“A reason...?” he murmured. “Like what? What can you think of...?”

Ann gave him a confounded flustered look as he smiled at her and she shrugged and glared up away from him and at the moon. “You know even better then I do Brandon that there are some things that are just...too horrible to be recalled, some things best left forgotten to time.”

At the reminder of his past torture Brandon clenched his fists.

“I suppose I do...” he agreed with her, then he licked his lips and nodded. “Still if the truth waiting for me was better left forgotten its too late for me to turn back now. I need to know...even if doing this puts me in danger, or it kills me....” Brandon expressed, and then he felt a different pang inside full of painful regret, and all he could think about was Ezekiel.

Almost as if she were reading the sorrow on his face Ann suddenly asked him. “And what of your Leopard love, Ezekiel? You would die and leave him behind in pursuit of things that time wanted to forsake; things that happened to long ago to truly even matter now? Things that may have been pushed aside for a REASON...”

Brandon glowered at the other Mana User and sighed at her niggling questions.

“Look, If you’re asking me if I would die for him, then the answer is yes Ann. Yes a million times over.” Brandon proclaimed proudly and sharply and without any hesitation. Ann cast him a look of angry denial that he didn’t understand, but he just tapped his chest and kept talking.

" I cant make you understand this, but I am only doing this for him. I don’t want answers for just me anymore. I want them because to be with Ezekiel and to save him from the wrath of my enemies I have to know what my past holds. And if my past is the blade that ends my life then I happily march towards the edge and I will plunge it into my own chest and yes I will leave Ezekiel behind...if it means he gets to live!”

Ann looked away and shook her head. “You would die for the Reaver that is clear, but that’s not what is asked of you. No one needs your death...Well it seems that if we reach this summit and whatever lies at the top does kill you?” Ann tightened her hands before her and she whispered raggedly. “...Then my own life will be forfeit as well...and I will deserve it for helping you be a fool.”

“What? Why!” Brandon shot her a look of alarmed confusion for her dark statements.

But Ann just gave him a blank stare then she leaned in and she tapped her temple. “Brandon consider exactly what I have done. I have as good as kidnapped you.”

Brandon sighed in frustration and dropped his head back. “Jezz! No! No you didn’t kidnap me! I asked you to help me escape!”

Ann cast him a sad smirk, and behind her eyes Brandon saw a raw flash of serious guilt he just didn’t understand. “Druid you think that Reaver will just forgive me for helping you so easily? Im not a fool. I know how he feels about you and how serious Ezekiel is about your safety. I watched him unleash a nightmare upon the Brotherhood just to take you back from them. So that Leopard will hunt me to the day I die if any harm comes to you while you are in my care. In fact considering how mad he is about you I never should have helped you in the first place and expected to be left alone. That beast is likely to cut me to ribbons the next time we meet face to face, weather you get damaged or not actually.”

Brandon tsked and tried to smile off her words, even though a chill of unease did touch his heart at the idea of Ezekiel’s anger being directed at Ann because of something he asked the other Mana User to do.

“Don’t worry Ann. If we get to the Ishtar mountains and then go back to the Leopards in one piece I promise I won’t let Ezekiel hurt you....” Brandon swallowed as his throat suddenly got tight and his eyes started to sting slightly. ” Besides if anything hell be too angry at me to even pay you any mind. I know I hurt him by leaving and there is no doubt in my mind that Ill have to seriously fight to get him to forgive me...”

“No doubt...but this is all a mote point if we do get to the top of this mountain.” Ann quipped.

Brandon nodded. “Its not like I have a choice! So stop trying to make me hesitate...”

Ann cut him off with a slight glare. “You don’t give yourself much choice because you actually don’t think you have one!” Ann spat tapping a fist into her left knee. “You’re convinced that your salvation is in this mysterious place of your dreams, but...what if whatever lies at the top is your destruction Brandon? What then? How does that help anyone!?”

Brandon scoffed and he frowned at his teacher. With some aggravation he began to refute her point. “Ann why are you so dramatic and pessimistic all of a sudden? I’m telling you that nothing that happens matters to me, because I will face it, and none of this will end in my regret because I’m doing it for Ezekiel.”

“Stupid...you don’t think that you may regret the things you’re doing now just because you’re doing them in love?” Ann rolled her eyes. “Well I can only warn you that regret cuts deepest when it is because of love.”

Brandon scoffed condescending and cold. “Ah yes and you would know my oh so wise and traveled teacher.” Brandon dropped his head, scratched at his face in annoyance and continued. “Come on Ann, you spent you entire life in the Brotherhood, in the BASE. What do you know of regret beside your regrets towards following the Brotherhood, HUH!?”

“You don’t get what Im saying to you. You cant regret this choice because you don’t understand what you are willingly to sacrificing! You don’t! You don’t even know what you mean to that Reaver....” Anns face crumbled into a mask of furious disgust. Her voice came out pained and furious “You have no idea!”

Brandons heckles rose and he snapped back. “What the fucks that supposed to mean!?”

Anger and shame rolled across his heart as Brandon saw the flinty dagger of blame and censure in Ann’s eyes, as if she were blaming him for a terrible wrong. He understood what she was saying, and yet the a part of him felt like he was being denounced for a sin he didn’t really understand. He knew leaving Ezekiel behind was wrong but....it was as though Ann were reproaching him for more.

“I don’t want to hurt him or leave him! I also don’t want to die, but I left because Ezekiel isn’t safe beside me. Im TOO WEAK to protect him from the BANE or the Brotherhood! How can you say I dont understand what I’m sacrificing when all I think about is him!?”

Brandon touched his chest, his hands hovering over the hollow ache inside that had only been growing like a hollow cavern in his body ever since he had left Ezekiel’s arms. He rubbed at the ghostly agony, but just thinking of the Guardian made him feel broken.

I need to see him, touch him, hear his voice so bad its like...but you act like I don’t know that me leaving him would destroy Ezekiel!? You think I don’t understand that I’m just like everyone else and I left him alone. He told me Im the only thing in the world that he feels truly connected to and...I abandoned my Reaver and that is on my mind every second and minute that passes.

Brandons own thought flayed him to the bone and his heart ached at the fact that what he was feeling was true, but there was also the undeniable fact that he knew he couldn’t have done things any other way.

So instead of speaking his guilt and shame to his teacher he just clenched his teeth and he scoffed at her. “You’re not as wise as you think you are! You have no right to lecture me on my choices or about Ezekiel! You have no idea about anything I’m going through!”