Note: I suppose this title could use work, but come on, the chapter itself is what matters, eh? In any case, enjoy the following. Finally Donkan gets a support with a certain someone, wink wonk. One last thing: this chapter has a trigger warning for emetophobia. Thanks for reading, and do enjoy.
Companions
Chapter 5x: A Job Well Done
"Our job is complete. Come on, let's go help the others." Yas'min ran off immediately in a random direction, and Tango and Cyan were quick to follow.
"Hope they don't need healing," Dietr said, only partially to himself. He turned around, angling his staff at me. "How 'bout you?"
"Eh, I'm not too bad," I said, breathing more heavily than I wished. "But I'd hate to deprive you the experience."
He laughed once, standing still as I walked over, and hoisted his staff dramatically. With a surge of blue energy, I felt at least moderately relieved and rejuvenated. "Thanks." Internally, I shook my head a bit, preparing to face what was surely a trio of tough opponents.
Fortunately, it seemed the other seven were able to accomplish the task without my assistance. They had a desperate need for Dietr, it seemed; Yas'min had refused to let Arca and Corrin handle their opponent, the leader of the crew, and she'd dived in, enraged. "Nothing I can't heal," Dietr answered, rushing in to heal her. He made quick work of it, then turning to the others.
"You have no idea how good it is to see you all," I said, seeing as all the attention had fallen to Dietr and me.
"Yeah, likewise," Dietr trailed. We were met by a chorus of laughs, most likely an expulsion of nervousness and relief. Dietr nodded at me, and I smiled back, then feeling the pat of friendly hands upon my shoulders.
"Alright," said Corrin, "you need to tell us basically exactly what happened to you guys."
"There's... really not much to tell." It felt like ages since they'd left to chase the brigands, but it had been only about a day. "I think the real story will be from Yas'min and Tango."
"Please, do oblige us," Del'fi said, nodding lightly.
"Fair enough," I muttered, trying to gather the important thoughts. "We left a while after you did, Dietr tracked down all those sword marks-lifesavers, they were... We settled down to sleep shortly after it got dark, continued following the trail, and then... found..." I pointed vaguely in the direction of the bloody mess, reminding myself not to look at it. It's just some brigand, some awful person, I thought.
"Yeah, and here we are," Dietr finished. "Like he said, not exciting. Really, you guys have to have something more interesting. You caught up to those brigands! Plus, there's Yas'min and Tango." I nodded slowly, appreciating his conclusion.
"You wanna know how we caught up to them?" Corrin stood silent for a few seconds, and then beamed. "They were still asleep."
"It was almost perfect," Josh continued. "We would've dived in and stabbed them there, since Alara and Tango were tied up right where we could see them..."
"Also asleep, lazy bones," Corrin said, poking Tango in the side. He swatted at her hand, getting a laugh in response.
"But that's when we saw the Risen swarm coming in. Naturally, they fired off an arrow in our direction, and that woke the brigands up," Josh explained. "We'd already gotten Tango free, so we sent him, Yas, and Cyan out to fight them."
"Wait, you're tellin' me you had four of you guys fighting those three guys and then three of you fighting a swarm of Risen?" Dietr asked. He grabbed Cyan's shoulder, surprised, and seemed to squeeze it tight, at least tight enough to make her smirk.
"Those guys were intensely tough," Corrin said, her smile faltering for a few seconds. "It took a good bit of luck to avoid their attacks. Needless to say, they were no ordinary crooks."
"But hey, we still beat 'em," Arca shrugged. "You know what that says about us."
"Unfortunately, that's not very comforting," Del'fi thought aloud. "It makes me wonder what they could have possibly wanted with Yas'min and Tango." I looked over at the two, who were naturally standing right beside each other. Yas'min stroked Alara's mane absent-mindedly, while Tango nervously thumbed his pockets. "Do you have any ideas?"
The question was directed at the siblings, of course, but they did not seem inclined to answer. They didn't look away-any farther than they already had-so I doubted they really knew anything shady, but the fact that they failed to say anything made no sense. As much as I wanted the answers they may have had, I couldn't bring myself to pressure them.
