Author's Note iv. Hello, and welcome to another chapter of ~*disappointment*~. Like, you were looking forward to a badass fight with a dragon? Well... meh. But the fight is still really important. Anyway, if you like the story so far, feel free to drop a follow or favorite; they're always appreciated. Reviews are always greatly appreciated, too. Anyway, thank you all of you who followed/favorited/reviewed. I don't give you guys enough credit, but anyway, on with the story! Have a great day~
Word Count: 1,453
Eren watched Mikasa immediately leap into action as soon as they all saw the great, lumbering beast outside the window. She robbed a decorative suit of armor of its sword, dropped her basket and began sprinting towards the door. Soon after, Armin pulled himself out of whatever trance he'd gotten himself into and followed her, his own sword in hand. Eren wished he could have helped, but he wasn't of much use without opposable thumbs.
"I miss hands," he sighed for the thousandth time.
He picked up Mikasa's basket in his jaws and slowly trotted through the halls to the outside with Annie to watch the fight. It wasn't particularly memorable, but perhaps that was because he wasn't involved in it.
He'd gotten into many a dogfight with wild animals when Mikasa would have been at a disadvantage, and while after a while they all blended together in his memory, living a fight was far more entertaining than watching it from afar. Even if it was terrifying in the moment, he loved the aftermath of the adrenaline rushes and how they made him aware of everything around him.
Eren sighed again, sitting down outside on the doorstep of the castle with Annie as Armin and Mikasa charged out towards the dragon.
"Pretty day outside, isn't it," he cheerily said to the blonde, putting down the basket as they watched the battle. Annie didn't reply, but Eren didn't mind; what was he to expect from someone he had been making fun of not ten minutes ago?
They silently watched Mikasa gracefully lunged and dodged in a dangerous dance around the dragon as Armin tried to follow suit. It was clear he was used to practice spars, where everything had rules and routine to it, and not the spur-of-the-moment life-and-death of an actual fight.
A glint of light reflected into his eyes, and he recoiled slightly. "Who on this earth is shining the sun into my eyes," he complained as he shifted positions. He took a better look at what was happening in the fight, and his eyes widened.
"Mikasa!" he suddenly yelled, bolting forward and into the thorns towards the dragon.
The sharp, prickly vines picked at his fur, pulling it off in stinging clumps as he tore through the vegetation. The occasional thorn worked its way into the pads of his feet, but by this point in his life, he'd grown so sure-footed he could pull it out with his teeth as he ran, as long as it was in the front.
The dragon had begun getting the best of Mikasa and Armin, and they were being forced backwards, closer and closer to a trench. Eren didn't want to think about it as he ran, should he jinx their luck and they fell to their doom.
He burst through the plants covered in scratches and thorns caught all through his coat, but none of that mattered now. He feared for his fiancée's life at the moment. And Armin's too, he seemed like a good kid, but he losing Mikasa scared him far more than losing some blond stranger he'd met last night.
Pillars of fire now whooshed past him as the dragon noticed the tiny wolf running past its toes. He flinched at the heat, sure his fur was getting singed, but he kept going. He was getting closer to the edge now, and as he just as he dodged past the dragon's front legs, it suddenly froze and collapsed to the ground. A green mist pulled itself from the beast's chest, and with a horrendous shriek that could wake the dead, it sped off, leaving the decaying body behind it.
Eren skidded to a stop in front of Mikasa and turned around and watched the dragon decay in fast-forward, turning to nothing but a pile of rotting flesh and steaming bones within minutes.
The sword slipped from Mikasa's grip, and Eren could hear it clatter to the floor. Armin sheathed his own sword, probably reminded by the clatter.
"Woah," was the only thing anyone said, and it came from Armin.
Eren finally broke his trance, shaking his head and seeing that the brambles were sublimating into sparkles, noticed that his hind legs no longer had fresh waves of pain coming for them. He assumed the thorns in his pads had left with the ones on the vine and the remaining pain was just from the cuts they left.
Annie's castle was not restored, however. The castle had naturally deteriorated over the century or so it had been abandoned, so it made sense when Eren thought about it.
Annie picked the hem of her dress up from the ground slightly and ran towards the trio, lightly picking up the basket and running with it as she did so. "What just happened?" she demanded, though instead of addressing the more knowledgeable Eren and Mikasa, she asked Armin.
He put his hands in the air in surrender. "I have no idea, but that might've been the witch in a last-ditch effort to escape."
"Probably off to curse another poor soul," Eren added.
Annie's face darkened slightly and she walked right up to Armin, to the point where if Eren hadn't known any better, he would have thought they were about to kiss. "Well you're going after her, aren't you?"
"Well, uh, yeah, why?"
"I'm coming with you," Annie firmly said as she finally took a step back.
Armin threw a look at the girl and her wolf, and they half nodded, half shrugged in response.
"Well no one's stopping you, but you should probably put some underwear on," he finally advised and Annie's face flushed bright red before she slapped him quite loudly on the cheek.
Eren decided to pretend he never saw or heard those two interactions.
"Anyway," Mikasa said, returning to the subject on hand. "I think that dragon might have been the witch."
Armin made an agreeing face. "I guess that would make sense, with that green banshee just pulling itself grossly out of the thing's chest and all. If it were a witch that happened to have transfigured itself, then that must mean wherever that gas cloud is heading is where she has a base or something."
"So we head out now?" Annie queried.
"Well, it'd be best if we had her scent to track first," Mikasa cut in and gestured to Eren. "Theoretically-"
"Hypothetically," Armin automatically corrected, but Mikasa ignored him.
"Theoretically, Eren could use the scent of decaying witch-dragon bones to track down the real witch."
Everyone looked down at Eren, who was tempted to roll his eyes a little bit. "Going, going," he said, bounding over to the fragile pile of bones that seemed to already be turning to dust. He took a few deep sniffs from the pile of bones, but couldn't find any trail to follow. He turned back to his human companions and shrugged as well as a wolf could.
"Nothing?" Armin asked, bewildered.
"Nothing," Eren confirmed.
Everyone sighed, no longer sure what to do. Following the gas-cloud-banshee thing was out of the question; who knew what twists and turns it made in the air that would lead them on to red herring after red herring.
A softly glowing silver doe gracefully leapt over a bush and into the clearing the adventurers were in. Eren heard Armin gasp, and he assumed that this was the doe he had seen that had gotten him lost while hunting.
The doe walked among the quartet, gently sniffing each member. Then it turned heel and bounded, lighter than air, back into the woods, where its soft glow cut through the dark and illuminated a path. It did not look back.
Eren whistled the best he could. "That was the doe that got you lost on your hunting trip, wasn't it, Armin?"
The blond boy nodded faintly. "Yeah, that was her, all right. You think it's a sign or something?"
Eren and Mikasa nodded.
"A magical creature leads you to a good fate once? That's luck. You see the same magical creature leading you again? That's destiny," Mikasa solemnly told him.
"But is it meant for all of us, or just me?" Armin countered.
"Well we all saw it, shouldn't it be obvious? It's meant for everyone here," Annie suddenly interjected. "I'm assuming only Armin spotted the doe when he was on his hunting trip, but we can also assume that since he's a prince, he was with a huge hunting party. If only he saw it, and only he joined the adventure, then that must mean that since all four of us could see the doe this time, then it's leading all four of us on a new adventure."