Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly enough.
A/N: I'm posting as fast as I dare with college in session, please bear with me. ^.^ Again, thanks to all my reviewers and Chimeradark for providing the prompt!
Sanctuary
Part Four
First Aid groaned as the crackling of a fire filtered into his audios. His processors hurt, his frame was burning and freezing – and he couldn't hear the soft hum of Ratchet's systems. "Doan' move, younglin'. Ya took a hard knock from those smelter-whore damned 'Con's." A deep, gruff voice rumbled near his audio.
"'Atchet?" Aid asked foggily, white hands pressing tiredly against aching optics that refused to come on-line.
"We're scoutin' fer him. Been followin' yer trail fer the last week. The lad pushes ya hard on the trail, harder'n he should." Aid nodded absently at the deep voice, finally booting his optics.
"Who are you?" The young healer looked the older red mech up and down, thick grey armor covered his red frame, small weapons and vials were strapped across the thick chest and broad hips in a lethal array.
"We're vampire hunters, Ironhide and Chromia." A toughened blue femme stepped into the firelight, the burgeoning dawn beginning to brighten the eastern sky in a streak of ominous crimson behind her. "Ratchet is our son."
Spluttering, finally sitting up as words failed him Aid looked between the hunters as his processors caught up with him, "But his brother's a nightwalker!"
"Yeah, found him that way. We couldn't just kill the younglin' when we found him. So we raised him as a mortal, much as we could." Chromia smiled wistfully, "He chose to leave our home a few years ago, and when our village noticed one of our lads never came out into the sun. He didn't want to endanger us, or Ratchet."
Still gapping, stunned as he contemplated a pair of vampire hunters raising a vampire as their own child – "But, I thought vampires didn't age?" The thought hit him with a near tangible force, knocking the air out of his systems at the magnitude of the implication.
"They shouldn't be able to." Ironhide nodded sagely, "They should remain unchanged forever, nevah agin' nevah dyin cept from somethin' like us." He waggled his thumb between himself and his mate. "Yet we're findin' communities o' nightwalkers with aged elders an growin' younglins, both born and created."
"That is why I created the Sanctuary. To determine what has caused so drastic a change within the nightwalker lineage." A deep rumbling voice with the presence and weight of the coming of Primus himself intoned into the early morning light. Aid, optics overly bright and huge in awe turned his head with painful, hesitant slowness until he faced the speaking mech.
Tall, powerful, regal and emanating an aura of eternity the speaker shone in the early crimson dawn, optics tinged with the morning's hue appeared almost violet, almost like a nightwalkers. The mech's size and presence were intimidating, but it was the titanium circlet upon the broad brow and signet ring forged into the mech's dermal plating along the back of his ring finger that made Aid tremble.
"Emperor Prime." Aid gasped, struggling from the bed roll he lay on to kneel before the Prime, and found himself easily pinned back to the ground by Chromia.
The deep voice rumbled a chuckle, "Please, it's just Optimus." He knelt by the young medic, optics piercing in their intensity, "We will get Ratchet back. I promise all of you that. However, the Decepticons are out of their home territory, and these warriors are not here to protect missionaries. I fear this will be the precursor to war."
"War?" Aid squeaked in fear, awe, terror and humility. He had heard of war in the ancient chronicles, all thanks to the Emperor before them. He, and his predecessors had fought to keep Iacon a peaceful realm for generations.
A crack rang out in the early morning stillness, startling all about the fire to their feet, Ironhide pulling weapons and stepping before the emperor in a fluid motion that grated against the image his large armored frame cast. Chromia had likewise pulled her weapons and stepped before the young healer, shielding the youngling with her frame.
"You two are playing with fate like that." Optimus rumbled with a smirk at two forms that seemed to fade in from nothingness at the edge of the forest. The pair remained silent, stepping into the firelight causing an instant shift in the hunters from merely at ready to attack mode in an astrosecond.
"By the smeltering Pits, what the slag is a wolf doing here Prime?" Ironhide demanded, weapons gripped tightly as he stood ready for the pair before them.
"Stand down, 'Hide, these are my infiltrators, Hound and Mirage." The green mech nodded first, followed by the regal blue and white, each responding to their designations.
"We have found the healer." Mirage spoke in fluid regal tones, gold optics enigmatic and impossible to read. "It is far worse than we expected."
