Dust to Dust | ✓

7.1 || Sea Glass

The scarred tree was as unreadable as Felix's expression when Aiko first met him. Blank, hardened into the perfect mask, designed to withstand her attempts to glean anything from it. It offered no clues and only stared emptily back at her—if a tree could even stare with no eyes. She sighed, running a finger along the marks left by his knife. They cut deep into the bark, jagged and awkward. They lacked the precision she had seen in his strikes before, splintering the wood and stripping it bare. Sap oozed from the wood like blood, sticky when it touched the pad of her finger. Perhaps she had shaken him more than she thought.

No. Anger burned deep within his gaze when he looked at her, shattering the calm, calculating, unbothered mask he tried to keep up. There was no point in denying it. He was changing, rightfully so in his newfound freedom. It shouldn't come as a surprise that he now found reason to be angry, to be upset. He deserved to feel those emotions, just like everyone else.

Tilting her head back, her gaze settled on the auburn leaves clinging to the spider web of branches. This time, he wasn't there. A cold feeling settled in her chest, void of the pleasant brush of sunlight that spilled over her, dappled by the trees. Warmth couldn't fill the emptiness inside her, but Felix could. A look would do, or the barest touch of his hand against her arm, or the sound of her name from his lips. Anything would do.

She shook her head and ripped her gaze away. "No," she snapped, grabbing hold of her staff with both hands. "You don't have time to be like this. He needs you. You can't waste your time thinking about what you wish you had." Her feet moved of their own accord, pacing back and forth in front of the tree. "Besides, you survived eighteen years without him. You'll be fine. You can do this, remember? We just need to..."

In the sunlight, the atmosphere of the forest was completely different. Instead of looming over her, haunting and tugging at her with shadowy claws, it was now open and inviting, welcoming her into its vibrant autumn hold. Reds and oranges surrounded her like the glow from the Ember Core, putting a candle's feeble display of color to shame. She glanced around, feeling small beneath the tall trees.

"... to figure out where to go next." An uneasy frown pulled at her lips. When spoken, the plan was a lot heavier, flooding the air with a sense of dread that weaved back around to her. There were no hints to where the Reaper had taken Felix—not even when she approached the stick she had flung into the eyes of the one that first attacked them. They left nothing behind, as if they had never been there at all. She couldn't wander the forest forever, but the map in Felix's bag was useless to her. She wasn't taught to be able to leave Crocea; she was a bird in a cage, now set free and struggling to learn to fly.

"Well..." She sighed, gaze flitting around her surroundings. Orienting herself away from the scarred tree, she faced the depths of the forest, thick with undergrowth that threatened to swallow her whole. "We were headed in this direction." I think. Uncertainty threaded the idea, stitching it together into a thick cloth that veiled her mind. It closed over her lungs, choking her like smoke. But it was the only idea she had, the only thing she could go on.

Cold metal met her palm as she took her staff in both hands. Shifting the weight of the bags on her shoulders, she pushed onward. Soft ground squished beneath her boots and the spines of shriveled foliage poked through the legs of her pants. Her curls snagged on low-hanging branches. The only welcoming presence, beckoning her to continue was the sun overhead, beaming across a cloudless blue sky. It shimmered through the autumn leaves, filtering down to grace her skin with light. Niveus bore the emblem of the sun for a reason—it was a constant in their lives, the guardian that would never abandon them.

Without Felix to banter with, filling the silence with the sound of their voices joined together, time seemed to slink by like the barest trickle of a stream through the crack in a rock. The autumn woods which she first admired for their vibrant colors now seemed dull in comparison. The ache in her feet protested louder when he wasn't there to distract her. Her eyes drooped with exhaustion, her limbs heavy enough that she stumbled more times than she cared to admit. He wasn't there to catch her, so what was the point of dwelling on it? Only the rough bark of a tree ever met her, scraping up her shoulder, her cheek, or her hands on the off chance she managed to catch herself.