Chapter 243: Confrontations

Vayu looked the beautiful orc in the eye, “Miss Katag, we need to talk.”

“Vayu? What is it?” Tauri asked curiously. She glanced at the large dire bear next to him and whistled, “Pretty amazing beast by the way. Where did you find it?”

“...The Hunter’s Guild acquired him deep in Glimmer Grove Forest, near Vulture Woods. My family bought him from the guild after I lost… my fire drake and hawk.”

“...I’m sorry for your loss,” she said softly. “I sometimes have nightmares about that night.”

“We all do,” Vayu sighed. “We don’t know when that Monster might appear again. Or if we’ll even survive another encounter…”

“Don’t remind me,” she chuckled anxiously.

“We have to try and enjoy each day we have,” he nodded slowly. “Which is why I find it strange why you would torture Loh.”

“Torture?” Tauri frowned. “I’d never hurt Loh, she’s my best friend.”

“I overheard your conversation with Loh a few minutes ago,” Vayu patted his dire bear’s shoulder.

“You cast a binding spell and eavesdropped on us through your bear!?” Tauri snarled.

“I was training my bear, helping him get used to my true magic. I didn’t mean to listen to your conversation with Loh, but it happened… And I saw it.”

“Saw what, asshole?” she glared at him.

“I saw you shy away from Loh the moment she tried to express herself, I saw the look on your face.”

“W-what are you talking about?”

“You know, don’t you?”

“Why would I ask ‘what are you talking about’ if I knew what you were sayi-”

“You know Loh is in love with you.”

Tauri stiffened to a halt.

Vayu narrowed his eyes, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He cleared his throat, “Tell me this. Do you love her?”

“...This has nothing to do with you.”

Vayu shook his head, “So, let me get this straight. You know Loh loves you, but instead of turning her down, you let her pine over you? Instead of confronting the situation, you ignore her feelings and pretend they don’t exist. All the while she is by your side, desperately hoping that you might one day see her for her.”

Tauri raised her eyebrow, “Says the man desperately in love with Loh.”

“I told her how I feel! I expressed myself and where I stood with my feelings. …She turned me down and I respected her decision. I still love Loh, but I refuse to hold her back because when you love someone you put them first. But you, what have you done for your best friend? You just ignored her feelings? You think that’s some form of kindness?”

Tauri bit her lip, “...I didn’t want us to lose our friendship, I didn’t want to lose Loh.”

“How long have you known about Loh’s feelings for you?”

Tauri sighed abashedly, “...Since we were students back at the academy.”

Vayu burst into laughter, a bitter, painful sound. “You… Do you have any idea what she’s gone through because of your indifference!? Had you just told her how you felt, she wouldn’t have held those feelings in all those years. She wouldn’t have felt so resentful! She wouldn’t have let her br-” Vayu snapped his mouth shut. “…She wouldn’t have let her broken heart dictate the next several years of her life.”

Tauri swallowed the lump in her throat, “I… I never meant to hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt her, that’s why I never said anything!”

“My gods, you really are a coward,” he said in disgust. “A good friend would have talked to her, turned her down, let her move on with her life! A best friend wouldn’t have tried to change the topic every time Loh tried to share her feelings!”

“What was I supposed to say?! That I was in love with Aizel?” Tauri laughed bitterly. “You don’t know anything! You weren’t there! Loh and Aizel didn’t get along, at all. Loh only became more withdrawn when I got engaged!” Tauri clenched her chest, “...So I pretended that I wasn’t excited to get married, that it was just some kind of forced engagement by our parents. Had Loh known that I actually loved Aizel she probably would have hated both of us! I didn’t want to lose my best friend!”

A look of pity crossed Vayu’s teal eyes, he swallowed hard, “...I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have said anything… Excuse me.” He bowed his head, climbed back on his dire bear’s saddle, and made his way to the back of the caravan.

As soon as he left Tauri groaned in frustration, “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

She tried shaking off the emotions rising in her chest, the feelings she had buried deep down years ago. She groaned and tried to focus on marching up the hill, one step at a time. Tauri spotted Stryg staring at her, wide-eyed, from atop the hill.

“What are you looking at!?” she yelled out angrily.