"They slaughtered the village everyone from sparklet to elder was terminated, and now hangs for the vultures to tear apart their frames for the last residues of energon in their lines. They destroyed the Autobot enclave from Greensteel, the survivors now hang as trophies in their chapel for their wounded to gloat over while they await repairs. This is where they are keeping Ratchet." Houned finished, kind blue optics pouring all the anguish he dared not voice.
'Hide glared from the infiltrators to his emperor, dermal plating grinding and squeaking in his fury. "Ah won't ask again, Prime. What is a wolf doing here?"
Optimus looked calmly down to the hunter, optics gleaming with a hidden amusement that seemed out of place. "He's not a wolf, 'Hide, he's veil-sparked."
"I thought those sparked with the veil of primus shielding their optics was a myth." First Aid spoke nervously, thinking on the old texts that detailed the rare on-lining of a sparkling whose optics would not shine. The optics remained as dark as those brought back to Primus, despite the rest of the new creation functioning perfectly, including the youngling being able to see through those darkened optics. Those texts had spoken of strange abilities, foreknowing of events, miraculous healings, even shape shifting.
"Such is not mythology, young one." Mirage spoke, uncanny yellow optics meeting Aid's terrified blue. "Of those in my lineage only I was blessed with the wolfling curse."
Aid looked from the relaxed stance of Hound to the stiff, formal pose of Mirage and wondered how, of the two, the big city noble mech was the wolf and not the one that radiated a calm belonging in the wilds.
"I'm getting' mah younglin' back." Hide turned from the others, in step with Chromia and saddled their mounts. Optimus could only sigh, this was Ironhide's expedition, he only ran the country and thus he had no power here. The irony never failed to escape him.
"Very well, old friend, but they lead." Optimus gestured to Hound and Mirage, signaling the pair to guide them safely and unseen to Coldsteel Garrison. The six trekked through the thick forest, darkened woods dappled in the morning sunlight held secreted patches of midnight where movement seemed to follow them.
Aid twitched at every sound, every hint of movement that caught the corner of his optic. He clung desperately tight to Hound's frame on the large steed that bore them while Mirage trotted ahead as a wolf flitting with impossible fluid grace from shadow to shadow, skirting all light.
Suddenly, as if given wings, Mirage soared through the air, snarling as he tackled a form to Aid's right that screeched a curse uncannily similar to Ironhide and Ratchet in its intensity. As if cued by the curse, Ironhide snarled one of his own, wading into a battle that outclassed him like a fresh recruit in a gladiator ring as he ripped the combatants apart.
"Enough!" The mortal shook the pair as hard as he could, despite barely fazing them, his voice stilled them with far more efficiency. "'Jack, You know better than to slink near a wolf! And, you, keep your filthy denta off my younglin'!"
"I am not filthy." Mirage snarled imperiously, eyeing the nightwalker warily.
"Uh, hi pops?" 'Jack chirped as he brightened his audio indicators entreatingly. 'Hide's shoulders sagged, completely at a loss with his offspring, as most creators were.
"Don't call me pops youngun. Yer a mech, an' I got a name, so use it!" The red hunter looked his white nightwalker son over carefully, "What are ya doin' here anyhow?"
"There might be a problem." Jack looked to the group, bowing to Optimus in stunned greeting, "Imminence, you need to here this. Blue, get out here."
Behind the inventor a gray mech strode out, door wings arched nervously over his back as he looked the strange group over in awe and hid behind Jack. "Highness, sirs, ma'am, I'm Bluestreak."
"What do we need to hear, Bluestreak?" Optimus asked gently, modulating his voice to a soft tone to soothe the younger mech.
"I was raised behind Steeldale, in an old mill. My creators were the last of the lineage entrusted to guard a secret from the Great War. I couldn't remember, after the attack and it was only after Ratchet left that it came back to me. I know the secret only as my creators told me:
"Listen youngling, and listen well, for this is your only warning. Long ago they walked the land, Crimson as the bloody foreboding dawn, golden as the gentle evening sunset. The pair were glorious to behold, beautiful as Primus, merciless in their gluttony, relentless in sating their lust; bringing entire civilizations to their knees.
"These nightwalkers hunted as a pair, never apart they ravaged our world. Kill one, he will revive, kill both and they will come back for you. Unkillable and insatiable, they of the Darkest Pits, held all of Iacon as fodder.
"In an act of desperation, The Great Mage, Alpha Trion, aided with the sacrifice of a dozen noble sparklings to sate the demonic appetites, sealed the pair away forever. Optics blindfolded, faces muzzled, a dozen spikes in each and then bound to sacred pillars in chains the two would remain in darkness eternal."
