Chp.35: Mourning

"UUUUUNGH"

Darbi slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he thought was that he had fallen off a mountain, because that alone could have justified the pain he felt all over his body. The last time he'd felt that way was when his mother had slammed him into a rock face. It seemed to him that all his bones had fractured at the same time.

Only after a few seconds he was able to remember what had happened: he hadn't been hit by his mother, but by something quite similar though much weaker. The hydra's tail appeared in his mind like a flash, making him realize that he must have been struck by it and flung away.

He panicked almost immediately; if so, then most likely it had landed on the ground, where the poisonous vapor was. When he managed to focus on his surroundings, the roots of the trees in front of his eyes confirmed that he was on the ground. He had to get away now, before the hydra's toxic vapor reached him and turned him into one of its brainless minions.

He tried to get up, but his body ached in multiple places. While he probably didn't have anything broken, it was still painful for him to move. Either way, the adrenaline soon worked its magic and Darbi was fully on his feet, ready to climb the nearest tree and secure himself on its top.

"Darbi, wait!"

Darbi turned around and saw Kotaru. Behind her were Tikka and Keita. They too were on the ground, like him; Why? Had they come to get him? Didn't they know how dangerous it was? "Wait? We can't!" he almost screamed. "We have to climb the trees before..."

"Darbi, stay calm! We are away from the toxic vapor!" Kotaru reassured him. "The hydra is dead! You have nothing to fear!"

Darbi's eyes widened in surprise. Was the hydra dead? Was that monster dead? It was easier for him to believe that a wolf could fly. He couldn't imagine any way that thing could be killed; the only thing he could think of that could do such an act was an adult dragon, but he doubted there were any around. "How?" he finally asked.

Kotaru shivered slightly, and behind her Tikka let out what sounded like a sob as Keita looked in a random direction, as if she didn't want to meet his gaze. "It's a long story" she finally said.

That scene generated a lot of suspicion in Darbi. Even more was he looking better at his sisters: none of them showed particular enthusiasm for the fact that he had recovered, and on the contrary they had very dark faces. And from their reddened eyes and the marks on their facial scales, it was clear they'd been crying a lot.

Darbi wasn't particularly smart, and he himself had never hidden this: he knew that intelligence wasn't really his forte and he was better at playing, talking and physically fighting. There was a reason why he had almost always left the burden of decisions to Haku, as he knew that he would have known how to choose better than him. However, that didn't mean he was stupid: he knew certain signs when he saw them. "Where is everyone else?" he asked with a bleak look.

Kotaru pointed to a spot in the trees. "They're over there" she answered. Indeed, Darbi could see several silver figures there, a sign that his siblings must be there.

He stood up completely and walked briskly towards them. "Wait!" Keita exclaimed trying to stop him. "You should rest! You suffered a..."

"I've had worse blows, and you know it" Darbi replied, obviously referring to when their mother had slammed him against the rock. "Now I want to see with the others"

Keita tried again to get in the way: "But you should..."

"I said I want to see the others!" growled Darbi, in a tone that didn't allow for retorts.

Keita gulped. Physically speaking, she was much less handsome than her brother. If he wanted to continue, she couldn't stop him, even if she clung to him and tried to use her weight to hold him down. And Kotaru and Tikka didn't seem to have any intention of helping her... or maybe they didn't even have the strength to try. So, in the end, Keita decided it was best to move on and let him pass.

Darbi glanced one last time at his sister, who looked at him as if to say 'I'm sorry'. This only made the suspicions in his heart worse. Very quickly he caught up with his other siblings, who turned to him as soon as they saw him coming. Many of them were still crying and hugging each other in an attempt to get some comfort.

Darbi's eyes darted from side to side. Everyone seemed to be there. All of them... or not? "Where's Haku?" he finally asked.

Darbi knew his brother very well. After what happened to him, Haku would be the first to run to him after knowing he recovered. But he hadn't. Darbi had assumed that this was due to more pressing matters Haku had to attend to... yet he was nowhere to be seen. The only ones who had showy big horns were he, Haku and Rhaegal, therefore it was impossible not to notice them among their sisters; in fact, Darbi saw Rhaegal right away, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see Haku.

There was no way Haku had gone elsewhere on his own, not until he and anyone else who was injured was fully healed. Therefore it had to be there. Yet it wasn't there. "Where's Haku?" he asked again.

No one seemed to have the courage to answer him. At the mention of the name 'Haku', some of his sisters sobbed even more and curled up in a ball as if they wanted to withdraw from the world and forget… whatever they wanted to forget. The others looked at him as if they had no idea what to do. Why? The question he had asked them was quite simple… right? "Where's Haku?" he asked again, this time raising his voice considerably.