"Anyway, that still leaves your story," Dietr said, easing the moderate tension of the prolonged silence. "What happened to you guys?"
"Perhaps that's something we should talk about in private," Yas'min said, angling her head slightly in my direction. Ah yes, I thought, I'm still the newbie in this group. No trust necessary. As uncomfortable as that made me, I couldn't bring myself to have any animosity towards her, at least none that I would be able to remember in two hours, so I had to let this one go.
There's certainly something very mysterious about them, I thought. They happen to have lost each other while sparsely spread throughout the woods? I supposed I had touched on this back when the seven of us were setting off for Ylisstol again, but it definitely deserved deeper thought. Just because I'm below their level of trust doesn't mean they shouldn't be below mine. If I wanted to take myself seriously with this thought, though, there would be quite the heavy implication. I would have to watch them in battles, try to figure out if we were going off course intentionally, watch how and where I slept…
The idea of it made me sick to my stomach, and I had already been so at least once today, which was definitely enough. They haven't run me through with a frickin' broadsword yet. They probably don't intend to. I tried to think back to that first time I met Josh and Del'fi, to see if I could remember any verbal cues that might alert me to something being off.
As I was thinking, it occurred to me that we were walking again, unsurprisingly following the two sets of siblings. It's like they're determined to a fault, I considered, taking a short break from remembering that day. That is, attempting to remember that day. I only had vague memories of even the day before, and each day just seems to be getting longer as we continue on what should really be a simple quest. Disgruntled, I ran my hand over my head.
"Thinkin' pretty hard there, Donkan?" Somehow Josh had managed to escape my awareness, which was a strange aberration for me. I looked to the front of the group to see if Del'fi was looking back at us or something. Oh, I'm at the front of the group. I probably looked pretty weird, walking up to the others without even acknowledging them.
Blushing slightly, I finally thought up a way to answer him. "Ah, yeah, sorry to plough through you like this." Oh dear Neptune, I hope he doesn't take that the wrong way. ...Jesus Christ, I'm disgusting. "Uh, how's it going?"
Fortunately, Josh only smiled. "For the moment, not too bad. It's good to be heading for Ylisstol again, but it's only a matter of time before something else happens." I laughed once, a mixture of appreciation for his implication and contempt for the situation.
"Well, we'll probably make it to tomorrow in one piece," I continued. "Hey, uh, what time do you think it is?" It had probably only been a few hours since we'd woken, but I could not tell the passing of time to save my life. "I could use a nap."
"Yeah, you've been working pretty hard, buddy," Josh replied, placing his hand on my shoulder. Oh god, is he patronizing me? His hand is literally on my shoulder oh my goodness. "But if I had to guess, ah…" He stopped for a moment, angling his head back to search for the sun. As he looked back at me, I had to quickly lift my eyes from his chest back to look at him. "It's probably like 3 in the afternoon."
Huh, so they do have clocks here. I wonder what point in history this is…? If this place is even really parallel to European history. "I wonder how long clocks have been around," I said, somewhat absently.
Josh waited for a moment, his hand slipping from my shoulder, and then laughed once, as though confused at my train of thought. I really need to watch what I say, damn. "They've been around for a little while, since the 1300's," he answered. I turned my head to him, narrowing my eyebrows in surprise. "Yeah, I'm something of an enthusiast."
"You… enjoy clocks?" I asked. Why does that sound so dirty in my head, what is wrong with me, holy frick.
He gave me a look of concern for a split second, then angling his head slightly. "Not especially. All mechanics. Technology's a pretty promising field, at least I think it is."
As much as I absolutely hated mechanics-vague memories of sitting in physics class and mentally cursing out a test question on rotational inertia came to mind-it was kind of really cute to see the light in his eyes as he talked about his passion. "What other kinds of technology are you interested in?"
"Pretty much all of it. The printing press, compasses, furnaces. Yeah, they've been around for a little while, but I can see a lot of room for improvement," Josh continued. "Not that they're a bunch of junk, I mean. It's just, stuff can always be more efficient. I'd like to be able to think of ways how to do it."
"You should definitely be an inventor," I replied. If it would make him this happy and attractive, I would support it completely.