Bluestreak paused in his telling from 'Jack's arms, the nightwalker easily keeping up with the riders and Mirage, "But, there's another ending." The young chevroned face looked to each of the others, his blue optics nervous, door wings trembling.
"Both stories are the same, to a point: 'These nightwalkers hunted as a pair, the mercilessly tortured and cruelly trained attack dogs of The Beast who held all of Iacon as his pets' fodder.
"In an act of desperation the Great Mage, Alpha Trion, slaughtered a dozen noble younglings to lure in the Darkest pair and bound them with a seal, a sacred chain that could only be moved when the Nightwalkers' true bonded broke it." Blue paused, hands clenching nervously about the longbow he clutched to him.
"Those things are hidden somewhere in Steeldale, and if the 'Con's find them, if they find a way to release them – these things have been sealed for over a thousand years, they'll be angry, hungry – and – and we're on the menu." Blue hid his face against 'Jack's shoulder, trembling in fear.
"He was only told that story a few days before the Decepticon's destroyed his village, everything. He's been fighting to stay alive and find reason to live since then. I won't let him watch his world be destroyed twice." Jack promised, normally merry optics hard with determination.
"Yup, definitely your son." Hound spoke, nodding to 'Hide and Chromia. "He smells like you, regardless of the change."
'Jack stared at the green mech, audio indicators flashing in an uncomfortable strobing effect, "That's impossible. I'm adopted."
The group fell into a taunt silence, tense with unspoken secrets. The early dawn's crimson warning had faded into a glorious mid-morning, the sky a perfect blue over the green canopy. Birds chirped, rodents scurried over dented and packed snow. Life thrived in every direction.
Then the screams began.
Gold and red pinning him, enthralling him, thick fangs sunk deeply into his cabling. The agony of their kiss addictive and erotic sending scorching flames of desire licking hungrily through his systems making him desire more than their kiss...
Ratchet pulled himself out of the memory, struggling to keep any alive that he could. Still dented from their bruising embrace, still sore from the cold, hard, jarring into reality, landing he suffered on the unyielding stone floor. He had staggered from the darkened room, healing pack dragging behind him as he lacked the strength to carry it. He returned to the chapel, the many rows of now gray and lifeless Decepticons who starred with darkened optics to their trembling Autobot prisoners who sobbed voicelessly at seeing so many die.
Ratchet found the matched guards, Runabout and Runamuck, the black and white pair clung together desperately where their now gray frames lay next to the plating that had once made up their faces. Their faces had been removed painfully, their ruined facial structures frozen in agony.
Like the other Decepticons in the hall they were terminated, and some small part of Ratchet danced with unholy glee that they had been terminated. The greater portion trembled in grief, guilt and terror. He had wanted to peel the tortured pair's faces off. The nightwalkers had done it for him. Cycling vents to keep his nauseated tanks from releasing their contents Ratchet took keys from the gray frames. He turned to the Autobot prisoners, slowly, one by one, freeing them and helping them as he could.
Thundering of hooves preceded their arrival, the six mechs, nightwalker and veil-born stormed into Coldsteel Garrison – and froze. The ravaged forms of the entire village hung from pillars in the keep's courtyard. Femms of almost every age raped and beaten, the fabric of their clothes ripped to display their defilement like trophies. Mechs had been bludgeoned to death, their tormented expressions still frozen onto long-cold faceplates spoke of them watching as the Decepticons took their depraved pleasures on the femmes they had sworn to protect.
Bluestreak sobbed, voice hitching as his mother and three sisters came into view. Hanging like petro-rabbits after the kill, dresses torn, immature interface plating brutally ripped from the younger frames told of the torture he had witnessed from the hidden room his family had thrust him, the youngest, into for safety.
Beyond the villagers, strewn like ragdolls the Decepticons lay freshly terminated. Faces skewed in immoral pleasure, mouths frozen with wanton moans on their lips, the 'Cons had been pleasured in the agony of the thrall. These nightwalkers were powerful, their stench hanging on the air making Mirage gag.
"Mirage," Optimus barked, "Get to Goldstone Sanctuary, tell Prowl I need everyone here now." With a nod the shape shifting wolf vanished. Optimus looked to Ironhide, watching the aged hunter with concern.
