The day had started just fine. Flem with his unending blabbering about his oh-so-majestic-and-let's-not-forget-fantastic-god, and Leon, sitting calmly listening while sipping her coffee. Leon wasn't really religious or anything. To be honest, the thoughts scared her a little, though, a lot of things did. But she enjoyed sitting there and listen to Flems good mood and babbling. It gave her a kind of peace. She hadn't found that anywhere else. Only this airhead of a man and his random outbreaks of great justice and preaching could give her that.
She could understand why her father went on and on about how good he were. His stories and adventures as a kid had always this little kid with him. The outcasts that found each other, and made a friendship lasting over to the next generation. She cupped her head in her hand and gulped down the remaining coffee.
"Weren't you planning on checking out the goblin infestation? The one the elder of this village was talking about?" She looked at Flem while looking bored, like she so often did. He saw right through her. He knew she was exited. She liked to explore, and going with Flem always gave the best stories. He had stopped talking. Now he was just looking at her, with that calm, air-like smile he usually had on him. She could understand why even the boys of the town could get a crush on him. Not to mention he was a warrior, a cleric, non the less. That wasn't something to make fun of, though she did. Teasing him now and then when he had to stay back and heal the others in the group. Acting as a healer. Though, she never complained when he did. His healing abilities were top-notch. And comfortable.
"I'm bored. Shall we get going?" She rose up from the table.
That was the good morning.
The sword were clanging against each other, the flames were spurting all over and damaging the enemies. It was a hard fight. The biggest one of them were hammering down on Flem. Pinning him to the wall, unable to move.
"Are you out of your mind?! Get out of there and heal yourself! It's not worth it! Let's retreat and take them on on a later time!" Leon yelled over her guns firing shot after shot. She was exhausted, her knees was shaking and she was almost out of bullets. Her only weapon after that would be the dagger, but it wasn't going to do much damage against the thick skin of the bigger goblins. She staggered back a little as one of the minors lashed at her right shoulder. It had taken a bad hit earlier in the fight and was now definitely rendered useless. She might even consider amputating if she didn't patch it up quickly. But she didn't have time. Flem, the gorgeous creature hacking loose on the bigger monsters were still pinned to the wall. He wouldn't be able to get away. Leon turned away from the minors to aim at the back of the biggest of them. The shots fired but she was shaking too much to get a good aim. They all missed or just scratched the hide of the beast.
"FLEM!" She yelled again, this time getting the attention from the bronze-skinned man. He thrust his sword up in the beasts throat, leading it all the way up to it's brain. The monster died instantly. He jumped over the body, still gushing with blood, clawing at the man.
"Leon, you look awful! We should run!" The man hovering over Leon was half dragging half carrying her back to the entrance. "I think I readied a healing spell earlier today. Let's get those wounds patched up." She didn't respond. Leon was all wounds and in no condition to answer with a loud enough voice to be heard. She just nodded.
They avoided most of the goblins measly attempts to lash at them on the way out. Flem were running now, probably because he noticed just how out of it Leon was. Her forehead had an ugly gash, three or four ribs were broken and she had a huge gash on the right side of the throat. She was gurgling blood and almost loosing consciousness.
"Leon? LEON!" He was slapping her face as they neared a river. It was deep, but not so deep that he couldn't wade with Leon in his arms. The goblins had stopped at the waterline. Too deep for them then. He huffed a light prayer of thanks and went on into the woods on the other side.
He placed Leon carefully on the moss under a tree. His hand already glowing, readying a spell. Leon was long gone, she was barely breathing. She had lost a lot of blood while they ran, he had to hurry. His hands worked fast, they burned away the wounds and restored some of the blood. But he could see she was drifting away. He was starting to shake, he was panicking, he never did that. He fumbled over her, he needed to work faster. He pushed his abilities to the limit.
"Fl- FLEM!" Suddenly Leon opened her eyes with a half crushed yell. She looked around her without moving her head. When she realized Flem was bent over her she stopped, looked once more around and smiled.
"Good..." She breathed ".. you're safe." She smiled with the same air she usually felt when he was smiling. Not feeling any pain, but still drifting. She lifted her hand over to his bloody face. He took her hand gently.
"Shh, don't talk. I'll.. I'll make you feel better. You'll get better." Flem lifted his hands over Leon again and started working. Leon flinched as she lifted her other hand, the right one, and topped it over his. She looked into his eyes and told him what he had realized, but not yet accepted. She was gone. She was already dead. She was only and illusion to his own mind, overworked and delusional with all the adrenaline running through his blood. Flem blinked hard, covering his eyes and rubbing them once with his palm. When he opened them he could see it.
Leon was lying there, her skin usually tanned, now pale. She had had an even bigger wound in her side. She didn't have that when they ran out of the cave. He then remembered a moment where she kind of jolted to the side, as if to evade an attack from the goblins as they ran away. She hadn't dodged anything. She had tossed herself in the way, shielding him. Flem felt the tears long after they had fallen from his face. He didn't move. He was frozen. He had no idea what to do, so he sat there, until he fell asleep from exhaustion and shock.
"Flem. Flem, wake up. I need to speak with you, you airhead!" He woke up at once when he heard the his nickname. The only one calling him that was,
"LEON!" He tossed himself awake. When he looked around he saw Leon, sitting beside him with that annoyed yet compassionate look on her. They were sitting in a field, the wheat growing there had the colour of that you could call gold. Just like her home-town. The golden fields. He blinked again, this time not sure what to think.
"You can thank your god." Leon looked over at the fields, he noticed now that she was still covered in the blood from the goblin cave. "She gave me permission, to let me talk to you... One last time." While looking over at the fields Flem noticed the half healed wound in her neck. The one he first closed, it looked bruised, barely a knock on her pride.
"What? Where are we?" Flem realized just as he asked. "We're... not in the real world. Are we?" Leon nodded. "Just a fiction of my imagination. I remembered how much you liked the fields. So, I thought of them." Leon picked on her toes. "I... I wanted, needed.. To talk with you before...You know." She gestured to the sky. "I don't even know where I'm going. I just knew that, I had to speak with you first. I had to make sure you made it okay." The wind was a lazy one, the kind that grabs your hair just to mess with it a little. Flem had always liked that. The feel of nature, alive.
"Why?... Why did you do it? I could've made it fine. I could've saved you. You would've been fine!" Flem was almost shouting.
"No I wouldn't." Leon looked at him with her calm, bored eyes again. Those that told much more than boredom once you knew her. "I saw the spear, I saw where it was aiming. You would've been hit in the liver. You would've died in that cave, bled out and lifeless. I.. I couldn't let that happen." She stopped talking. Still the eyes of boredom, hiding her feelings away. Then they changed, they dropped. She picked on the ground. A few moments passed in silence. None of them sure what to say.
Leon lifted her head.
"Flem, you know. Death really scares me you know. But.. What scares me the most. Is a world without your silly head in it." She placed her hand over his, it was warm, just as if she was alive. "I'd gladly give my life. So for my sake... Live." She was smiling with that childish grin, the comforting and kind smile. The one he liked the most. Her real smile. Leons smile.
The air began to blow, and the world around them began to go with it. He grabbed after her hands. Trying to hold her against him, she hugged him tightly, while dissolving into leaves of her favorite tree. He was crying, so was she. But she was smiling. "Until next time we meet, my friend."
"Until next time." He whispered.
He woke up. The oak tree hovering over him had covered him in a bed of leaves. Leon was nowhere to be seen. He sat up, put his hands around his knees, and for the first time, he cried. He let it out, all while hugging a sentence tight in his chest.
"Until next time."