A Dæmon's Heart

Chapter Three
Unexpected Surprises

The dæmon was huge; a black she-wolf, her forepaws and muzzle white as snow; and she was marked at her shoulder to be over half as tall as any given human.

The man faced it with more bravery than his own dæmon showed. The setter cowered behind him, her tail tucked between her legs, whimpering as the other growled. The man frowned. He could have shot it, if he wanted to, but such a death was too good for an abomination like it.

He threw another piece of debris at it, a chunk of rock, which it dodged nimbly before barking at him in a severe warning.

"Let it be, Rucker."

The man jumped – he hadn't known the woman was there. Still, he kept his eyes on the stray dæmon, "Why should I?"

"Because it'll die on its own," the lion-dæmon sniffed at his own while his woman spoke, "Don't waste your energy, we have better things to worry about."

The wolf snarled, but refused to move further from the wreckage. The woman turned, her dæmon bullying the man to follow; and the wolf sighed in relief, though she spurred the stranger on by snapping at the trailing setter when it didn't move fast enough for her taste. When they'd gone far enough away, she crept back to the wreck and leapt amidst it.

Within the mangled and twisted metal, she found the remains of her self. She laid her head against his knee, and whimpered. She lived through the end for him; the least he could do was wake up and stop the pain.

---

The overbearing size of the city could have been enough for a person, given the situation. For a lean, five pound rabbit that feeling was ever more profound.

She slipped under a low step, part of a fire escape or possibly a way to a higher level. She wasn't sure, and she didn't exactly care. She only needed a place to catch her breath, and being out of sight was instinctively calming.

But reason was stronger than instinct, for rabbit she was in form only. It was no time to lose herself to mindless mechanical fears.

She stuck her head into the open air, ears spread as far and high as they would go. The noises that were weren't what she sought, and that which she did seemed to have stopped completely; or that howling was drown out by the screen of other odd and grisly sounds that was so nearby.

Auditory influx wasn't the strongest distraction, however. There was something more tugging at her very self.

The small dæmon inched out of her hiding place, half dreading the call that she found herself following, and almost finding the strength to struggle against it.

As if it had been so long, she broke into a blind run towards the pulling… something stronger and more oblivious than pure instinct, and, perhaps, more natural.

---

There was a time in his life when his dæmon changed regularly. This was until, like all dæmons, she eventually settled. And it had been one of the most terrifying moments of his life when she flew so high to stress the boundary; and then fell back to him, earthbound and shape-bound from that point to forever.

Still, it seemed like nothing when compared to the incomplete emptiness he felt now.

Because of this, the sheer confusion of life and the effort put into the continuation of it, and the few sketchy memories that kept running through his mind, he fell into a state of lethargy. Exhausted, but unable to sleep, he curled against the cold alley wall and remembered.

He remembered the day she stopped changing, in an alley not unlike this one…. He remembered pain, and fear, when she pulled away from him. Something that suddenly struck from memory; pain that increased in force…

Metaphysical pain, but not from memory. Which didn't make sense; even as it crest, where he sat up straight in surprise, and bit his hand to keep from crying out in agony.

Then it faded, only to be replaced by a much duller somatic pain in his chest; and weight. His hand came to rest on the lump in his shirt, and he felt fur scrape against the bare skin under it. He stared, disbelieving, at the little face that looked back at him through the neck of the garment.

"Mialynn?"

Disbelief gave way to apprehensive hope, which fell into pure joy as he squeezed the other part of himself closer, intent on never letting go.

And, if it were up to her, neither would she.

---

It was easy to give up on self-preservation when all that would be preserved was a broken heart. Selflessness had taken over, and through it Aki found purpose.

The makeshift aid shelter for this very ideal, a sprint away from the stolen transport, was crude, but it was all she had. It was here that she gathered the shocked, but nevertheless alive survivors of the city's collapse. Most of these people, and the occasional dæmon, were only half alive as far as Aki could determine, but the few who were whole assisted as she and Dr. Sid gathered together as many of the living as they could.

It was a lot of effort; there were many breathing amidst the dead, and before an hour had passed, they had amassed a group of nearly a hundred.

It came to the point where Aki was roaming farther to find survivors. Often she moved out of sight of the camp in this search, relying on natural senses to find life rather than her scanning equipment… all of which were either malfunctioning, out of power, or too precious to use in such a manner.

Instead of messing with technology, she listened through Chisic, as he heard it. The dæmon guided her along, and both felt for heartbeats, breathing, and whimpers in the stagnant air.

She followed one of these heartbeats, through a tiny, twisted wreck of a street. The body she found was dead, and the only marks upon him were the bruises sustained from where he hit the ground.

The doctor felt disoriented; she still felt something nearby, but it may as well have been hers, resounding through the alley and confusing her senses as she knelt discouraged on the dirty pavement. So it must have been her imagination; the shallow footsteps that tapped along through the foreboding area; and the shadow that appeared over her shoulder; or the hand that hesitantly touched her shoulder…

Chisic squealed, and Aki looked up. She was abruptly startled by this presence, and more so by what she saw; she struggled to speak past the incredulity that flooded her mind.

The hand twisted in a gesture of good will, yet she lingered… not quite willing to accept the assistance to stand. One word of countless sentences managed to push past her throat,

"You…."