Taking in the destruction in a glance Ironhide and Chromia dismounted, racing with Wheeljack in the lead to the shaded chapel and their hopes of finding Ratchet. The chapel loomed before them, the stark features of the once homely church a startling contrast to the destruction before it and the pristine white snow blanketing the disquieting scene.
"This ain't natural." Ironhide paused, just before the church kneeling in the deep shadows stretching before it, staring at the still on-line Decepticon that had been rendered into basic components. The once warrior had been peeled, like an onion, layer by layer. His vital lines lay against the snow, living fluids rushing thrhough the slightly transparent hosing. Core structures lay close to the still pulsing fuel pump and errily glowing spark chamber displayed openly on the snow. Bright, cracked, hateful optics looked from the ground up at Hide, making the old hunter yelp. Those optics were sane.
Hide shuddered, no one could remain sane through this torture, yet, a bit of facial plating twitched into a smirk. This creature wasn't mortal. Aghast, sickened and feeling a terror he had not known since his first huntm Ironhide backed from the living art work and wondered if this thing was kill-able.
"By Primus, Hide, get over here!" Chromia barked, pulling Ironhide from the dismembered 'Con, as she darted into the church, Bluestreak and Wheeljack hot on her heels. There, in his red and white glory, knelt Ratchet. Alive, shaking and deathly silent he tended to an Autobot who lay sobbing and trembling between two gray Decepticon frames. Along the walls other Autobots hung like trophies some silent, others wailing. Still more lay with faces buried in damaged hands between their terminated tormentors.
Dull blue optics looked up from his patient, "Get the others down. Find some energon, thermal blankets, move the terminated. Look for younglings and femmes, this was a Decepticon city." Ratchet looked back to his work, lost in a haze of exhaustion, pain and something that simmered behind his optics, something that disturbed his family greatly.
Silently the others got to work, saving the living, moving the dead, and all watching Ratchet like hawks. The normally volatile healer was calm, murmuring soothingly over sobbing patients. His bedside manner was tender, his treatment flawless. Ironhide shuddered, he'd rather be facing the heathens responsible for this, than face the unholy wrath that Ratchet would let loose when he'd stewed long enough, and any who knew the master healer felt the same self-preserving fear.
Late afternoon saw the last of the Autobot prisoners released, and treated. A spare house had been found, clean, empty and thankfully peaceful. Chromia had placed the Autobots within the many rooms, bunking them four to six per room, not allowing any to feel alone. It was the greatest kindness she could offer. With the coming of sunset came Mirage, leading the peaceful nightwalkers and mortals of the sanctuary.
The influx of mechs lowered the Steeldale villagers from the pillars, gathered the grayed Cons into tidy rows and cleaned out the chapel. The work was nearly done. Ratchet sat snugly between Wheeljack and Ironhide sipping a cube of energon Chromia had to help hold steady. "Lovey," she touched the bite marks on his neck gently, "Who hurt you?"
Wheeljack smiled slightly at his femme creator's tone, she had only ever coddled them once each that he could remember while they had been growing up, and for each of them it had been after witnessing their first hunt.
Ratchet shook his head tiredly, refusing to talk, refusing to look up from the trembling energon cradled in his and his carrier's hands.
"Lad, if ya don't say sommut soon I'll lock ya up personally fer the week of changin'." Ironhide snarled, smacking Ratchet up the back of the helm.
"Creator! I'm immune slaggit all, I can't be changed! Ratchet roared, optics finally showing the fire he held in his spark. "The held me in thrall they claimed me in their kiss and they read my slaggin' processors!" Ratchet flung himself away from the loving arms, storming back and forth as he raged. "I wanted them dead! I wanted every last Con who had even touched the villagers to be terminated. I wanted to peel the faces right off those guards, wanted Cyclonus ripped to his core components. Look around you, they did exactly what I had thought.
"This happened because of me. I freed them, I fed them and I gave them the perfect slaggin' smelter-born, pit spawned smorgasbord of evil Con energon to restore them. Me, I. Did. This." Ratchet's intakes heaved in his distress, optics brightening and dimming as he finally keened his aguish. Strong arms embraced him, lowering him gently to the cold floor where the family kneeled, their sparks pulsing strongly together as they offered Ratchet the only solace they could.
"Forgive the intrusion, old friend, but your healer needs to see this." Optimus looked into the now empty chapel with only the very strange family within. Ironhide nodded his understanding, bending his attention to making Ratchet get up.
"C'mon younglin', there's probably someone hurt." Ironhide cajoled, "Ya haven't finished trainin the lad, an' he'll need ya."
