water. Arthur went to investigate while I meditated, but when he didn't come back for a while, I went in there...and..." his face contorted into a pained expression and his words trailed off.

I put my arm around him and felt his entire body shiver as he continued to recount the situation. "T~There were so m~many of them..." his eyes lined with tears before slowly trickling down his face. "Slaughtered~all of them...60 mages, al d~dead..." he managed to say through choked sobs. 

Firae shoved his face deeper into his hands which now had lines of tears running down them, dripping occasionally onto his pants.

I noticed his legs pushing into the ground with as much strength as he could muster...almost as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself, likely too overwhelmed with emotion. 

I began to rub circles on his back with my hand in a therapeutic motion that I had learned from Kathlyn a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't much, but it was all I could think to do.

I felt a lump form in my throat and I couldn't even properly think of what to say in order to console him. I imagined what reaction I would have if I had seen 60 mages, all dead at the bottom of a dungeon. I found myself figuring that I wouldn't have reacted any better than Firae, who was almost 4 years younger than me.

No one should have to go through something like that, especially at such a young age. Even seeing one or two dead bodies is enough to mess with someone for a while, but he'd seen entire squads of soldiers who were likely mutilated by some insanely powerful mana beast.

Once the boy finally calmed down, I tried my best to make idle chit-chat to distract him. I asked who his guardian was and to my surprise, he had revealed that the Elven lance Aya, was the only person he lived with.

I was a tad intrigued since they didn't share a last name, didn't look anything alike...and the boy was half-human. I was intrigued by his past and I wanted to ask what it was like, but I couldn't find it in myself to go into the topic when his mental state was so fragile.

I decided to move from his home life to when he awakened and he brusquely informed me that he awoke at the young age of 8.

I avoided asking about his adventuring days, since dungeons seemed like a sore subject, so I moved onto more mundane topics like what his schedule was like and what his favorite classes were.