Panting to catch my breath, I held the sword level to the creature's neck while the skirmish raged around me. My gloved fingers tightened around the steel handle; my heart pounded in my chest; my saliva tasted of blood.

I stared at the creature. Wolf-like in appearance and shape, the Tenebrie was absent of eyes. Its monstrous jaw occupied a huge portion of its face with two great fangs protruding from its mouth amidst a row of smaller but just as deadly canines. Its usual black fur was torn and spotted with blood. 

The Tenebrie's head was pointed up at me, its tongue lolling out of its mouth.

Without letting my grip on the sword waver, I lifted my head to look at the others, watching the way they fought and killed the Tenebrie without even thinking twice. I swallowed, fearing how easy it came to them.

The creature let out a low growl, reminding me of its presence. But was it a growl or was it a whimper?

It bared its teeth at me, but when I usually would have taken it as a sign of aggression, of primal hatred, of murderous intentions, all I saw was the creature as it really was. Hurt. Alone. Threatened.

Terrified for its life.

I moved the tip of my sword away from its throat so that the steel wasn't touching the creature's bare skin.

Blood was now gushing from the cuts I had left in the creature, and the logical part of me insisted that if I didn't kill it now and show it this act of mercy, it would suffer later and die slower and much more painfully. But there was a part of me that couldn't bring myself to do it, couldn't force myself to kill the Tenebrie, because although it was a creature—a monster—it didn't deserve to live any less than we did.

I saw myself in the poor thing. How long would it be before I was the monster being hunted down and cornered against a wall, having to choose between fighting for survival or caving into death? How long before I would be in its place?

Its. As if they aren't a living, breathing, thinking animal with a complex mind. They were a Peritum at one point, weren't they? Why do they deserve to be called and labeled as a beast?

I heard yelling behind me, but I don't think anyone was paying me any mind. A quick glance over my shoulder only confirmed that; Lafayette was shouting advice to Angelica, who was up against a much larger, Tenebrie while he struggled against his own opponent.

I should be helping them, I thought, guilt pulling at my mind. But that guilt only intensified when I glanced back at the quivering creature in front of me.

"I'm sorry," I breathed to them, heart pounding in my chest. I closed my eyes and pressed the sword into the creature's neck lightly.

A roar of pain sounded through the battlefield, leaving chills running down my spine. I tried to hum to ease my mind, but the song was a desperate chaotic mess that had no rhythm or beat.

There truly was no antidote for the terror building up inside.

All I could picture was the Tenebrie laying dead at my feet, mouth ajar with the tongue lolling out. Blood staining the grass and their beautiful black fur. And then I saw a flash of myself in that same position, as a dangerous beast that everyone only sees a horrid monster incapable of feelings or love.

I couldn't bring myself to kill them, no matter how hard I tried.

I let the sword clatter to the ground.

The creature's whimpering stopped as I moved away from them, lowering my wings in a sign of submission. I only hoped that they would take it that way.

"Go," I hissed, hoping they could understand me. "Go before someone else kills you."

I don't know if they knew what I was saying or if they were acting based on pure instinct alone, but the creature obliged happily. Before they retreated into the forest, they stopped for a moment, lowering their head.

Seconds later, they disappeared into the brush, the only sign that they had ever been there in the first place a quivering branch. I sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat, and reached down to pick up my sword.

"Thomas, what is wrong with you!?" Lafayette demanded suddenly.

I glanced up, horror and embarrassment shooting through my body. He was staring at me in utter disbelief. They all were.

The field was littered with the dead bodies of the Tenebrie, the pack of the one I had just spared.

"I—" I began, but what could I say? How could I explain why it took me so much trouble to do something that typically came easy to me? "I don't know. I just—I couldn't do it."

"It was right in front of you," Hercules said carefully, a little more doubtful than Lafayette was. "You had—"

"No," I interrupted after a minute, truly having a newfound difficulty with finding my voice. "I mean—look, I really don't know—I just—I don't—okay, I—"

"Thomas? What is wrong with you?" Lafayette asked.

I doubt that he meant it to come off the way it did. Lafayette was never a harsh, rude person, and his words were not necessarily mean, and his tone was questioning and confused. There was no way that he was purposefully intending to hurt.

But it still did, regardless of intent.

"I don't know, okay?" I said finally, finding myself choking and suffocating underneath their strict stares and judgmental looks. "I just—"

"Aaron, Eliza, go after it," Washington ordered, cutting me off.

The two did as instructed, following it into the brambles despite my lamentations.

"No!" I yelled, horrified. I couldn't have spared their life for nothing. "No, leave them alone!"

"Thomas!"

"They deserve to live just as much as any of us do! What makes their life any less valuable than ours?!"

"They? Thomas, that thing would have killed you if given the chance," James dismissed, cleaning his dagger and putting it away. "It doesn't deserve your pity."

"Guys? Just drop it, okay?" Angelica hissed softly, perhaps the most unsure of herself and her opinion I've ever seen her. "Let's move on. We have more important things to worry about than just that one mon—Tenebrie."

Although she fixed her mistake rather quickly, the word she had begun to call them still cut close to my core.

I looked to Alexander, hoping somehow that he would help me with this. "Alexander, you have to agree with me." Even as I said it, I heard the doubt in my voice and saw the doubt in his gaze. "Remember how wrong it was for the king to chain up that dragon? How is this any different?"

"And you killed the dragon," Alexander said rather carefully, as if he was tiptoeing through a maze of broken glass. "I don't understand where this is coming from."

"They are not just a monster!" I hissed, feeling the back of my throat begin to burn. For the first time since I was a child, the threat of crying out of pure frustration loomed quite close.

