Felinis: And so the real plot begins
Hanna rubbed her belly as she laid next to Lowell. "What do you think he'll look like?"
Lowell tilted his head. "Him?"
Hanna nodded. "I keep thinking he'll be a boy."
Lowell's face broke into a large grin. "A son. I like that idea." He ran his hand through her hair and smiled. "Hmm. I'd hope he'd take after you."
"Me too." She said as she rummaged through one of their supply packs for dry rations. "No offense, but I'd like our child to be normal." But, Hanna doubted that the poor child would ever be normal. It is a secret they couldn't hide and would chew at their hearts. Their kid would grow up not like anyone around him. Or maybe it wouldn't be born alive. The thought made Hanna's stomach turn. No, her child would be strong and beautiful. "If he's like me… will it ever show?"
Lowell had to ponder this. He'd never heard of cases like this. He doubted the other Entelexeia could tell him what to do. As wise as Lowell often pretended to be he was still young and foolish. "I hope not. It wouldn't be fair for him. Humans don't take kindly to us."
Hanna laughed. "Yeah, we don't. I almost ran you through on my sword."
"I almost let you run me through with your sword."
"Just admit that you didn't see it coming."
"No, I did." Lowell leaned down and kissed her lips. "The kiss is the part I never expected."
She ran a hand through his long hair. She loved the silky feel it had. "No matter what you'll always be the man I love."
It took two years for Flynn and Yuri to reach the point where they no longer claimed to hate each other. One more and the boys reached a state where they could comfortably refer to each other as friends. It is sad to say that in the many years that Yuri lived with Flynn that the nun Merlwe would never receive punishment for her acts. In the end, the woman got away with it, but sometimes that was life. Yuri did outgrow his trauma for the most part and had a good life living with Flynn and Norien.
Finath, while a good man, never quite accepted him. Yuri had come to understand that at this point some would just hate him. It was the state of things. He never met the Krytian woman again either. He heard her when she left though. It scared him because now he could hear the voices of the Krytians who wandered through Zaphias. All asking things about his home and parents. They knew him and shook fear in his heart. It was sickening. He felt like he was going insane.
And, when he was ten…
To the people who lived in the Lower Quarter it had been strange to witness the changes that had come over the resident halfer. The boy who liked being alone and growling disappeared into a youth that was a little needy and for the most part kind. It seemed like a miracle and Norien developed a reputation as beast tamer with children. The real credit on taming Yuri came down to Flynn.
The night it happened was four months after Yuri turned ten. They've never been able to explain why it happened. Thinking back, maybe he was just at that age.
He'd been tired all day. Not sick. Just tired and sporting a headache. Norien put him to bed early and left him in the room. Yuri doesn't remember much about that moment. He remembers the cold and the way his body shook. The splitting pain in his head and the way he screamed.
The new moon looking down from that window.
Norien had rushed into the room first and had seen the sight. It chilled her. The child she lovingly cared for was writhing on the bed in pain. Blood dripped from his head and he growled. It wasn't Yuri's usual hum of displeasure. This was the cry of an animal.
"Yuri?" She asked, but the boy wouldn't answer. He just cried out in the garbled nonsense that Norien understood as pain. She brushed back his hair to find the wound. Her hand trembled when she felt it. They couldn't be, but they were.
"Nori, what's wrong?" Finath who was home for a change looked at his wife's pained face and the boy crying in pain. "What's wrong with Yuri?"
Flynn peeked into the room at the sight of his friend. "Mom, is Yuri sick?"
Norien recomposed herself. "Flynn, Yuri is in a lot of pain. If you got him a cloth to bite it would help a lot." He nodded and left to get a rag from the kitchen. "Finath, we need to find a Krytian, now!"
"Why? Nori, what's happening to him?" Finath approached and Norien stopped him. Finath didn't need to get closer to see them glinting in the moonlight. "Nori!" He hissed pulling the sword that never left his side. "Get away from that thing."
"Don't you dare touch him!" She stood tall and Finath looked down at her bitterly. "Finath, if you hurt him in any way I will leave and take Flynn with me."
"Do you realize what you're saying?" He looked at the child and cringed. "That thing isn't human! It's not even Krytian." Finath desperately hoped his wife would see. "We need to take that child to a priest or the knights. Whatever is happening it's not normal!"
"I don't care." Norien grabbed the sword by the blade. "Yuri is part of this family and I'll do what I can to protect him."
The poor boy who'd watched the affair go on tugged on his father's arm. "Dad, what are you doing?" Fear and worry laced his eyes.
Finath sighed and sheathed the sword now stained with his wife's blood. "Nothing." He looked to Norien. "I'll try to find someone."
Flynn handed his mother the rag. "Mom, what's happening to Yuri?" The halfer' s screams were muffled by the rag Norien placed in as gag. If the boy kept screaming like this then it was guaranteed someone would come asking about the noise.
His mother looked so solemn as she sat beside his friend. Flynn had been scared to approach but did so in small steps.
