The Beast Within

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"It's no matter." Haneul shrugged, his shoulders heaving slightly in a faint sigh. "I had expected it for a while so I was prepared." He dropped into a crouch, picking up a small rock.

"I'm mostly relieved." He added, his voice coming out hoarse.

He did not mean that in a horrible, hateful way because his grandmother was already over living.

Living was a pain to her but she was strong enough to bear it till it was her time to leave.

"She could not wait to die." He quipped with chipped laughter.

Ceraun crouched with him. "No surprise there, you don't even have to be a step in the grave to think that as a Mage." He said with bitter bluntness.

Haneul hummed, his grandmother's only sadness had been leaving him behind, he did not mind, life did not seem so bleak as it did months ago, he thinks?

"All that gloomy news aside, I presume you both plan to join the army."

Adrik responded with a huff, kicking a rock which went hurtling down the slope, ricochetting against others than also followed in the fall.

"What do you think?"

"I don't see you two picking up hammers to go off and slave your lives away at the mines." Hanejl muttered truthfully, they were truly the reason he had chosen to join the army as well.

"Oy! Haneul!" Ceraun jumped to his feet in realization, his eyes blown wide in shock. "Don't tell me you also plan on joining the army??!"

Haneul stood up as well with a frown. "Well, what do you look so surprised for, eh?"

"Why would you want to do that?" Ceraun demanded, looking unreasonably upset.

"Why are you two joining then?" He accused them, going on the defensive.

"To save the Mages from the tyranny of non-Mages." Ceraun growled with aggression.

"I want to find out about our past." Adrik replied, octaves quieter than the fair haired Mage.

Their deep rooted responses made Haneul go quiet, his brows furrowed in deep thought.

His own reason of joining simply because they were, now paled in canparison to their grave and glory filled ones.

"Do I need to have a weighty reason to join the army?" He finally grumbled out, petulant.

"If you're going there to die, yes." Ceraun fired harshly.

"He is not, shut up, Feyrer." Adrik cut off Ceraun's building oral explosion. "You can join for whatever reason you want to Haneul, ignore Feyrer's foolish babbling." He added quietly, kicking another rock down.

A dark cloud had already settled over Haneul's features, grubby hands twisted around each other as he stared into the distance, the morning sun heating up his cheeks.

"Perhaps Ceraun is right…" he started to mumble, trailing off.

"No, Feyrer is full of s**t, if you want to join the army for whatever reason, he should not be the judge of that." Adrik cut him off in a rare show of support.

Haneul looked up skeptically at him. "T-thank you?"

"He is just trying to get rid of you." Ceraun scoffed.

"Perhaps." Adrik shrugged nonchalantly. "But at least I'm not ruining his hopes and dreams…"

"f**k off, Adrik." He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to rein in his anger. "I'm actually worried about him, unlike you."

"Shut it, both of you." Haneul cut off their rapidly escalating argument, well only Ceraun seemed incensed, Adrik looked as indifferent as ever.

It was indeed a strange occurrence how the both of them could be friends.

"When I say I choose to join the army because of the both of you, I do not mean that because you both choose to join the army, I decided to do the same, I'm not dimwitted…"

"Unlike, unfortunately, someone else…" Adrik commented, looking away.

Ceraun bared his teeth at this, staring daggers at the other as he readied himself to retaliate.

"I know about the dead non-Mage soldier." Haneul said quietly, his voice grave.

Ceraun and Adrik immediately froze up at these words, bodies going rigid as they swiveled their heads sharply in his direction.

All the color washed out of Ceraun's face, his eyes wide in horror as he stuttered. "W-what? Y-you know about him? Of c-course you do, it is pretty common knowledge."

Haneul snorted at their shabby attempts at being inconspicuous. "Stop that, both of you, you are both incredibly horrible liars, I should know, I had to become adept at it."

"Tell us what you know about the non-Mage soldier." Adrik prompted, expression stern.

"Everything that you do and perhaps more." Haneul crouched again, this time sitting all the way down on the dirty ground with his legs hanging off the edge of the slope.

Ceraun and Adrik shared an alarmed look.

"Stop looking like you have both seen a ghost, it has been weeks since then, if I am yet to tell on you by now, what makes you think I would suddenly change my mind?"

"You are not telling on us?" Ceraun prompted, hesitant.

"Of course not, now sit, or I'll keep my tale to myself."

Ceraun was quick to drop to the ground, legs flung out every which way while Adrik hesitated.

"The ground is dirty." He half grumbled, looking straight forward.

"Don't be such a fop, Adrik, it's just dirt." Ceraun scolded, reaching up a hand to drag his friend down.

Adrik landed with a huff and a couple vicious curses, the wind knocked out of him.

They both looked expectantly to Haneul when they were both settled in, waiting for him to tell them.

Haneul sighed heavily, although it had not been his secret, it had weighed heavily on his mind, it was relieving to unburden it somewhat even though it was to the owners of the secret themselves.

"Are you really not going to report us to the soldiers though?" Ceraun spoke out loud when Haneul took a tad too long to begin talking.

"I told you I have known of this since the very day it happened." Haneul muttered in disbelief, he could understand why they would doubt his word of truth but that didn't mean it did not hurt.

"Perhaps you wanted us to be aware of what you were doing?" Adrik mumbled under his breath.

Haneul shot him an icy look, the wind picking up a bit. "I'm not cruel, I did what I had to do to survive and I'm not ashamed of that." He said crisply. "Besides I am no longer a spy for the non-Mages, say what you will but at least hear my tale first."

"Fine, go ahead." Ceraun prompted, already impatient.

He could see how anxious Haneul got just as he was about to begin and he could already tell that he would not quite like the first words that dropped from his mouth.