I've decided to crusade for more Lugh and Rei stuff. So I'm going to start just writing and posting random shorts about them with obscure titles and way too much narrative for a short. I dunno. Hope you like it.
The sun beamed down on the vast desert of Nabata, bringing the temperature to an unbearable high. Two figures sat alone at its edge, hiding under the shade of a rare bush, keeping their cloaks pulled far over their heads even though it made them faint with the heat. It was better than getting a sunburn, in their minds.
Even though their bodies were hidden by their heavy cloaks, it was immediately obvious they were not very old, maybe fifteen at most, though small for their age. The little skin of their necks and legs you could see was pale and flecked with scars, though the one in the yellow cloak was far more beaten than the other. The yellowed-clad child was sprawled out, head tilted back and mouth agape in a silent plea for a reprieve from the sweltering desert. The other, in dark purple, was curled into himself, arms crossed over his knees and his chin on his arms. He had the air of someone who was waiting—the other, someone who had become tired of it.
At last, the yellow-cloaked boy sat up, and pushed his hood off in annoyance, cringing at the bright sun and patting his waist for his water pouch. When he found it and salvaged a few drops from the leather bag, he turned sleepily to the other boy, who had not moved in over an hour.
"She's late," he stated simply.
The other boy only grunted.
"We're going to get heat stroke out here," he said, emphasizing his point by sweeping his sweat-drenched hair from his forehead, the normally bright-green locks dark with dampness. "Shouldn't we go back to the town? If we don't leave now, we might collapse on the way…"
"No." If anything, the other boy hunched further into himself. "She said she'd be here. Maybe the winds were bad. I'm not leaving."
The first boy groaned, and flopped backwards onto the rough sand.
"You can leave if you want," the other boy said.
"Yeah. And leave you to die out here." He gave the hooded figure a surprisingly sour look. "I'm not a naïve child, Rei."
Rei turned his head slightly, and from beneath the shadows his bright blue eyes gleamed. "Yeah, you're right, Lugh. You're just stupid."
Lugh frowned comically. "What happened to the nice brother I'd managed to drench from the depths of hell?"
"He thought the weather was more pleasant than this god-forsaken desert!" Rei hid his face again, and Lugh sighed, though a smile broke on his face. His twin brother was definitely over-heating, but there was no way he was going to move now. The anxiety would make his head explode.
Lugh turned onto his side, facing away from Rei, pulling his hood over his face so the sand wouldn't blow into it. There was no way he was going to sleep now, but at least it kept him from moving about too much and wasting his energy. Hopefully she had a horse. She'd better have a horse I don't know how I'm going to make the trek back to Ainna without dying.
There was suddenly movement from next to him, and he sat up sharply, instincts honed by war kicking in. He turned, his blood expecting an attack, but only seeing that Rei had straightened, looking out over the horizon, seeing something Lugh obviously was missing.
"See her?" he asked, biting back a note of exasperation.
"Nope," Rei snipped. "I did, however, sense dark magic." He climbed onto his knees, peeling his sticky clothes from his body. Lugh had convinced him to ditch his heavy druid robes, at least. The last time he'd tried to trek the desert in those… Lugh shuttered at the memory.
The druid stood completely, and Lugh followed, fighting to make his tired legs work properly. "Why would there be dark magic?" Rei wondered aloud.
"Uh, because she's a shaman?" Lugh offered.
"Shut up, Lugh." Rei looked down thoughtfully, and Lugh knew he was reading into the surrounding magic energies, something he had absolutely no ability to do. But Rei couldn't use anything more complicated than a heal staff for his life, and Lugh happily brandished Warp staves on a regular basis—mostly to annoy Rei. So they equaled themselves out.
Rei's reading didn't last for long, though, as his attention was caught by a shrill cry from the desert. Both brothers' heads snapped up at the sound, startled. Rei shot a look to his brother, a brief one that needed no extra words, and the twins took running into the desert, stumbling through the sand as they followed the shriek to its source.
They didn't have to go far to find the source of the commotion. A small group of bandits, ragged and sun-beaten, armed with crude axes and swords, had surrounded a lone traveler on a desert-bred horse. The traveler was female, young and pretty, most of her lithe form hidden under a cloak. She had a hand raised, and the desert exploded near a bandit with a basic dark spell that wounded the man's leg but did not seriously harm him. Someone took a swing at her, and her horse reared, and she cried out, lurching forward to grab her reigns.
