Elora has her face buried into her legs.
Waves wash over the sand, touching the edges of her hooves. That causes her to pull her legs closer into her face and chest. Chills go down her spine as goosebumps show up on her skin. None of it makes her remove her head from her chilly knees. Her hair hits her face while it dances with the wind.
Hunter sits down next to Elora. He puts his hand on her shoulder. As a result, she jumps and moves a few inches away from him. After that, he keeps his hands to himself. He only stares, wondering if she's going to say anything at all, or if he's going to. Her gaze lays on the sparkling ocean that continues to wash by beneath the twilight sky above her and Hunter.
"...I'm sorry." She speaks, but she's still not looking at Hunter.
His head perks up along with his ears. It's not something he expected to hear from Elora, yet here he is, hearing an apology from the red faun close to him.
"I'm sorry I ran off like that." Elora continues. "I didn't have to, but… But I did."
"Elora, it's-"
"It's not alright." She interrupts. "You know this."
Unfortunately, it's something that the two know is correct. Even if she doesn't wish to admit this, she knows she has to stop running away. She knows that she needs to improve herself. She knows they're both right, yet despite everything she's unable to bring herself to do anything about it no matter how much she wants to. It conflicts with every part of her that screams not to let anybody in, especially with how she acts towards almost everyone around her.
She just can't help but feel afraid of the outcome. Elora doesn't even know how to go on about it, definitely not by herself. As if Hunter read her mind, he gets in front of her but he still doesn't touch her. She looks up at him right in the eyes.
"We'll do this together like we always have." He softly says.
She slightly nods. He puts out his hand. It takes the faun a few seconds but once the hesitation ends, she takes his hand and gets back up. Elora turns around, then starts walking away. Once she gets to a couple dozen steps or so away, she looks back at Hunter, who is watching her leave.
"You wanna come with me?" She offers. "I'm… I'm gonna go see Mom."
He nods before getting up and going to her.
Spyro stops to take a breather, panting from running.
It's harder to find where they went than he originally thought. He didn't manage to notice what direction they headed in. If anything, he thought it would be easier to find them, but that ended up not being the case. They're not in the cabin, not in the castle, nowhere to be seen in Autumn Plains that he searched. Either they're in another world and he doesn't realize it, or there's more to Autumn Plains that he hasn't explored yet. For now, he needs a break.
He goes to sit down, but before he could, something catches his eye. They walk over to what he saw. Upon further inspection there's flowers laying on the ground. Some of the leaves were dead, yet the flowers themselves are very much alive. A few of the flowers were vetches, some were different colored zinnias, others were forget-me-nots and the rest were dark crimson and coral roses. Each one of the flowers were all wrapped up together in a beautiful bouquet with a yellow ribbon to tie it together. That was in front of a tombstone with the words "Kulap" and "Beloved mother – Died to keep her child alive" written on it from top to bottom respectively.
While he doesn't know her, he had to pay his respects to her. She had to have been a good mother if she was willing to sacrifice her life to save her kid, whoever that is. No known date is seen on the tombstone, so he doesn't know if the kid is still here and if he's met them. Maybe she was-
"Oh, hello Spyro!" He turns around to see Krista holding pink anthuriums. "I didn't expect to see you here of all places."
"I didn't expect you either." He replies.
Krista walks closer to him and the tombstone. She lays the flowers down next to the bouquet. The faun goes down on her knees. She rests her hands on her upper legs. Spyro sits like how Krista did.
"She was a good woman," Krista speaks.
They look at her. "Was she…?"
Sparx buzzes a groan. Krista raises her eyebrow, but after a moment her expression relaxes.
"Oh, no she's not my mother." She answers. "She's Elora's. I just came here to pay my respects and apologize how I haven't truly been there for her like I should've."
"I see," he looks downwards. A few seconds of letting what she said sink in, his head shoots back up. "Wait hang on, Elora's mom?"
She nods. "Since Kulap's death, she hasn't let anyone get too close to her. She's not like how she used to be."
"I see. That explains a few things…" Spyro whispers to themself.
Her ears perk up ever so slightly. "Please don't tell her that you know about it. I feel like it's better if she were to tell you rather than you knowing it because of me."
He nods without hesitation.
"You should get going," Krista continues, "Elora might get here any minute now."
"Right."