“Um… Nothing,” Stryg mumbled and turned around.

~~~

The warm spring day passed by quickly. Ismene was grateful for a lack of valley savages, but she was still wary of what might lurk in the dark. As night fell she had guards posted on each side of camp.

Dinner was a small affair, the guards and the other few servants ate around their own fires away from the mages. Etiquette dictated that they were not worthy of sharing a meal with mages, a concept Stryg had difficulty understanding. Back in the Blood Fang tribe the Mothers, the chief, and the shaman would get their food first, but everyone would still eat together. That is what it meant to be a tribe, solidarity. Yet, Stryg very little of that in the encampment.

The professors sat around a fire and ate in what Ismene had dubbed ‘a comfortable silence.’ Which was a fancy way of saying she didn’t like people talking while eating. Gale joined their fire, if simply only because she also shared Isemene’s tastes in dinner talk.

Tauri ate by herself, she had created a small campfire with a simple orange spell a few dozen paces from camp. The dwarf, Cornelius Rotrusk, had tried to sit with her and strike up a conversation, but Tauri had simply given him a death stare. Cornelius smiled awkwardly and left.

The four students, Hollow Shade’s chosen competitors, sat around their own fire. Freya and Sylvie chatted over dinner, while Stryg simply listened and devoured several portions of dried meat and bread.

“Excuse me,” Callum stood up. “I think I’m going to go on a walk, clear my head.”

“Are you sure? You’ve barely touched your food,” Sylvie said with a concerned tone.

“I’m not very hungry,” Callum smiled weakly.

“Don’t wander off too far, Veres,” Freya warned. “You never know who might be hiding in the grass. Remember last time?”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Callum nodded solemnly and walked into the darkness.

“Last time?” Sylvie wrinkled her brow.

Stryg put his place aside and stood up.

“Where are you going?” Sylvie asked curiously.

“Doesn’t concern you, so back off,” Stryg snapped and walked into the dark.

“I was just asking, no need to be so damn rude,” Sylvie muttered.

~~~

Stryg found Callum a few hills away from where they had camped. The vampire hybrid was huddled over, his shoulders shook with a slight tremble. Stryg plopped down next to him without a word.

Callum flinched back. He reached for his sword that had been left at the camp. He frantically began channeling white mana into his hands but stopped when he noticed the silver hair and lilac eyes under the moonlight.

“Stryg? Ah, gods, you startled me,” Callum rubbed his puffy eyes. “You’ve really gotta stop sneaking up on me like that.”

Stryg didn’t bother glancing at him, instead he stared up at the silver half-moon floating in the clear night sky. “I didn’t grow up with a family. I don’t know who my father is and my mother died in labor. The Mothers raised me, they raised all the goblins in the tribe. The Sylvan people believe that if a birth mother would raise her own child, it would create a bond between the child and her, a bond valued more highly than others. I think the Sylvan people are right.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Callum sniffed.

“I didn’t think so either until I first saw Kamilo… When I saw his purple eyes and that small chubby face, I knew I would do anything to keep him safe. And I’m not even his father,” Stryg smiled wryly.

“What’s your point?” Callum muttered.

“The Sylvan people didn’t want bonds formed between parent and child because the tribe is meant to work together as a whole; we put the tribe over our own personal needs. At least we strive to, I don’t know how many of us really achieve it. The Blood Fang’s shaman certainly didn’t. I didn’t…”

Stryg brushed his fingers across the silver bracelet on his wrist, the symbol of the bond between apprentice and master. Loh had gifted him the bracelet on his 19th birthday. He had never taken it off since.

“The Sylvan people thought personal bonds would make us weak. My people weren’t wrong, of course,” Stryg shrugged. “A baby is a huge liability in any battle.”

Callum couldn’t help but chuckle, “You never change.”

“I think I have,” Stryg whispered. “I don’t want to give up the bonds I’ve made, even if they are a liability. But I understand if you do. If she wasn’t your sister, I would have probably already killed Elise.”

Callum’s eyes widened, “You… You heard my conversation with my sister?”

“She insulted Clypeus at his own funeral,” Stryg’s voice grew frigid. “I will never forgive her for that.”

Callum swallowed, “Did you…? Did you hear what she said… in the carriage?”

“About trying to use your friends? Yes.”

Callum felt a shiver run down his spine, he was suddenly very aware that he was alone in the dark with a man who had razor-sharp claws.