"Someone stop her before she actually does some damage!" One bandit half-growled, raising a broad, two-handed sword. "She might blow off a leg if we fall asleep!"
Some of the bandits laughed, and the girl let out a cry of quiet despair, pulling back on her horse as someone took another lazy swing at her.
Rei snarled, a look of pure hatred crossing his sharp features, one that usually didn't mar his features and actually made Lugh nervous, and he stepped forward quickly, descending down the dune they'd found themselves on, striding with a confidence and determination that seemed impossible to pull off on the terrain.
"Hey!" he barked as he approached them. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
The bandits all turned to him, confused, and then burst out laughing.
"Hah!" the bandit with the broad sword chortled. "What's this, a kid? A noble? No, a mage! What's a mage going to do to us?"
"Mage?" Rei hissed. "You're barking up the wrong tree, mutt." He spread his stance, preparing to fight. "Leave the woman alone. Pick on someone your own size."
All he got was more laughter, and he grit his teeth. "Hah," the bandit that had spoken laughed again. Rei deduced he was probably their leader. "Kids. Why do kids think they can be heroes? Kids are stupid… They should listen to their elders." He raised his sword at Rei, who didn't move a muscle in response.
"Funny," Rei said coldly. "I wasn't going to call you old, but I guess it's every man to his own."
The bandit's leader didn't laugh at that. "Little brat," he growled. "I'll make you pay for that."
Rei scoffed quietly. "I dare you."
Lugh bristled, unnoticed, as another bandit crept around Rei's side. Lugh knew his brother didn't see the ugly man—he didn't know how he knew, he just did. The lone traveler had started to retreat, but got surrounded and was trapped. Things were about to go to hell. So Lugh pulled out his tome—a tome given to him by an old Pherean spy who'd apparently gotten the tome from his mother when she'd passed on—that he'd written extra incantations into. Ones such as the Bolting spell.
The bandit leader stepped towards Rei, and Rei moved forwards as well. Too late, though, he sensed another at his side, and he looked in time to see a bandit had crept up on his side and was swinging an axe at him. Rei made to dodge, but he knew he wouldn't make it before—
A bolt of lightning struck the man right on the back of the neck, and he screamed and fell, a steaming heap of burnt flesh, knocked unconscious but not quite dead. Rei spun around, and saw Lugh lowering his arm, face screwed up in focus. A sneer broke on the druid's face, and he spun back around, thrusting his arm out with a spell already unwinding from his fingers.
The weaker bandits, despite their size, turned tail and ran after a barrage of magic rained upon them, Lugh's lightening from above and Rei's flux from below. Those who charged at the druid were soon toasted by the sky, and those who didn't found themselves torn apart by rabid tentacles of dark magic that spat from the ground. For a moment, the twins, who normally quarreled without end, were in the war again, acting as one deadly entity, inseparable by any blade.
The traveler plunged into battle as well, chasing after those who tried to run and attacking them with her own dark magic, though with a tenth the effectiveness of the Lycian twins. Her horse made up for some of the difference in skill, trampling those her magic fell. As she came around the group of bandits, she started splitting away and riding towards Lugh.
The bandit leader let out a cry of frustration as his men fled and died, overwhelmed by the twins who'd unleashed their wrath. He dodged a bolt of lightening sent his way and ran at the druid, seeing his opportunity when the teenager turned his attention to a bandit running at the woman's flanks. What was one of his men when it was his own life at stake?
He swung his sword up as soon as he was in reach, and Rei turned in time to see the blade coming his way. He jerked back, avoiding the majority of the blow, but the sword caught his arm and he stumbled and tripped in the sand, knocking his cry of pain out of his lungs.
The bandit jumped on the chance, pointing the sword at the druid's neck, holding his breath, hoping it was stop the mage on the dunes above from sending any lightening bolts. Rei sat up slightly, dazed, and realized almost immediately he was at sword point. Instead of looking afraid, though, as the bandit expected, he just looked annoyed, even though his front was drenched in blood rapidly pouring out of his cut arm.
"Alright, now what?" Rei sneered, breathing rapidly through the pain. "Gonna kill a kid? That's kinda rude."
The bandit hesitated, and that was all Lugh needed to close the distance between them and tackle the man three times his size, sending him stumbling. The bandit brought the sword at Lugh, who pulled backwards but was still tangled in the man's armor and worked to pull himself free without getting killed. Rei attempted to seize the opportunity, but as he tried to scramble up his wounded arm gave and he stumbled back onto the ground, sending a flash of pain up his spine. He reeled and scrambled away from the fight, watching from the corner of his eye as Lugh attempted to get a good blast of fire into the bandit's face without getting his arm cut off.