Spyro runs off and Sparx follows behind him. As he gets into the bushes, he moves across the ground silently. He sees Hunter and Elora walking towards where he came from. They hear them talking about something, but he's too far away to know exactly what. Either way, he's glad he got out of there as soon as he did. As soon as they leave his view, he runs off as fast as he's able to. After he gets out of the forest, he stops running and walks instead. They look behind them; he starts to think about what Krista told them. Thinking about it makes him feel uncertain of what they should do, if anything at all. He doesn't want to seem like he's prying into her personal life, but at the same time he can't help but wonder if she's going to open up to him on that stuff.
He gets snapped out of his thoughts from a little bump causing him to go backwards. They look ahead, seeing the Professor on the ground. They help him off the ground; the Professor fixes his glasses.
"Are you okay?" Spyro asks.
"Yeah, I'm alright." He reassures. "You seem to be elsewhere right now."
They scratch behind his neck. "Oh, yeah I'm just wondering about Elora with her whole, y'know…"
The Professor sighs. "Let Elora come to you herself."
"I know I know, I won't pressure her on it with her mom and whatever else."
"So you know about that…" His eyebrows droop and he hangs his head. "She… Hasn't been the same since the incident."
"I can't imagine anyone would be, knowing their parent died."
The Professor doesn't respond to him immediately. If anything, it seems like he winced at what they said. He walks ahead of the dragon, who starts walking as well and stays close to the Professor. The mole doesn't look at Spyro, rather he keeps his eyes on his notebook.
"Professor?"
"...She saw her dead on the ground."
Just like his feet, his heart almost stops dead in its tracks. It sinks down to the bottom of his stomach. He feels the color in his face draining away. He forces himself to keep moving. The thought of seeing someone a person saw as a parent dead in front of them. Spyro can't imagine the idea of Nestor dying, much less right in front of their eyes while saving them. They silently gulp, pushing back any tears that want to come out just thinking about it; he's unsure of how he would react if something like that happened to Nestor or how he would be in the aftermath. Now he doesn't blame how she feels more than ever, and it really pushes back his thought of going up to Elora about it.
There's no words that can describe how they feel, so he remains silent. He pushes his sunglasses up, hiding the expression and feelings that are present in his eyes. They quietly steady their breathing before his heart pops out of his chest. He keeps his eyes straight ahead so he doesn't bump into anyone else.
"I'm sorry, it's… It's just been hard since that day."
"No, I'm sorry, I… Didn't know it was like that, for either of you." Spyro looks away. "I didn't know it happened like that, I thought she…"
"You didn't know. Give her some space and some time."
Spyro nods, not looking at him still.
"I gotta go, I have work to do." Professor says.
"Okay, bye."
The mole starts walking away. Spyro lays on the ground and the ends of his wings touch the broken leaves. Their tail moves back and forth like a cat. There isn't much Spyro can do for the time being, so he decides to lay there for a bit. Sparx flies in front of their never changing face as he buzzes. He sighs.
"I know, we're not here to lay around."
Sparx buzzes again. Spyro swipes his hand across the leaves like someone splashing water on another person. They hit the dragonfly and he buzzes in annoyance as a response. Spyro chuckles and snorts. Sparx tries to do it back, but ends up failing with no leaves hitting the dragon, who's trying to hold back a smile but can't help it. The golden dragonfly blows a raspberry at him. He only snorts and sticks his tongue out at him as a response. Sparx's golden face turns as red as a ruby.
Out of nowhere, a few baby turtles tackle him from the side. Their wings spread out in a near instant. In that moment, they cover the turtles that's on him. He rolls a couple feet away from where he got tackled. Spyro opens his wings enough for them and the babies to see, enough for them to move around. Once his eyes set on the turtles, he smiles.
"Avaunt Spyro!"
They keep repeating those two words over and over again.
"Aww. Did you guys miss me?"
The dragon gently pats them on their little heads. Someone grabs one of the turtles up from Spyro's belly. He looks up to see Elora standing over them as she holds the turtle in her arms.
"'Avaunt Spyro', huh?" The faun teases.
Their face turns red as they clear their throat. "Why yes, Elora, they call me their avaunt." He suavely says.
She rolls her eyes while she puts her free hand on her hip. The baby turtle pulls her hair; their action doesn't make her flinch, rather she makes them let go of her hair and puts her hand back where it was before.
"Lemme guess, you panicked and called yourself that?"
The smile on Spyro's face fades.
He flamed and rammed into each and every one of what stood in his way.
They looked around to see where the turtles were at only to see them nowhere. His eyes widened and his heart raced. The dragon looked around frantically.
