30 Days | (ONC 2022) ✓

Chapter 8: That Wasn't There Before

December 4, 00XX

Elliot entered through the entrance of the hidden camp by himself to find Ythyr pacing back and forth, deep in thought. He wasn't there to meet him by the tree this time and he had to go the whole way by himself.

"You weren't there," he spoke first.

"Yeah sorry, but I assumed you already knew your way here." Ythyr didn't even spare a glance at him. Elliot exhaled through his nose. What was he even feeling disappointed for?

"I did." Luckily. It was mostly muscle memory that he had managed to memorize the path to the camp.

"Have you seen anything else in your little vision of yours that told where exactly this tent was?"

Elliot tried to remember if anything stuck out to him. There was the bed... the table... "Well, there was a bookshelf. Do all the tents have bookshelves in them?"

Ythyr let out an aggravated sigh. "I didn't think so. Listen, we're going to have to turn this whole forest upside down looking for that stupid shard so I went ahead and marked down the places where they could possibly be." he produced a whole map for Elliot to see.

Elliot poked his head over his shoulder to get a better view of the map. It was a similar replica to the one the angels had in the meeting room. Except there were plenty more camps spread out, presumably the ones they were yet to soon find. Ythyr pointed to the map and made a circular motion around the forest area.

"We can start over at the nearest ones before we can start spreading out— wait, you don't even know what the other camps look like." he swore under his breath, "I guess we'll have to manually check each one. We'll take all week at this rate..."

So that's what's gotten him so worried? Elliot felt a little more sympathetic. He brought his hand up to place it on his shoulder but quickly drew it back when Ythyr's head shot up. For a moment he thought he didn't want him touching him then he realized he was looking somewhere else. He followed his gaze to find a commotion over at the other end of the camp.

Ythyr and Elliot looked up to see a tall attractive woman waving over in the distance. Her flowing red dress swished behind her with each step, her eyes glowed with a bright fiery red. Beside her, was another female demon dressed head to toe in black quietly keeping pace. The first woman's gaze landed on Elliot and he felt the immediate urge to hide behind Ythyr.

"Darmy!"

"Darmy?" Elliot looked at him, the corners of his mouth twitching up in amusement.

Ythyr cleared his throat. A visible flush came over his face. "Darmy is my nickname, my full name is Darmythyr."

"I don't know why you're embarrassed by that," Elliot said with a chuckle. "It's a pretty cute name."

"Don't you dare start calling me that!" Ythyr snapped, face full of red as he glared at him. Elliot snickered and held up his hands in mock surrender.

"Valerie. Emiya." Ythyr said, dropping his map to nod at the approaching demons. Something about the leading demon's presence reminded him a lot of Captain Adrianne. She practically commanded respect around her and had that same scary glint in her eye when he would see the Captain during training.

"Who's this adorable little boy?"

Adorable? Elliot bristled at her unexpected and most likely well-meant compliment. He took back what he had thought about her. She was the exact opposite of the Captain.

"Elliot, this is Valerie, the Moon Warrior, and Lady of the Dusk, Emiya."

"I'm Elliot," then he stupidly added, "just an angel soldier."