Vents cycling, intakes constricting from exhaustion and emotional trauma Ratchet finally moved, his family still surrounding him as they walked from the chapel in to the fading sunlight that painted white snowdrifts and thick evergreens alike in a rich golden hue.
"How is he still on-line?" Optimus asked, pointing to the dismembered frame no one had been willing to touch throughout the day. Ratchet tensed, kneeling by the frame of the mech he hated the most. He shuddered, the thought had been involuntary, hovering somewhere in the back of his processors throughout the day before of wanting to rend Cyclonus into core components. Yet, here before him was the very mech rendered just as Ratchet had wished.
Scanning the frame Ratchet shuddered, Cyclonus' frame was drawing together, overactive nanites recreating connections lost picometer by picometer. It would take time but Cyclonus would live – and it was impossible – for a mortal. Spark stilling in his chest Ratchet looked to the disembodied optics, noting microcracks in the red lenses traced in violet.
Terror thrilled through Ratchet, the last two days finally reaching his breaking point Ratchet did the only thing his overtaxed systems could do. "Nightwalker!" He shrieked, voice bellowing and loud as he backpedaled from Cyclonus to hide behind Chromia, safely in Wheeljack's arms.
"Sommat's got the kid spooked." Ironhide drawled to cover his unsettled state. Ratchet had never hid from anything. Not as a youngling, not as a grown mech. Yet, now 'Jack and Ratchet had swapped roles, the younger sheltering and protecting his big brother.
"Ratchet, can you patch into his core processors, determine his actions within Steeldale?" Optimus asked gently. "I need to know if he is guilty of leading his mech in this atrocity, or if he is guilty of negligence in keeping them in line."
Nodding, Ratchet moved to Cyclonus, finding a still connected cerebral port. With deft movements he connected, streaming the entire memory cortex into a side partition in his own processors that would check them for corruption issues and hidden threats. Once checked he patched to a main data port in the emperor's wrist.
"That is his guilt, his admission, and he has no shame." Ratchet seethed, usually soft blue optics bleeding to pale bluish white as he seethed and trembled in a heady mix of terror and fury over Cyclonus' frame.
Optimus opened the file, and reeled as the worst depravities, heinous cruelty and insidious perversity played before his optics. Younglings raped, families tortured, mechs trained with torture and pleasure twisted into unholy pit spawn for the purple mech to toy with. Optimus shuddered, forced the memory playback to cease and prayed for forgiveness.
Swift and sure Optimus lunged at the dismembered mech, slamming his fists through spark and core processor casings simultaneously to terminate Cyclonus. "I need high grade, holy water and white oak branches. Now!"
"Here," Ratchet held out thick stakes of white oak and several vials. "This will destroy him."
Optimus sighed, looking to Ratchet with such gentleness as to make Ratchet feel unworthy to be before the larger mech, and grateful to be standing there. "Forgive me Ratchet," The emperor reached up to his optics, deftly removing blue optic lenses to reveal the violet optics beneath, "But you will have to destroy him."
Dead silence filled the late evening air as Ratchet staggered, once more feeling as if the world had turned upside down. "But – emperor?" Ratchet balked, lost, terrified, exhausted, achy, and suddenly pissed. "You fraged, soggy processored, organic born, half-sparked glitch! How the slag are you a nightwalker - fraggit - how old are you?"
Startled at the sudden shift in the healer, Optimus found himself backing away very carefully, hands raised in submission. "Two thousand years. I was changed by my brother during the last Great War."
"We are having words, Imperial highness, believe me we are having words." Ratchet turned from Optimus to savagely impale every major system in Cyclonus' blackening chassis, doused the disturbing montage with high grade and lit the remains on fire.
"You, guard!" Ratchet snarled, snagging a Goldstone guard passing by and thrusting a vial into the startled mech's hands. "This is holy water. Take. It. When these flames cease to smolder sprinkle that entire vial over the ashes, and do it before midnight. I don't want that sorry sadistic fragger coming back for an encore."
Content that the immediate threat of Cyclonus reviving had been handled Ratchet once more turned on the emperor. "Where's my apprentice?"
"With me, I tried to keep him from seeing the worst. We searched the keep and all sealed buildings for survivors. All Decepticon younglings and several young mechs an' femmes have been recovered, along with a small band of Steeldale and Greensteel survivors. We've turned the weavers' hall and apprentice house into an infirmary.