"Where are you?! Come to avaunt Spyro!" They yelled out.
Hearing a baby, they looked upwards to their left. He saw them going into water, making him sigh in relief.
"Nah, me? Panic? I don't panic." He smoothly replies. "I kept them safe! Who wouldn't call me that?"
Elora smirks as if she has something up her sleeve. The babies all start clapping together. All of them then start chanting one thing.
"Avaunt panic, avaunt panic!"
Spyro pulls their sunglasses down a drop, then he rolls their eyes before pushing them back up. He takes the kids off and puts them beside himself. They get up as they scoff. He looks up at Elora.
"You aren't here to try and make fun of me are you?"
"I wish." Her smirk stays the same as she puts the turtle down. "I wanna talk to you about something."
"About what? You being as shut as a clam?"
Spyro laughs and Elora follows soon after them. She cuts it off by clearing her throat. The faun rests her arms behind her back.
"Actually… That's what I-"
"Ah, hello Elora, hello Spyro." Prince Tortiss says. "It is nice to see you once again."
"Nothin's going on back home, so I thought I'd visit."
The turtle prince smiles. "Elora, I wish to request a way to Shady Oasis if it is not too much trouble."
"Oh, of course! It's no trouble!"
The red faun walks ahead. Once her face is no longer in Prince Tortiss's view, her lips pressed together, seemingly annoyed about something.
Well, whatever she was going to say will have to wait later.
Fourth time isn't going to be a problem, right?
That's what she's hoping as she takes a deep breath. Elora sits down on the green grass and next to a tree. The breeze brushes up against her body, making goosebumps show up on her arms and legs. Her hands go onto her arms as she looks off into the distance in front of her, waiting for the purple dragon to arrive. She asked him to meet her there so they could talk privately without anyone interrupting them. He hasn't shown up in the half hour she's been waiting even though it feels like it's been forever.
She has tried a couple more times, but they ended up failing due to interruptions and being unable to say what she wanted to say and said something else instead respectively. Elora only hopes that this is the time she's able to say it without anymore interruptions, just nothing else that can get in the way. The place she chose is an area people don't go to that often, so she's thinking how they won't get interrupted too badly, plus it has a nice view so they have something to look at while they speak.
Her ears then perk up from the sound of feet gliding across the grass. She immediately turns her head with a smile. The moment she sees who's walking to her, her eyelids drop halfway as her eyes droop down and her smile falls. It's just Hunter. He gets close and sits down close to her with his legs crossed. Elora rests her face on her closed hand. Her cheeks puff up. She's not impatient whatsoever, but this is something she wishes to quickly pull the bandage off, not take it off slowly. The faster the better she believes.
"Spyro's getting held up, but he'll be here." Hunter says.
"And then what am I gonna do?" She looks at him. "Tell him about my condition and let him laugh at me? Make fun of me? Hate me forever? Is it even a good idea in the first place?"
"Elora, you're overthinking it. You'll be fine," Hunter reassures, "there's no way he'll make fun of you."
"But how do you know? He might think I'm already weird because of my neck webbing, my short stature, my-"
"Elora, he doesn't." He interrupts her. "He cares about you and he likes you, he's not going to suddenly do that because of it. It wouldn't be Spyro if he did."
"What do you mean?" Elora raises her eyebrows.
"Spyro wasn't born as Spyro. I know it's not the same thing, but he'd get how it is."
"Wait, he wasn't?"
He opens his mouth, but then closes it and his ears rise up. "Right, I forgot you don't get that like other people do. You know how he got those cramps the first time he showed up?"
She nods slowly and slightly as her lips turn down.
"Those were in heat cramps. If they were born how we know him, he…" He drags out the last word.
Her ears perk up and her eyes shoot open. "Oh, I didn't even realize that! I was just concerned."
He pats her back, almost a little harder than he expected as Elora shoots a tad forward. Hunter chuckles, but then stops after a minute.
"Don't let him know we know that, though. Just keep it in mind when you tell him about your thing, alright?"
"Ye-Yeah."
He lays back, arms behind him with his paws surrounded by grass. "So why did you choose this place to tell him?"
Elora shrugs. "Just thought it was a good place I guess."
"I'm surprised," Hunter replies. "I thought your mind would get the better of you with, oh I don't know, possibilities of how this could mess up like how people would interrupt you, how something bad could happen, how-"
"Okay you can stop, I know what you're doing!" She crosses her arms and her eyebrows furrow as the faun glares at him.
"And?"