The blonde always described the sight as disturbing, yet enchanting. A macabre vision of beauty. Eyes shut in pain, but opening to reveal a glow to them. The long obsidian hair stained with blood. And, there glinting in the moonlight they were. A deep red like coral spiraling from the side of his head budding outward. Horns like the ones on dangerous monsters.
Flynn shook his mother's arm in hysterics. "Mom, Yuri's turning into a monster!"
Norien shook her head and tried to calm her son. "Yuri is going to be just fine. I'm going to go get some water. You stay and make sure he's okay."
Flynn sat down beside Yuri and took his hand. It was ungodly warm and Yuri's nails dug into his skin. "Please be okay."
Finath came back an hour later with no luck. He had searched the streets earnestly with no luck. He stayed away from the room and sat somberly while his wife and kids hovered over the creature living in their home. He should tell someone, but then what would happen to the child? No, he'd keep this to himself. His mouth felt sour.
Monster.
Norien ended up using medicine and home remedies so Yuri would sleep. When he didn't seem to be in pain he just stared and breathed heavily on the bed. His body burned to the touch and he shook with fever. Norien had asked again if anyone had seen a Krytian. If they could find one maybe they could explain this. Perhaps, this was just something that happened. Maybe it was normal.
They had to tie him up on the fourth day. Yuri wasn't in the right mind. There was no way Yuri would have ever consciously attacked Norien. The boy could barely get mad at her let alone develop a sense of bloodlust. She had been trying to help feed him when he bit her with enough force to draw blood. Finath had to hold him down while he crawled at the floor like a mad dog. There was no humanity in his eyes. Nothing. No sign that he was aware.
The aggression faded again while Flynn stayed to watch over his friend closely. He kept talking to Yuri in hopes that he'd snap out of this trance. He didn't. Flynn was forced to watch his friend crawl around in confusion. His eyes never looking at anything but staring wide and empty. Yuri would always head to where he was though, as he was some sort of anchor for reality. It wasn't often he would move. Mostly, Yuri slept and Flynn would hold his hand.
As far as the halfer was concerned, he was caught in a haze as his head pained and his blood boiled. It went on for what seemed like forever to him. Only when the morning dawned a week later did the throbbing stop and he became lucid enough to understand where he was. Yuri felt Flynn's hand on his own and cracked his eyes open.
"Flynn?" He croaked and the blonde snapped awake.
"Yuri!" The blonde rushed to touch his forehead worry lacing his face. "Are you... how do you feel?"
"Tired." So tired. Everything felt so fuzzy and heavy. "My head hurts." Yuri felt muffled confusion when he saw Flynn's face. "Did I miss breakfast?" Flynn cried and for the life of him, Yuri couldn't understand why. As far as he knew he just slept all night. Maybe he'd been sick a day? As he moved to scratch his head he felt the horns and panicked. He scrambled upwards and ran to the mirror.
Red horns jutting from the side of his head. Not long, but there. Yuri looked at his hair and wondered if it had always been so long. It was past his back and he could swear it had been shorter.
Norien and Flynn looked from behind nervously. "Miss Norien, what happened to me?" He felt the horns and cringed. "Am I a monster?"
Norien hugged him closely and whispered words of reassurance. "Everything's fine. We'll figure this out." She held some of his hair. "We can find out a way to get rid of these horns." Norien set him down in the chair and took a sharp knife to the horns. She managed to cut to the base over the course of a few hours while Yuri did his best not to squirm. It stung as she slowly dug into the nerves.
Yuri never got an answer to why this happened to him. He tried to seek out a Krytian so they could tell him anything about what had happened to no avail. He would have flares of what Norien called his 'condition' from time to time his whole life. It wouldn't last as long as that first time and most times he was lucid. Flynn never spoke about those times unless he thought Yuri was in danger.
Yuri was thankful for that. He wanted to forget that problem as much as he could.
Yuri never saw Finath after that first time. He died in some far-off battle. A year later a plague swept Zaphias. It had been the most horrific thing to watch in his life. People that he once knew slowly died and disappeared forever. Olive and the nice man who ran the bakery. Mr. Glimore and Ms. Marisha down the lane. Thomas from the orphanage and Francis who once stole his ball. All gone.
It all fell apart. Yuri watched as slowly the woman who took care of them fell apart. The disease took her like everyone else. At first, she just coughed from time to time. Then came the sores and the stomach problems. Bit by bit the strong, beautiful woman who shined like the sun burned away to ash. All that was left was a cold corpse. Yuri had watched untouched by the disease and thought he was better off dead when Flynn started coughing. If Flynn died, then there was nothing. Absolutely, nothing.
By then the cure for the plague the nobles had hoarded was finally cheap enough that with the money Yuri scrounged by selling his horns on the black market he could save Flynn. From those days on things like Norien's death and his condition became forbidden topics. Nobody had to know. Not even Hanks who took them in. It was nothing they needed to talk about.
Felinis: I never said that Yuri was half-Krytian. You all just assumed like everyone else in the story