As the last flames of Kell’s beacon flickered out to an end in his palms, he turned to Norok with his mouth frozen in an astonished o-shape. With the back of his palm, Norok lightly knocked Kell’s chin upwards.
“You’re gonna swallow flies if you leave it hanging like that,” Norok remarked awkwardly.
“But you-- I mean, I--” Kell stammered, taking off his cap to push his hair back and wipe the sweat beading at his hairline. “How did you do that?”
Norok shrugged, wistfully gazing up at the orange sky. “It just came to me, I guess.”
“Right, okay, but I’ve never even heard of mana sharing, and you just… I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think you’re incredible with your gravity magic--”
“--That’s an understatement--” Norok snorted.
“--But you didn’t even know how to meditate when you got here!” Kell exclaimed, waving his hands wildly. “Or even how to control your true magic! You just showed up and kept sending everyone flying, and now you’re sharing your mana like it’s nothing?!”
Norok winced at all of Kell’s shouting. He was starting to grow a headache, if not from the pure exhaustion of straining every cell in his body, then certainly from Kell’s volume level. “Look, can we just talk about this later? It’s really not a big deal.”
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“No!! You can’t just do the impossible and expect me not to question it,” Kell argued.
“Well what do you want me to tell you?”
“Everything, Norok,” Kell huffed. Norok quirked an eyebrow at the brunette’s suddenly stoic stance. “I want to know where you and Daimona really come from, and how you did what you did today.”
Norok stared back at Kell’s earnest face, weighing the request in his mind.
The less he knows, the better. Norok rolled his fingers into fists at his side, feeling at the grisly wounds still marring the flesh of his palms.
“If it’s about Will, or Irina, I won’t tell them,” Kell said. “I just want to know, for myself.”
Norok shook his head. “It’s not that, it’s just… I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Start from the beginning, then,” Kell replied with a bright grin.
“The beginning, huh…” Norok murmured. Then, against his better judgement and the other voice screaming its protests, Norok started again. “My sister and I, we have--”
In an instant, it was as though the sun itself had been completely snuffed out, as a black shadow fell over the forest. Norok looked up just in time to see a tidal wave of red, writhing hands and gnashing teeth overtake the horizon, as thousands of Bash's creatures completely engulfed everything his eyes could see. Norok's body was swept up in the current. He opened his mouth to scream, desperate to fight against the sudden attack. But something wet and slimy filled his nostrils, suffocating him with the taste of rotting meat. His vision quickly faded to black as Bash's creatures stampeded over him, falling unconscious to the sounds of their feet throttling the ground.