She keeps every part of her body as it is until a few more seconds. Her arms uncross and fall down to the ground. Her eyebrows switch to the thinner ends dropping down as her eyes close.
Elora groans. "And it's working, you dork." Hunter smiles in response. "I guess we could talk about it at our place."
"Aww, and I tried to come as fast as possible too!"
Elora and Hunter look behind them. Spyro's wings are touching the ground. His lower lip curls and protrudes before becoming a sly smile the two knew the dragon for. They raise their sunglasses, showing how his eyes are smiling too.
"Nah, let's go. If it's that important then I don't mind."
Spyro places his sunglasses back down. They then start walking to the gateway to Autumn Plains. Elora gets up and runs to walk beside him while Hunter follows. They get to the fall-like realm and head into the forest on their way to the house in the middle of it.
Along the way, no one says a word to one another.
Elora lays her hands on the upper half of her arms; she stares at Spyro. Her stomach twists and turns, tossing like the sea. The red faun's heart sinks to the bottom like the dark, empty depths of the ocean, beating faster to try to survive what she's about to do. She swears her face is tinted with the color of an apple, but she's unable to look at her face to be entirely sure. Her throat dries and sores as if she yelled at the top of her lungs, yet she knows that's not the case whatsoever. The faun's chest begins to feel heavier and heavier, almost enough to make it harder to walk on those hooves of hers. It's almost enough for her to drop on her knees and confess everything from the front of her mind to the dark corners that she doesn't want light to shine on.
She firmly grabs one of Hunter's fingers. Elora tries to take deep breaths, trying to calm her mind and body. Her eyes still lay on Spyro, who kept walking ahead without looking back. The faun doesn't have to look at the cheetah to know his face is laced with concern. His thumb gently rubs her hand and she's doing her best to focus on that. Despite every attempt to calm down, only the feeling of falling on her knees is gone while her mind and body are still on edge with the former going faster than lightning. The whole time she feels like leaning onto the cheetah and letting him carry her regardless if she's feeling able to walk or not. For now, however, just to stay as calm as she can, she's sticking to holding his hand.
As she thinks about it, Spyro looks behind himself and shoots Elora a smile. She forces one back at him. They don't seem to notice her being off as he looks back ahead. Her strained face then lets go, going back to the expression she's had before. Elora feels Hunter move his hand. He doesn't let her hand go of his, but he moves it enough where she's holding his whole hand instead of just his finger. He's holding her hand as firmly as Elora is holding his own. Knowing he did that makes her feel better, even if not entirely.
Before they all know it, they reach their destination, Elora and Hunter's home. Elora knows that this is it, it's time for her to tell the purple dragon. She silently gulps, trying to swallow everything she feels back to get this done and over with. There's no going back now, even if she wants to. She walks up to the door and opens it for Spyro.
"You didn't have to, but thanks!"
Spyro walks inside as they look around, presumably a place for them to sit. Hunter walks up to Elora's side and has his face close to her head.
"I'll be out here if you need me," Hunter whispers.
"What?!" She quietly exclaims.
He pats her back. "You got this, I know you do."
She opens her mouth to argue, but inevitably closes it in the end. She only hopes he's right despite everything in her body and mind saying otherwise. Elora takes a deep inhale with her nose and slowly exhales through her lips. The faun then walks inside as she closes the door behind her. She looks for Spyro, which takes no time at all with his body and underbelly colors contrasting against the walls and floor color and the fact he has a small stool in his hands.
"Is this okay?" They politely ask. "I don't know where to sit, so…"
Elora sits on the bed. "You can sit there if you want. If you want something softer, my bed's fine too."
He nods before placing the wooden stool near the bed. Spyro sits on it, getting himself in a comfortable position as he moves his sunglasses to the top of his head. Elora stares at Spyro, who patiently waits for her to speak after her last sentence. Her chest becomes heavier like before; her heart feels like it's being simultaneously stabbed and punched simply staring at him with what she wants to say. No matter how much she wishes to open her mouth, it doesn't open. It is if her body is telling her not to speak, creating its own frog in her throat to prevent her from speaking. She silently gulps in an attempt to release her body's defense mechanism to speak with no success. Elora places her hands in her lap to hide her trembling. Her eyes repeatedly blink almost without a break.
The purple dragon cocks his head to the side. Their tail wags from side to side as one of his eyebrows raise. She doesn't know if she's interpreting his body language correctly, but if she is then it's killing her even more than it already is. Elora feels her eyes getting ready to tear up, ready to stain her face from crying her eyes and tear ducts out. She tightly grips the blanket she sits on, just something to hold onto to make sure she doesn't break down into tears.
