War of Fire

Relations

"WHAT?!" Laurence practically yelled this, and Lucinda just raised an eyebrow. "How hard is it to kill this... Demon Warlock, then?" she asked. "He's... very powerful..." That was all Travis said after that. "Many people have attempted to kill him, but it didn't turn out so good for them... He can produce hallucinations to distract his opponent so he can strike at them." he explained. "How do you even know all this about him?" Laurence asked, skeptical of Travis. He waited a while before answering the question. "I've spent a lot of time on this island..." he trailed off, looking down. "That's not the real answer, is it?" Laurence asked him. Travis stayed silent. "Is it?" he asked. "I'd rather not say..." he said quietly. "What is it?" he ventured. "No." he said simply. "HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL THIS ABOUT HIM?" Laurence pushed. "Laurence!" I tried to stop him. Travis stayed silent. "IF YOU WANT OUR TRUST, TELL US!" Laurence eyes flashed red, but he did not transform. "HOW DO YOU-" "I KNOW IT BECAUSE I'M HIS SON!" Travis yelled. He turned around, and started walking into the forest. We were all silent after what had just happened. "Oh my Irene..." Lucinda says, taken aback at what had just happened. I had just realized I was silently crying after seeing Laurence like that. Warm tears flowed down my face, one by one, then falling down to the snowy floor below. Laurence stood beside me, looking down at his feet. He looked at me, and then I looked away. I wasn't mad... just disappointed. Lucinda turned away, and walked towards the ocean. She stopped right before the water, and then kneeled down. I started running into the forest after Travis, leaving Laurence there. I ran deeper and deeper into the woods, until I saw him. I stopped in my tracks. Travis was sitting on a fairly small rock in a clearing, facing away. His sword was stuck into the snow beside him, sticking up. "What do you want?" he asked, slightly turning his head to me, but not all the way. "How are you?" I didn't really know what else to say. "What do you think?" he snapped. We stayed silent for a while. "I'm sorry, I just... I don't want people to think that I'm a bad person because of that," he finally said. He paused for a second, then asked: "Aphmau, is Laurence a..." "Yes. He is." I said. I knew what those last two words would be. "I'm sorry about how Laurence-" I started. "It's... fine, really. I just don't like to admit that I'm..." he said, not finishing the sentence. "Yeah..." I say. We stood there, silent, thinking about all that's happened today. I walked a few yards and leaned against a tree. "I'm going to head back... If you want to come and camp with us, you can, but don't feel like you have to. I can understand if you don't want to... I'll see you around, I guess..." I said. I walked through the forest, back to the camp. When I reached our camp, Lucinda was where I left here, but Laurence had disappeared. I stayed where I was, taking it in. Ahead, by the ocean, Lucinda was using her staff to make small suns dance around in the air in front of her. The suns disappeared as she turned around to me. "Laurence went in the boat. I don't know where in it, though," she informed me. I nodded. We both turned around to what we were doing before. I walked over to the boat, and walked across the bridge to go in it. I looked around the deck that was still slippery and wet, and he wasn't there. I entered the small room below the elevated part of the dock. He wasn't there, either. I went down the stairs, and scanned the room. I saw him at the end of the room, sitting on the bed. "Aphmau, I... I shouldn't have allowed you to see me like that..." he said. "Travis, he... he just doesn't want to be seen as a bad person... Reflected off of his family," I told him. "Yeah, I know... I, of all people should understand that, because I feel the same way about my... thing...." We stayed quiet for a moment. "Then you two have something in common, then, heh." I say. "Should I go and talk to him?" Laurence asked. "I just did, I think all he needs at the moment is some time to... think..." I said. "But, maybe later," I say, and he nodded. He got up, and started walking over. "We should go up.." I said. "Yeah," he agreed. We walked back up the stairs, and back out into the beach. We went over and looked out at the ocean, standing next to Lucinda. I looked down at her and the hovering suns. Three of them span in a circle, over and over again. She slightly flicked her staff to the sea, and one by one, the suns shot out over the water. Lucinda stood up, and brushed the sand off of her legs. "So, is he coming back?" she asked. "I'm... not sure..." I said. I looked out into the forest. It was slowly getting dark, as the sun set across the horizon. By the time the sun was all the way down, the leaves on the trees will look black. Just then, we heard someone yelling in the forest. It broke our silence. "Was that...?!" I began. "Yeah..." Laurence said. We all turned on our heels and started sprinting towards the forest. The trees seemed much, much, much more thick at night. As I ran, branches and leaves scraped against my arms and legs, but I didn't care. I dodged trees, and jumped over bushes. Soon, I came to the same clearing that Travis and I talked at earlier, but he wasn't sitting on the rock. Instead, an unconscious Travis laid on the cold ground, under the shadow of no one but his own father.