Dune wounds

The circle broke as Neomon confessed, falling to his hands and knees, retching like the truth were a poison inside of his body that needed to be expelled. The shadow serpents cast them a withering glare, clearly annoyed that they weren't going to be having a midnight snack, before slithering back under the sands. Heaving air into his lungs, Neomon glared up at the crone with vicious anger in his eyes. The violet flare radiant, and undeniable. "Why?" he asked, his voice utterly broken. The crone's eyes lingered on the Umbratus claimed, there wasn't a trace of sympathy in her eyes.

"You can't hide from the stars any longer prince ... they have called to you and you must answer" Avea could see the turmoil of emotions raging inside Neomon, the seething anger colliding against of the despair and the guilt, each emotion clawing at him as though determined to tear him apart from the inside. "Neomon ..." Avea whispered, the words dying on her lips, "I'm fine," he replied. Standing although he was slightly unsteady, now a weariness weighed down on his shoulders. The crone lifted her chin, her mouth curving into a knowing smile, "the truth doesn't sit easy with you does it ... prince?" the rhetorical question was a taunt, one that Neomon didn't take. His face devoid of any emotion, as his eyes fixed on her with a hollow stare, "where in the veil is the obscurus library?"

"Do what you're so afraid to do prince ... ask the stars" the crone answered. The marking remained on her wrists, flaring brightly. The crone hissed and her eyes shone with malice. "That wasn't the question" Neomon replied, his eyes now cold and hardened, lingered on the sinister mark. The crone gave an indignant huff, "from what I can recall the veil split into three parts, the null, the void ...and the oblivion" she spoke with a hollowness that made it seem she wasn't truly inside her body, like she were recalling a nightmare. "I buried the Obscurus library where they could never reach it, along with all their sins," the crone's voice was filled with an angry vengefulness. "In the void" she answered. There are layers in the veil? Of course it couldn't be simple, the thought filled Avea with a cold dread that seeped into her very bones.

"Where in the library can we find the answers we seek?" Neomon asked, a razor edge to his voice. "The Obscurus library will have a record of the last ascension and how the tears formed ... in the book of Astrolis." Avea scoffed, "that can't be a real name." The crone raised her eyebrow at Avea's flippant manner. "Find it and bring it back for all of the Umbratus moon to see" the crone was gripping her cane so tight, all the bone jutted out from her knuckles. "Show them that their messiah is a liar." Neomon and Avea glanced at each other, the mark still on her withered wrist, they had one final question.

Neomon swallowed, his whole body went rigid like everything in his body had suddenly seized. "What happened to the other Triskele after they were sacrificed to the veil?" Avea's breath hitched, Neomon's voice was clipped, he didn't want to ask this question. It was like the guilt was rippling off of him, he didn't want to know what happened, but he needed to know. The crones eyes shattered like everything inside her was breaking. The steele resolve that she was carried herself with crumpled as her grief gripped her in its tight clutches, squeezing the life out of her. "We walked into the veil and there was nothing there, only death and darkness surrounded us. We'd spent our whole lives with shadows, dancing through the eclipse, but this wasn't anything we'd ever seen." The crones grew very quiet until it was almost a whisper. "There was nothing ... and then there was screams" Avea had grown so cold, all the warmth had been carved out of her. "They began disappearing one by one, without a trace in the null, only a few of us made it to the void that was when we saw the parasites that Morpheus had warned us about. They were born from the veil...they showed us no mercy...they only kept me alive because I knew where the library was." The horror of the crones tale made Neomon and Avea visibly shudder, "I was the only survivor" the Crone finished, her eyes glanced up at Neomon with so much sorrow and hatred, his shadows squirming under her stare.

"I didn't know" Neomon replied. The crone merely scoffed, devoid of any sort of feeling. "Three of the worst words to ever be uttered."The marking on her wrist disappeared and suddenly it was as though all them had been hollowed out, carved to the bone and left with nothing but the ghosts of who they once were. None of them said anything for a moment, "if you really want to redeem yourself prince...you find that book and you expose the truth, whatever it may be" the crone's eyes were piercing right through Neomon like it were an arrow shot straight through the skull. Neomon nodded, "I will ... I promise" he'd said it without the marking, there was no way to prove if it was a lie, but nevertheless the crone gave a slight nod of her head.

