Page 31 of A Soul to Embrace

She wished she understood enough to ask him what was wrong. Why had his face suddenly looked so strained that even his lips thinned? There was obviously a darkness within his mind, and Zylah didn’t lack the heart to delve into it, just the words to express that to him.

“I think that’s out of the question for now,” he said, before sitting down once more. He shuffled his bag closer and yanked out the notebook with an annoyed roughness to his movements. “Alright. I think it’s time you finally learn how to read and write.”

Zylah tilted her head at his disgruntled appearance. She hoped that wasn’t due to her.

“Thank you, Jabez,” she stated, and his gaze flicked up to her in surprise. She chittered nervously, then soothed her heart by patting her chest. “Thank you for thedress. Thank you for... teaching me.”

Her sight shifted to a bright reddish pink in embarrassment, and she squirmed under his regard. Even more so when he cast her an odd smile, which only lifted one side of his lips. The tips of his ears drooped a little, which made his features soften somehow.

“You’re welcome,” he answered warmly.

Zylah melted under the power of that warmth when it touched beneath her sternum and radiated.

I keep remembering this girl,Jabez thought, as his eyes slowly cracked open to muted light. Midday had arrived, and he was safely protected from its rays.

Lying on his side with his back against the wall for protection, he took in the curled-up lump next to him. His chuckle was quiet so as to not disturb his companion of nearly two months now.

Jabez didn’t know if she thought she was being sneaky, but each dawn that they lay down to sleep, Zylah kept inching towards him. Any closer now, and she’d be touching him.

He preferred her to not lie so closely, as he didn’t wish to incite any affection on her side. However, he was also deeply aware that this was likely a Mavka longing. Merikh, the bear-skulled Mavka, had also chosen to sleep within reaching distance when they’d once been friends.

Which, at first, annoyed Jabez, as he was a deeply untrusting individual. It’d taken him a long time to learn that Merikh had two reasons for doing this. He’d claimed it was for Jabez’s ultimate protection, as, at the time, he’d needed someone to watch his back in his own castle. But deep down inside, the maleMavka had just longed to be near his only companion.

As much as Jabez had growled at Zylah for doing it at first, he eventually accepted it as he did many, many decades ago. She sought warmth in order to erase her loneliness... like a kitten with its littermates, or a pack of wolves hunkering down for the night.

That was just his assumption, though.

At least she doesn’t have quills to stab me with,he thought fondly, as he quietly shuffled to his back.

Staring up at the rocky ceiling of the cave, he let his mind wander. Every time he blinked, he was met with images of someone from the past.

The face of a small child; a little Elven girl. Someone he’d forgotten and was only beginning to piece together why she was returning to him. It’d been centuries since he’d seen her, after all.

Her face had been round, cute, freckled, and always smiling in his direction. Her big brown eyes looked at him with adoring awe, while white corkscrew hair fluttered around her head. If her long hair wasn’t neatly braided into protective styles, it was often messy from play, while regularly sporting a purple leaf or two.

Jabez remembered delicately pulling leaves from her hair before patting over the top of it gingerly.

Her face came to him in different memories. Sometimes she was sitting across a table from him, pretending he was a guest at some fancy restaurant as she fed him different sweets. Other times, she was next to him as he tutored her in classes she was failing in.

Then there were the occasional times where she’d be hovering a mere inch from his nose to wake him in the morning. Or she’d be behind him as he sat on a hospital bed, brushing his long hair with as much care as he took in removing leaves from hers.

Did... I have a sister?It was a question he’d begun asking himself only recently.

His time as a child had grown fuzzy after he fled to Earth. The scar on the back of his head throbbed in answer, and he’d long ago realised his memories may be missing pieces.

But he did know the truth; his anger had been real. It had been justified. His hatred had bred from his time in captivity, and from the way his own people had turned their backs on him.

His mother had been a crazed scientist, nosediving into chaotic experiments under the guise of progress. She’d wanted to help her people, even if it was against the order of the council. A radical woman willing to do anything and everything to get to a solution, even if it put her own life in danger.

Even if it meant... his father had no say in his creation, no consent. Jabez had always hated that. He’d despised that he’d never met his father, and neither had his mother because he’d been nothing but a corpse his mother had poked and prodded... and stolen from.

Just as Jabez was poked and prodded.

It was only in the reminder of this little girl’s face that he remembered it hadn’talwaysbeen done to experiment on him. No, he was beginning to remember being rather sickly as a child. He remembered being hungry, despite always having food. He remembered feeling malnourished and weak, even though he was a healthy weight and taller than his classmates.

What he didn’t understand was why his last encounter with Merikh was the reason for these memories resurfacing. Merikh had nothing to do with that part of his past. Actually, it was long before the Witch Owl had ever been born, and Weldir had still been trapped within his own domain.

But there had been a light scent clinging to Merikh’s fur. It’d smelt so familiar, and yet so distant. He still couldn’t place whoit belonged to, and it nagged at the back of his mind like a constant ache.

---