Chapter 7: Better

                                    

                                          
With the Nestoris child still lingering around Ingressus and his broken mind, the former Deathsinger must find a way to detach from the child and stop him from potentially exposing his identity to those who sought to destroy him

But when his scaring tactics only increase the child's curiosity, he realises that his risky journey may just become riskier than he had anticipated

Author's note: SMOL BEAN CONTINUES!

also I apologise, my background game in drawing these illustrations still stinks, even after all this time XD

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The Nestoris child continued gazing in awe at the red Ardoni in front of him, his fingers still fiddling with the elastic around his wrist, although they merely entangled with it – he did not ping it against his skin, almost as though he were sat frozen in his awe of his mysterious company. Neither of them moved as the full moon continued rising high in the night, bright enough to blind the stars around it, leaving the deep blue of the sky awash in a wintry mist – a cold, eerie night with only the light noises of a soft breeze brushing through the bare branches of the trees, allowing the moonlight to slip through the wood and into what was once a pitch black, darkened path of dense flora and foliage. Ingressus had remembered that he needed to take extra precaution in the winter months when he would traverse along the Nestoria border, for he had less cover to dart behind in an emergency.
He, too, stared at his company, but he was much more discrete with his gaze, for being wary of the child spotting his torment behind his eyes – if he was as wise beyond his years as he appeared to be. But he stared at the child with a more concerned look, above else. Before him sat the son of one of his and Achillean's childhood friends – an aspect of his identity that he would be foolish to reveal – and he remembered all too well the one day that he had spotted both Achillean and Ilius together in the distance, and he had somehow gotten the two of them mixed up for the likeness in their markings; although Ilius' markings were grouped more on his left side, whereas Achillean's were split on his right. He remembered that Ilius' shone a very similar shade of Nestoris yellow to Achillean; only marginally darker as if slightly dirty.
It was ultimately what stunned him to silence when the child first appeared from behind the foliage of the woods. He saw those markings and had convinced himself that he was hallucinating the long yearning for the old Achillean, when life was simpler (however complicated it seemed at the time). He felt that yearning for but a second, before his eyes adjusted and had become more confused again, understanding that he recognised those markings, but they were not Achillean's as he had almost wanted them to be, as convoluted as his thought process seemed.
Even now, he looked to the small Nestoris analysing the Ardoni in front of him, and he still saw so much Achillean inside of him – the same hair, the same eyes, the same level of innocence and curiosity... Everything.
All except his speech.
Ingressus quickly averted his gaze as the child caught it very suddenly. He frowned as he finally spotted the dullness of Ingressus' right eye – how it didn't shine the same vermillion as his left, how his pupil was almost missing as he looked around. His eye moved as like the other, but it was clear that it was unseeing. The child squinted as he spotted a thin scar pattern just above his cheekbone; almost as if the skin was being pulled tightly into his blind eye. He almost leant forward to stare harder at his new discovery.
That was when Ingressus snapped his gaze back, and the lightning movement of his pale right eye snapping back into action made the child jump in an uncontrolled fit of fright. He was fascinated by it, but he bit his tongue – he knew better than to ask what was not his to know.
Ingressus frowned before studying the child a little harder. He hadn't noticed that the boy was looking at his blind eye, but he did notice that he didn't look away even for a moment. He couldn't work out why. Did this child know nothing? Did Ilius not tell him of the Deathsinger? The Great War? Any of it?