#garren

Victims:

@neal-illustrator

RökRöst (AF)

Botra (AF)

CloudiNova (AF/Toyhouse)

@blacklightarts

@localcryingb

mid_summer_doge (IG/AF)

@sharkchaseaddict

tanuki_kabuki (IG/AF)

bebz.jpg (IG)

@anneliis18

Vogue Italia January 1992

Peggy Moffitt, Il Ritorno Di Una Modella-Mito

ALSO I WAS NOT PREPARED TO HEAR CROKAS GOT PAITIAS FUCKING ORB LIKE HOLY SHIT

Midnight Mercenaries Prompt #1

“They’ll catch on fire when you loose ‘em!” 

Garren did not hesitate when Sheizara shoved the arrows into his hand. He didn’t even question it, just nodded, already turning, already drawing. His fingers moved with instinct, muscle memory and panic taking over instead of really considering what he was about to do. The first arrow flew clean and true, embedding itself squarely in the chest of one of the shambling, flower-covered corpses lurching toward a pair of wounded civilians. Bullseye. Nice.

For half a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, it ignited. Flame bloomed outward in a sudden rush, catching fast as if the thing had been soaked in oil. The corpse jerked violently, spine arching as that layered, discordant shriek tore out of it, and then it ran. Not at him, not away from him, just ran.

“Wait!”

Garren’s second arrow was already in the air before he could stop himself. Another hit and another ignited. Another shrieking, flailing, wildly sprinting horror careened off course and slammed shoulder-first into a tent, which caught almost immediately on fire with a *whumph*. Garren froze. That wasn’t… that was not how that was supposed to go.

A third one, already burning, sprinted past him with arms flailing, and bowled directly into a stack of supply crates. Flames spread with alarming enthusiasm, licking up canvas and wood alike. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Sheizara already moving and dragging something out of the way before it could fully catch, her head snapping toward him as if saying ‘oh shit, what did we do’. In their defense, they weren’t the only ones trying to stop the things with fire. Maybe. It was hard to tell at this point.

Somewhere to his left, someone shouted for more fire, and somewhere to his right, someone else shouted to stop using fire. The two orders overlapped in a way that felt deeply unhelpful. Near the healer’s space, Rynga’s voice cut through it all in a string of very loud, very creative Dwarvish curses as she tried to keep pressure on a wound and kick a smoldering, twitching limb away from her patient at the same time. Naralinthe had already abandoned any pretense of staying back, shield raised and sword in hand as she stepped in front of the triage area, bracing to intercept anything that got too close.

Garren stared at the growing number of things-that-were-on-fire, then down at the arrow still nocked in his bow.  Another flaming corpse sprinted past him, this one veering wildly toward the faintly glowing spread of the Lightbloom itself. He winced when some of the bamboo stalks abruptly caught on fire.

“Nope. …Nope, absolutely not.” He lowered the bow immediately, a decision made with the kind of speed that came from pure panic. Fire arrows were no longer part of the plan. Fire arrows were, in fact, the opposite of the plan. “Water,” he muttered, already turning. “Water fixes fire. That’s…yeah. That’ll do it.”

The mess tent was already half in disarray, but the buckets were still there and blessedly intact, and exactly what he needed. He grabbed two in quick succession, nearly colliding with someone rushing past him, Nahilvi, who looked like she was trying very hard to be a healer and not die at the same time, and then bolted for the river.

He moved faster than he realized he could under pressure. Dodging around panicked civilians, sidestepping a flailing, half-burning corpse that lunged blindly in his direction, vaulting over a toppled crate without breaking stride. The chaos blurred around him, but his focus narrowed to a single, simple objective: Fill the buckets. Don’t think about anything else.

The river rushed nearby, cool and steady and not on fire, which immediately made it his favorite thing in the entire world. He skidded to a stop at the bank, dropped to a knee, and plunged both buckets into the water, hauling them up with a grunt as they filled. “Okay, I can fix this.”