Rhaegal stepped forward. His brother advanced towards him with very slow steps, as if he was uncertain what to do. When she arrived in front of him, the two brothers looked into each other's eyes for almost a minute. Inside Rhaegal's eyes Darbi could read many different emotions: anger, despair, sadness, surrender. Then Rhaegal looked down and whispered: "Darbi, Haku... is dead"

Darbi never knew exactly what she felt at that moment. For an instant, a brief instant, all strength seemed to leave him and the world seemed to lose all sound, smell, color or sensation; only absolute emptiness remained. Then his claws dug into the ground with such force that they split the rock beneath, and his body began to visibly shake. "Impossible" he said. He couldn't believe it, he didn't want to believe it: even if everything he had seen in the last few minutes matched that statement, he still didn't want to consider it valid. His heart prevented him from listening to his rationality. "Haku can't die. He would never leave us alone. He said we'd always be together. He'd always find a way to survive..."

Rhaegal said nothing. He continued to stare at the ground, unable to lift his head and meet his brother's eyes. He knew exactly what he would find, because it would be the same face that all his sisters had, the same one that he had and that he could see when he reflected in the water. He knew that Darbi would try to deny reality, just as he had done: a brief moment of hope, of illusion, which was soon destroyed by the cruel reality, leaving only total despair. No, it couldn't even be called despair: it was something worse, something deeper, that had no word to describe it. A real physical and emotional malaise, which none of that group of dragons remembered ever having experienced in their lives, not even in the most terrible and difficult moments.

Maybe it was that thing that the newcomers called mourning...

Darbi instinctively brought a paw in front of his face, while his body began to visibly tremble. It was not possible. Haku couldn't be dead. He would never have done that, he would never have left them alone. He had promised to protect him forever… no, in reality he had just promised to protect him. That meant… "How did that happen?" he asked in a strangled voice.

Rhaegal was shaken, as if about to cry, then he explained: "There was only one way out of this situation alive… to kill the hydra. And the only way to kill the hydra… was that one of us would enter his body and destroy his brain. Haku chose to be him. He entered that monster and killed the hydra, but... he also inhaled its venom"

Darbi gritted his teeth. Yes, that was just what Haku was going to do. He would protect others, always. If someone had to be sacrificed... he would have come forward. And he wouldn't let anyone else take his place. Haku wouldn't allow any of his siblings to die; if there truly was no other way, and Darbi was sure there wasn't (Haku certainly would have calculated every single possibility before making such a decision), then there was no doubt that he would choose to die for others. Darbi felt his breathing become more labored and his eyes began to water. "That idiot" he whispered. "Why... why... we talked about it... I told him clearly... that he shouldn't act like a hero..."

"He didn't do it" Rhaegal almost shouted. "He didn't want to act like a hero… he didn't want to prove anything. He just wanted… to protect us". His voice became visibly shaky. "He didn't act like a hero. He acted... like a brother"

Yes, Haku had acted like a brother, like a member of the family. The siblings helped each other. Everyone in the family helped each other. Haku had obeyed this precept, he had believed in it all the way. And when the time had come, he hadn't hesitated to make the sacrifice to save everyone else.

Haku was like that. He had many flaws, but he would never allow anyone to die. Even if that meant giving up his life.

A long series of questions appeared in Darbi's mind. Had Haku suffered? Had he said something before he died? What had he been thinking about in his last moments? Had he regretted his choice? Was there really no other way? In the end only one question came out of his mouth. "Where is his body?"

He didn't know why he wanted to know. It was as if a part of him needed to see his brother, even though he was now only a corpse. Maybe it was to pay homage to him, maybe it was to feel better, maybe… it was for something completely different, but he had to see it.

Rhaegal shook his head. "We couldn't get it back" he admitted.

Darbi's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" he asked in a voice like a whisper.

"The body fell into the poisonous vapors of the hydra" Rhaegal replied. "We couldn't get close, not without getting affected ourselves. We couldn't..."

"Did you leave it there!?" Darbi almost roared. "How could you? After everything he has…!"

"Darbi, there was nothing we could do" Raeghal said. "We would have died too if we had tried to take him back. You know he wouldn't have wanted that. We couldn't make his sacrifice in vain"

Darbi wished he could rage, be angry at Rhaegal, or anyone else, even himself, but he couldn't. He knew that Rhaegal was telling the truth. Haku wouldn't have wanted them to risk their lives. He couldn't feel anger, only despair and sadness. But suddenly a flash passed in his mind: "Did you check... that he didn't turn into one of those things?"

The others didn't immediately understand, then realized what he meant. The hydra minions didn't cease to exist with the monster's death: they continued to wander around as soulless corpses until they decomposed or were killed by something. Since Haku had inhaled the poisonous vapor… it was possible that he too had turned into one of those things.

Darbi took the silence of his siblings as their response. "Let's go back" he said. "We make sure he's definitely dead, and then we leave. We owe him at least that after all he's done for us. He wouldn't have wanted to be one of them"