“But I also heard what you said,” Stryg scratched his cheek. “You’re not alone, Cal, not in this. You haven’t lost me.” He rested his hand on Callum’s shoulder, “We are going to win this tournament and you are going to prove your family wrong.”

Callum’s bottom lip quivered. “...Thanks,” he mumbled quietly and looked away.

“Mm.” Stryg gazed at the stars and pretended to not notice the tears in the vampire’s eyes.

~~~

Sylvie sighed loudly, “Why isn’t Stryg back yet?”

“Who ever knows what Stryg is thinking?” Freya shrugged.

“What about Cal? He’s been gone too long.”

“Callum might just be taking a long walk. Relax.”

“Hm…” Sylvie frowned. “What if Stryg is hurting him?”

“Why would Stryg hurt his friend?” Freya raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know ? Why did he hurt Cal during the Winter Ball!?”

“Mm, point taken. Still, I wouldn’t worry about Stryg.”

“Are you kidding me?” Sylvie groaned in frustration. “Why is it that you’re all so trusting of that rude drow!? Like, one second he’s nice and the other he’s literally biting a kid’s cheek off!”

“Goblin.”

“Huh?”

“Stryg is a goblin hybrid. He probably is half-drow, but we don’t know for certain.”

“He doesn’t know?” Sylvie blinked.

“No, Stryg never met his parents. He’s from Vulture Woods.”

Sylvie choked on her food, “V-vulture Woods!? He’s a Sylvan goblin? …I didn’t know any of them had ever left the forest.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about Stryg,” Freya said quietly.

“Like what?”

“...Doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Stryg always acts angry and every one of you is always tip-toeing around it, pretending everything is fine. Why?”

Freya warmed her hands above the fire, “...Not really a great dinner topic.”

Sylvie crossed her arms, “Captain, you told us you would do whatever it takes to help this team. How can a team function when there is no clear communication between its members?”

“...You really want to know…?” Freya sighed. “Fine… We lost someone... Clypeus Gale.”

“Clypeus…? I remember Stryg mentioned the name once, but he never explained… What happened?”

Freya smiled bitterly, “We were attacked, last spring, in the south region of Dusk Valley, at Widow’s Crag. It was one of the first attacks by the savage valley tribes.”

“Wait, you said we? You were there?”

“Our whole class was; Clypeus, Kitty, Nora, Kegrog, Stryg, and many others… Not that you’d know them, almost everyone died that night.”

“Huh?” Sylvie’s voice cracked.

Freya closed her eyes tight as she recalled the painful memory, “It was an ambush late at night, we were caught off from the professors. It was just us novices versus Lord Marek of the Cairn and his elite group of magi.”

“You met Marek!? The Marek? The warlord who ransacked Castle Mora?” Sylvie’s eyes widened in shock.

Freya nodded numbly.

“How did you escape?”

“Most of us didn’t. Marek had us cornered on a cliff,” Freya said shakily. “Only a few of us managed to escape and it was only thanks to Clypeus Gale. He stayed behind and held off Marek and his mages… Clypeus died on that cliff.”

Sylvie swallowed hard, “Stryg said ‘Clypeus was the best of us.’ …I think I finally understand what he meant.” She furrowed her brow, “Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner? Clypeus was a hero.”

“...Because we were ashamed,” Freya whispered.

“What…?”

“Clypeus did not fight alone on that cliff… His best friend fought by his side. Stryg fought by his side.” Freya clenched her hands tight, “Stryg and Clypeus stayed behind to protect us. While they fought for their lives… we ran away. We abandoned them… I abandoned them.”

“No…” Sylvie mumbled, tears in her eyes.

Freya looked away, unable to meet her gaze. “Stryg barely survived and he suffered horrible injuries. Yet everyone blamed him for the ambush, they blamed Stryg for the deaths of the entire class. And I… I just licked my wounds and hid while the academy ridiculed him.”

Freya stood up and dusted off her pants, “You wanted to know why Stryg always seems mad? That’s why. You wanted to know why I trust that rude goblin with my life? Because when everyone was about to die Stryg was one of the few who stood up to fight.”

Sylvie opened her mouth, but there were no words she could find. She bit her lip and lowered her head in shame.

“I’m gonna head to sleep. You should get some rest while you can,” Freya picked up her cloak and left.

Sylvie sat alone in silence and stared numbly at the crackling flames.