He turned and immediately had to dodge as something shrieking and aflame stumbled past him, tripped over its own feet, and rolled down part of the riverbank with a hiss of steam.

“…I can mostly fix this.”

Garren took off back toward the camp, buckets sloshing with every step. He adjusted his grip, compensated automatically, and weaved his back through the mess with surprising agility for someone who, until recently, had not been expected to be anywhere near this level of disaster.

By the time he broke back into the main stretch of camp, Dicenne had already arrived. Thank the Light. No, not the Light, the Light was the root source of this issue (Heh, -root- source). Thank fuck. He watched him striding out of the Lightbloom with a wounded civilian in his arms, and a couple others staggering closely behind. Dicenne slowed just long enough to take in the scene - the fires, the rampaging, burning corpses, the slipping, shouting, everything - and the look on his face very clearly said ‘what the actual fuck’.

Ahead, Garren caught sight of Kaisina trying to hold her ground, frost magic lashing out in sharp bursts to slow an advancing cluster of burning, thrashing bodies. It worked, until one of them didn’t stop. The flaming thing barreled through the slowing ice and slammed into her. Kaisina screamed as it grabbed her, brambles digging in, fire licking at her sleeves as she struggled to wrench herself free. Panic snapped through her casting in that instant, and the spell she released wasn’t aimed, it just went off.

A burst of frost detonated outward in a wide, uncontrolled wave, and Garren hit it mid-stride. His left foot came down, and stuck. There was a horribly unfortunate moment where his body kept going but his foot absolutely did not. He had just enough time to think ‘oh no’ before gravity made the decision for him. He went down hard, face-first, both buckets flying from his hands in a spectacular arc that looked, for one hopeful second, like it might still accomplish something useful.

It did not.

Water splashed impressively across the dirt, the grass, and, most notably, not the fire. Garren lay there for a second, stunned, cheek pressed against the ground as distant shouting and nearby crackling flames filled his ears. Behind him, something shifted sharply in tone, the chaotic scramble shifting into something cleaner and faster. He twisted just enough to see it.

Dicenne moved in like a blade. The flaming creature that had seized Kaisina didn’t get a second chance. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, shield already in motion. The edge caught the thing clean across the neck in an arc, severing the head from the body before it could react. The corpse dropped instantly, fire still clinging to it as it collapsed, and Dicenne’s cloak came down over it a second later, smothering the flames before they could spread further. Kaisina stumbled back, free, slightly scorched, but alive. Garren blinked at that for half a second. If he had time to think harder on it, he may have questioned his sexuality watching the older man move like that.

But then the world snapped right back into chaos. Behind him, someone slipped on the same patch of ice with a yelp. Somewhere else, something else caught fire. Because of course it did. 

Garren pushed himself up onto his hands, wincing as he tried to pull his leg free, but it didn’t budge. “Right, okay, we’re doing this.” He twisted, grabbing his dagger and flipped it in his grip before bringing the pommel down hard against the ice encasing his boot. Once, twice, a third time, then the ice cracked. A fourth hit shattered enough of it for him to wrench his foot free with a sharp tug, nearly losing his balance again in the process but managing somehow to stay upright this time.

A burning figure staggered past him, shedding embers with every step. “Okay, new plan, less fire.”

Behind him, Rynga was still somehow both healing and swearing, Naralinthe was holding the line in front of her with shield raised as she battered back a lunging plant-thing. He spotted Sheizara nearby, already in motion, hauling what looked like salvageable supplies toward the river with the kind of decisiveness he deeply envied at the moment. 

That, at least, made sense. That was something he could help with without making everything worse. Garren darted over, and grabbed a crate from a small pile that was just beginning to smolder. Together, they ran, Garren doing his absolute best to ignore the chaos behind them - the fires, the screaming, the still-moving shapes that shouldn’t have been moving at all - and focus instead on the one task he could complete without accidentally setting half the camp ablaze. Which, given how the last few minutes had gone, felt like a very reasonable personal goal.