“Narso!” Bodya screamed as tears streaked down his eyes.
The water hit the ground with a hiss due to its reaction with the acid that still permeated the area.
Tista put her personal feelings aside and turned into her full size to be able to embrace the Nidhogg and console him.
“He was my best friend.” Bodya managed to say as the shock settled. “I was supposed to introduce him to you right here. We grew up together since we were the only two human hybrids of the tribe.”
“I remember.” Tista kept caressing his giant head.
“He had over 2900 years left to live. How could he die like that? This must be some sort of sick joke. A punishment for disappointing the patriarch.”
‘It indeed is a punishment.’ Lith thought. ‘But this is no trick, this is reality. Now I understand why the Jiera Council didn’t oppose our colonization plans and Fenagar even helped with the first expedition. Things must be even worse than we expected.’
While Lith mused about the dangers that Orion’s expedition was likely to face, Tista let her fury simmer but didn’t let it show on the outside. Not a single tongue of fire erupted from her scales or feathers.
‘What a cruel bastard! Forrn sent us here to make Bodya feel guilty and break him.’ The Hekate cursed Fenagar and all the members of his bloodline with one single exception. ‘Yet I’m no better.
‘I was about to tear him a new one for letting the patriarch speak to him like that and for not taking my side immediately. In my fury, I hadn’t considered how painful it must be to Bodya to cut off his family.
‘This isn’t a fairy tale. Love doesn’t conquer all and we are not even engaged. If he gives up on his family for me and things don’t work out for us, he’s going to end up with nothing.’
Bodya reminisced several of his escapades as a child with Narso and shared them with Tista, shedding a tear from time to time. She smiled and chuckled for him, his face frozen in time like that of his old friend.
Their adventures were no different from those of Aran and Leria, so Tista could easily relate to them. The only difference was that instead of having magical steeds, Bodya and Narso turned into big snakes and hid below the ground whenever they ended in trouble.
She listened in silence until those sweet childhood memories crashed against the bitterness of the present.
“We were like brothers, Tista, and now he’s dead because of me. While I was having the time of my life in Garlen, he was fighting for his life to protect everything we held dear.” Bodya said.
“The patriarch is right. I’m a traitor of my species and Narso paid for my crimes with his life. If I had been here, he wouldn’t have died a dog’s death alone. We would have fought and survived together. I-”
He looked at the corpse of the Nidhogg and then at Tista, hearing the words of the elder echoing in his head over and over.
‘The patriarch has reminded me that as a lesser Leviathan, I have responsibilities toward not only our clan, but also Jiera, my homeland.’ Bodya thought. ‘Narso’s demise is the consequence of my disregard for such responsibilities that forced others to shoulder them in my stead.’
His grief turned into a burning rage that demanded for him to find and punish those who had killed his friend. Misery loved company and Bodya wanted every single monster on Jiera to suffer as much as he did.
Yet Narso’s bones also reminded him that there was only so much that a single Nidhogg could do.
“I need to avenge him. It’s the only way I have to atone for my mistakes.” Nalrond snapped out of his reverie. “But I can’t do it alone nor would it be fair for me to drag you into my mess.
“As Grampa said, our bond is not that deep.” Those words hurt Tista much more than she expected. “To fight whatever killed Narso, I need the help of my family and there’s only one way to get it. We-”
“Shut up.” Tista cut him short, her voice sounded like the low rumble of a storm yet it still managed to express kindness and how much she cared for him. “Don’t say things that you can’t take it back.”
“But-”
“I said shut up!” Her seven eyes flared with as many streams of elemental energy. “I’ve been quiet in respect for your loss but now it’s my turn to talk and you will listen. It takes two to make a relationship and I have the right to say my piece.
“If when I’m done you are still of the same mind, I won’t bother you anymore. Is that okay for you?” She asked and Bodya nodded for her to continue.
“I was going to keep this to myself until you felt better, but you need to hear this now. Your patriarch is a manipulative, heartless piece of s-and!” The Guardians’ auto-correct struck again yet Bodya’s eyes went wide in outrage and he would have retorted if his word hadn’t bound him to silence.
“Look around. Do you really think that a single Nidhogg can cause this kind of destruction? Do you really think that the rest of your tribe let Narso fight alone? Because if they did, it wouldn’t be your fault, but theirs.
“You were thousands of kilometers away when this happened, but what’s their excuse?” The Nidhogg froze for a second, this time it was his own voice and estimates that echoed through his head.
It had taken hundreds of liters of acid to do something like that. Which meant that a whole group of adult Nidhoggs if not more than one group had fought and lost there.
“If they didn’t, it wouldn’t be your fault either. Or are you so egotistical to believe that you alone could make the difference and save the day?” Tista’s words stung, especially when Bodya shook his head to answer without interrupting her.
“Good.” Tista said with a snarl. “Now comes the manipulative, heartless part. Don’t you think it’s strange that your best friend was the only one to die in the fight to protect a place that was dear to you?”
‘Is she insinuating that my people killed Narso just to teach me a lesson?’ He thought in a horror that was born from the possibility that it might have been true. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence.’
“It’s too much of a coincidence.” Tista gave voice to his thoughts. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure that your friend died in battle and that the members of your family did everything they could to save Narso.
“Yet I’m also pretty damn sure that this is a farce. How come Narso died here and why there’s not a single other corpse? If you ask me, more than one Nidhogg died here but I bet that your friend wasn’t among them.
“I bet that those who died here received a proper burial in the family tomb or whatever your tribe uses to honor their dead. I bet that Narso died in some other circumstance and that they planted the body here for you to find it.”
