#nephrit

^^ I second the bi gorls. Or maybe our dnd party for your campaign ripping on Grimm?

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He’s done it again.

 Nephrit is angry but she’s also worried sick as she cradles Nika’s body close to her chest while Nandra runs through the forest as quick as she can. The rest of the pack follows close by as Nephrit hugs her best friend’s motionless body.

 His face is covered in blood that still keeps running from his nose and eyes.

 Nephrit hates it when Nika overexerts himself like this.

 He has so little regard for his own safety, sometimes she wants to grab and shake him and shout at him to make him stop.

 Fuck.

 Nephrit loves him so fucking much.

 “I’ll kill you when you wake up, I hope you know that”, she says and tries very hard to force her eyes to stop burning with uncried tears. He’s going to be okay. Nephrit will always drag him out.

 Nandra can feel her distress and she huffs while she runs through the trees.

 “It’s okay”, Nephrit says, not sure if she’s talking to Nandra or herself. “He’s going to be okay.”

 As soon as she reaches the Heart she picks Nika up as careful as possible and starts shouting for the druids.

 “I need some Greater Restoration!”

 Nephrit wishes her voice didn’t shake like that as she carries the small body of her best friend through the trees.

 Mai is the first one to reach them and she doesn’t say anything as she stretches out her hands for Nika. Nephrit doesn’t let go of him.

 “What’d he do this time?”, Mai asks as she works. Nephrit tries to breathe slowly.

 “Hunting party”, she says. Mai’s face darkens.

 “I can do one more. We can get him to Kamala, she can pump a few more into him.”

 After Mai casts the spell the second time Nika stirs in Nephrit’s arms and opens his eyes slowly.

 Every time this happens Nephrit is endlessly relieved to see Nika’s eyes in their usual, black state instead of glowing white—the way they change when he starts casting magic that exceeds his limits.

 “You’re such an idiot”, is the first thing she says when Nika looks at her. “Why did you do that?”

 Nika blinks a few times, then his lips curl into a weak smile.

 “Can’t let them catch you, can I”, he croaks. Nephrit hates crying but she can’t help it as she hugs him.

 “I can take care of myself, you moron.”

 “Hm.”

 “I was the one who saved you, remember.”

 “Hm.”

 “You have to stop risking your life like this.”

 “Hm.”

 “Stop saying ‘Hm’!”

 “You know why I can’t let them arrest you, right?”, he says quietly as Nephrit carries him towards Kamala’s residence, Nandra close on her heels.

 “Because you would die immediately if you didn’t have me to babysit you?”

 “Cause you’re my best friend.”

 Nephrit considers throttling him right then and there. Instead she starts crying more. Nika raises his hand and wipes some of the tears away, as if he wasn’t the one who almost died and is in need of medical attention and comfort. Gods, Nephrit loves this terrible idiot so much, it hurts her heart.

 “You suck so much”, she sobs.

“Something is wrong”, Nash has said last night, even before the snow came. “Something is very wrong.”

*

Alamanda looks up at the sky as thick snowflakes quietly fall from grey clouds, lighting up the night. 

Something is wrong. 

She can feel it in the ground and in the air, she can feel it at the center of her core. Yet another piece broke. Yet another crack has appeared. 

When she stretches out her hand to catch some of the snowflakes she winces from the pain she still feels after getting hit by various evocation spells earlier today. 

She knows she can’t stay. 

Something is very wrong. 

*

Cadwyn feels the shift even though he cannot feel the cold. Another crack, another rip. He closes his eyes to push against the darkness pressing into him from below. 

The world was broken a long time ago. 

The world is breaking again. 

Something is wrong. 

*

“We can fix it. We can still fix it”, Nika says as he helps get the children to a warmer place. 

“What a fucking mess”, Nephrit growls as she carries two toddlers over to the lifting platform where Tonkee is currently handing out warm coats and scarfs to everyone. 

“I’ll take the others out and we’ll regrow as much as we can--”

“You’re going to overexert yourself again!”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s snowing in summer.”

Everything is wrong. 

Nika watches as Tonkee wraps the kids in warm clothes and shepherds them upwards into the trees. The ground is icy cold and his bare feet feel as though they’ll fall off any second now. 

“I swear to the gods, if I get my hands on that bastard I will rip his throat out with my fucking teeth”, Nephrit says and looks around. The snow is still coming. 

Nika sighs and rubs his face. He’s tired, still tired from the fire and the weather magic he did and the exhaustion that came afterwards. But he has to fix this. Maybe Kamala can help fix this. 

“I’ll talk to Kamala and get the other druids and then... Then we can grow as much of it back as possible. That’ll help, right?”

Nephrit looks at him and he knows what it means. 

She doesn’t know. 

“Maybe it’s too broken to fix it”, she says quietly. 

“We’ll get the dryads back”, Nika says without acknowledging her. “We’ll get them back and then we’ll regrow the trees and put it back together. And then...”

And then maybe the world will die slower again. 

He doesn’t say it. He refuses to think about it. 

There is no time to wallow. 

-------------------------------

Nephrit has seen it many times now.

The kids they save imprint themselves on their savior and she assumes that’s normal. Maybe that is why Nika became her shadow back in the day, because she was the one to save him from the hunters--maybe they wouldn’t have become friends if that hadn’t happened.