"I don't know about that," he said, scratching his forehead with one finger. "I'm not exactly what I'd call 'inventive.' Or, well, 'smart,' even."
"What makes you say that?" I asked. "You seem fairly smart to me. Smart enough to, uh, do stuff." Smooth.
"Trust me, compared to you and Del I'm nothing special," he said, looking away.
Summoning as much bravery as I could, I brought my hand up to his shoulder. "You can't expect to get through life happily if you're always comparing yourself to others. Listen, I am sort of a huge nerd, and Del'fi's intelligence impresses even me. It's not fair to yourself to think lowly of yourself." Josh didn't respond, but he seemed to understand what I was saying. "Besides, someone I look up to once said, the world can't change on genius alone. It takes an extraordinary amount of ordinary ability." The wisdom of the Super High School Level Hall Monitor is not lost on me, I thought, laughing once internally.
"..." I began to think Josh wasn't going to offer any sort of reply. If I were in his awkward position, there would be absolutely zero chance of me opening my mouth again until someone else arrived and brought up a new topic. Seeing as Del'fi and the Manakete siblings had pulled farther ahead, it seemed unlikely.
I didn't realize we'd stopped walking until Dietr coughed from behind us. Turning around awkwardly, I saw Corrin, Arca, Cyan, and Dietr all standing in an arc, waiting for us to continue. "...Right," I said.
Josh nodded as well, clapping me once more on the shoulder. "Thanks, Donkan. I better catch up to Del and them." Without meeting my eye, he jogged up ahead.
As I started walking again, the four behind me caught up quickly. On the whole, they seemed to have moved past the fact that I was totally blocking them for who knows how long, but the last one to pass me was Corrin. She waggled her eyebrows with ferocious intensity.
"Oh, shut it," I said.
"It feels like we've been awake forever," Corrin said, groaning slightly.
"Corrin, I wouldn'ta thought you'd be complainin' about this," Arca mused.
"Yeah, you're usually the embodiment of pure energy. Is something wrong?" I tipped my head, focusing on the face of my two cohorts instead of perhaps the path in front of me. Well, if nobody in front of me trips, then I probably have nothing to worry about. This rationalization came quite a bit later than my lack of caring to focus on my path, but I figured it was the best I could do.
This tangential line of thought kept me from noticing what was up with Corrin right away. "Corrin..." Arca started. Corrin had fallen silent, standing still. Yet again, the siblings creeped farther away, but they didn't seem to notice.
"Um..." My social skills failed me yet again. Can something please not be wrong?
Corrin finally answered in a sense, turning away and walking to the edge of the woods. "He-" But Arca could not finish his thought.
"HWURGH!" With a great gasp of noise and a crash of liquids, Corrin vomited across the grass and stones.
"..." Arca and I were rendered speechless. How does one even react in such a situation? I'd never been around with someone who had thrown up...
"Alright, that's the last time I drink... anything." Corrin rubbed her forehead, continuing to walk alongside us.
"Excuse me, but what the heck was that? Are you telling me you've been drunk?" I didn't mean to sound so harsh, but I had no idea that alcohol was even relevant to our situation.
"Not drunk, you idiot. Since we didn't have a healer, I had to treat some serious pain with ale," Corrin said. "We stole it from those brigands."
"Wha...serious pain? What happened?" I asked. Arca's face was only filled with concern, so I doubted he had any idea what she was talking about.
"I strained my shoulder," Corrin said, rubbing her neck. "But let me tell you, that drink was not worth it. My tolerance for alcohol is like, none." She laughed once, and even though it was in kind of a sick way she still seemed more upbeat.
"Good thing you got that out of your system," Arca said, grinning.
"Was that a pun?" Corrin slapped him on the arm. "You loser!" Arca laughed, but I was only able to stare in complete confusion. These people are kind of completely ridiculous, I thought, shaking my head.
And so, the group had split off into pairs: Josh and Del'fi up front, Yas'min and Tango right behind them, Cyan and Dietr traipsing a short way behind them, Arca and Corrin joking and laughing somehow… Ah yes, how could I forget Donkan? I had no heart to come in and interrupt any of them, especially since Arca and Corrin had made it abundantly clear that they were finished talking to me. I suppose it was nice to have more time alone, but without anything to actively do, I was stuck thinking again.