"Yes it is, Thomas!" Washington shot back, finally losing his patience. His tone indicated that what he had to say was final and there was no room for argument. "It is nothing more than a husk. It does not have feelings. The only things it can do are hunt and fight and kill. Now that's enough."

I recoiled, but how could I leave it there? "No!" I shouted, surprising myself by the outburst. "Just because you all can't satisfy your bloodlust doesn't make it right for you to kill innocent creatures!"

But, in my defense, I've never really been known for my devotion to the rules.

Washington's face fell flat. He kept his gaze as hard and as emotionless as stone. I swallowed and stepped away from him, fearing him more in this state than when the lines of anger were fully clear on his face.

"I—" I began, searching for words, but it seemed like my bravery from five seconds ago had completely fled the scene.

"Thomas, look," Lafayette started with a bothered sigh, as if I was only an annoyance. A child that needed to be reprimanded.

"Lafay—" Angelica began warningly.

"Tenebrie are nothing more than monsters. Incapable of emotion. Incapable of thought. Incapable of love."

"It would have killed you pretty quickly," Philip added, only to my annoyance at his sudden decision to speak after staying mostly quiet throughout the conversation. "Without a second thought."

I stared at them, unable to swallow down what they had said. I was caught completely defenseless, every sense failing me except for Lafayette's words playing on repeat through my head.

So, I did what I do best.

I fled.

"Fuck all of you," I hissed at them. Without another word, I unfurled my wings and shot into the air.

"Thomas, wait," James called after me, sounding a hundred times more annoyed than concerned.

I didn't look back. Not until I was so far off the ground that they would be nothing more than tiny specks against the vast greenery of the field.

And even then, I didn't stop.

I flew as fast as I could for as long as I could until my wings started to ache. Once they did, I plopped myself down on a cloud and screamed into my hands.

I stayed up on the cloud for as long as I could even as it drifted peacefully through the sky. I let the harsh wind whip my face and pull at my hair, feeling free and temporarily relieved from what was happening to me.

I hugged my knees close to my chest and rested my face on them, staring out at the perfect blue.

At one point, I was tempted to conjure up a violin or something, just to listen to a melody that would perhaps make me feel better, but I wasn't in the mood to feel better. I felt secure in my right to be angry.

Maybe it was toxic for me to revel in the negative furious thoughts spinning through my head, but I didn't care.

It wasn't long before the sun set, and the sky was bathed in all different shades of oranges and pinks and purples. I stared out at the sky longingly. How wonderful would it be to forget about all of this and traverse through the glowing skies for the rest of my life, never confined to one place? It would be so easy to drop everything.

But by then, I knew I had to go back to them, even though I was too stubborn to move.

A sudden voice disturbed me from my thoughts.

"What do you want?" I groaned, not in the mood to talk.

"Are you done throwing your royal pity party now?" twittered Belletra quite obnoxiously. Though she sounded just as annoyed by me as I was by her. "Because it's perhaps time to get over it."

"Look, can you just go away? I'm not in the mood for this."

"And I'm not in the mood to be your damn babysitter," she shot back, landing on my shoulder as if she belonged there. "So here we are."

For an animal so small, she certainly didn't shy away from making her feelings known.

"Leave him alone, Belletra," Amica scolded, landing next to her. "You heard what the Aspis said."

"So?"

I sighed, rubbing at my temples. "For the love of Divinity. Can you two please go away before I actually kill one of you?"

"Please," Belletra scoffed, while Amica chirped in disapproval. "Can we go now? That Islander you're so invested in won't shut up about you and your safety. He's a pain."

"He also likes you," Amica teased her, nipping at her wings.

"Yes. Because he at least has a bit of sanity."

"Look," Amica said, redirecting his attention to me. "You can come back with us, or I can go get James. Your choice."

The last thing I wanted to do right now was put up with James.

"Fine," I said, rising as the two birds quickly sprang from their perch on my shoulder.

As two of my oldest friends, they knew exactly what to say to get me to bend to their will. And they never really failed in exploiting that.

They raced away into the sky, and I spread my wings and followed them. Teleporting would have been quicker and probably easier, but there was still the irrational part planted in my brain that I feared would snap out at someone if I didn't give it the chance to ease just a little bit more.

It was fully dark by the time the lights of the castle were visible on the forest floor below. I landed on the terrace as regally as I could and folded my wings seconds later.

The door to the sitting room was drawn open and the orange glow from the lamps were spilling onto the floor of the terrace. I heard chattering from inside, dropped low to a nervous rumble.

I watched for a moment, my heart steadily picking up pace. I had just finally decided to turn and fly upstairs straight to my room and skip the whole conversation thing when Alexander's voice drifted clearly through the hushed whispers.

"Thomas!" He sounded a mix of things, relieved, doubtful, concerned, and perhaps a bit annoyed. But he flashed me a smile nonetheless, warm and welcoming. "There you are. Are you alright?"

I sighed inwardly and joined the rest of them. "I'm fine. Just needed to clear my head."

"Thomas!" Philip exclaimed, shooting up. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what we said but we should have stopped after we saw that it hurt you and—"

"I'm fine," I said sharply. Even I heard the wariness pulling at my voice. "It was stupid to get mad over. I'm sorry."

I hated having to apologize, especially when I wasn't sorry for what I said.

"I'm going to be upstairs if you need me," I informed them, meeting Angelica's eyes momentarily. I cringed at the knowing and sympathetic look she gave me.

I didn't want anyone to see me as someone who can't take care of myself.

Still, I turned and left them alone, retreating to the library in hopes I might forget what Lafayette had said.