"He's tired, and a little dinged, but he has not been harmed." Hound approached Ironhide's family calmly, "You should probably look him over though." Ratchet nodded, glaring one last time at the nightwalker emperor and grinned darkly with Ironhide began the task of interrogating the Prime.
Morning, calm blue sky, and not a hint of crimson on the horizon, Ratchet sighed languidly. Three weeks had passed since Coldsteel Garrison. The town had been renamed, Healer's Wrath, with the combined survivors of Steeldale, Coldsteel and Greensteel forging a new town together. The chapel had been altered, blending the Decepticon, Autobot and Neutral faiths together as they tried to find a mutual path to recover for the destruction.
Optimus had returned to the Imperial City guarded by Ironhide and Chromia, now his Captain of the Guard and Head of Security. Wheeljack and Bluestreak had followed the rest of Goldstone's populace back to their sanctuary, promising any aid to Healer's Wrath the new town required. Ratchet smiled slightly in his slightly stiff way station cot, First Aid had remained in Healer's Wrath, finishing his journeyman's trial by creating a healing center of the processor, spark and frame for those recovering from such horrible trauma under the tutelage of several healers who had remained hidden with the Decepticon femmes and younglings. The lad was far more suited to life in the medical wards. Ratchet knew he would be fine.
Now, Ratchet was on his own again. Not that he'd ever write to 'Jack or his creators about that. He had been traveling this route alone for the greater part of the last ten years. He had never had anyone with him before and being alone again felt wonderful.
"Watch the paint, slagger!" The voice snarled on the other side of the small roadside cottage, pulling Ratchet out of his cot like a shot. There, curled together on two too small cots were two brightly colored young hooligans dressed in light merc armor.
"If you come into an inhabited way station after the first arrival is in recharge, its common courtesy to be quiet!" Ratchet snarled, making the pair bolt upright with harsh glares.
"Know your place, healer." The yellow – yellow, thank Primus! – one snarled impudently.
"My place?" Ratchet asked with calm menace, "I'll show you my place." He stood, wrench in one hand as he stepped to fulfill his threat, only to have the red one – giggle.
"He's funny, can we keep him?" Red asked of yellow with big pleading optics that looked too ridiculous for Ratchet to deal with. Snorting, fury deflating, Ratchet grabbed his satchel, folded his cot and left the way station and the bickering pair inside.
"Slagging younglings." The medic grumbled as he stormed on the northern road, pedes sinking shin deep into the thickly layered snow. His time in Goldstone and Steeldale had destroyed his normal time table, as had taking an apprentice. He should have been to his northern most city already, waiting in relative comfort for the worst of winter to seal the passes.
"Oh, are you heading to Crystal Spire?" The red one asked, suddenly at Ratchet's side.
"Gah, make some noise! Primus, I've nearly had enough surprises for a lifetime. Yes I'm heading that way, no, you two cannot come with me. When I stop you two better keep the slag going and be gone before I get there."
"Good, we'll leave you at Pax Cristalia." Yellow sneered as Ratchet's face fell.
"Why the slag are you two going there?"
"Trade." Red shrugged easily. Ratchet gritted his denta, knowing he had no choice but to travel with the pair through the crystal clear, frigid morning. Ratchet shook his head, lengthening his strides to leave the taller warriors behind.
The pair strode through the snow languidly, their forms gleaming in the early morning light. Red cavorted around yellow, the quieter of the two snarling at his vivacious travel partner to watch the paint or slag off. Still, Ratchet mused as the way station faded behind them and left them in a nearly blinding world of dark evergreens and blinding whiteness, hearing their voices kept darker memories at bay.
As midday approached the snow dimmed, clouds building up before them and still several klicks before Pax Cristalia. Ratchet looked up he sighed in defeat. The clouds were ominously black as the trees swayed angrily with the ever approaching wind. Behind him, the brightly colored pair fell silent.
The roar of the freezing sub-artic gale tore through Ratchet's layered cloaks and thick, quilted canvas tunic like blades of ice. He had never been between villages this late in the season. He staggered with the wind, weighed down by heavy clothes and a heavier healer's pack.
"Woah, there come on." Arms wrapped around Ratchet's frame keeping him steady. Larger frames blocked the piercing wind, creating a small delicate cocoon of warmth around Ratchet's steadily freezing frame. This was going to be a long trek. Heaving a silent sigh of resignation Ratchet let himself be sheltered as the trio struggled on through the worsening storm.
A/N: Still going ...