"There is an intruder in our midst."
"The stars do not shine. It brings terrible misfortune."
"Bane…this was already written on the path of the planets. Do not blame him."
"What shall we do with it?"
"Wait. Wait for an opportunity, one foreseen by the fates."
And the quiet voices retreated back into the dark undergrowth, the soft sounds of hooves clip-clopping away.
It's been a while. I think I should be nearly out of this forest.
Pit stopped at a particularly thick branch, panting faintly while noticing the wild overgrown state of that specific tree. Making sure that his wings hadn't caught on any stray offshoots, Pit carefully wriggled through an empty space, taking extra care not to rip his clothes any further than their current disheveled state. While he was doing this, however, a sharp, loud crack! resounded through the forest, breaking the utter silence that had ruled the area since his arrival.
Pit froze for a few moments, glancing around, senses sparked alight with wary. After a few moments of watchful surveying, he continued making his way through the tangled shrubbery, eventually emerging out of the space. Balancing on a branch in the clear, Pit resumed jumping from surface to surface, but much faster. The wind tore at his face, occasionally sending a leaf or two to stick to his body, but Pit didn't care- he was close to his destination.
He could see a dim light now; although it wasn't very bright, he sensed that the trees were thinning. Slowing down, Pit paused at a suitable point and gently flapped his wings, still relatively unused to the fact that he didn't need the Power of Flight anymore, nor the Wings of Pegasus. The latter was even now stored away because his goddess had insisted that it was too old to risk being used again. But now, he could fly without reliance on anything.
Frankly, it felt really nice.
His wings lifted him up several meters, up to the point of the tree, where Pit alighted on the top, folding his wings against his back to lessen the chances of being spotted. Sure enough, there was only a little bit farther until he reached the giant castle-like structure in the east. Well, he was pretty sure that he was traveling from west. Hopefully he was right and not wrong, because if he made a mistake in this world it would likely be fatal.
Just think if I ask someone for directions and confuse the cardinal directions because they're different here…
Judging the position of the sun, Pit looked at it critically for several seconds until he couldn't stare at it any longer, lest he go blind. From what he had seen, it was almost dark here in this world, but it had been day in the Smash Mansion. It was a complete twelve hour difference.
Pit shook his head and heaved another huge sigh, spreading his wings and gliding quickly to the edge of the forest, trying his best not to break the silvery cast that Hagrid had made for him. It was helping a lot, as the pain had faded away completely and was now just a dull ache. He silently thanked his newest friend, his feet touching the ground as his wings settled against his back again.
Now that he was actually there, the castle looked huge and very imposing. There were towers and battlements surrounding it, pinnacles of turrets rising up along the sides. It cast a dark shadow over everything, and the angel gazed at it in slight terror and bewilderment. Had he landed in the medieval era? And somehow, the medieval era had people with magical sticks?
No. Not possible. I guess I could try sneaking in, but if it acts anything like normal castles should, it's going to kill me. Pit gulped, his body giving an involuntary shudder. His wings trembled and lay flat, a few feathers floating down. Pit snatched them up, crumpled them in an effort to make it heavier, and did his best to make them disappear by throwing them into the nearby lake.
A long, slimy tentacle quickly snatched the feathers and receded back into the dark waters.
Pit stared.
His first instinct was to yell loudly at the 'demon', but he held back the shout, biting his tongue. His confused thoughts whirled in his head, allowing his logic to quickly fly away and self-destruct.
It's Hades! No, it's the tentacle of doom! No, wait, why am I…no, it's a demon from Medusa's army!
What if it's not a mindless monster and can actually think? What if there's…other stuff down there?
He could still see the tentacle, lazily curling back into itself deep in the lake, feathers in its vicelike grasp. Not daring to breathe, Pit summoned his bow and nocked an arrow, praying to Palutena that the arrow wouldn't draw too much unnecessary attention. Drawing the projectile as far back as it would go, he released, controlling the trajectory with his mind.
It hit the feathers right on target, destroying them, the arrow itself going straight up into the sky. Its energy burned out, the bolt disintegrating easily into little white flashes of light.
As soon as the experience was over, Pit began to hyperventilate madly for a minute or so, still thinking of the terrifying possibilities that came with giant sea monsters like these.
Okay, Pit, remember your therapy training. Number one, breathe slowly. Number two, hold your breath and count to ten. Slowly. Number three, think of kittens. Cute, white, tumbling kittens. With pink tongues and pretty amber eyes. And no sharp claws.