The bandit managed to get his footing and shoved at Lugh with his elbow, loosening one of the sage's grips on his armor, and he snatched at the small teenager's wrist, pulling it out at an odd angle and making the boy gasp. He snarled and raised his blade awkwardly, and Lugh let his other hand go, so he swung out away from the blade. The bandit missed, but he jerked Lugh down, causing him to fall to one knee, and swung the sword again, this time aiming at Lugh's caught wrist. Lugh shouted something indecipherable and pulled back slightly, but not enough to avoid the blade.
Rei let out an involuntary cry of horror when the blade came down, but the bandit was the one who suddenly started screaming inhumanly, recoiling from Lugh, who scrambled to his feet, totally fine, and crossed his arms in front of him in the shape of an x, something he commonly did before letting loose a devastating fire spell.
He swung his hands out, and the bandit died in a wreath of flame, his black expression haunted with pain.
By that point, the rest had fled, and the only sound in the desert for a moment was the breathing of three magi.
Rei broke the silence. "Lugh! How…"
His twin shot an amused grin. "It's all about the aiming, brother. Something I think we decided you lack."
"Shut up."
Lugh stepped away from the dead bandit, and limped slightly over to Rei, a long, shallow cut in his calf Rei wasn't sure how he'd gotten. The sage then seemed to see the excessively bleeding cut in the druid's arm, and his expression fell. "Ah! Rei!"
Rei shrugged lopsidedly as Lugh rushed over. "It's just a scratch," he said nonchalantly.
"You're the worst liar ever," Lugh replied, kneeling awkwardly next to his twin. He reached for his healing staff, pulled it out… And discovered he'd grabbed the wrong staff from his bag that morning.
"You have got to be kidding me!" Lugh cried, dismayed, holding his Restore staff up. "What is this I don't even—"
"Calm down," Rei interrupted. "I'll just get healed when I get back. I'll deal." Something clicked in his brain, and he spun sharply, looking at the traveler the two had plunged into battle to rescue. "Oh! You're…"
The traveler got off her horse, her loose lilac skirts and deep cloak falling to the sand as she landed on the ground. She turned towards the two, and walked over with the grace of someone who had grown up in the sand. As she got closer, she pushed her hood off her head, revealing her soft porcelain face and long lavender hair and matching eyes. Rei blushed and averted his gaze slightly, and Lugh couldn't help but snigger.
"…I'm sorry…" she said, her voice soft and hesitant. "I…I got you…hurt…"
"N-No!" Rei stammered. "It's just a scratch! A flesh wound! It'll heal by tomorrow!"
"Don't listen to him," Lugh sighed, shaking his head. "He doesn't know a heal staff from a duck."
"Neither do you!"
"It was an accident!"
The woman laughed slightly, and both boys stopped arguing. "…I…will bind…your wound…"
"N-No need!" Rei gasped. "It's all good! Lugh'll bind it for me."
"Oh, now I'm needed."
"Stop talking, dammit! You're making this worse!"
The woman closed the distance between them, and kneeled next to Rei, making him turn red and look away distractedly. She hesitated slightly. "…Do I…make you…nervous?"
"Huh? No!" Rei quickly looked back. "No! No…uhm… Nice weather we're having, eh?"
The woman laughed again, this time more fully. "…Yes…the sun…it is shining…"
Rei glanced at Lugh, who had stood and moved backwards and was now making faces at his twin. Rei stuck his tongue out at his brother and looked back to the woman. "Yeah…I-It is. Way too much. How do you live with this?"
She smiled shyly. "I think…about Araphan…and its cool springs." She grabbed Rei's wounded arm gently, lifting it to look at it. "…It is…good to see you again…Rei."
Rei ignored the fact Lugh was pretending to make out with his Restore staff and smiled back, one of his rare genuine smiles. "Yeah…you too, Sophia."
The world needs more Rei/Sophia. We have plenty Hector/Lyn and Ike/Soren and Celice/Leaf or whatever the hell people pair in Holy War since I haven't played it yet. (No wait that's gross how about Celice/a tree there we go that works).
So yeah.
Apparently hot sages don't mature.
I'm just going to continue to boost my word count with these comments even though I don't want to.
With love,
the Moose.