A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

"It's done," Elora said, "It really wasn't very hard, as it's not a complicated sigil."

As the beastbinder sigil disappeared from Astrid's back, the blood-crazed insanity inside her had nothing to hold it back anymore, so she began screeching and flailing wildly in Erik's arms.

But, it was useless. They were both second-rank, but with Elora boosting Erik's physical capabilities and Astrid being far more exhausted than him, there was no way she could escape from his grip.

As he continued to hold her in place, he turned to the exhausted Emily, who was still panting and sitting on the ground. "Come over here, Emily. It's not time to sit on your ass yet. I need you to enslave her."

Emily chuckled, "No rest for the wicked, Boss?"

He rolled his eyes, "That's right. Now, get going. You think it's comfortable holding her back like this?"

Sighing, Emily stood up, "Fine, fine. Damn, slavedriver."

While walking towards Erik, she gained a complicated look on her face. "Are you sure you want me to do this? I don't know who she is to you, but she seems important."

Her question was a fair one. They hadn't come to an understanding that long ago, after all, and if Emily still held some resentment, using Astrid was a great way to get some leverage over Erik.

Who would be faster: Erik, wielding the covenant's power to wrest control of Astrid from Emily, or Emily, exploiting her enslavement of Astrid to compel suicide?

The covenant, after all, was only good for short-term commands. Anything long-term had to be part of the original deal, so simply ordering her now not to harm Astrid would be pointless.

While Astrid continued to growl and struggle in his arms, Erik shook his head. "Trust is a two-way street. You trust me, so I'll trust you." For Erik, that wasn't entirely true, however.

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Erik and Elora were big believers in the proverbs 'trust but verify' and 'better safe than sorry', so they had taken some additional precautions in case a situation arose where the covenant wasn't enough to prevent a possible betrayal by Emily. Even Emma wasn't spared from those precautions.

Some people would say the duo had a small problem with trust.

And they would be right.

But Emily had no idea about this, of course. She couldn't help but smile a little. Being trusted by someone she had begrudgingly come to respect felt good. "I'll try not to let you down then," she said as she conjured a pitch-black magic circle and touched Astrid's forehead with it.

Enslaving the mind of a second rank took at least a few seconds, and Erik decided to fill the silence. "You did a good job against that vampire. I honestly expected I might have to save you at some point, but you didn't even get a scratch."

Despite the compliment, Emily looked a little angry at herself and had to refocus to continue forming a mental connection with Astrid. "Yeah, but I didn't defeat her."

Erik shook his head, "Don't beat yourself up over that. It was a bad matchup for you. Personally, I actually think we made a great team."

Emily couldn't believe the warm feeling she felt flowing through her body because of his words. What happened to the tough girl she was supposed to be? She decided not to answer and quickly finished forming the connection before turning around to hide her slight blush. "Y- Yeah, well… anyway. It's done, so let's get going?"

Erik grinned at her behaviour and finally released Astrid, who had stopped growling and now just stood silent with a glassy look in her eyes. Erik inwardly apologised to his childhood friend for instantly enslaving her again just after she got free.

Luckily, it wouldn't be for long. Soon, she would truly be free.

Emily stood at the bottom of the cliff they had just jumped down from and looked up. "So, uh, I'm sure you and the ghoul can climb up there, but how am I supposed to do it?"

Erik, still in his werewolf form, released a growling chuckle. "Surely that should be obvious, no?" The moment he finished talking, he grabbed Emily by the waist and tossed her over his shoulder.

"Ah! Asshole! Stop doing that!" she yelped.

Erik laughed as he began the climb up. "But you make it so much fun!"

Emily grumbled a little with her arms crossed as she hung over his shoulder, forced to look downwards while they climbed higher and higher. She thanked her lucky stars she wasn't afraid of heights.

Seeing Astrid still standing there, she quickly remembered to mentally command her to follow them.

Looking up, Erik could already see the smiling face of Emma looking over the edge and waving at them. Clearly, she had dispelled her thorn dome when the sounds of fighting died down and wanted to check if he and Emily were alright.

Erik sighed, 'foolish girl,' he thought, 'what if we had lost?'

When they arrived on top, Erik put Emily down, and Emma quickly began fussing over them, "Are you both alright?! There's so much blood down there!"

She inspected both of them for any injuries with a worried expression but found nothing apart from gashes on Erik's armour. Erik and Emily just let her do her thing with indulgent smiles.

Despite her smile and the clear happiness at her little sister's behaviour, Emily couldn't help but roll her eyes, "We're fine, little Em. You should have seen the Boss fighting like a maniac down there! Now, stop fussing already!"

Emily never received any wounds, and Erik had already healed for the most part, as all his wounds were not much more than superficial scratches after just barely piercing through his armour and ice barrier.

Meanwhile, any blood had already been cleaned by Elora, so the only thing left was the damage to his armour, which would take a few days to fix.

Yet, when Emma touched the gashes in his armour, she looked up at him with a worried expression despite seeing no blood. "Are you sure you're fine, Sir?"

Erik smiled and returned to human form before caressing Emma's silky white hair. "Yes, Emma, I'm fine."

His expression then morphed into a frown. He took her chin in his hand and made her look into his eyes. "But you wouldn't have been if we'd lost that fight. You should have stayed hidden until we actually got up here and made our presence known."

Smiling brightly, Emma gave an answer that shocked both Erik and Emily, "What would be the point of that? Had you both died, I would have jumped from the cliff anyway."

Erik even felt Elora's soul tremble just a little bit inside of him, though that was likely just surprise.

Seeing Erik and Emily lost for words while their expressions went from shock to anger to sadness, she suddenly felt a little guilty over her hasty words.

Erik had already released her chin, so she looked at her feet and poked her fingers together. "S- Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I guess my thoughts got a little away from me while I sat up here and listened to you fighting.

It's just… the two of you are all I have. Setting aside whether I would want to continue living without you two, I don't even have any survival or fighting skills. All I can do is do a little healing or curl up in a ball to protect myself temporarily."

Clearly, the bright-eyed girl still had some demons inside her.

As her words sank in, Erik felt the weight of her life press down on his shoulders, and he sighed. He removed the upper pieces of his armour and took Emma into a hug without saying a word.

What could he say? I don't want to hear you say such things? That wouldn't change her feelings, nor, in fact, the reality. Because she was right. This was a dangerous world, and Emma had no real way of protecting herself. All she could do was rely on Erik and Emily.

Back on Söl and most other planets out there, healers were highly regarded and would often have powerful bodyguards. But here on Earth, it would really all depend on who you encounter, and considering what they knew of the Enclave and Dominioin, neither of them was likely to care about her abilities.

Emily also closed in, and it soon became a three-way hug, with Emma in the middle.

"Idiot girl," Emily whispered.

"We need to get her to rank two. Or at least give her some other method of fighting. And soon." Erik said to Elora inwardly.

Elora responded immediately, "Yeah…" Then sent him a mental sigh, "This is what you get when you're a bleeding heart, you know."

Meanwhile, Emma still looked guilty over causing them distress but also smiled a little as she enjoyed the hug.

After a few minutes they separated and seemed to have come to a tacit agreement not to talk about what just happened. At least, not for now.

Seeing the awkward mood she had created, Emma quickly tried to think of a way to change the topic and notice the ghoul with glassy eyes, who had been standing next to them this whole time.

"So, who's this?" she asked.