Pit repeated these exercises until he calmed down enough for his feathers to stop shedding. Allowing himself to relax further, he dismissed his blue-and-gold bow, whom disappeared in a dim flash of light.
He exhaled in relief, once again trudging forward. Pit carefully edged around the lake, making sure to stay in the shadows, wary eyes watching for any other attacks. His arrow had somehow-fortunately- escaped the notice of the monster, which luckily did not show any sign of returning.
His tiptoeing escapade continued until he was on the other side of the lake, a complete 180º turn from where he had been earlier. The angel narrowed his eyes at the large, imposing castle standing before him; he was not quite stupid enough to take his chances and hope that there was no one there.
Pit backtracked slightly until he found a very large tree, where he leapt up the branches until he was at the top. Once he was there, Pit glided toward the noisy area northwest of the castle that was filled with people, presumably wizards from what Hagrid had told him. His newest friend had also advised him to get robes as fast as possible.
Hiding behind a layer of wet clouds, Pit's azure eyes darted around, watching the wizards like a hawk stalking its prey. A while afterwards, he caught sight of a family walking out of a brightly colored shop with flashing socks hanging on the door. They were toting sticks and carrying robes; vivid robes patterned with orange rabbits and violet llamas that caught the glare of the sun and hurt Pit's eyes, causing him to look away. When he looked back, they were gone.
Pit tried to stay optimistic despite his growing concern for the survival of sanity.
Well, I know where they get robes now! Even if they look…sort of stupid. Scratch that, really stupid. It's okay, looking stupid seems to be the wizards' fashion right now so maybe it'll be okay. Hopefully it'll be okay.
The infinitesimal, sensible-and most importantly, salvageable-part of his mind whispered to him that he should try to save his own stability first before even reaching out a hand to the incurable mass of magical stick-waving bunny-and-llama-loving weirdoes, seeing that he had just futilely reassured himself thrice.
Pit paid it no matter.
Taking a deep breath, Pit prepared himself for the dive. In order to pull this off without being seen, he knew that he would have to get to the shady group of trees very fast. He would aim for stealing robes for now, and preferably oversized ones that would effectively hide his wings. Since he probably wouldn't be able to do anything hovering in the sky, Pit needed to return to the ground.
As soon as the road was clear, Pit dove straight down without hesitation, his wings folding in on themselves. The strong wind tore at his face, but Pit persisted, eyes open just slightly. Once he was just ten meters above the ground, Pit sharply angled his wings up. Since he had only been following his instincts and had never really done this by himself before, Pit almost crashed into the trunk of a tree. Luckily, he managed to avoid it.
On the downside, he was stuck headfirst in a damp hollow full of rotting leaves. Worst of all, it was filled to the brim with strange, slimy worms.
Pit couldn't help but recoil in disgust. The things were gargantuan, ten inches in length and completely brown. The slimy, slippery surface of their skin rippled in an unpleasant manner as they moved millimeter by millimeter, inching their way underneath Pit's face.
"Oh…my…goddess…!" Pit's voice was muffled by the mass of dirt-colored worms and leaves. The disgust and exasperation in his voice was quite easily seen.
His natural instincts kicked in and Pit's bow appeared in his hand, the angel thrusting it in the ground and propelling his body up into a standing position as fast as he could. The golden rings on his wrist lit up and glowed in the dark, causing Pit to quickly dismiss the bow.
The light faded, and Pit was once again reminded of the awful, unctuous worms by the darkness covering the area. All movement from Pit stopped, the angel freezing in slight fear of stepping into another pit full of worms, even though he now realized that the wound on his arm had reopened a bit. That wasn't the worst of his worries, however.
That…oh my goddess. Those…those…
Pit's head dropped.
…I don't even know what to call them.
Whatever.
His clear blue eyes flashed faintly, the angel finally refocusing on his terrible, most dreadful task thus far.
My mission of priority as of now…is Operation Get-Some-Clothes.
A/N This. I thought it ended awkwardly, but hopefully this chapter was okay.
Thank you for reading! And of course…R&R!
Replies:
Paradigm of Writing: Aww, I completely agree! xD
I wasn't aiming to make Hagrid unlikeable, so if you can tell what's wrong, could you tell me? It might have something to do with that I've never written HP characters until now, though. But that wouldn't affect it very much, considering that this is the first time I'm writing Pit, too…
Duly noted. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for the review, and thanks for beta-ing for the first three chapters!
