After defeating Irif, everyone assumes that the hardest part is over, and that they can finally relax for a moment. But while flying back to Enoria, Kaleth and the others are attacked by an ancient enemy, who they thought was long dead. And he has a...
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Mel gasped as he opened his eyes. He'd expected Enor to kill him, but there was just silence now. He was in a dim room with only slivers of light coming through the windows. And then, hearing a weak groan behind him, he remembered.
His heart resuming its harsh beating, Mel swallowed thickly and kneeled down next to Kaleth, letting the shield he'd been holding fall to the ground. He looked so broken, just lying there and bleeding out. Mel blinked away tears and took a hold of the sword's hilt. He knew he had to pull it out or it would sap all of Kaleth's power, but it would hurt, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt him.
"I'm sorry, Kal," he muttered, his voice shaky, before quickly pulling the sword out in one go. Kaleth didn't even cry out—just groaned again and fell limp. Feeling his heart seize for a second, Mel scrambled to touch Kaleth's neck. A tear of relief flowed down his cheek as he felt a pulse. A weak, thready one, but it was there nonetheless.
Throwing the sword away, Mel focused on Kaleth's wound, putting his hand over it and using as much energy as he had left to heal it, focusing primarily on the inside damage. He knew he wouldn't be able to heal everything—especially not as tired as he was right now—but he had to try.
Feeling like he was about to pass out, he finally finished what he could, his hand covered in his love's blood. Just the sight of that made Mel want to break down and cry, but he couldn't. He needed to take care of what he couldn't heal the old fashioned way.
As quickly as he could, he undid the straps of Kaleth's armor and pulled it off of him, relieved to see Kaleth was wearing a shirt underneath it. Knowing that it had probably cost more money than Mel had ever had, he guiltily tore a strip of it, bunching it up and pressing it to the still bleeding wound. The fact that Kaleth didn't even wince at that was very worrying.
It was a bit difficult to tell through all the blood—and just the sight of it made Mel feel sick—but the wound was fairly narrow, so it didn't take too long for the blood to lessen its flow. That still didn't make the sight of the injury once he removed the cloth strip any better.
Swallowing down his despair, Mel tore off another piece of Kaleth's shirt and tied it around the wound as a makeshift bandage. He was really glad he'd watched a lot of TV or he'd have no idea what he was doing. Well, he still had little idea, but this seemed to be the right way of doing this. He just hoped it would help.
Having finished that, Mel sat down next to Kaleth's limp body. Crumpled down really. All of the strength panic had lent him had vanished now. He couldn't even force himself to keep his tears at bay. He just let a few of them fall, putting his face in his hands. He let out a quiet sob as he looked over at Kaleth again, and weakly reached out with his hand to stroke Kaleth's bloodied, sweaty hair back from his forehead.
With all the crusted blood and gray ash it barely looked blond anymore. And his ash covered face wasn't really helping. Mel moved over, pushing Kaleth's goggles off his face. At least under those he still looked like himself.
