Welcome To My Dark Side

Chapter 20 Unless And Unwanted

After Lady Azura had tried to talk to Commander Hilda about what she thought was Lyria's betrayal, she had come across Officer Siphron. He had found that she had blood pouring from her mouth and knew something was wrong. Commander Hilda had not noticed her injury because it was not yet bleeding that badly but by the time Azura had stumbled upon Officer Siphron it was clearly visible. He had asked her what the problem was. When he understood what happened he went to raise the alarm but beforehand he recommended that she went straight to the medical camp in spite of her wanting to continue searching for Lyria. However despite everyone's best efforts both Fractureverse Lyria and General Hogsworth had somehow managed to escape with both of the end crystals.

Commander Hilda had come to inform Lady Azura of the bad news as she was still in the medical camp. Azura was even more shocked when she heard that apparently Lyria had also allowed General Hogsworth to escape. She was overwhelmed with emotions and she felt very guilty like this was all her fault. This was not the first time her 'bad aim' had cost the loss of an end crystal. That night Azura could not sleep because she did not even know if Lyria was even alive having been shot and it was possible that she had not stopped the bleeding in time. Azura also chose to stay awake in the unlikely event that Lyria and Hogsworth had been caught before they had managed to cross out of Frostbourne territory. However by the next morning she found out that these attempts were unsuccessful.

The doctors decided to discharge Azura from the medical camp later that morning because she had not sustained a serious injury yesterday but was more in a state of shock more than anything else. Now that she had calmed down they saw no reason to keep her there, although she was signed off from her duties for a couple of days. Not quite knowing what to do with herself she headed over to the tavern to fetch herself a coffee in the hope that it would help keep her awake after a night with no sleep. When she got there she chose to sit at a table with her coffee which was far away from everyone else. She still felt bad about yesterday and she did not want to answer awkward questions.

Azura stared at her coffee. Normally she would have drunk it by now given how tired she was but something seemed off. She could not understand why she did not feel like drinking any especially given how tired she was. 'What's wrong with me? I usually drink coffee when I'm tired even though I know it's bad for me but that's just not it... Lyria always brings me coffee when I'm like this and...oh that's it isn't it? Lyria was the one who always brought my coffee.' Sighed Azura as she realised just how much she missed Lyria despite her betrayal. It had even put her off coffee. She pushed away the mug, unable to bear the fact that Lyria would  never think of bringing her something to drink again.

She stopped staring at her mug when she heard someone pull a stool out from under the opposite side of the table. Looking up she saw that Rain had sat down. "Is there something wrong with the coffee?" He asked as he knew how much coffee she normally drank. "No, I just don't feel like drinking it today." She replied. "Hey you're not upset about yesterday are you?" Rain inquired, although he suspected that she was. "Um I um yes." Azura said, deciding to be open. "How can I not be? I've known Lyria all my life and she's like a sister to me and I don't think she was in her right mind. Something must have happened and..." she never managed to finish when Rain cut her off. "Just because you saw her as a sister doesn't mean anything! That's not an excuse for her bad behavior and..." argued Rain.

Azura began to cry as he said this. "I know, I know. I'm just devastated and in shock by..."she sniffed as she was interrupted again. "And so was I about Abigail! But did I let her off the hook? No. So Lyria shouldn't be either." He yelled. "But you nearly died going into the Nether and killed her! You created more problems than you solved." Azura huffed. "At least I had the guts to do the right thing! You could never bring yourself to kill Lyria." Shouted Rain slamming the table. "How could you say that? I've already shot her and for all I know she could be dead." Azura said, getting more and more upset. "Well maybe that's for the best because I doubt you can ever bring yourself to actually kill her." Rain snapped. Azura was speechless for a moment as she realised that he may unfortunately be right.

"There's no good sulking about it." Rain said annoyed. "At least I don't jump into impolsive decisions!" Azura replied as she started to raise her voice a little bit. "And you're the one who drove me to it! I've never been allowed to grieve because there's never time and I'm always expected to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire." Rain explained as he began shouting again. "I'm sorry but I did at least try to comfort you, which is more than what you're doing right now. You didn't even try to be even slightly open minded before you murdered her!" Azura said more angrily. "She didn't let me and besides what I did was for the best interest of the Frostbourne!" He screeched. "By starting a war!" She yelled finally losing it. "You owe me one for saving your neck back there and I'm the one who brought you back in the first place!" She added.

"And maybe I wanted to stay dead! I'm not surprised Lyria went mad because you drove her to it! You were never there for her after her sister died and it was your fault she died in the first place with that stupid plan to blow up the portal and load WOODEN ships with tnt!" He spat. Azura wanted to yell something back at him but she could not as she was beginning to agree with him. She was crying evern harder by now. "H..how c...c...can I fix this?" She muttered under her breath but just about loud enough for Rain to hear. "You can do that by moving on and stop thinking you'll ever get her back! I suggest you start looking for a replacement who can put up with you!" He shouted at the top of his voice and he stormed off.

Azura stood just inside the doorway of Lyria's room. Lying next to her on the floor was a cardboard box. She glanced round the room. She did not want to clear out Lyria's room but she had no choice as space would have to be made for another officer. She spotted a painting propped against the wall waiting to be hung up on the nail above it. Azura remembered that Lyria had given it to Doriane as a present one year for her birthday. A tear ran down her face when she remembered that not long ago that Lyria and herself had cleared out Doriane's room. Lyria naturally had taken most of her sister's belongings, although Azura had taken a few things for herself but now it looked like she would be acquiring everything that Lyria had of Doriane's since Azura was to receive Lyria's stuff after her treachery.

Her eyes darted away from the painting as she walked up to Lyria's desk. The desk had a number of tools as well as a few books on it which were all neatly organised. It was clear that Lyria had not used it in a while because it was a stark contrast to the rest of the messy room. Everything that she had needed to move since her strange behavior was left scattered on the floor chaotically and was obviously uncared for. Azura dragged the box over to the desk and began to pack everything away. She paused and hovered her hand over a photo frame. Inside was a picture of Lyria, Doriane and Azura standing next to each other smiling taken not long after Azura had officially apprenticed Lyria. Immediately she flipped the picture down on the desk so that she could not continue looking at it. She decided that that would be the last thing she would move.

Moving away from the desk the thing that shocked her the most was seeing Lyria's elytra carelessly tossed on the floor. 'I don't understand. She loved her elytra more than anything. Even more than she loves cake. She used to take such pride in her uniform and her elytra would always be hanging up and now look at it.' Gasped Azura. She bent down and picked up the elytra, which had been left on the floor ever since Fractureverse Lyria had chosen against wearing it on the day she stole the crystals. It was getting late and so Azura decided that she would finish sorting everything out the next day. Taking the elytra and the box she had already started packing, she took another quick look round the room before taking a deep breath and closing the door.