Anything For You
Chapter 91

"Did you talk to her about me?" Estella hurriedly asked Egon holding his right arm the moment he stepped into the resting house with Akhim after visiting Evanora. Valor coughed lightly from behind all of them, making a coughing gesture. Estella quickly corrected herself and hastened herself questioning Egon again,

"I mean us...Did you talk to her about us? That we need her help..! What .... What did she say? Is she ready to help us? Will she see us?"

She bombarded Egon with tons of questions, but he was so indulged in grieving his father, and his miserable death, the events that led to it, that he barely replied back her and kept on hanging his head down. Estella frowned her eyebrows getting no response from him, and her hold on his arm tightened almost squeezing him, urging him to answer her questions, at least one of them.

He didn't answer at all, and kept on moving ahead like a lifeless person. His dishelved face and expressionless eyes were scaring Estella to her core. She couldn't understand as to what exactly happened to him, back there. Thus, averting her questioning gaze from Egon to Akhim, her eyes kept on screaming the same insecurities to him too.

Akhim noticed the change of expressions in her eyes and her face, which had already turned pale like a dead leaf, and collected some of the words to let her get relaxed,

"I ... actually, I don't know what happened there. I was like, I was .... I was trapped there, and when I got free, he was already like this. But yes, before leaving, he asked about your visit, to which Evanora just hummed. So, we don't know precisely the meaning of that. But if she is okay with that, she will define send someone to tell us."

Akhim said all the words to Estella, as if he had long been phrasing the sentences. Egon had already left from there and cornered himself in the room. Making the posture of a lost child, he gathered his knees to his chest, and hugged himself tightly letting out shallow whimpers.

Akhim gestured Estella to calm him down. When she patted over his shoulder, he let of all the courage, and hugged her, loosing himself. He was grieving, for his lost childhood, his mother, his father, that dead snake couple... he didn't know for whom!! But he was in immense pain, and now only Estella could help him. Soon, his shallow whimpers weren't audible anymore, and he slept like a baby in her arms.

She made him rest over the soft mattress, and caressed his cheeks before leaving. But Someone had been watching all this from a corner. Just as Estella shut the door lightly after Egon slept peacefully, she turned and bumped into someone hardly. Looking up at the concerned person, she widened her eyes first and then narrowed a bit,

"What are you doing here? I was startled just now.!"

She asked Valor, who had been gazing into her deep eyes as if trying to suck out the hidden secrets. He didn't reply to her question, instead framed his own question, and almost took her off guard, "What do you think Estella? Would Evanora agree to see us, both? What ... what if she denies!?"

Estella was also worried for the same reason. And looking at Egon, she was baffled even more, because he had surely found everything, which he had been desiring his whole life. If only Evanora agreed, she could be at rest, because this was the only reason for why she was here in the first time.

Just as she was about to say something, they both heard a slight knock at the main door. Since, they were all new to this village, nobody had been very much aware about them. Who could be here at this moment? Valor approached at the main door, while Akhim was washing his face in the backyard. He too heard the sound, but didn't pay much attention because of today's incidents.

"Yes, how may I help you?" Valor questioned the man in front of him, who looked like a villager, but his attire was quite attractive for a common villager.

"This is for you and Lady Estella." Saying this he passed Valor a hair pin and a white starry stick. After this, the man disappeared in thin air as if he didn't even exist at the first place.

Valor narrowed his gaze to look at the things in his hand and at once recognized the stick. This belonged to his long lost love, his dear friend, regarding whom he was do eager to see Evanora. On the other hand, Estella approached him from the other side, and hastily grabbed the hair pin. She had tears in her eyes looking at the accessory. It belonged to her late mother.

But how come, it was with that villager, when she was the one who always carried it with herself. She immediately marched towards her room, and retrieved the same hair pin from her bag. Within a swift moment, the hair pin delivered by that villager disappeared, leaving a message over Estella's palm saying,

"Looking forward to meet you, Estella."

Valor had been amazed once again. This witch prodigy never seemed to stop fascinating them with her magic and magical methods. He knew that it was a yes from her side, and his happiness had no leaps and bounds. He at once marched towards Estella and hugged her happily murmuring,

"Now, we can see our loved ones. We can at least see them for once, Estella. I ... I can't tell you, how happy I am."

Both of them maintained their calm composures after certain minutes, and Akhim was also there by now, who understood the reason behind their happy faces. But we're they really ready to face their pasts!? This was the most intriguing question that had been making Akhim restless since he had witnessed Egon in that sorrowful state.

The meeting was fixed for next day afternoon. All of them were in their rooms with different thoughts. Egon was calmed by now, but still feeling bad. Akhim was wondering about what they had to do further, since the only motive of Egon's arrival to this far away village had been fulfilled. Estella and Valor both were eager and waiting for the afternoon. Everybody dozed off.

While at the other end of village, the strange and mysterious man was performing some magical spells, maybe trying to find something. He was none other than the same man, who had collected the group's footprints and thrown woodden beads over bathing Estella in the morning. He had so many things arranged ahead of him, and was now using those beads to perform magic.

Chanting some spells, he took the beads in his hands, closed his eyes and after a moment, submerged the beads in blood and then thrown into fire burning in front of him. Within a second, the woodden beads started to glow greener and then burning. His maniac laughter echoed in the room.

Over her bed, Suddenly Estella growled in pain. She was tossing and turning over her bed in an awkward position, and was now yelling, as if her whole body was on fire. Her whimpers turned louder and louder, soon changing into heart piercing ones, waking up Valor who was in the adjacent room reading a book.

She was burning, yelling and her soft glassy skin had all turned into blood red, as if she had suffered third degrees burns. Valor stepped out of his room immediately and marched forward to hers, hastily opening the door of her room, only to be left stunned to his core, as if he had seen the unseen and unimaginable.

Estella, who was a human a moment ago in front of his eyes, burning in pain, crying, tossing and turning all over the bed, was now turned into a giant green colored snake, and was shedding the skin. She was moulting. Valor stood there as if he had been struck with a thousand bolts of lightening, while Estella (now the giant green snake) continued tossing over the bed and shedding the pieces of her skin here and there.

Valor was unable to move his eyes. He stood there glued as if his soul had been sucked out of his body. He wasn't able to decipher what was happening. After some moments, Estella shifted back to her human form, lying over the bed on shreds of her shed skin, panting and whimpering.

She had Benn through mountings in the past, but none was that much painful. It looked like someone had forced her to moult, because it was not the time to do so, when she had already she'd her skin prior to leaving her cave. Fear aroused in her mind, and her body shivered sensing that someone had come to known about her identity. She composed herself slowly and collected the skin shreds, hauling up from the bed and keeping them in a box in her bag.

Valor had still not moved and kept standing there, holding the wall for support. He moved his gazed along with Estella's movements and Murmured under his breath in a tone which was sophisticated and inaudible to only himself, "Holy Lord, she ... she is a shifter. A snake-human hybrid!!"