Departure

"You... leaving?" Asked a feminine voice, slightly trembling, shaking with the repressed emotions pushing themselves to the surface. Dinah, the woman Aziel had made a connection seemed to notice the strange, unfamiliar, somewhat somber expressions on his face as he gazed at the clear starry night sky.

"Yes." He nodded, showing a neutral expression on his face as he kept on losing himself in his stargaze. Still, he patted the spot next to him, subtly signaling the woman to come and sit with him.

"Uhm." The woman, understanding the gesture nodded and sat down on the leather. Following his actions, she too turned her attention to the heavenly abode.

Yet, unlike this mysterious creature, that she held complicated feelings too, she actually couldn't find the dark ethereal helmet that stretched out above, and where those fearsome flying beasts ruled as beautiful as him.

No, she, like the rest of her kin was terrified, scared of the unknown, the vast void that their feeble primitive minds just simply couldn't process.

Despite that, she didn't complain, she just silently stared at the vast emptiness. Trying her best to understand what this strange man was thinking, was doing.

"...*Sigh*..." Aziel sighed, not bothered to keep up the pretenses anymore. "It's beautiful, isn't it? There's so much out there... so much more than to this small land you primitive apes think of as your entire world..." He sighed, speaking in an elaborate and sophisticated manner.

His words, his speech shocked the woman. Dinah, couldn't understand a single word, yet she could somewhat process the emotions lying underneath, hiding in his somber tone. She could feel a strange sense of pain, unlike anything she had ever felt. Yet, though she couldn't fully process what was going on, Dinah could feel that this man was sad.

Sad that what happened to him. Sad that how her kin had treated him. Sad that despite everything he had done for them, tried doing for them, he never shed the mantle of monster in their eyes. They never have treated him as one of their own.

Understanding this, Dinah too felt the grief. She too was guilty, yet unlike the rest, her anger, her wrath was somewhat justified.

With only soft sighs coming as a response, Aziel turned to look to her side. Seeing the furrowed thick brows of the primate female, and the pouting lips, he couldn't help but flash a pained, bitter smile.

Catching the woman off guard, Aziel reached out and gently caressed her cheeks as she spoke.

"Don't worry little one, it's not your fault. It was me. I was too hasty. My desire to end this eternal loneliness that I am cursed with has resulted, my childish excitement to see an evolved, humanoid species that I have acted against better judgment and approached."

Aziel sighed, either not bothered or oblivious to the fact that the woman next to him had no way of understanding him.

After a brief moment, he continued. He glanced only briefly at the perplexed, still stunned female before returning his gaze back to the sky above.

"...I have tried. To my better judgment, to all the warning in my head, I wanted this... this experiment to succeed."

Aziel sighed again, the same bitter smile flashed through his face yet again.

"I guess in some way... the experiment was indeed successful... You all have taken me in, and allowed me to stay with you. Though undoubtedly you saw nothing but a convenient way to gather food for you... You still let me stay with you."

As the joke of his role in the tribe materialized in his mind, Aziel chuckled dryly, bitterly. Laughing at the sarcasm, the joke of his situation.

"I guess I was the first pet to mankind? How poetic..."

Dinah silently listened, focused on the man's words. Though she could not understand a single word, she still felt the overwhelming sadness, the disappointment that he exuded.

She felt a slight ache, a similar pain straining at her heart that she only felt when she learned that her mate was now dead. Realizing this, Dinah suddenly went wide-eyed, before tears began to swell at the corners of her eyes.

Snorting, she smeared the tears that have already made their attempt to escape and was now traversing downwards her face. A soft sob escaped through her locked lips, she reached for the man's hand that still caressed her cheek, gently grabbing it, she pulled it towards her heart.

"Me... Hurt...Here..." She expressed, guiding Aziel's hand towards the center of her chest. "Me... Hurt... Me... Like..." She continued, her gaze turning blurry as the tears one again gathered, blocking her vision.

"Ah... Interesting..." Aziel mused, caught surprised by the sudden exclamation of this woman. He did not expect such an admission from her at all. To be honest, he noticed that unlike the rest of these primordial bipedal beasts, she was different, more emotionally evolved.

The fact that she had felt a longing for the dead male for so long, and couldn't forget him was already beyond what the others in the tribe were capable of.

She felt hatred, anger, malice, grievance. She felt hurt, emotionally distraught, that slowly, after many many hours slowly began to heal and as it turns out, transform to something different.

"You are indeed different, better than the rest..." He spoke, gently caressing her cheek again. He smiled at her, causing the woman to turn slightly panicky and avert her gaze, hastily shifting it to the ground. "...Still, I cannot be what you want me to be. I am truly sorry, but..."

He sighed, standing up, he cracked his neck. In the next moment, Aziel's body shifted, transforming back into his previous larger, lizardman-like appearance. Two large wings sprouted from the shoulder blades on his back that stretched wide.

Giving one last glance at the woman, who was shivering with all the pent-up emotion, she smiled at her one last time. A flash of appreciation sparkled in his eyes as he nodded.

"Thank you, little one. Thank you for everything."

In the next moment, before Dinah could respond, or even call out, Aziel bent his knees and shot up to the sky. His sudden departure, generating a large sound of force, rang throughout the tribe, waking up most of the residents in the caves.

As they rushed out to see what sort of predator have attacked them, they were confused to see only the sobbing woman, Dinah sitting at Aziel's 'abode'.

The eldest hunter, the one acting as the leader of their little commune stepped and asked.

"WHERE... HE... GO?"

Dinah, hearing the question, carrying nothing of the emotions and tones of intellect that she was already missing erupted into a saddened bawl.

"HE... GONE..."