"I… I'm sorry, I… I need to tell you that I'm… I'm…" Elora hoarsely starts.
It's clear to them both that she's forcing the words out with her voice cracking and breaking at every word, every second she speaks. The red faun can't help but feel terrible for the fact that he's having to sit there, seeing her go from seemingly okay to nearly breaking into tears, nearly breaking down into what she considers her worst, in a minute. His eyes dart between her and the kitchen.
"Do you, uh…"
"N-No!" Elora cracks as she throws her hand out, trembling heavily, causing Spyro to jump back. "You- You don't need to. Spy- Spyro, the reason why- the reason why I have a webbed neck, why my wrists are usually swollen, why- why my-"
"Whoa, whoa! Elora calm down, you don't need to show that much!"
"-The reason for all of that is- it's because I'm… I'm in- intersex, Tur-Turner Syndrome to be- to be precise. You- You can hate- hate me now."
On her last few spoken words, her voice cracks and her tears involuntarily start streaming down her face. She sniffs, trying to keep her face free from her boogers unlike her tears. Her eyes puff up and rings of red cover them. Elora's ears twitch before finally falling down as she pulls her legs up to her chest and buries her face in it to prevent Spyro from seeing it any longer than he needs to. She begins full on sobbing, dampening her knees with her tears. Her neck beats like if her heart jumped from her chest into her throat like it's about to jump out despite her feeling it beat harder and faster than she's ever felt it before in her life. It feels like it's going on for eternity even though she knows that's incorrect.
Her mind races faster than ever, almost like the speed of light entering a room. What's he thinking? Does he hate her now? Is this a mistake? Is he going to walk out of the house and leave her there to drown in her tears? Is Spyro going to mock her? Make fun of her? Multiple of those things, or all of them? She doesn't know exactly what and thinking about it makes her cry even worse. All she knows is that her heart, her body, and her brain all hurt like hell. It's almost like the weight has been lifted off her shoulders, but the aftermath of it weighs even heavier on her body.
Before she knows it, her head is lifted from her legs. Her emerald eyes are met with their amethyst eyes. They were calm, comforting, and they sympathized with everything she feels, almost like if they know exactly how those feelings are.
"Elora, I would never hate you. You don't need to worry about that with me." He softly speaks unlike his usual confident attitude. It's almost like he's a different person, yet the same one she's known from weeks ago. "You're Elora to me, I don't care what you are. I don't care if you were to come from a different universe, if you're into nobody, if you're trans, non-binary, I just don't. You're my friend, I wouldn't change that."
They wipe away the tears that are coming from one of her eyes. She pulls him into a hug, laying her head onto his robust shoulder as she continues to quietly sob, not out of fear and worry, but instead out of relief. He rubs her back in the middle of the hug. Her eyes wander up to the window in front of her, seeing Hunter outside. He points at her then shoots her a thumbs up with a curious and concerned stare. She responds to his silent question with a thumbs up back and a slight nod. Elora buries her head into their scales and keeps her face hidden. No more tears come out of her eyes. However, she doesn't say a thing in case she starts up again. All she wants right now is to keep hugging him for as long as she's able to. Elora sniffs, not as harshly as she did before.
The storm within has passed, now it's calm even if the sun doesn't shine through entirely.
Spyro doesn't move his body, only his wings. They wrap around the faun, making her feel safer and warmer. Her heart becomes steady again as her stomach no longer feels like a pit that her heart fell into. Everything feels okay again, even her mind has calmed for the most part. Due to her no longer crying, silence lingers in the room. She doesn't wish to disturb the silent peace between them, and she's sure Spyro feels the same way as he hasn't said another word. It's not like she wants to complain, though, this is one of the best things that could happen to her in the longest time.
Elora finally opens up with at least one thing.
As they say, one baby step at a time.
A/N: Well this took way longer to actually do than I thought, and the chapter came out shorter than I was planning on doing. Oh well, either way I'm just happy I got this done.
The avaunt part? That's... Actually kinda what happened during my playthrough of the second game in the Reignited trilogy, so uh you can thank that moment for the fact that this exists XD And can I just say I'm way too proud of the ending portion of the chapter? Because I'd say some paragraphs, but just the ending section as a whole? Happy as fuck with it, dunno why, but I just am and I have this done so I hope y'all enjoyed this at least.