“Would that make you feel better?" He wanted to wail out the word ‘No!”, because he didn’t want to kill anyone. He wanted the world was turn where all creatures died with their destined end, it didn’t matter if they were bad guys or not no deserved a premature death. But, he held his tongue, sniffling loudly before raising his head. Wiping his eyes on the back of his arm he pushed himself away from the bear, “Yeah, I’m already feeling better.”
"I'll pray to the gods to help you. Maybe they can lift the curse of this power or something.” Kei felt a warm smile spread across his lips, Niall was being so kind to him. He sniffed one last time, effectively clearing his nasal passage, and tilted his head up towards the sky, looking on as the rosy effects of dawn faded into a brilliant blue. “The gods huh? Now there’s a thought.”
--
It had been just about two weeks since they had discovered Kei had to kill in order to stay alive. Two weeks of adjusting to the fact he was killing for no reason other than to stay by Niall’s side. It scared him that it had only taken two weeks to get comfortable with the idea, but he supposed devoting himself to the boy was the biggest reason for this acceptance. Kei often pondered the fact that he had changed his entire existence, one he had spent millenniums maintaining, over a human he had met just barely over a month ago.
The boy in question was walking a few paces ahead of him, he seemed tired though, maybe even a bit dispirited, and for what Kei hadn’t the slightest idea. He stretched out his left hand, after ruining the glove with blood vomit he never bothered to get a new one so the hand remained gloveless, and brushed his fingers against the leaves of a tree they passed by. The withered in on itself, a wilted mess of death left where the plant once stood and Kei let its energy rush through him, closing his eyes for a moment and sighing.
He only opened them when he felt a plume of heat pass by him, and caught of glimpse of a fiery red tail shoot past him and he smiled. In the past two weeks Eos had grown to what Kei believed would be her full size, if anything her tail plumage filling out a bit more, and she was more full of life than any other creature he had seen. She circled around Niall once, playfully tugging at a piece of his hair before moving to Kei. She hovered by him, watching his actions with gentle eyes before clucking in what he’d have to describe as endearment. He raised his arm as an offering for a landing perch and was grateful when she landed. It had only gotten colder over the past two weeks, and yesterday they had awoken to a thin layer of frost over the ground. He blamed the rapid change in weather on both the season change, and the fact they were still travelling north. The bird cooed at him at he smiled in response, he was probably more grateful to Eos than any other being, she had been the one that connected him to Niall.
“Hey Ni!” He called out, moving faster to make up the distance between them. “Why don’t you carry Eos for a bit, you must be cold, let her warm you up.” Eos clucked in agreement and Kei looked at the boy’s expression, it seemed distant somehow.
The small burden in his pocket suddenly came to the forefront of his thoughts. Over the past couple of days he had been sneaking off and been attempting to make Niall a gift in order to cheer him up. The boy had been gloomy for those past two weeks. Every time Niall had asked him what he was doing Kei would come up with something on the spot and hide the gift. Using excuses like counting blades of grass and watching ants crawl weren’t very good excuses, so he had started excusing himself to an excess amount of bathroom breaks, but he had finished the gift last night while Niall had been sleeping. He hoped more than anything it would brighten his mood.
“Oh and Niall…” He stopped walking, suddenly embarrassed about giving the boy the gift. He cleared his throat and shoved a hand into his pocket, feeling the little wooden figurine he had been working on. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been a little sad lately, so I wanted to do something to make you happy and, um… Here!”
He shoved the gift in the boy’s face before ducking to hide his beet red cheeks. The present as a little wooden phoenix he had carved himself, though if he was honest it hardly looked like a bird let alone a phoenix. The wooden bird was attached to a long cord he had secretly bought on their last trip into a town and he hoped Niall understood that he had tried to make him a necklace.