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He was gone.
Evelyn froze in her tracks, blood falling from her maw and her hands from the burns she caused herself with the sheer power of her magic.
Her jaw hung open panting as she let the blood spill not even knowing it was there.
She may have hit him, but she didn't care enough to check. She instead turned to where the fire started to ease and saw her beloved husband laying in the ground. She let out a soft.
“Caleb…” before he sprinted over tears forming in her eyes as she saw the damage.
He had turned to his side trying to hold his organs back into his chest after Philip had sliced it open just moments before. His legs and arms twitched, his mouth hung open unable to scream but his face burned with tears of pure agony. His nose and mouth bled his eyes cloudy and wide. Evelyn froze at the sight in pure horror but immediately went to try and heal him.
But each move she made put him in much more pain. She was running out of options and he was suffering.
“C-Caleb honey, I'm so sorry” she says her voice cracked trying to push back in his innards and heard him wail of pain. She looked around for something, anything to save him.
But there was nothing she could do.
Flapjack looked away from Evelyn's shoulder in horror but chirped.
“I can't watch him suffer”
Evelyn couldn’t either but she couldn't be the hand that ends him. But she couldn't watch him suffer until death finally took him either.
“I have one spell that could heal you” Evelyn tries to smile to lie that maybe she could save him. And Caleb lights up with hope, well, he looked a little less in pain.
With a twirl of her wrist a bright blue circle appears. Caleb's deep hazel eyes reflect that light as she presses it onto him and watches his eyelids grow heavy and his body twitch more like he was trying to fight it for a brief second. But that fight didn't last long and his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his mouth hung open. His body stopped twitching and relaxed like he was in a deep sleep.
He suddenly looked so peaceful.
Tears ran down her face as she pulled him close, kissing his forehead, the blood from her lips dripping down his face.
“See? And it didn't…” she couldn't even finish her sentence before he broke into a loud wail.
She pulls him close as if she was shielding him and burrows her muzzle unto his pure white hair taking in its mossy smell trying to imagine things were different and he didn't die. Not like this at least.
“He needs a better place to sleep,” Evelyn said in tears, Flapjack chirped with worry. Evelyn could never handle grief right, the fact that she was carrying his second child didn't help with her emotions.
When the search party found Caleb dead they had to fight Evelyn to get Caleb away from her. she convinced herself she just put him to sleep and that after she wrapped him in bandages he would wake up and be fine. But that reality was brought to her the next morning when Caleb didn't wake up.
Nor would he ever.
She couldn't bury him either. For years Caleb was terrified of tight spaces. He hated it, he would panic to the point of tears if he was stuck in a tight space for too long.
So when his body was put in a casket Evelyn begged to not have him stuck in a box.
She begged at the knees of her parents
“Please don't put him in a box, it would scare him!” She looked up at her father, tears clouding her eyes, her lips covered with stitches and her hands had to be covered with silk gloves. Her black and deep red fur was ungroomed and messy, her eyes were red and droopy, and one of her antlers was broken. Evelyn was completely broken down from the trauma and stress she was put through. And just wanted her husband more than anything to comfort her.
He knew what to do.
He always knew what to do.
But he was gone.
“please please don't put him in a box” Evelyn sobbed on her knees her voice sounded as broken as she was, tears falling like a waterfall down her muzzle and stained her fur like tar. She pulled at her father's pant leg as she collapsed to the floor with her grief.
“He's with the titan now hun, he would keep him safe from the box” her father says trying to keep himself calm despite seeing his daughter break down in front of him. He kneels down to pick her up and bring her home so she couldn't see the coffin close.
“What if he gets scared…?” Evelyn sobbed into her father as they walked home.
“He'll find you, a loyal one he was,” he replied.
“He promised he would help me with our kids” she shook.
“I know.. I know..”