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Eighty years may as well have been eight.
That was the phrase Ena repeated to herself after he was gone. It’s something she thought in silence, in passing chatter with the other wyverians who aged alongside him. Still, it echoes like a mantra in her skull; a joke bereft of its humor.
The memory of Red is an intrusive one now, one that crosses her mind when her thoughts are otherwise calm. Like a large stone dropped in a pond, pictures of the old human’s harrowing final moments ripple across her eyes when they close; loud and heavy and unpleasant. Since then, Ena has no true moments of peace— silence is the cue for her unburied thoughts to spring up and spiral her down, down and back into the endless pit of her grief. She’s never truly alone now, not even when she’s awake while her traveling party sleeps.
They’re stopped for the night at their makeshift home in Nua Te. Cheval is stiff as a board on a spare cot and Navirou is curled on his chest. There’s a cot on the floor for Ena as well, stuffed with big, feathery blankets inviting her to a good night’s rest.
Her fears gnaw at her brain and keep her wide awake. She ignores the bed and steps carefully around the sleeping pair, stopping before the other rider of their group. Ena lays uncomfortably against the edge of Blue’s bed, chin resting on her arms, and counts his muted breaths.
She looks at his sleeping face, sees the drowsy glow of candlelight from his bedside table, nearly burnt down to the wick. The light sheens on his cheeks and curves under his chin, not unfamiliarly (she is grateful this light is not a burning scarlet color).
Her restless thoughts return and Ena feels resentment start boiling up in her chest. She hates how easy it was for his hand to slip right out of hers, how she watches him fall in her memory. She hates the look of acceptance in his sunken eyes, as if he was ready to go. As if he knew this moment would come and had since been waiting for it, knew his aged body couldn’t carry him any further. As if his life had passed by in a flicker and Ena was none the wiser until it was gone. Ena looks at Blue and remembers his eyes. Her breath catches. The memories course through her again—
She hates how useless she feels right after, weak and wobbly and wailing for help like a newborn monster. She hates how much she wants to slog Zellard in his jaw for his declaration, hates it because it was true; Red was here, he was merely human, and now he is gone. Gone. Gone.
Ena all but threw herself into Alwin’s arms then, clutching Red’s kinship stone so tightly in one fist she fears she might’ve chipped it. She hooks her arms around the other wyverian’s neck, shaking and sobbing horribly into his shoulder. She’s nearly squeezing the life out of him, needing to hold onto something she knows won’t leave her so soon, won’t let her go just yet.
Eighty years may as well have been eight, she thinks, and does not find any nihilistic comfort in it. She wishes she could hate him and move on, just be done with it all. Her head dips down to hide her heartbreak. No one could ever hate Red, and that was exactly the problem. Ena sucks in a breath, the air hissing through her gritted fangs, and smothers the sob bubbling in her chest.
The wyverian glances up from the cradle of her arms to the young human asleep in front of her. Blue, not Red. She remembers the irony with their names when she hears it, the joke that always got a rise out of him—
Ena watches the way the wrinkles on his face frame his smile. The lines on his cheeks dip down into the corners of his mouth with every grin, and crow’s feet curl upwards when his smile is wide enough to meet his eyes. She remembers the old human freshly arriving in Rutoh for another visit, bright and beaming with pride. Stopped halfway down the cobblestone path, Red presents an even smaller human to the crowd of curious villagers around him.
“Her name’s Blue! See? Red, and Blue— I love it!” Red laughed, and Ena again watches his face softly crinkle. “She’s even got my eyes!”
The little girl sat snugly in the crook of his arm, nearly swallowed up by her soft yellow blankets. Ena remembers Red calling her over and Blue being passed into her arms, how warm she felt against her chest. So soft, so small. She remembers how small Blue’s hand was, clasped tightly around a clawed finger. Ena always remembers, even if Blue never will.
Ena looks Blue in his closed eyes again and thinks about what led her here, to this moment. Here, they all were, just having survived their encounter with the terrific Nergigante. Blue was a breath away from sharing his grandfather’s fate, nearly lost to the endless depths of a gaping pit. Almost lost to the very same monster.
And she caught him. This time, she caught him.
He isn’t Red. No, no one else could ever be Red. But if his granddaughter is here, right here, alive in front of her— if a human puts their life in her hands again…
The bed creaks quietly as Ena lifts herself onto it and gently lays next to him.
It’s almost funny, she muses; a wyverian curling herself around something young and precious like a first-time parent Kulu Ya-Ku. Still, she’s not the steely carapace of his armor, not anything built to protect his soft flesh. A hand sneaks under his neck to cradle the back of his head, and she watches him breathe. He’s breathing, she thinks.
Clawed fingers curl tightly into his messy blonde hair. A sigh leaves her and she curses the way the air racks against her ribs. Blue still doesn’t wake.
Ena softly presses his head closer to her chest and tucks her other arm around him, her legs move under his own and her back arches to curl around him. For a moment she thinks to reach for his hand, squeeze it tight so she’ll know he won’t slip away.
Yet, she thinks of today, when Blue struck down the old Elder Dragon; boisterous and brave and victorious.
Blue is nothing if not sensitive, at least, from what Ena gathers from her time with him. He cries over bruised knees or rips in his tunic, over a hatchling Ratha crooning happily in his arms. He’s no stranger to fighting tears from close calls with rage-rayed monsters, or simply missing his grandfather (Ena knows that heartache well). And still, he throws himself into the flurry of battle with a foe bespoken of by all of Nua Te, not slowed by fear, and survives. He’s grown so much, Ena marvels to herself. Just like Red, his granddaughter too seems to be growing in a flash.
She didn’t miss the way his arms shook when he returned her hug afterwards. Ena thinks about how there's even the chance to still reach for his hand, and there’s relief in knowing she doesn’t need to. Not this time. She holds him closer.
“I’ll keep you safe,” Ena promises to no waking ears, letting her earlier tears fall.
It’s a vow she knows won’t change anything in nature, won’t stop anything from wanting to hurt him. But, she’ll swear it to herself tomorrow morning. When the sun rises, she will wake before him and he will never have known she was here tonight. She’ll spend the next eighty years of their lives with him as much as she can, living slowly and finding something precious in each day. This, she promises— The next morning, and the morning after that, and then on. She tucks the vow into an unseen pocket in her chest, right over her heart.
Tonight, Ena sleeps alone in her grief and her pride with a delicate, reckless human girl in her arms. Blue sleeps as well, chest rising and falling against her. He’s here, he’s breathing, and she can’t ever thank him enough for that.