#mobwrites

Chapter 23: Warriors I

We are so back.

***Snippet***

“It’s not… as bad… as it looks,” Legend bites out while Warriors bites back the urge to hit him. Hyrule, bent over and working frantically on Legend’s leg, makes a frustrated noise. He does… something… and Legend throws his head back in a silent howl, shaking where he’s laid out on the ground. Warrior’s presses down harder on his shoulders, keeping Legend from bucking. A little ways away, Four and Laru watch with pale faces. Laru has a bandage around his head and looks a right mess, but at least he’s standing. More than anything, he looks incredibly guilty.

“Eyes on me, soldier,” Warriors tells Legend, patting his cheek when Legend’s gaze begins to drift. Down at his leg, Hyrule ties off a length of bandage.

“There,” he says and draws the back of his hand across his forehead. “That should at least keep the leg straight while the rest of the break heals.” He’s frowning. “The potion stopped the bleeding and closed the wound. Hopeful now the bone can…” He trails off, looking disturbed.

“What?” Warriors demands. Beneath his hands, Legend groans pitifully, only half-awake. Hyrule shakes his head, at a loss.

“It’s bad. Really bad.”

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Chapter 24: Warriors II

Spinning the wheel of pain.

***Snippet***

A stalfos, its burning eyes aglow in the rain, wielding a strange curved blade; Warriors meets its attack with his sword, growling as the impact reverberates up his arm. He redirects the swing downward and wishes he had his shield. But it’s back in Wild’s Hyrule, too big to been have carried up a stormy mountain, so Warriors shifts his weight to the balls of his feet and leaps away from the stalfos’ next attack with a grace he thinks General Impa would be impressed with.

He doesn’t linger in his pride; the stalfos falters, unbalanced, and Warriors thrusts his sword into the gap of its ribcage. Even as the monster crumbles, he turns to cut down his next foe—another lizalfos—and then continues on, wading through the throng of monsters and terrified hylians.

“Get inside!” He bellows to a duo of teenagers; one is using the lid of a barrel as a makeshift shield and he snatches it from their grip and pushes them toward the nearest door.

“That’s not my house!” The kid protests, but the look Warriors gives him is enough to silence him. The kid and his companion scramble inside just as a flock of keese scream their way into view from a nearby alleyway; Warriors roars and positions himself in the doorway, knocking away the wave with his new ‘shield’ and slicing through the next with his blade. The surviving keese screech at him in return, diving down to bite at his face and neck. Warriors rolls, grunting as his shoulder hits the cobblestone road, and comes up sprinting, leading the flock away from the doorway.

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Chapter 25: Wild III

Back on my bullshit.

***Snippet***

Wind has been quiet since he and Wild set off early that morning to forage supplies, refusing to answer Wild’s few questions with little more than quiet hums. He has a harrowed, haunted look in his eye that Wild finds uncomfortably familiar; he’s seen it in the faces of the elders of his Hyrule, in Impa whenever she speaks about the Calamity. He’s seen it in the mirror, after particularly fitful nights.

Luckily, Wild is quite used to not talking, so, regardless of how awkward the resulting silence feels, he lets Wind alone. As the two make their way through the little wood surrounding their makeshift camp, Wild falls back, allowing Wind some obviously needed space.

There has been no sign of civilization nor passing travelers so far, but Wild is confident he knows where they are; the ground beneath his feet is familiar, despite it looking like just about every other forest floor he’s traversed in the passed few months. He breathes in deep and the smell of moss and fallen leaves is like a soft caress, easing some of the anxiety buried in his stomach. He can hear Wind a few paces away, shuffling about through the undergrowth, but he can also hear birdsong; on the branch of a small tree, two birds twitter in apparent conversation. One ruffles its feathers, puffing itself up as it hops back and forth along the branch. It flashes its tail open and closed as it does, chirping all the while. Despite everything, Wild finds himself smiling as he watches.

Sparrows, he thinks fondly as the little song and dance continues. One of the birds is a muted mix of gold and grey. She seems rather disinterested in her companion’s advances, preening herself while her green and yellow admirer continues his desperate performance.

A golden sparrow, Wild corrects himself as he studies the pair. And a common sparrow.

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“Oak Father preserve you, child,” he says solemnly and Adinraen winces at the spike of hunger that accompanies the words. “The tadpole in your head is…” He frowns again. “I… cannot cure this.”

At the back of their group , Lae’zel curses in her strange language . Adinraen closes his eyes, defeated.

“Then we are to die,” he finally says, voicing what everyone must be thinking. When he opens his eyes, Halsin is looking at him with such profound pity that Adinraen has to look away. Instead, he finds Astarion, who stands on the edge of their group, staring down at his feet. His fists are clenched at his sides.

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“I wouldn’t—”

“Do not lie to me, Astarion,” Adinraen cuts in. “I have been lied to enough in my life. Manipulated as well. I’ll not kill you for being a vampire, but I’ll flay you alive should you try to deceive me.”

Around them, the bog is eerily quiet. Astarion sets his jaw, his gaze searching, before finally looking away with a furrowed brow.

“He’ll do worse if he finds me,” he mutters, baring his fangs. “I’ve already been flayed. Whipped. Beaten.” He clutches at the sleeve of his blouse. “Whatever you’d do to me, he’s already done it a thousand times over.”

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Mortal Reminders

“There are few things worse than being bound to a devil,” Wyll says with a sigh.

Adinraen nods, smiling despite the stone sitting heavy in his stomach. A few feet away, Astarion laughs.

Adinraen and Astarion are two sides of the same coin; bound to masters unrelenting, consumed by eternal hunger, and endlessly consuming themselves.

But Adinraen doesn't mind his lot in life. He chose it himself, after all. He is grateful. He is devoted. He is good.

And he really needs to get rid of this tadpole.

>.>

*** Summary: When the group sets out to investigate the strange occurrences taking place on Mt. Lanayru, they don’t expect to find devastation and disease. They don’t expect to be caught in a raging storm far beyond any of their imaginations.  They don’t expect to be thrown from the mountainside.