The Beast and the Sword Book 3: A Koi's Journey

Page 48: The Nightmare Returns

The prisons had been quiet. Many of the prisoners had been sleeping in their own cells while the guards made their rounds. Even Emyr had been sleeping peacefully as the new moon had been at its highest point in the sky.

Though the night was soon disturbed by the sound of screams and shrieks, alerting the other mages on watch of her cell. Before one of them could get ahold of their communications device a poisonous cloud surrounded them.

The mages were forced to run as they did their best to hold their breath; only to pass out at the end of the hall.

Emyr smiled as the doors were broken apart.

13 and 24 stepped through, both of them bowing to her.

Emyr herself had broken out of her restraintants as she chuckled.

"Good to see you Pets---" Emyr said as her arm glowed a dark green color, "---Now it's time to claim---WHAT IS MINE."

***

(Third Opening: The Ancient Magus Bride S1 OP2-You Performed By May'n)

The day had been good for all that knew Prism.

Her wounds were finally healed and she never felt any better. She didn't care of the fact she only had one arm, all that mattered was she was back on her feet---No more crutches.

Everyone was happy for her of course.

But there was just one thing...

... Though her throat had fully recovered... She still stayed silent. Almost as if she was born a mute.

Yami didn't mind it at first, though after the first couple of days it seemed to have rubbed off on him the wrong way. He just couldn't figure it out until he found asking the one person that could answer it better than even Cadfan and Yukiko.

"What the hell do you mean she's afraid of something?" Yami asked as he was standing outside of the room with Nolan.

Nolan had been leaning back against the wall as he fixed up the hat on his head, "It's exactly what I mean. Prism's got this special condition where if she gets too scared of something or someone she'll end up silencing herself. It's happened more than once back home in our village."

"Well, that's great.." Yami said. "She's all healed up but she's still scared.."

"Can't say I blame her---" Nolan said, "---Though between you and me Yami---I don't think her not talking is just about 13."

"Hmm?" Yami said before he asked. "You mean something esle's scaring the Lizard Girl? How can you tell?"

"As someone who had to raise two girls from when they were kids themselves---" Nolan said before helping himself to a cigarette that Yami handed to him, "---I just have a sixth sense for these things."

"Then---How do I make her talk about it?" He asked.

"That's just the thing---" Nolan said as he lit the cigarette with a match before taking a puff, "---You can't force these kinds of things. You gotta encourage her to speak up."

"Has that worked?"

"Of course it has. Zeid and Alma had a trick to getting her to talk about things that she never wanted to bring up. This one time she wouldn't talk for two weeks. When I got sick in bed, I felt guilty since we were supposed to go camping, so they decided to camp out right in their own house. They made a tent in the living room and pretended their own lamp was a campfire, they even got their own snacks. They just chatted and told her funny stories when she finally talked. Turns out the thing that scared her was a ghost story she heard from older kids." Nolan couldn't help but chuckle, "Prism was never a fan of a scary story, you see."