15 Not about that Life

I'm not dead?

Nothing hurts, either.

Zephyr's eyes snapped open. The first light of dawn timidly seeped through the canopy of the trees. Gone were the horrific sounds of creatures. Gone were the bodies that were next to him before he'd passed out. Now, it was like the forest was rousing from its slumber along with him. 

But he hadn't been asleep? He was sure he'd died.

Mist hovered along the forest floor, embracing him like a chilly caress against the skin, leaving tiny droplets to glisten like jewels atop his scales. Slowly, Zephyr sat up, testing his ability to do so, raising his arms and inspecting his fully healed shoulder and neck. The demon's ability to heal was miraculous already, but it took days for his body to sow itself up again. Even if it had been days, there was no way he survived. He'd been bleeding out.

"You awake?" 

Zephyr's head whipped in the direction of the she-elf's voice. There, Naexi was crouching on a branch across from him. She may be merging in with the trees, but those eyes were shimmering like the depths of a tropical sea. Or so he guessed, he'd never been. Wait, she wanted him dead?

His guard was instantly up, and he rose, hands curling into fists, searching the woods for anything he could use as a weapon. The dead rabbit from before was gone. Perhaps a stone could be useful?

"Good." Naexi hopped to the ground. Her spear was gone, but Zephyr didn't doubt there were other weapons somewhere beneath all that fur. "Follow me."

The elven warrior started turning away while Zephyr remained rooted to the spot, watching her. He was not going anywhere with her! Glaring in her direction, the Slinktail began walking in the opposite direction, remembering Garzon and Fig had headed in this direction before.

"Go that way, and you'll come across Draughrs," Naexi called in exasperation. 

Zephyr froze. What the hell were Draughrs? Probably another creature he couldn't kill. 

"Dying by their hands would have been a waste of my powers," Naexi complained, her voice irritatingly close behind. Zephyr turned his head to see the brunette was indeed a few steps behind him now.

"Powers?" He questioned, turning fully to face her.

"Not so bright either." The she-elf rolled her eyes and continued to grumble quietly. "Then again, neither are the elders. Letting you live and with this knowledge."

"Is not much known about you… your kind?" Zephyr asked, walking diagonally now.

Naexi arched her perfectly shaped eyebrow. 

"I have memory loss." Should I have told her? Well, the elf had spilt about some power? Naexi didn't respond. 

Why would she? Zephyr was the one who 'killed her friends'. "Keep going that way, and you'll come across wormtails." He didn't even want to know what they were. Zephyr stopped.

"Look." Naexi grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around. 

He towered over her, something he hadn't expected after only being 5ft8 in his first life. 

Naexi huffed as she looked up at him, hand recoiling back as she looked at him with such disgust and hatred. "You do not get another chance, Slinktail," she hissed. "Follow me, and I can show you where to go and be done with this already."

The elders, the elves that gathered around him yesterday, were they punishing Naexi? It certainly wasn't her idea to show him the way out of this place.

"We only want to hunt in here," Zephyr tried to explain.

"Wisps? The dead fae? Werewolves? Elves next? If the fae found you there would be no hesitation about leaving you to rot."

Naexi wouldn't listen to him even if he tried. He was sick of others in his first life, and now he had to deal with this. No, thanks. He was a demon now, so he shouldn't expect much about what others thought about him. He was a killer and a disgusting monster in Naexi's eyes. So be it.

Zephyr scoffed and looked the beauty up and down. "This sounds like a YOU problem. Show me the way out," he ordered.

Naexi's lips parted, and her expression somehow looked even more disgusted by his rudeness. "What am I doing talking to one of you like you'd give a damn. Come along, demon." 

Zephyr's step was hesitant for second more before he followed after the elf. He remained alert, tensing at every little sound, eyes surveying his surroundings. The mist was still afloat and the horrifying noises from before started to grow louder again.

A child's giggle next to his ear made him lash out to his right. His heart almost bolted out of his chest then and there. But. Nothing was beside him.

Naexi snickered at his response and looked past him as though there was something there. Zephyr looked again, but the spot was empty. He looked between the she-elf and the empty spot, stepping closer to her and away from whatever she was freaking him out over.

"Pixies. They think you're odd."

Isn't she the odd one here?

"Uhuh." Zephyr looked at the empty space again and back to the elf who was already walking away, smiling deviously.

"They don't do much harm."

Zephyr hummed in response, nodding along to whatever this woman was saying. If it kept her from threatening him and leading him out of this damned place, then he'd act a little submissively. It wasn't like he had any weapons or a means of defending himself.

"They love watching others suffer." I'm suffering right now. Is that why the giggling has been following me? "Give a piece of clothing to them, and they will leave you alone. If they lead you astray, turn your cloak inside out. Or so I am told… It could all be nonsense."

"It sounds like nonsense." Shit, he said that out loud. 

Naexi peered over her shoulder and smirked. "Yet someone left these woods alive and spun such a tale, eh?"

Zephyr stared at her, surprised by the lack of hatred burning in those eyes as she spoke to him normally. As normal as the conversation could be, really. Hells, should he really question it? He was a walking lizard demon.

Naexi's brows pinched together, and a look of disdain crept back onto her face as she shook her head and averted her gaze once more. The pair didn't talk after that, allowing the forest's haunting noises to be their only salvation, as creepy as it was. An hour later, Zephyr's empty stomach growled and, his calves burned, and astonishment replaced his glum expression. 

Sunlight trickled into the woods from the opening ahead. They were near the edge of the forest, and through the small space, Zephyr could see from where they stood the giant wall he was flung over the day before. 

"There. My job is done. Satisfied?" Naexi glared up at the trees as though they might answer her. 

All at once, the leaves rustled together like whispers, and Naexi rolled her eyes in response. She then turned to the Slinktail, hand going behind her back before she tossed two daggers into the ground just before his feet. He almost jumped back, expecting them to pierce through his boots. 

Naexi glared at him again. "Next time we cross paths, I won't be so nice." She began walking past him.

That was her being nice?!

Looking over his shoulder, he smirked. "How will you know it's me? We all look the same, darling." 

"Oh, I'll know…" She trailed off, the sound of her boots crunching into the leaves at her departure. Then she added from somewhere above in the trees. "It doesn't matter anyway. Demon is still a demon."

"Vicious little thing for an elf." Zephyr already figured out from waking up alive and the conversations between them yesterday that they are meant to be some sort of hippies, loving all creatures and life. 

After all the shit he'd been through, he wasn't about that life.