Nyell Felt Like Throwing Up

His mind felt groggy, so much so that Nyell momentarily forgot his very name. It took him a few more seconds to realize he was slowly emerging from a deep but agitated sleep. His limbs felt heavy, almost as if they had been turned into iron. He could barely move his pinkies, much less his toes.

What the hell? What had he done last night to end up in such a sorry state…? It didn't feel like it was a hangover. Or maybe it was? He might have forgotten what hangovers were like. He hadn't touched alcohol and the like in months, after all. The last time he did drink, he drank his mind off after his mother's death, rendering him sick for days, which worried his sister to no end. Following this episode, he resolutely decided to get alcohol out of his life.

If it wasn't alcohol, what was it…?

And then, memory land came crashing in.

As the scenes of last night flashed through his mind, his breath was taken away just as if someone had punched him in the guts. Right. They snuck into Burg's dream after Hersyl's funeral. The horrifying sights he had seen gradually surfaced amid the troubled memories.

Nyell kept his eyes closed even after coming around, his thoughts in disarray. He needed time to assimilate the disheartening truth he'd discovered about his uncle's demise and even more time to appease the fury trashing in the pit of his stomach. The idea of storming into the elders' rooms and wringing their necks one after another was oh-so-very tempting, but Nyell knew better than to let his emotions reign free.

Sadly, there were still things Nyell needed to figure out before getting rid of these not-so-very human elders. He had no choice but to grind his teeth and keep his anger in check for the time being.

Nyell smacked his lips as the unpleasant sensation of having his mouth stuffed with sand and cotton started to dull his tongue. The after-effects from the herbs showed themselves, reminding him that he might or might not have slept for a long time. When the thought crossed his mind, his ears, which seemed to have been turned off until now, caught wind of the shushing noise of the tribe's daily life coming from outside his hut. Noon seemed to be just around the corner.

"Awake?"

His father's voice echoed into Nyell's ears like a drumming drum, and he responded with a grunt. Unlike his son, Corriel was used to ingesting sleeping herbs and naturally woke up first. 

His head was throbbing, but Nyell had things to do, so he forced himself to open his eyes and sit on his bed. He rubbed his temples as he did, only to freeze mid-sitting when his gaze landed on his father sitting on the ground, his legs straight. It wasn't what troubled him, of course. No, it was Lapis's sleeping position: the shaman was currently using Corriel's thighs as a pillow. His sleeping face looked peaceful, almost like a child snuggling against their mother's embrace. His brows were relaxed, and soft snores escaped his parted lips.

"Don't throw me that look," Corriel sighed, "He had already taken possession of my thighs when I woke up. And, well, he looks so at ease that I don't have the heart to push him away."

"I didn't say anything, though," Nyell responded, cocking an eyebrow as he straightened his back to sit against the wall.

"Your gaze spoke volumes."

The father and son pair stared at each other for a brief moment before getting to the subject that interested them, ignoring the sleeping shaman. They knew the events of yesterday and last night had been exhausting for the man, both physically and mentally. He needed time to recover, and neither thought of waking him up. They spoke in a low voice, trying not to disturb Lapis's much-needed sleep.

"You know, I've been racking my brain over what we've found, and many questions popped into my mind," Corriel started. He had been up since the early hours of the day and thus had all the time in the world to ponder the matter. "Don't you find it strange that Dangu only started to spirit away our people after Hulien's death?"

"Now that you mention it," Nyell frowned. "If my memory serves me right, the first person to disappear has been Deif, right? We noticed he was gone a few days after the funeral. Before mom's passing, we never had any weird disappearance cases." 

"Right?" Corriel nodded. "And there's another thing that has been bothering me…"

Corriel paused as if searching for the right words to use. But no matter how he'd say it, it wouldn't sound nice. 

"All the victims have one more common denominator other than visiting our shaman within a few days before their disappearance: they are all people that, in the elders' eyes, are either a burden to the tribe or a thorn to their side." 

A blank look distorted Nyell's facial expression at these words, and he stared at his father with dead-fish-like eyes. Corriel didn't point it out, knowing his son tended to make that face when he processed shocking news. 

Could Corriel be right…?

Silence befell the room as Nyell reviewed each victim in his mind and slowly realized his father was onto something. The victims were mostly found among elderly tribe members, adults and children who had become disabled from either an injury or a disease, and orphans who had no one to take care of them. As for the healthy victims, they had been voicing complaints about the elders, the traditions, or how they were doing things. They were trying to bring changes to the tribe. Although some had been outright annoying and disturbing the peace and quiet of the tribe with their protests, Nyell knew they weren't bad people. None of them deserved to be spirited away.

Why had he never noticed the pattern? Nyell felt like an idiot, but he also knew he wouldn't have seen it had he not started to doubt the elders' integrity. Although he had always seen them as bothersome, he never once thought they had it in them to drive their fellow tribe members to their deaths. 

"And," Corriel continued with a strange look on his face that Nyell couldn't quite decipher, "I also find it strange that Dangu agreed to release the souls his familiar spirit caught just because of Allen's pleas. If he was indeed a wrathful daemon who had it for the tribe, Allen wouldn't be able to negotiate with him, and he would never, ever let go of his prey. After thinking about it more, I don't think his goal is to enact revenge on the whole tribe when we take this information into account. It just doesn't align with a wrathful daemon's behavior. At least, for what is known about them."

"Could it be…"

Realization struck Nyell like lightning. Maybe, just maybe, Dangu had been aware that he had fallen into the elders' trap and that the other tribe members had nothing to do with his death. With this in mind, the ones who had incurred his wrath were actually the elders and only the elders. His targets had been them, not his fellow tribe members. The question remaining was: why did he wait for Hulien's death before acting? It was a question they probably would have no answer to as long as they didn't ask Dangu in person.

"We initially thought that the shaman was working with the daemon," Corriel started, "but what if she's been following the elders' orders since the beginning?"

Then that would mean their shaman, who people trusted with their lives, had been sending innocent people to their deaths, her first victim being Hulien. Nyell wouldn't be surprised. The elders most likely considered these numerous deaths as necessary sacrifices to appease the daemon's wrath. For, of course, their lives were worth more than the lives of the very own people they had pledged to guide and protect. They were wiser and more important than ordinary tribe members, as the tribe needed their presence to survive.

That was most certainly their reasoning, as they would never admit simply being afraid of death.

As such, the elders wanted to feed Dangu until he had his fill and returned to a deep slumber. Until then, they would keep misleading his familiar spirit toward the people they judged as unnecessary or troublesome. The poor thing, Nyell had noticed, wasn't very bright. It was just like a dog. But because its owner couldn't enter the tribe, thanks to an ancient array encircling the tribe's village to protect it from malevolent beings, Myur was tasked with bringing the elders. It could enter the tribe's ground as it was a being too innocent to be considered harmful: it had no conception of good and bad and was thus seen as neutral. 

Now, everything made sense.

And Nyell felt like throwing up.