A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Silence descended on the trio of Erik, Elora, and Frostfang. They stood on the snowy plains in front of Kirkenes, at the edge of a forest, letting the weight of Elora's words settle around them.

The wind rustled the leaves, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over their faces. Erik's heart ached with the newfound understanding, the gravity of his mother's hidden suffering pressing down on him.

Elora reached out her hand and cupped his cheek as she looked at him lovingly, "I know it hurts to think about your mother's suffering, it would be no different for me, but we can't change the past. We can only change the future."

Erik and Frostfang's ears twitched, but Frostfang was still ordered to keep quiet, so it was only Erik who frowned, as he asked, "So we can reverse what she did?"

Elora nodded with a confident smile, "Absolutely! You don't even know how many strange, rare, and supposedly secret techniques I've studied. Reversing this one should be easy. I just need to rip the part of her soul out of the worm here." at this point, she thumbed over her shoulder to at Frostfang.

Then she shrugged casually, but with pride in her voice, "Your mother's talent will be attached to that piece of her soul, so after removing it, I just need to store it, use it to track her, and then stuff it back in! Easy as that!"

Erik smiled back at her and leaned over while gently cupping her chin. Then, he kissed her.

When he pulled back, he smirked a little, "I do kind of wish you hadn't referred to healing my mother's soul as 'stuffing it back in', but that aside, thank you, Elora. Once again, I don't know what I'd do without you."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Licking her lips, Elora giggled and pushed out her sizable chest in pride, "Of course you wouldn't! I'm amazing!" Then she winked, "But you're pretty good, too. You can consider yourself lucky that I'd never leave you."

Erik chuckled as the pain and worry he felt over his mother's actions was soothed a little, and he was reminded why he loved Elora.

Suddenly, another thought entered him, 'If she went this far… I guess she really did care about the Enclave.' But then he immediately disclaimed himself when he had a second thought, 'Unless she just did it out of a sense of guilt and obligation. I wouldn't put that past her either, even if she'd never admit it.'

Stay tuned to empire

Shaking himself free of his thoughts, he turned his attention to Frostfang. The man was currently standing there with a somewhat lifeless expression, gazing into the distance.

Erik frowned and his nose wrinkled in anger. He walked up to the man, before suddenly punching him in the gut.

The unprepared Frostfang opened his eyes wide as a large amount of air was forced out of his lugs while he skidded back across the frozen ground.

"Don't just stand there like an idiot!" he growled angrily. "Turn around again so we can reverse what should have never been done in the first place."

Frostfang shook his head and his eyes cleared. His eyes were still filled with guilt and self-loathing, but Erik didn't care. He had long since known that Frostfang cared deeply about his mother, perhaps even a little too much, so he wasn't surprised the man felt this way.

With his mind cleared, but still forbidden from talking, he turned around and exposed his back again.

Without delay, Elora formed a small dark-green needle on the tip of her index finger and punctured the centre of the symbol on Frostfang's back. Frostfang started trembling a little, clearly in pain, but otherwise stayed still.

Elora's brows were furrowed in concentration, but Erik felt it was still safe to talk to her, so he asked, "What happens to Jonas after this?"

It wouldn't make a difference in whether or not they would do this, of course. The man could explode for all Erik cared at this point. But they needed to make plans for the Enclave's future.

If removing his mother's talent caused Frostfang to regress back to the second rank, he'd be back to making plans around having no third ranker to take charge of the Enclave.

While still concentrating on her task, Elora answered him, "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure; but if I had to guess I'd say that nothing would change. His rank is there to stay. In fact, this might even be beneficial for him, in a way. His talent will go down, but, with time, he can stabilise his shaky foundation."

Erik nodded with a hint of relief, "That's good, we can leave our plans unchanged then."

Neither of them cared about the positive benefits to Frostfang, but not having to change their plans was a good thing.

After a few moments of silence, Elora finally grinned victoriously, "There you are!" and pulled back her finger. On the tip of the green needle now rested a small, pure white whisp.

Strangely, as soon as he saw that whisp, Erik felt a hint of melancholy. For a second, he thought it actually was his mother standing in front of him. It felt good. A soft smile even spread on his lips.

But before he could revel in that feeling for a moment, he widened his eyes when Elora brought the whisp to her lips and slurped it into her mouth.

"Eh?" he gawked, more surprised than anything else.

Elora giggled at his expression, "What? The best place to store a soul is inside another soul. Don't worry, it's fine!"

In front of them, Frostfang finally stopped trembling, and a sigh of relief left his lips.

He didn't move, though. He knew there was still a second part to come.

And indeed, with Runa's soul removed and safely stored, Elora grinned sadistically, "With that done, it's time for a little revenge." She pulled out her sigil carving tool, intending to make this as painful as she could, and walked up to the man who had caused them both pain and difficulty in the past.

* * *

Whitin a few minutes, Frostfang had sank to his knees, a bright new sigil shining on his back as his body trembled in pain.

Then, he suddenly grasped his left arm and his chest. His eyes widened and he groaned in pain. His jaw was tensed, clearly refusing to howl out from the agony.

But it lasted only a few seconds, and then it was over.

Putting away her tools, Elora smirked, "Good job on keep quiet, little worm. That pain will radiate through your body once a day, at completely random times. Let that be a lesson to you."

Slowly, Frostfang stood up, turned around, and nodded solemnly. In his eyes, Erik and Elora could see that a large part of him thought he deserved this pain.

After all, Runa had suffered much the same.