I preferred to forget about the night I destroyed the rose bush. Keroberos had found me, and had done his best to comfort me. It was so difficult to be comforted by the giant cat though…Clow did not care for him, and certainly not the way he cared for me. The only reason Keroberos had even been created was to balance the shift in magic cause by my creation. Keroberos was free to come and go as he wished; more often than not, he chose to go. I had very few memories of him.
It was the day after Keroberos had left again that I felt a familiar presence outside. It can't be… I almost ran out of Clow's house in anticipation.
There, far out on the front walkway, was Paynal.
I felt my wings tremble in my glee.
I almost went to greet him…but something stopped me. Paynal did not look pleased. In fact, he looked almost pained to be on Earth. His shoulders were hunched slightly, in the same way I did when my wings hurt from too much flying. His hair and feathers were roughed-up, his pupils were in thin slits.
"Paynal?…"
"Stay back," he warned.
I felt a strange shift of magic to my left, by the garden pond. Someone's coming. I felt my wing-feathers prickle.
I heard a rush of footsteps behind me. Paynal glanced up at the intruder, and his wings opened part-way, a position for rapid take-off.
Clow paused at my side. He looked around, eyes narrowed, the look he got when he was searching for something. He snorted quietly and held out his hand at full arm's length, palm outward towards Paynal, fingers splayed. There was a powerful rush of magic to his hand, as if it was being sucked into a vacuum. I felt my ears pop. Paynal got a look of surprise and terror on his face, and then I realized what Clow was doing.
They've come.
Whoever they were.
Clow, true to his word, was going to blast a hole through this world to theirs, wherever that was…and he was going to take Paynal out at the same time.
Before I could even think, I found myself lunging for Paynal, trying to pull him down to the ground, out of harm's way. Clow had already released the magic; I could feel it coming at us. I got Paynal down safely. But not myself. I caught it mostly on my wings, but I could feel it throughout my whole body. I was thrown, I know not how far, but I finally felt myself slide across the dusty path. I blinked a few times, but blackness covered my vision. It was as if the unparalleled pain of my birth was being relived. My wings…I could not feel them…
Above me…something was wrong…the flow of magic had changed…there was a hole in the magic…
My vision cleared enough for me to see a single black form, amorphous but deathly terrifying, jump out of the hole. It landed a few feet in front of me; I could hear it hit the ground, could see the clouds of dust it raised, but I could not see any definite shape.
My vision blurred. I could see the darkness of the strange being before me, then a brilliant flash of purple light by the garden pond, followed by a wave of moon magic so powerful it made my head hurt. There were flashes of golden light from the pond as well, and teal from the pathway. More of the black beings came into view, and more flashes of purple, this time from behind me.
Then I could hear again, the rush of magic dying down.
"You fool!" someone snarled in Chinese. "Are you stupid enough to think you can control the ferae too?"
"Eventually, yes." My master's voice.
"There is no eventually with the ferae."
There was a yelp from Paynal, who was behind me. Whoever had been speaking to Clow moved to help Paynal.
A new voice, from behind me. "Damn you, we should have stopped you when we first met."
"Indeed." Clow again. His voice was flat and cold…I had never heard anything so chilling in my life.
I finally gathered enough strength to push myself up on one elbow, but immediately collapsed from the pain. My wings…
"Are you so intent on your own will that you would destroy the one person closest to you?" one of the new voices snarled.
Silence from Clow.
Was I to take that to be a yes? I felt myself twitch a few times, the fall still, and I could think no longer.