The path walked from there was far more winding than when they had first set foot down below. Artison wasn't looking around as much as they walked through the streets, and Mira followed with her hand still in Artison's. She would take a moment once and a while, looking around and trying to figure out what kind of path this was. It was strange, given time and experience, she could tell many times Artison was going around buildings when walking in between would have been much easier. Often she would try to ask or tell Artison about this, but he seemed to know. Mira didn't raise her voice to ask about it or why he did what he did. She just kept her mouth shut and followed him, but as soon as she wasn't being dragged, Mira still was puzzled as to where they were. There were more buildings and shanties made of scrap metal and cloth, all were up against the base of other spires as normal.




"So... you lived around here?" Mira said, "But which of these, umm... huts, was your home, Artison?" She got no answer, "Artison?"

Artison was just staring ahead, a spire base with a rather large building in front of it. There was so much wrong with it though. The roof had collapsed and so many of the walls were hunks of metal warped by heat and dissipated, bending outward from what must have been the weight above. Glass was in jagged shards barely clinging to the frame, but no shards on the ground seemed to be left behind anymore. The building had more wood than usual and most of it was charcoal by this point. Artison said nothing about this though, he just stared at it like he was looking at a corpse. Ears down, breath shaky, and tail drooped.

"Artison?" Mira dared not touch him, she just looked between him and this ruin, "I'm sorry Artison, If I knew, this was why you didn't want to go back I..."

"What happened?..." Words finally escaped Artison's lips, "What happened?..." he started walking into the ruin, he just kept repeating, "What happened?..." Asking someone that didn't seem to be there, or perhaps he wasn't fully there anymore.




Mira followed, Artison seemed to know where he was going, but would still stumble at times through the rubble trying to do certain things. Climb destroyed stairs, push a door that wasn't there... And when he would stop, he would just stare at the wreckage of a room or feel some of the burned furniture. "Artison, I... Maybe we should go..."

Artison didn't answer her, he looked in her direction, tears in his eyes, and then ran out of the building.

---

Part 11

Part 10: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/58148329/

Part 12: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/58252668/

Mira (C) Calypso-Dreams

Artison, Loretta, art, and character (C)  watcher12