Damon stepped back looking at them with watery eyes. His throat was tight, he tried forcing himself to speak, but it all came out cracked and sounded like gibberish. Shaking his head, he gathered himself.
"Raya, Jasper, what did you see?"
Damon asked them over and over while waiting at least a full minute before asking again until one of them answered.
"I saw it, those eyes, its teeth, that evil voice. Its lust to feed." Jasper finally spoke. He had calmed down, apparently pushing him closer to the fire snapped him out it. Damon did Raya the same way and she too got herself together a bit.
"What the hell was that thing?" She asked nervously rubbing her hands near the fire as the tears came to a slow stop.
"I don't know, but it has to be from the river." Damon murmured outloud looking off into the darkness expecting to see those red and purple piercing eyes.
"You mean to tell me, those tales were true, like really real." Jasper said rubbing his hand through his red ruby hair.
"It wants us because we got in that stupid river, damn it Damon, if we hadn't followed you and just continued hunting those birds we wouldn't be in this mess. This is all your fault. " Raya shouted out, tears exploding from her eyes once again.
Damon looked at her with a thoughtful gaze, his brows frowned for a moment as he felt to snap back at her, but held his tongue. Thinking about the dirt trails, if he wasn't so curious about them maybe they wouldn't have ever found the river. Then again, it wasn't a way to know for sure, what was done, was done.
Damon staggered backwards and flopped down starring at the ground in thought.
"Don't listen to her Damon, she's just scared. Raya, you're wrong, none of this is his fault. We would have found that river no matter what, dont you remember how long it was, I'd be surprise if it didn't cut across that whole area. Its not right to throw the blame on him just because you're afraid, we all are." Jasper said in length.
Raya's head lowered in shame, she nervously dug her toes in the ground before looking up at Damon who was looking off with tears running down his face.
"Im sorry Damon, Jasper's right. Im just scared and I don't know what to think right now. It wasn't right for me to put the blame on you, we're in this together after all." She said softly hoping Damon would turn to face her in which he did.
"No, you're right, if i didn't break you guys out. We wouldn't be in this situation, we could have stayed there. He wasn't going to kill us, at least not you two. I believe he had other plans for us, im sure whatever those plans were, it couldn't have been worse than this. " he responded softly.
"Nahhhhh, id do this entire thing again if i knew it would be with a man like you Damon, you're tough. I saw your whole interaction with that thing, even though you were scared, you didn't try to run away and leave us which says a ton in my book." Jasper said with a huge smile patting him on the shoulder.
"He's right again, which is very rare." Raya said, her pink full lips curling up into a soft smile.
Damon looked at them realizing he had made true friends. The thought of going back and doing it all over again came to his mind.
"For friendships like this, id do it over in a heartbeat. " he thought.
"So, im a man now." Damon said with shifty raising brows looking at Jasper.
"Sure, but you dont have more manliness than yours truly. " Jasper responded while smiling and nodding his head. He folded his arms inward and began making his pectoral muscles in his chest jump.
Raya rolled her eyes, letting out a annoyed sigh before speaking.
"Jasper, you're such a muscle head."
Damon flexed his biceps, although he wasn't very defined like jasper, he had a solid bulge.
"Not you too. I told you being an idiot was contagious. " she murmured.
"Hold it, before this battle of the muscle for brains go on, I have to share something with you guys." She said holding out her arms and standing up.
"Not trying to bring that thing back up, but...she paused looking around trying to find the right words. Im sure it did something to me, or helped me out in some way."
"What do you mean, are you hurt, its not inside you is it. " Jasper said moving away looking with crazed eyes.
"No you idiot, i saw the same thing you saw, Damon and that thing's encounter. However, just before it left. It spoke to me personally. "
Damon and Jasper had a look of dred on their faces as they immediately thought the worse.
"It said.....she paused once more and shuffled her hands a bit.
"It said, awaken my delicate fruit, for you will be harvested when you ripen. "
Exchanging concerned glances, Damon and Jasper spoke in unison.
"Awaken. "
"Yes, I've been feeling different. I can sense my soul core has developed an ability. "
They're brows shot up at the same time, as they looked at her with big eyes.
"He, or it, forced my awakening. "
Silence fell through the area, Damon was trying to think how such a thing was possible. Jasper on the other hand was thinking how crazy it all sounded until Raya lifted up her hand.
A soft white glow surrounded her hand, concentrating deeply, instinctive knowledge flowed into her mind as a thin layer of pink and blue sparking energy formed in her hand. The colors flared up emitting showers of sparks like fireworks. The sound it made was like a stick of dynamite being ignited as the fountain of sparks fell and sprawled across the ground.
"Raya, your power...its beautiful. " Damon said out loud without realizing it. Jasper's mouth was hung to the ground.
With further concentration, the shower of sparks formed into a ball. It was like the sparks were suddenly trapped inside a snow globe or a clear balloon.
"Beautiful, I like that." She said with a smile, "it kinda look like flares." She added.
"Beautiful Flare's." She shouted out moving her hand towards the sky. The transparent shell holding the dazzling flares of light shot up and as Raya imagined releasing the flares, a mixture of burning light mixed with flashing sparkles of pink and blue lit up the night sky. High pitched whistling surfed through the air, along with many sizzling loud bangs that erupted causing a chain reaction of more quick bursts of flares and whistling small explosions.
The colors lighting up the sky could be seen reflecting in all of they're eyes as they watched in awe. Some of the flares slowly glided down near them and for a brief moment, a flash of very hot heat was felt before it went out.
No words were spoken for a few seconds. They were still taking it all in, but the first person that spoke up was Damon.
"That was awesome, I would have never thought an ability could mimic fireworks of all things. "
Raya smiled seeing how excited Damon was, turning to Jasper she covered her mouth and laughed as his jaws were still dropped to the ground.
Even though they were initially scared out of their wits, Raya's ability made their focus turn.
"He's so shock, his jaws locked up. " Damon said waving at Jasper trying to break the trance he was in.
"That's the girliest shit I've ever saw in my life. Might as well shoot glitter out of your palms." He said with a serious face.
Raya's brows turned and her eyes darkened as she stared at him like a lioness about to pounce on its prey.
"Im just kidding, it was actually badass." He quickly said before Raya thought he was being serious. A smile formed on her face and she thanked him for his compliment.
"It was still the girliest thing I ever saw though. " he added making them laugh.
The night went by with Raya experimenting with her new power. She could create flares that burned bright and extremely hot really fast, but once the temperature reached a certain degrees, it would burn out. With further practice she could hold it at a certain temperature making it burn far longer.
She could only make two transparent shells at a time that would hold her firecracker like ability in place. The ignition for her beautiful flare attack was to simply remove the thin see-through covering, from that point on it was on her to control the radius, direction and pattern of the small whistling blasts.
They quickly learned even the smallest of the blasts were not to be taken lightly. It was like dealing with a ton of small explosions that created flash burns from sudden high heat.
None of them went to sleep, too much had happened and it was still a lot on they're minds. At the first sight of dawn they moved out with a new fire lit under they're tails. They wanted to get out of the forest as quick as possible.