Page 82 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

A time unknown, but of misery

Situated on top of Nathair’s lazing rock, while he was deep in a trance within his lake, Weldir had multiple viewing discs around him.

At the forefront was Magnar as he walked down the porch steps holding his small, newly born offspring. They sulked, screeching as they crawled over him in search of something before giving a wail. They only calmed when he spoke to them, constantly shoving their ear holes up against his fox skull.

“What do you mean she gave birth already?!” his mate yelled, half-awake as she scrambled to leave her bed.

The blanket twisted around her ankle, and Lindiwe fell face-first off the side of her bed and hit the ground.

He winced on her behalf, especially when she groaned.

One of their offspring crawled out from underneath her, gave her a bawk, and then proceeded to start climbing into her curls – to her annoyance.

“I’ve done this too many times in my life,” she muttered, rotating her body to sit. She untangled her leg, placed her hands on the side of her head, and let their offspring do whatever they wanted as both climbed all over her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure,” Weldir answered. “Magnar is currently holding them outside, and I believe she is inside. You know I cannot see too closely due to his ward.”

“Why?” Lindiwe whined, throwing her head back. “Why did no one call for me?! I told them I was nearby should they need me.”

Weldir couldn’t help chuckling. “You know they are independent creatures. It is just the way they are.”

“I know that! But this is different.” She slumped against the side of the bed while remaining seated on the ground.

“I would’ve helped. I’ve done this plenty of times myself, and had I known they wouldn’t call for my assistance, I would have informed her what would happen immediately after giving birth.

I just... I didn’t want to frighten her when I could simply use a scent cloak and help in the moment. ”

She speaks of the way Mavka will attack their mother, due to her smelling of blood during the birthing process. Even Weldir considered this a flaw in their design.

“Would you like me to transport you there now?” Weldir offered, seeing she was rather dispirited.

“What’s the point?” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I can’t help them if they won’t let me. They think they have to do it all on their own when I’m right here.”

Weldir grew quiet. I don’t know how to comfort her. Especially when she was just like them – she thought she had to do it all on her own with a brave face when he, too, was right here.

Well, some of the time.

Due to her request for no more intimacy, he’d been focusing on spreading his mist. He spent what he gained, pushing it further and further until he now thought he’d covered half of the landmasses where there were portals.

In some places, he’d even managed to cross the oceans and cover some small islands.

The last time she was in my realm for an extended period was when Leonidas was captured.

He knew that was quite some decades ago.

He’d thought of it fondly, despite her tears, simply because she’d permitted him to hold her for an extended period.

She’d cried in his tendril arms and against his barrier, clinging so tightly it seemed like she didn’t wish to let go.

Since then, and like before it, their face-to-face interactions had been minimal.

“Weldir?”

“Yes, owlet?” he asked, still rather smitten with the nickname he’d given to her long ago.

Her cheek twitched; she was always surprised by the endearment. Each time, something glinted in her pretty brown eyes, something tender that she quickly hid. That, or he was misinterpreting it because he wanted to.

“Maybe I should just leave them be,” Lindiwe said, looking up at the ceiling of her small home. “Maybe... you shouldn’t sleep for a while and watch them, while I move on. You can always bring me back here.”

“That’s unlike you.” He lifted his gaze to the brightness of Tenebris, unsettled by her response. Enough so that his mist tightened against him. “When something important is happening, you like to be near.”

“I know.” She wrapped her hands around one of their offspring and brought them close to her belly.

“But all I’m doing is sitting here, waiting for something to happen.

I don’t mind doing that, but it... it hurts that they shun my presence.

I must move on and focus on those who do need and want me right now. ”

She speaks of these two. He watched one of their featureless offspring snuggle into her stomach, while the other made her wince when they tried to get out of the labyrinth of curls they’d gotten themselves lost in.

She helped extricate them and brought them on top of the other so all three could cuddle.

It wasn’t often that Lindiwe shared the truth of her thoughts.

He’d known for a very long time that she was discontented with the way their offspring treated her, and there was little he could do to help.

He sometimes spoke to their offspring when she wasn’t around and they were walking through his mist across the world, but they often barked and snapped their maws at the unseen entity bothering them.

If I had a true form, I could ease her. She wouldn’t have to be doing this all by herself, nor would she have to be alone.

As the years passed and she still rejected his realm, Weldir found himself wanting to join hers. He’d always had this yearning, but it was growing by the day, like something had always been missing and it was only found at her side.

He used to not let such things bother him; why yearn and hope for things that couldn’t change? He couldn’t seem to stop himself now, staring at her silently, wanting nothing more than to dive through his viewing disc and join her.

It’d even come to the point where he found himself walking by her side on Earth, his female none the wiser that he was right there with her as she traversed the world.

That was until she exited his mist and unwittingly left him behind in it.

Seeing her grow smaller as she took each step into the distance formed an ache in his mind he couldn’t be rid of.

Even now, he’d like to go to her side and reach his hand out to help her to her feet, so she wasn’t sprawled on the floor.

But he couldn’t.

I have searched my mind endlessly, and there is no solution. He was ill-formed, a deity without the capabilities of true life, and nothing, no amount of knowledge, offered an answer. So how else can I help her?

He didn’t like that she was often forlorn, reclusive, and withdrawn from life. That wasn’t something he’d ever wanted for her. She hunted for souls, she took care of their offspring, but other than that, she did very little for herself anymore.

She’d become a shell of the spritely person she once was and detached in a way that bothered him. It felt wrong for her personality. Like the change was through suffering, and she didn’t know how else to combat it but by turning her mind away from horrible things and the way they hurt her.

I miss her fire, he thought, placing his chin on his closed fist. I also miss the way she reached for me, clawed at me. In any and every sense.

He still didn’t know why she no longer wanted to, despite many decades passing.

She doesn’t seem unhappy with me. Not like in the beginning, where she wore a hateful glare whenever he spoke to her.

No, she always welcomed his voice these days, but there was an emotion reflecting in her gaze at the same time as the one that said it wanted him there – one that said it didn’t.

My realm feels emptier without her presence in it. It made him realise just how uninhabited and desolate it was.

Giving up on his thoughts, considering he’d annoyed himself and there was nothing he could do to change her and her decision, he shifted his gaze to Nathair.

He has entirely ceased speaking to me. Weldir doubted it was his fault. His serpent offspring had lost the desire to live this stagnant life or learn about what happened in a world he couldn’t go to.

The fragments still bothered him, only giving him moments of proper lucidity before stealing him away again. Weldir thought he might prefer it, as it stopped his mind from having to be present in Tenebris and its nothingness.

“If that’s what you would like to do – return to the northern hemisphere – then I have no issue with remaining awake to assist,” Weldir stated to Lindiwe.

It would be a good opportunity for him to build the reserves of his mana again. It was thickening faster than it used to.

The next time I rest, I should be able to reach much further if I have a store collected. Rather than doing it bit by bit and sleeping more frequently.

Hmm. Perhaps I’m becoming like Nathair. Letting himself be whisked away to refrain from being present in this lonely misery.

Not that he’d ever shared that hardship with Lindiwe – nor did he care to.

It’s not like I can feel the true ache of it, he thought, leaning back nonchalantly to stare up at his false sky. Not like her.