Fortunately, we shortly came upon a small field. "It's gonna be dark pretty soon, and we're all tired. Let's just set up camp now," Josh called out. Without any argument, we set up both the tents quickly, shoving two sleeping bags into each.
"Ya know, these aren't gonna make it if our group keeps growing like this," Dietr said, scratching the back of his head.
"I have to disagree," Corrin replied. "Having more than half of us awake on guard at all times seems totally logical."
"Very funny," Dietr answered. "Still, don't ya think we should try to find a nearby village and see if there are any shops. They probably would be, I mean this isn't fancy stuff."
"But would the tents be able to hold more than two sleeping bags, really?" These tents were really small, and I doubted it'd be as simple to find an easily-carried tent as compred to a sleeping bag.
"The realistic maximum number we could fit comfortably is three," Del'fi thought aloud. "We could split into groups of three, one group per tent and then one on guard." It seemed reasonable; we'd hate to mess too much with security.
"This is all hypothetical, though," Yas'min followed, continuing to stroke her pegasus' mane. "We still don't have those two extra sleeping bags." Both she and Del'fi smirked and looked slightly up as though thinking. These two talk pretty similar, I thought. They're probably like best friends.
"Perhaps I got a bit ahead of myself," Del'fi laughed, a bit uncomfortably. "Well, it's not quite dark, so we have some time to think about this. Let's set up the fire."
The two pairs of siblings seemed to be handling it pretty well, and none of the rest of us wanted to crowd up their space, per se, so we dispersed to continue earlier conversations. That is, the other four continued earlier conversations. I just... dispersed. I found a large log near the edge of the woods, and it seemed as good an object as any to lean against and look up at the twilit sky.
As I rested my back against it, my exhalation from the exertion was capped by a clink of metal behind me. My reflexes said to turn around sharply, but my nature overpowered them somehow, deciding to turn around slowly. A glint of light from the ground answered the question of the sound's source: a small item was on the ground. Its form matched that of the Dracoshield. Another boosting item, nice.
I didn't think to question why it was lying around at a random spot in the woods, but why did any random items lie around in the middle of battlefields? Answer me that one, Naga. The thought was ridiculous enough that I laughed to myself, missing the next sound as I picked up the Dracoshield.
It repeated itself shortly after. "Hey." It was a rushed voice, quiet, but in a shouty whisper sort of way. I half-expected it to be one of the others, but that wouldn't explain why they were so quiet, or-and this was the major thing-why they would be off in the woods. Could I have missed that? It was unlikely. I looked back into the woods, focusing my eyes in the low levels of remaining light.
Lo and behold, another person stood on the woods, half hidden behind a tree a few feet back. I was skeptical to approach some random dude, so I kept still, sitting on the ground with my spine turned all the way around. It was uncomfortable, but I kept his stare.
"Are you coming? I've got to talk to you," he said.
"W...what is it?" I asked. Talking to people who wouldn't introduce themselves was not my strong suit, so I figured I'd wait for that.
"Just get over here, damn," he whispered harshly. Fuck. I held up my hands in a conciliatory manner, slowly approaching. I'm trembling, oh god... It was a good thing I still had my sword with me. I placed my hand on it, awkwardly fingering it as I approached.
The man said nothing, looking me in the eyes. I took a moment to look over him, to gain any information that would be immediately relevant. He was dirty blond and thin, but in a lean, muscular way. I found myself staring at his chest, where his Dark Mage outfit showed off a moderately transparent undershirt. "You realize those people camping there are my friends," he said.
"I..."
"Shut up! I won't have you stealing anything from them."
I narrowed my eyes, rather confused. "You don't underst-"
"Do you think I was born yesterday? I know all of them and I don't know you. Finish the story yourself."
I must have gripped the hilt of my sword, since he looked down at it. "Oh no you don't," he said, punching me in the face. Jesusito, what's his deal? I thought, still extremely confused. "When you wake up, you'll think before messing with Bjorn Emery."
He pulled out a purple tome, aiming his hand at me. Unexpectedly, the hand curled itself into a fist. I was only able to shout before it was thrust into my face.