Igniting Sparks

Chapter 14.

Edited by: Kitwulf              02-04-2020

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That first week after her breakdown, Azura had spent all of her time in her room. Lucas had tried coaxing her out and talking to her but she had not responded and had just spent most of her time in bed. Nightmares had plagued her mind every time she had dozed off. Blue-eyed snow leopards attacked everything they came across, while she was helpless and could only watch as their fury destroyed everything. Blood reigned in her nightmares, death was something that was forced upon her, either dying herself or being the one that killed everything. And then there were the flames, the voice, and the Phoenix.

She had refused to talk to Lucas, driving him to his wit's end. He'd even eventually contacted Rose to come over in the hopes she would be able to get through to Azura. When that hadn't worked, he'd just given up. After consulting with Dr. Jensen, he was just making sure she was at least eating properly, and woke her up whenever she was freaking out.

In the second week, Azura came down more often and slowly tried to pick up from where she left off before her breakdown. Nicolai had visited her a few times since to see how she was faring, but she had refused to say anything about what had triggered her. Rose had come by several other times and as long as the conversation stayed light, it was fine and they would have some good fun, but as soon she would try to talk about what had set Azura off, she would completely shut down. Lucas had told other people she had a bad case of the flu, not wanting to tell people what really had happened without her consent.

It had taken her over three weeks to feel like an average human being again. Things had slowly returned to normal once more as both she and Lucas picked up their lives from where they had left them before her breakdown. He'd had to explain to her about the first week, as she barely remembered anything from it, but after that, she decided to just move forward and he had agreed.

From what she had gathered from Lucas, there had been no other sightings of snow leopards in the area and that had reassured her a bit. She was curious about these leopards that were like her, but she was also scared. Scared to find the truth about her heritage, or what they were like.

That last fear was strengthened even more by the rumors she heard around town. The only person she could freely talk to about it was Dr. Nicolai, and he was not so keen on the subject, convincing her to focus on the task at hand; learning to control her temper. So far the only thing she had learned was that blue-eyes snow leopards were dangerous creatures, with no morals, ferocious, and lusted after blood.

It had frustrated her and that had resulted in her having a shorter fuse than normal. Something Lucas had effortlessly picked up on and had made a sport in which to annoy her even further to the point she would eventually punch him in the shoulder because she had no other response available. He just laughed it off, eventually making her laugh as well and thus easing her frustration in a not so conventional matter.

Azura closed the door behind her as she returned from a visit to Sheila, Jeff's wife. The fireplace was burning and Lucas sat hunched over on the floor in front of it with papers and binders scattered all around him. Except for the crackling of fire and the flipping of pages, it was quiet in the house. It was never quiet when he was home. There would always be some music playing or the TV would be turned on.

"What are you doing?"

He looked over his shoulder, pen in his mouth and his hair sticking up on all sides. She cocked a brow as he took the pen from his mouth and sat back up.

"Getting used to the silence."

"And all this?" Azura had walked over to him and pointed at all the paperwork scattered around.