Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 075

This caused the members of the clan to mutter to themselves, but they were silenced by a dirty glare from Gaia.

"I have not heard of this punishment," Abella replied, her voice shaking.

Torma looked around the room. "As we come from the earth, we must someday return to it. It is a punishment that we have not done since before your time due to its cruelty. It is a punishment by which you are buried alive beneath the stone of the earth. There, in the Earth Mother's Embrace, you will slip in and out of consciousness as your body gathers just enough energy to keep you alive, but not enough to escape."

Abella's jaw dropped open in astonishment.

"It used to be done as a punishment to enforce the will of the clan," Gaia continued. "We were created by the Earth Mother to be her eyes and ears, to soar among the clouds, and to be confined to the rocky depths is to deprive us of our purpose. Those who have suffered the Embrace have explained that they are aware the whole time of their misery. There are those who have been buried and forgotten, or the earth has moved and crushed them into dust. It is dangerous and reserved for crimes only against our own kind."

Lave growled again.

"And while I agree, Elder, that the young one has made a mistake that risks our safety, it was not deliberate. She did not make her choice with disregard for the clan. Rather, she is selfish, as most of the young ones tend to be." Torma bared his teeth. "As one who has been punished with the Embrace, I would vote against it."

"As would I," Gaia added. "But be warned, child. Should your continued love of humans risk our safety, we would rather exile you than bury you beneath the ground and away from the sky. Do you understand?"

Abella swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yes I do, Elder."

Elder Torma opened his mouth and an eerie ringing sound made Abella's teeth buzz in harmony. The other Elders opened their mouths to make the same noise, and her eyes fluttered open, revealing darkness. Though the memory had burst like a grape beneath her feet, that infernal sound remained.

Her ears were ringing, and she groaned. Where was she? Her whole body ached, and she lifted her head to look around. There was a tiny sliver of light that illuminated the rock above her. She was in the mouth of a cave.

Cave. Velvet. Leeds. She had tried to rescue Velvet, swooping down to grab her before the cave could collapse. But then what?

There was a sharp pain in her left wing, and her eyes popped open the rest of the way. A rock had fallen and hit her in the wing, and they had crashed. As the ground rumbled around them, she had faded in and out of consciousness from the pain. Was her wing even still there, or had it been shattered? She flexed it and felt tremendous pain along its length. She bit back a groan, but was grateful to feel anything at all.

"No man left behind," she muttered. It was something that Velvet had muttered, over and over again. Where was the Arachne?

Abella tried to move forward, but her feet and tail were pinned down by heavy rocks. She had a moment of panic, but reassured herself that she could probably get free. The sliver of light above was expanding, and would eventually illuminate the rubble and allow her to figure out how to best extricate her feet.

The ringing in her ears faded over the long minutes until it was finally gone. The cave was silent, save for the occasional drip of water and the breeze that flowed over the entrance.

"Velvet? Are you there?" She turned her head painfully and was able to make out a pair of legs sticking out from beneath an overhang in the corner of the cave.

"I am," Velvet replied, her voice weak and airy.

Sighing with relief, Abella laid back down and relaxed. "You saved me, didn't you?"

"I did."

Abella sighed. If not for Velvet, she would have been crushed beneath the ground. Or worse, trapped for all eternity in the Earth Mother's Embrace. A chill ran up her spine at the thought of it.

When Mike had first discovered her, it was after the Mandragora had leached away her life force, putting her in a similar state. Her mind had come and gone, but in those waking moments, she had experienced a dull pain throughout her entire body. Maybe it was analogous to hunger in humans, or not having enough air to breathe. Either way, it was something she hoped to never experience again.

"Thank you." She tapped on the cold stone of the ground, feeling the grit beneath her fingertips. All sorts of emotions rolled through her, but the biggest one was regret.

"And also...I am sorry." Abella paused, half expecting Velvet to say something.

The Arachne remained silent.

"I am sorry that we fought. I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt. You are the first of your kind to embrace their humanity, and I refused to believe it possible. And so I tried to kill you, and am ashamed.

"I came for you because I love him." Abella squeezed her eyes shut, the warmth in her chest threatening to overwhelm her. "I wanted to protect you for his sake, but I know now that I should have come for your own. You could have left me behind, I am aware of this. And maybe you saved me for the same reason I tried to save you. For Mike."

"No man left behind," Velvet whispered.

Abella chuckled. "No man or monster, maybe. I doubted you, and I shouldn't have. We are different, but maybe we have more in common than I was willing to acknowledge. If nothing else, we have him in common, and that should have been enough."

The ground behind her rumbled as distant stones settled. Abella waited for the cave to become quiet before continuing.

"And maybe that is my way of saying I see things your way. You shared an experience with him that resulted in something beautiful and lasting. I can't understand what it means to be a mother, to hold a child or egg of my own. It isn't even something I want. But if I were to find myself in your shoes, or legs as it were, I think I would have made the same choice. I wouldn't have considered anyone else's feelings in the matter."