"We need to get back before any of the other claimed find out we're gone." Neomon didn't look at either of them, staring out beyond the dunes. "You shall take my pets," their heads snapped to the crone whose curled fingernails were slowly caressing her serpents. Their shadowy heads nuzzling against her. "Wha...no" Avea began to protest. Before she knew it she had mounted herself on the back of one of her shadow serpents, the cold wisps of shadow brushing against her skin. The serpent was so large, she felt slightly lightheaded, sitting atop the creature. Her pulse began to race, "don't be scared" the crone cooed, her face twisted in amusement watching as all the blood leached from Avea's complexion.

"You're a lot like her you know" Avea knew to whom she was referring. "You knew my mother?" she asked, "only in passing" the crone hummed. "Will the Astrolis tell me about her?" Avea cringed at the desperate plea in her voice. The crone didn't have to answer, the game of scales had been played. There was a beat of silence that passed between them, the confessions of truths that had been shared hung between them like an echo that wouldn't fade.

"The stars see all child, not even your mother can run from them."

With those parting words, her thin lips pursed together to form a whistle, low and haunting, before banging her cane against the sand. The serpent leapt over the dunes, Avea shrieked clinging onto the serpents scales while her heart hammered violently inside her chest. The gripping onto the swathes of the serpent scales, diving, arching and bending with the dunes. At night, the dunes became something quieter, stranger, a half dream, half memory. Neomon moved in rhythm his serpent like they were one being, while Avea's stomach lining turned completely inside out. When they'd slowed into a parallel cadence, and Avea was certain she wouldn't vomit all of the glorious feast she'd eaten only hours earlier, she finally spoke, "there's still something I don't understand."

"What's that?" Neomon replied, the shell shock from his confession still lingered."The three triskele that got sick?" Avea said. "You heard the crone, they got sick because of the tears" there was an edge of defensiveness to Neomon's voice. "Don't you think it's all a bit random, she said that the tears were in the outer dune, it would've just been forgers who would have been around them. Instead a guard, a counsilman and a child, it doesn't make any sense." There were too many things that there not adding up. "All that matters is that we've been lied to, and I chose to believe it."

"You can't have known that it was all a lie" Avea tried to console him. Neomon's face hardened like stone, as he shook his head in denial.The serpents burrowing beneath the sands, cloaking them in their shadows. They slithered over the dunes, the majesty castle in sight. As they got closer Neomon suddenly yanked on the reigns, halting abruptly. "Get down" he whispered."What?" Avea asked, startled. "Wraiths ... get down" Neomon lunged off his serpent, shoving her onto the sand. Avea landed on her back, all the wind knocked out of her, vision spinning as she stared up at Neomon's face which had split into two. "Stay silent or they'll see us" Neomon said, as wheeze escaped from her lungs. "What are you...?" "Shhhhhh" he replied, continuing his hand movements.

The two of them crouched down to the sands, gently moving it over the surface to peak out from the dunes, watching in a tense silence, as Morpheus's wraiths swept over the dunes. They were like phantoms suspended in darkness, barely visible until the moonlight caught them just so. "What are they doing?" Avea hissed. Neither of them dared to speak as the wraiths gathered, their lithe shadow hands began to slash through the night as a haze of strange shadow poured out from the wraiths hands, like a scab picked raw until the blood came gushing out. They slashed into the shroud of the night as scab became a wound floating ominously between the shadow bodies, "what is that?!" Avea gasped, peering at the ugly tear of darkness.

"They've been creating the tears" Neomon's voice was grave, losing that sarcastic drab. They watched as the sand around them became drained of their vibrant indigo, the infection unfurling like a rot."Morpheus framed the Triskele," Avea whispered. Neomon's eyes flashed violet, as he moved towards the wraiths Avea pulled him back. "We can't give ourselves away," her lips barely moving. They stared ahead, as the wraiths tore into the veil, their spindly nails clawing at the wound, making the sands sicker. Neomon hissed through clenched teeth, as though the ripples of the tears were causing him pain. When they'd finished, the wraiths drifted back towards the majesty castle, leaving the wound to fester as their ghostly silhouettes disappeared behind the dunes. Everything Morpheus told them had been a lie, he'd framed his own subjects and sacrificed them to ensure that whatever truth they knew would never be unveiled.

That was all about to change. The crone had told them that the sands didn't forget, but Avea had a feeling they didn't forgive either.