Despite his fear of “devils” and “ferals” the child that started the wildfire clings to Nika’s side the second they arrive back in the heart of the forest. Nika looks like he’s barely able to stand at this point but Nephrit keeps her distance for the sake of the kid plastered to Nika’s side.

Nephrit follows them at a distance through the many people, the trees, the animals, watches as the kid turns his head with eyes as big as crystal balls as fireflies surround them while they’re walking along the path towards Nika’s tree.

She can hear Nika speak in Elvish to the child, no doubt to calm him down.

Sometimes she still sees the scared child she rescued when she looks at her best friend. He’s walking beside this kid now, telling him that he knows how it feels, how overwhelming it all is, but that he’s safe now and that Nika won’t let anything bad happen to him.

Of course Nika offers the kid to sleep close to him. Of course the kid accepts the offer. It reminds her so much of the way Nika acted after she saved him back in the day that she feels her throat close up at the memory. 

Gods, he was tiny.

He still is. 

Nephrit keeps her distance as Nika shows the kid where he sleeps and helps him settle down. He even tucks him in, like a godsdamn parent. 

It only takes a few minutes for the kid to fall asleep despite the new surrounding, despite the scariness of the situation, despite a “devil” sitting right next to him, full of ash and soot and dirt and sweat. As soon as the kid is asleep, Nephrit enters the room and sits down next to Nika. 

“I’m sorry”, is the first thing she says, quietly, as to not wake the kid up. 

Nika has his eyes closed and one hand on the blanket that he draped over the kid. 

“For what?”

“For suggesting to take him out.”

Nika opens one eye to look at her. A soft smile spreads over his face. 

“It’s okay. I know why you said it.”

“Hm.”

They sit in silence for a long while with the faint buzzing of people moving around outside and the slow breathing of the kid in Nika’s bed. 

“You know, if you hadn’t saved me back in the day I couldn’t have saved all those people now. So if you think about it, you basically saved all of them”, Nika points out and Nephrit snorts. She takes Nika’s hand and squeezes it gently. 

“I’m glad I saved you.”

“Me too.”

“Glad you saved him, too.”

“Yeah.”

Nika’s head sinks down onto her shoulder and his eyes drift close. 

“My life would suck without you, you know?”

Nephrit closes her eyes and feels a smile tug at her lips. 

“My life would be a picnic without you”, she says. 

Nika snorts. 

“Yeah. It’s your own fault, really.”

“Brought it on myself.”

“Yup.”

“I don’t regret it.”

“Don’t get too mushy on me or I’ll start crying.”

Nephrit doesn’t answer. She stays awake as Nika drifts off, his head still resting on her shoulder, his small hand in hers and she thinks about the night after she saved him when he was lying in her bed with her watching over him while he slept. 

 „What’s got you in such high spirits“, she asks and is already prepared for an answer she will not like.

 „Oh you know“, he shouts back and ducks under a falling, burning branch, „Just held hands with the most beautiful man on the planet. Made a storm. Met some interesting people.“

 Nephrit’s exhasperated sigh is drowned out by the next loud crack of thunder as they race through the flames. The ground beneath them is vibrating softly and Nephrit knows that Fan is keeping pace with them underground. There is still no sign of Tonkee and Nephrit is worried and angry and also very much annoyed about Nika’s chipper attitude.

 „Really? The forest is burning down and you’re horny!?“

 „I’m not horny! Don’t be rude! I touched his primal core!“

 Nephrit has no idea what that means. She doesn’t understand primal magic any more than she understands arcane magic but she can see the glow in Nika’s eyes and the reckless grin on his face. She knows that look. It’s the same he wears before throwing himself off a cliffside.

 „I don’t know what that means“, she shouts back.

 „It smells like ozone and rain“, Nika replies with a dreamy sigh as if he didn’t look ready to pass out.

 „Ok great, do you need a heal? You look like shit!“

 „Huh?“

 „YOU LOOK LIKE SHIT! DO YOU NEED A HEAL, YOU TERRIBLE BASTARD MAN.“

 „Oh, yes please! I don’t have any magic left.“

 Of course he over-exerted himself. Again. Nephrit stretches out her hand and pumps as much healing magic into her best friend as she can. The ground beside them opens up and Fan appears, holding a small body in their arms. Without further comment they throw Tonkee who catches herself on one of the wolves without any issue.

 Fan disappears back underground.

 „Nika looks like he ate too many mushrooms“, Tonkee shouts.

 „He held hands with some guy who smelled like rain.“

 „Ah. That explains everything and nothing.“

 Tonkee, who is immune against any form of poison, doesn’t seem as affected by the ever growing smoke cloud all around them.

 „Nika! We need to extract the target or take him out, you can write love poetry later!“, Tonkee informs Nika. At her words he seems to focus, turns his head and the smile disappears from his face. Nephrit knows that look too.

 „We won’t take him out. We’ll extract him.“

 „Nika—“

 „No discussion. I’ll save him.“

 Nephrit sighs. She knows that extracting the target is the more dangerous path. But she also knows that she will follow Nika into any danger he chooses to throw himself into and drag him out alive no matter the cost.

They will not have her. Not while I breathe.