The light was brighter now, and Abella looked back at her feet. Her legs and tail were pinched between two rocks. She shifted her tail around, which caused the troublesome boulders to shift.

With a groan, she pulled herself forward and collapsed on her belly.

"I'm sorry about your egg," she continued. "When we return, I will help you look through the ashes until we find it."

Velvet sighed.

"If you say that this child is different, then I trust you," Abella continued. "Because I know that he will trust you. And if any of the others try to give you problems, they will have to go through me first."

She moved toward a nearby wall and used it to stand. Her knees hurt, but once she was upright, it was easy to stand. The mouth of the cave was nearby, and she limped her way toward it in a crouch to avoid smashing her head on the ceiling.

The sun was coming up and she squinted into its light.

"We need to get back," she said. "The others are waiting for us. He is waiting for you."

The breeze stopped, allowing silence to descend on the cave. Abella half expected to hear the rustle of hairy legs, or even Velvet snoring. She hadn't exactly held up her end of the conversation.

However, the silence that ensued was absolute. Other than the occasional drip of water, nothing could be heard.

"Velvet?" She turned around, the light shining in over her shoulders. The beam was just low enough to illuminate the top of the huddled form in the back of the cave.

Abella crouched down and moved to where Velvet sat. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she let out a gasp of surprise.

"Non!" She reached into the gap beneath the rock to pull Velvet free, convinced that she had just stopped breathing. But the rigidity of the Arachne's body indicated that it had been some time since Velvet had passed.

Stunned, Abella sat back on her haunches. How could this have happened? They had just been talking...right? Velvet's lower half was sprawled out, her damaged legs forming a spiral beneath her. She was hunched forward as if asleep, her dog tags clutched in a single hand and tear stains down her cheeks. The blue blood of the Arachne had formed a pool underneath her body, and Abella watched as a drop of it fell from Velvet's free hand and splashed in the puddle below.

It hadn't been water dripping after all.

"Mon Dieu..." she muttered, then backed away and out of the cave.

Velvet was dead. In the light of the rising sun, Abella stumbled until she found somewhere to sit, the world spinning around her. She was no stranger to death, but this felt different. It was like someone had twisted up her insides with a hot knife.

"But how?" she asked. Velvet had been talking to her just minutes ago, right? Looking down at her feet, she realized that she was covered in bloody blue handprints.

It wasn't just that Velvet had died. The Arachne had given the rest of her life to save Abella's.

The heartfire erupted from Abella and she tilted her head back to fire her rage into the sky. Birds in nearby trees took flight and scattered as the hot flame caused nearby snow to melt.

"NO!" Abella bit off the flame and put her face in her hands. Not only had Velvet died, but she had failed to protect her. It had been the one job that Mike had given to her, and she had screwed up.

What would she tell Mike? How could she even face him? She cried out in agony, raking her hands and feet against the ground.

"Leeds!" she screamed. No matter how much she hated herself right now, she hated him a thousand times more.

She walked back into the cave and knelt down in front of Velvet.

"I am supposed to be the strong one," she told the Arachne. "And in my weakest moment, you were my protector. That makes you and your kin clan, and I shall never forget."

Abella took Velvet's hand and pried the dog tags free. Though they weighed next to nothing in her hands, it felt as though she moved the Earth itself just to lift the chain over Velvet's head.

"May the Earth Mother watch over you," she said, her voice wavering. "I will make sure your sister receives these."

Back outside, she spent a few minutes using loose stones to block off the entrance. She didn't want Velvet's rest to be disturbed by scavengers.

Once the entrance was sealed, Abella took a deep breath and spread out her wings. Her right wing was fine, but her left wing was in bad shape. The membrane had been shattered out in several places, but the structural parts were still intact.

It could be much worse, she thought to herself. Maybe Ratu or Zel would have something to patch the holes. If so, she would be able to fly again, which meant that Velvet hadn't just saved her life, but perhaps her very soul.

"Every time I fly, I shall think of you." She turned to face the blocked entrance and bowed her head. "Thank you, Velvet."

Nobody is ever truly gone, Velvet replied, her voice vanishing on the wind.

Blinking in surprise, Abella nodded her head in agreement. Whether she had actually heard the Arachne didn't matter, because she had a promise to keep. With a heavy heart, she turned toward the cabin and wrapped her wings around herself like a cloak, carefully tucking the damaged one inside.

The sunlight glistened off of the dog tags around her neck.

🏠🏠🏠

This was a tough chapter for me to write for so many reasons. I'm afraid that this story, just like real life, doesn't always have events that are either happy or fair. This was not something I casually did, and a lot of thought went into those final moments. I hope they paid off.

If you're still enjoying this tale, make sure to drop me some stars and comments. If you're really mad at me now, that's okay, too. I hope to see you next chapter when Mike confronts Leeds head on. Three more chapters until the end of Part 5 (not the end of the series, I'm working on Part 6 already), so be ready to see things wrap up with a vengance.

Thanks again to all my readers, and I hope you are making some time for yourself. After all, you deserve the best!

~Annabelle Hawthorne