Don't Let Them Catch You

5• Name

Markus wasn't angry when Aura came back in.

In fact, there wasn't even a trace of a sour mood lingering on his features, as whispers of lights kissed his skin.

Well... There didn't seem to be a trace of anything lingering on his features. Except that unreadable expression he'd decided to adopt.

Or perhaps he'd always been this way.

Aura paused, expectantly by the door after he had summoned her, Skye perched patiently beside her.

He stood like a soldier, the spacious, empty room was the middle of a vacant world, to which he knew better than to depend on anything except himself. A burst of admiration sparked through Aura's heart. She saw the natural steel in his eyes that he couldn't seem to be rid of, even in his kindest moments.

Aura could only wish that she too, could one day stand like that.

Like her father could.

Markus glanced at them from the corner of his eyes, the whisper of a tug against his lips.

"If I asked you to tell me something, no matter the secret, not matter how personal, would you tell me?" He asked, stalking towards them as he gazed face on. Aura's unimpeachable soul stared at him head on, bewildered as to the direction of the conversation.

She nodded, clutching her fists in anticipation.

Pausing only when he was two feet away from her, he crouched to her level. "Then tell me Aura, how you managed to paralyze a lyrite?"

She stared, dumbfounded and caught off guard completely, for that moment.

Rarely had she heard of lyrite. Ferocious beasts with two separate souls within a single body. Hence why they were always referred to as plural.

Monsters that could shift into deformed monsters with shards of venom infected spikes. Like a hedgehodges spikes, except theirs resembled claws. Her father had come home once in a victorious jeer about how he had successfully executed a herculean mission, having to deal with several lyrites. She remembered his voice reencountering his adventure, about how his team had assassinated lyrite who dared to defy God's message through Gabriel.

They were about to murder an angel on sacred grounds. Though, even if the little girl hadn't begged for His help, she would have been assisted anyway. She was an angel to begin with, a defenceless one who was born out of peaceful nature, not warrior. He protects His own.

Just like He is for her father right now.

Even if the lyrite had managed to get away with murdering her, they would have spilled blood on sacred ground.

Accursed is he who spills on sacred ground.

"Aura?"

Aura blinked.

So deep in thought she had been, she had forgotten that there was still a question to be answered.

"I-I..." She stammered.

She had never told anybody about him. Not even her own father. Though... She must admit he only began to appear to her a few days before she left Heaven. Nobody had really asked, except from querying eyes, of Dakota and her cubs whenever Aura dreamt.

To this day, she never knew why.

"Think carefully about your answer." He warned, broken sapphire crystals scattered across his iris that made them such a fascinating shade of blue.

Aura had never lied before. She wouldn't start now.

"He told me what to do."

She felt his eyes watching her, as she imagined the stone grey. But he didn't say anything, he was silent, even as Markus spoke.