Page 154 of To Trap a Soul

In some ways, he thought it looked like wet smoke. Like a whitened version of how he could appear at times. A mist, a cloud, colourless and yet holding every colour utterly possible.

It shone with a multitude of rainbows which he wished his shadows could swallow for him to keep.

However, that wasn’t the exact view which had him wanting to leave his realm, but the other one he was gifted with. Lindiwe appeared at peace as she sunbaked, her feathers ruffling around her shoulders from the lightest gust. Her loosened bangs bounced and swayed around her high cheekbones and jaw, and he wondered if that was why she tucked them behind her ear – to control those windswept tresses.

I like her hair this way.Weldir had seen Lindiwe style her hair in dozens of different ways, but she seemed to prefer havingit loose most of the time. Seeing it in a bun was common, but each one was a new facet of her, a new way for him to appreciate her.

“I have grown more fascinated with watching her,” Weldir stated to no one in particular, sitting on the edge of his own cliff as he stared out at his realm.

The water below him wasn’t as grand, but it did shelter his water-seeking offspring. Nathair had hidden himself away in a nook deep below the surface, likely thinking Weldir couldn’t see him.

He could, especially from this angle.

Weldir considered dropping a stone into it to spook the big serpent, but decided against it. If he really wanted to, he could just rumble the water from afar until Nathair slithered out of it with fear or uncertainty.

He’d rather sit here with Lindiwe... when usually he’d find a task to do while he had his viewing disc of her, or their other offspring, floating around him. No, instead, he just sat with her, watching her every movement, every muscle tick, every single hair strand sway, and even the way her pulse fluttered.

What had turned into mere intrigue had started to twist into obsession. If he wasn’t watching her, he was trying to half-heartedly complete a task to stop himself from doing so. He’d even rifled through the souls waiting for him to consume and only picked those either she or their offspring had delivered. Those that had no Demon taint and missing pieces to them, so he could just receive power and resist the urge to rest as he often did.

The constant use of my own mana is mind-numbing.

Yet, as his conversation with Lindiwe died, and they sat there in silence, he considered using more – for an entirely selfish reason. Especially when she stood and brushed off her round backside to clear it of any muck.

“If you’re still there, the sun is going down,” she told him, her tone mellow and... gentler than usual. Her voice lacked the cutthroat depth it usually held when she spoke to him.

Weldir didn’t know why he was compelled to stand when she did, but he found it remarkably asinine of him, considering she couldn’t see him. But that was the polite thing humans did, yes?

He silently sighed at himself as he covered his eyes in the way they did when they were annoyed at themselves. He thought even his pointed ears may have flicked for punctuation.

Without removing his hand, his words were clear. “Enjoy your flight, Lindiwe.”

“You don’t always have to say my name, you know,” she commented as she flicked her feathery hood over her head, obscuring her pretty face.

I say it because I once lacked the compassion to do so.

It was a reminder to him of his failings, and his way of showing that he would always try, even when he didn’t know how. It was also a way for him to hopefully provoke her into telling him what he was doing wrong – offering just that touch of guidance.

Lindiwe then shifted into her raven form. He watched as black feathers sprouted across her brows, up her forehead, and into her hair, before scattering all over her body.

She looks like a Demon, but I like that she is also like me.

Weldir was quite proud of his darkness, his shadows, and the way they could swallow up anything that came into them. He chose not to have dense fog, but he could obscure one’s sight if he so desired – even in the mortal realm.

He didn’t, as that cost him quite a lot of mana to do so.

Through the viewing disc, Lindiwe unfurled her arms that had morphed into great wings and flapped them. She lifted off, causing mist to spray forward under her power, and then glided into the ravine before quickly banking right.

Even though he remained stuck within his realm, he flew with her for quite some time. He doubted she knew he continued to follow along, but he was completely unashamed by his new obsession with her.

She was his mate, after all.

He could do what he wanted, and stare all he wanted.

He also gave into the nagging desire to use more of his mana from just the mere sight of her.

Like usual, he kept that disc, with a black, smoky edge to it, hovering around him as he began to float up the mountain. He went back to his task before she’d captured his attention with all her squirming and shouts – unaware she had a spectator.

A little further down, coming away from Nathair’s ‘claimed’ territory within all of Weldir’s realm, he found the concave he’d already begun mentally carving. The edges were jagged and messy, which he hoped gave the appearance that it was naturally formed.

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