The shadows in the room began to quiver, with every moment of silence that passed they grew more and more restless, slowly inching their way toward Lucius.
"Havon, please calm down. He's still alive," Avankor explained, however, his mystic mantle was already on. What Lucius was seeing was enough to throw anyone into a state of despair, never mind someone with a mental state as damaged as his.
"How?" Lucius asked, trying to calm himself down a little. This did nothing but cause the shadows in the room to quiver and shake even more, in fact, even the shadows that covered Avankor's body seemed to resonate to this effect.
"He misused his mantle against the necromancer. He tried handling more power than his body co-" Avankor tried explaining.
"Alpha doesn't have a mantle! What happened to my child!" Lucius snapped, sinking his hands into the liquid to caress Alpha's face.
Or what was left of it at least.
Where Alpha's eyes should've been were two charred depressions, that were seemingly the result of healing from an even more heinous injury. Alpha's body was littered with similar charred wounds, but this wasn't even the worst of it.
A massive x-shaped scar covered his entire torso, and where his left arm should've been was a stump. The woody armor he had been growing was now nowhere to be seen and was instead replaced by a charcoal-like material.
"It's the truth... I'm sorry," Avankor whispered in reply, however, Lucius was not there. His mind was elsewhere, in a space where he was constantly blaming himself for what had happened.
Dozens of buts, ifs, and whys crossed his mind; But how had Alpha come to fight the necromancer? If he were stronger perhaps this wouldn't have happened. If he had waited a little more, perhaps they would've been better prepared. Why had he involved his children in the fight? Why hadn't he trained them more?
~No, calm down,~ he thought to himself. He knew he was falling victim to his mental scars, but even knowing that was not enough to overcome it.
With his emotions still in turmoil, he tried to call on the solar crux. The white-hot pain that had been restricting him earlier began to engulf his body once more, however, the difference was that this time he didn't care. He pushed through pain, allowing it to scathe him as he willed the crux from the depths of which it seemed to be hidden.
For a moment he was sent to his 'white space' and he got a glimpse of the sun at the center. The black dot that he had seen earlier had grown into a noticeable impurity, however, now was not the time to pay it mind.
Once he returned back to the normal plane, he called out the solar crux, withstanding the exhaustion he had built up from fighting against the white-hot pain, before casting solar cleanse.
"Oh," Trel whispered in wonder, as Alpha was bathed in bright luminescence. The spell took more energy than it usually did, but Lucius did not care.
Once the light had subsided, Alpha's body began twitching. A moment later, he coughed out the white substance he had been emersed in for all these days.
"Captain!" he shouted, struggling around as if fighting an imaginary enemy.
For the first time in a while, tears streamed down Lucius's face.
"I'm here, don't worry, you're safe now," Lucius said, before helping Alpha sit up in the bath and hugging his head.
"Captain, I thought- I thought," Alpha tried saying.
"It's okay now, it's okay now," Lucius whispered in response. The tears did not stop, and even Avankor seemed to look on in pity.
"Captain, why is it so dark?" Alpha asked, before touching his eyes. There he found the rough -charred surface of his wounds.
For some reason, solar cleanse had failed to heal any of the wounds he had succumbed to.
"And my arm, where's my arm," Alpha shouted, before struggling to get away from Lucius's embrace, sending the healing liquid flying everywhere.
"It'll be okay," Lucius replied firmly, holding on to Alpha even as the latter struggled to get away.
Alpha screamed and shouted for what felt like hours, repeating the same questions over and over again. And all the while, Lucius held him, whispering that everything would be okay.
That night, Avankor ordered that everyone leave the room and that the two be left alone for some time.
*
Hours passed, and even though he was now exhausted, Alpha still whispered his questions in agony. At this point, he had come to understand what happened to him, but the reality of it was too painful to accept.
His questions had changed somewhere during the night. He no longer asked about his missing body parts, but rather why he wasn't healed. But Lucius had no answer to that. And so he replied; "everything will be okay."
After a few more hours, Alpha fell asleep. It was a shock he had been able to stay up so long, but Lucius could understand, or perhaps could sympathize with what he was going through.
Alpha had been the hardest working in the commune, and now he had lost both his sight, and perhaps even his ability to do battle. Something he had seemed fond of.
Whilst Alpha slept, Lucius rested with his head on the earth bath. He couldn't leave Alpha alone for even a moment. He had to be here when Alpha woke up... he had been absent long enough.
*
Morning came, and Lucius had barely slept. He had spent much of the previous night deep in thought.
As he was casting yet another futile solar cleanse on Alpha's body, Avankor walked into the room.
Even though he could sympathize with Lucius, there was a lot he and even the rest of the forest still expected from their savior. And though he understood that everyone needed time to grieve, there was no rest for someone in Lucius's position.
Something Lucius himself understood well enough, even in this state.
"Havon," Avankor whispered after standing in silence for some time.
"I know," Lucius replied, not a hint of emotion in his voice. He had spent all of that, the night prior.
"Have your people eaten?" he asked shortly after, before turning to look at Avankor, a tired look in his eyes.
