It'd started as only a rumour, but as anyone will tell you- word of mouth can be a powerful thing. Sat next to the fireplace in the tavern, Lyon and He had been fighting about who was stronger, each making their case in turn that they were the superior fighter, while their master had gone to order them food. The two boys had started to raise their voices, but Gray suddenly broke off his end of the conversation. He'd stopped to better listen in on a conversation happening between two men a few tables over.
"That's right, Deliora- just along the mountain, they saw him near Brago I'm told."
The man's companion was sceptical, however. "That's got to be a ploy! Demons don't just appear. It's probably just the word of some old coot who wondered into a snowstorm, a bear or something." He dismissed.
"I'd treat this more seriously if I were you, there's enough truth in the claim that they evacuated the village, and Brago's not too far from here, we ought to watch ourselves." The first man warned ominously.
"Gray?" Lyon questioned, but this verbal prompt from Lyon didn't rip Gray from his thoughts either. Gray looked into the fireplace and considered what he'd just heard. His mind was far away.
A memory formed.
Rubble that used to be his house littered the snowy landscape. The house had been levelled and due to the falling snow, it would, in a few hours, be completely buried. Along with his parents.
He'd found his mother and she'd not been in one piece, she'd stained the snow a strawberry red. Gray's only comfort had been he'd found her with her eyes closed. Seeing that, he could almost pretend she was at rest. But how could anybody be, after being brutalised in such a way?
And what had he done but look on at the hulking monster as it fought against his father, who'd tried so hard to defend them? His father was riddled with slashes from the demon's claws and thrown fifty feet from where their house had stood.
That's what really destroyed Gray, his parents had died so far apart, and due to the reduced visibility in the snow, they likely hadn't seen one another in their final moments. So in the aftermath, while Gray didn't bury his parents (knowing the compacted snow would do it before he'd ever even dig down to the frozen solid ground) he did heave his father's body over to rest by his mother's. He took breaks to cry, but he saw to it that they would be reunited where they lay in the end.
Gray felt a survivor's guilt most certainly, but the true reason for his tears, that rolled down his cheeks and fell to melt the snow, was that in the wake of the demon's attack, it wasn't his parents final words or actions he remembered most vividly- it was the retreating creature's form and the name his father had called it:
Deliora.
Upon Master Ur's return to the table, focused, Gray had stated the name and his intentions of hunting down this demon in the village of Brago. Lyon was surprised, but Ur recognised these intentions as what they were: vengeful and ruinous. Encapsulated in Gray's plan was a timid fruition of darkness, one (as his sensei) she had a duty to stop- so she forbade him. Which wasn't well-received.
"I don't care what you say, I'll make the hike myself. I'm using my ice magic to kill it once for all, so no-one else will-" Images of corpses flashed into his mind. Shaking his head to diffuse the images he continued, "If Deliora kills me too it'll be your fault for not teaching me stronger ice-make magic." He threatened Ur.
"This isn't the way Gray, stop acting like a little kid and let's go home. You're smart enough to know your limitations." Ur scolded. She wanted to usher Gray back over to the fireplace, seeing him shaking (in what she thought was the remanence of an aversion to the cold, but was really a contained fury).
He'd reached the end of his tether at that, and went off on a frenzy of swearing, damning phrases towards the teacher, to whom he owed everything. Even after she threatened him with expulsion, Gray still walked out on the two only living people he cared for. Leaving the tavern, he entered the snowstorm.
The hike to Brago itself was laborious and hard to navigate in the sleet-like snow storm- he'd gotten lost a few times. Perhaps that was why Gray's peer and teacher caught up with him so soon after he started fighting the demon.
'Fighting' would've been a generous analysis too, before Ur showed up it's more that the huge lumbering beast was tormenting her student rather than fighting him. A 'fight' would imply Gary had any semblance of a chance of measuring up to such a monster.
After being punched in the abdomen to the point where his ribs bruised and he was flung into a nearby solid snow shelf, Gray realised he was horribly outmatched and likely to die having not avenged his parents. He only just missed a slash of the beast's claw that would've decapitated him. He simultaneously leaned back and ducked so the laceration was reduced to a thin cut in the hairline on his forehead. He felt blood drip from the thin slash, down the side of his face.
Ur fired off a defensive spell just as Gray experienced his close brush with death. This sent the demon back and instead, dodging, Deliora hit Lyon who was rendered unconscious. Cautious, the monster opened its jaws and growled out a visible breath, as moisture froze in the air around him. This breathing wasn't laboured though, and the demon wasn't at all tired. Its energy would certainly outlast the already-spent-wizards challenging him.
Ur realised this early on. Outmatched- their defeat was certain, unless she used that.
Gray liked to think that Ur thought about what kind of message it would send to her students before she committed to performing the spell. She knew it would teach them self-sacrifice over selfishness, she knew it would revere ice magic in their hearts forevermore, she knew it would chase away Gray's darkness, and it would keep both of her young disciples alive. She'd made her decision.
Taking a wide stance and crossing her arms, she announced, "Iced shell."
Gray could only watch on, helpless as Deliora claimed another life. His master, turned to ice in front of him, voicing her pride in him when he'd been the one to lead her there. It filled him with a poison and manic guilt. Gray was incapable of begging her to stay with him and Lyon like he'd wanted to, not when he'd been the one to force her hand to such extremes. He'd led her there! He had. Led her to her death!
He looked over to an unconscious Lyon. Gray knew he had a burning desire to surpass Ur, that would be shattered with her gone. But so much more than that would be left in the void she'd filled for the two boys. And, with her gone, what could they fill that void with but tears? In a frozen wasteland like this, those tears would freeze and blend in with the ice. Ice she'd became.
Not knowing how else to be with her then, other than this, Gray cried. Sat beneath a holy terror cast in never-thawing ice, he shed tears until he was changed. Normalcy was destroyed and Gray knew he'd been the one to kill it. He'd destroyed Lyon's dream of surpassing their teacher and he'd destroyed their teacher also. Things could never go back to the way they had been. There'd be no more training together as teacher and students, laughing together, eating good meals, telling stories, being rivals- none of that. Gray would never have that again, he thought.
After Lyon awoke some minutes later and learned of his master's fate, the boys decided mutually to part ways.
And so, for a second time the demon Deliora devastated Gray's family beyond repair. Only, this time, Gray knew he'd played a part in it too.
Who was he kidding? He'd done more than play a part. He was the bringer of misfortune. The instigator of this tragedy. People had been killed.
And he couldn't help but feel that he'd been the one to kill them.
A/N: Poor Gray, I can see him blaming himself for what's happened in his past, even though it's completely undeserved. Well done to the guys who reviewed and guessed what Gray's memory would be. Half of you said it'd be Deliora's first appearance attacking Gray's village, half said it'd be Ur's death so instead I made it both with some dream within a dream inception-level tomfoolery. Hope it wasn't too hard to follow, let me know. Next instalment should be soon.
