To Be Proud: Revamped

Chapter 74: Vengeance

~Bona~

      "Ona, look ouht!"

I had been shoved to the side, forced to watch the monster I adored get struck by a vicious verdant beam. Thwok stumbled back, trying his best to keep on his feet, and as he held his chest a slight chorus of agony reverberated off of the serpent that was his tongue. He stood his ground like a tree in a hurricane, gently swaying with boughs of fatigue, and his eyes flickered like the lights back home on Wublin Island. His back heaved with each shaky breath he took, and as he stood straight his chest contracted and expanded like a befuddled metronome.

      "Thwok!" I cried out, rushing up to him and holding his arms tight. "Thwok, are you okay?"

      "I-I'm fhine. Chehst...huhts..." His voice was reduced to a wavering strain, and his grip on my arms barely matched that of a feeble chain link. The subtle twitches were results of the burns and scars he had endured beforehand, the burns and scars that I should've received.

      "Alright, I need to get you to safety. You—" What I saw froze me over. A small patch of his mystical fur had already turned a solid gray, and as the dull color continued to spread I couldn't help but to panic. This can't be happening, I thought to myself as I pulled Thwok closer to me. No, not to him. My arms started to tremble, crystal beads starting to rain down from my sockets, and I could hear the light chattering from the arching teeth-bones I possessed.

      "Ony? Ahe you ohkay?" I could still see a sliver of innocence in his eyes, those precious purple stars, and that provided more cause for me to shiver and stamper.

      "I-I just have to—I need to—I just—I can—I—" That shaky feeling rose, morphing from a slight fear to a full attack. I had no idea what to do to help him, and as much as I wanted to help him I didn't know how to. And to think that the vision from many fortnights before was bad, I was suffering through worse as my greatest fear was being realized right in front of me.

      "Ona, whaht...oh..." Thwok had looked down at himself, watching as the stone slithered and crept down his chest. He shifted his glanced back up at me, pulling my hands into his. None of his muscles, externally, demonstrated distress. "It'll be ohkay, Ony."

      "'Okay?' You're turning into stone—how is that okay!?"

      "Because you'll be the lahst monstuh thaht I see, the spahrk to my life." My cheekbones started to burn, and as much as I wanted to argue with him I knew that I could never. No amount of my might or raw strength could come close to his intelligence.

      "I...thank you..." He smiled lightly, shifting my hands in his, and his eyes shimmered in the low light of the harsh island.

      "Ona, when I go, dohn't be afwaid. Dohn't shehd any teauhs once I depaht, dohn't dwehl ohn what you'd lohst. You have a mentuhl fohrtwehs thaht is abohve sohwow, abohve wegweht, abohve grief. Youhr stwength is known, if noht to othuhs then to me. Youhr shell can fwactuh lihke glahs, buht it cahn withstahnd whaht stonyx cahnnoht. In place of youhr haht is a searing fiuh, a beating dwum thaht buhrns bwight within you.

      "Mahrch ohn to thaht dwum, follow thaht whythum forth. Dohn't linguh in history, buht powuh thwough to tomohwow. Stahnd stwong against those who oppose you, stahre fear in its vewy soul. Walk with youhr head held high, youhr shoulduhs firm, and face the blight the wohrld is forced to suffuh. Pwehs ohn, Ony. Save the wohrld fohr evweyone, fohr Puhtite...fohr me. Show them the monstuh thaht you ahe, the beast thaht I adohre. Fight fohr me, bahtle fohr me, avehnge me."

Even though the word "beast" was usually a sting to the heart in normal context, the label felt like a jewel sliding down the waterfall that was Thwok's mouth-serpent. While monsters bloomed like the flowers on Plant Island, flourishing and inhabiting the lowest seas and the highest skies, to be a beast would ensure a lifetime of ridicule and disdain. To be a beast meant that in place of knowledge stood void, in place of common sense stood a barbaric rage, and I had become acquainted with the term to the point where it stood as a looming acid cloud. Coming from someone like Thwok, a monster who held an admirable passion, it riled no offense. As he turned his head towards me his tongue snaked down from atop his shoulder, and I proceeded to stare into his dahlia-purple eyes with a newfound sense of hope.