He dropped down onto his knees like his legs had collapsed, unable to hurt himself on the shards in which he landed. Arius simply knelt there for some long seconds. At last when he opened his lips, he simply whispered, "Urru."

Arius leaped to his feet and shot out of the cave with a beam of red energy.

Honestly, Val was kind of surprised that he had not zoomed that fast, straight into Evalaite's arms given the way that he had seemed to have taken to his false memories of her. At the speed in which he flew, Val had no idea how she was supposed to keep up with him, but she would try.

Apparently Arius could keep his ray of energy going for a long time, because he flew along the mountain range until he had arrived at a grand city with fortified walls, almost rivaling the mountain in their strength. He did slow down considerably albeit, so he needed to throw regular beams behind him if he wanted to keep up his speed.

Arius sailed overhead and then made his descent over a wealthy district. He went smashing through the roof, and crouched in the rubble where he had landed. The dust wafted through the air, some settling on his skin to put Arius in all the more disarray.

In this room, there were many counters with scientific, black tops. Countless beakers, test tubes, and other apparatuses littered about along with many papers. The papers had diagrams, mathematical equations, and scribbles that all looked like nonsense to Val. This looked to be the disorganized work of some busy scientists, and likewise, Arius set to work.

Frantically, he shuffled through things to find a box and started stacking vials into them. While doing this, he let his still-growing red energy flow into the box, probably as a form of padding. Once he had gathered all of the colorful concoctions, he returned to stand in the sunlight, beneath the gap in the ceiling that he had created.

He bounced there for a moment with the box in hand, testing it. "Please don't break," Arius murmured, hardly audible. Then, he shot back off into the sky.

No crunching glass and no curses from Arius sounded, so it seemed that his fragile cargo had been preserved. Just as fast as before, Arius pushed himself to fly back to his mountain where Urru lay dead.

There, he landed on the cliff with almost a stumble. Arius stayed on his feet and kept moving to run into the cave. He slid on his knees back alongside Urru. At once, he opened vial after vial and poured it into the crevice of his mouth.

After using each one, he waited two seconds before flinging the vial. With a red flash and an explosion of glass, the vials rained down in a thousand pieces against the wall of the cave. The glass joined the ruby shards to create a glittering mosaic, all the more chaotic.

Once he had gone through all of the vials, Arius crumpled over to lay along the stone. His clenched hands were trembling at his forehead. "Urru. Urru," he said in a muffled cry a few times, though he soon fell silent.

By that time, Evalaite had gotten fully dressed in her own clothes and had brushed out her hair. She came walking out of the house with tentative steps. In a flimsy pair of sandals, she tread slowly over all of the gem shards and shattered glass in the area. "Arius," she said, standing at his side and placing her fingertips to one shoulder, "you should come back inside the house."

Since he made no move to respond to her, she crouched down and helped him stand up. Just the same, she guided him away from Urru and back into his home.

Arius did not put up any protest. He let his body be moved or guided however Evalaite saw fit. At the same time, he did not acknowledge her in any way.

For starters, Evalaite put a shirt on him, the same one that she had borrowed from him before. "You have not eaten since your fight with Tavras, and there you went exerting yourself even more. You must be famished!"

From where she seated him at the table, he sat entirely still. No movement crossed his body aside from a few blinks of his eyes. They were deep red in coloration, almost seeping into the whites of his eyes like they were bloodshot. He looked like he should just break down to tears already, except no emotions crossed his face. Arius seemed completely empty inside.

Evalaite made herself at home in his house. She found fresh water in a bucket and ladled it into a cup. This, she set down next to Arius and encouraged him to drink.

He did not so much as turn his head to acknowledge the cup.

"Am I going to have to do everything for you?" Evalaite perched close to him on the edge of the table and brought the cup to his lips. By her coaxing of gentle words and a soothing hand running against the back of his head, he let sip trickle into his mouth.

"There. That wasn't so hard. This water will be right here for you, if you want it." Evalaite leaned down close to kiss him, long and tender on the cheek. "I'm going to make some food for you."

Arius continued to sit there. Sometimes, he clenched his hands and almost made his veins visible. This state of his seemed like it would go on for a long time, so Val tried to find something more interesting in this moment of the past.

Instead, she shifted to look at Urru outside. A little puddle of mixed colors had dripped from his mouth. The long, serpentine tongue had lolled out of his mouth to rest in that puddle. Whatever Arius had tried giving Urru to bring him back to life, he was still very much dead.

When she was about to move her vision back inside, something new approached the mountain.

A golden bird flew up the mountain and hovered at the cave's entrance with a great rustling of feathers. The bird transformed, stretching and growing as it turned into a man.

A handsome man, with golden hair and eyes to match his avian form, now stood on the mountainside. Luckily, he had come prepared with clothes to materialize around him. The unknown god or demigod rushed forth into the cave. "Arius!" he went crying.