Almost four weeks passed calmly. Then, suddenly-
"QUELANA!"
Quelana woke with a gasp, her hands instinctively flaring into two twin suns as she shot to her feet. Confusion passed over her face briefly as she rocketed through the hollow and past the illusions, her haste to get to the sound of struggling sending boxes and shattered garbage flying as she charged ahead.
Quelana drew a sharp breath as she came to a halt just outside the hollow, her feet sliding on something dark and slick that was slightly warm, even in the omnipresent heat of the swamp. Her breath caught in the back of her throat as she spotted Thomas some way out, thrashing wildly as leeches the size of wolves clung to his body, writhing in an attempt to take him down that was close to succeeding.
"My arm!" Thomas suddenly screamed as a leech latched on just under his shoulder, its razor teeth rapidly shearing through his meager cloth robing and into the soft flesh below. Quelana sucked in a sharp breath as read doused the cloth around the leech, the source of the slickness underfoot.
"Hold on!" Quelana yelled as she bolted down the wooden ramp, her flaming hands pulled back as of to punch the leeches. Her first fireball exploded some ways to the left of Thomas, clearing a mass of leeches there that looked as though they were about to mob him. Her follow up combustion cleared a path through the mud before her easily, the flame shriveling the leeches into husks in seconds.
Thomas toppled backwards in an explosion of muddy water as she drew closer, his thrashing slowing significantly.
"Quelana, kill them!" Thomas yelled from his position in the mud, still being ripped at by leeches. Where he had accidently scratched himself on a piece of wood blood ran down his chin, some getting in his mouth and causing him to hack and wheeze as he choked on his own life.
Quelana nervously doused the leeches in the immediate area in flame, burning them to crisps as she went all out with her power. Cold sweat drenched her spine as she stared at the leeches atop her student, her minds eye flashing back to the firestorms she had recently recalled.
"Quelana!" Thomas's voice had grown weaker in the few precious seconds she had faltered, and as she looked down and connected her dull amber eyes with his blue ones she snapped, running forward trailing hot flames as she brought down the wrath of an angry chaos sisters on the leeches that dared attack Thomas.
With her bare hands Quelana tore leeches from Thomas, who convulsed violently as their razor teeth were ripped from his wounded flesh. As the leeches flew through the air they exploded in showers of putrid slime, not fully burnt, but bloated on enough blood to be affected by the flames wreathing Quelana's hands.
Quelana's breaths came in great heaves as she wrapped both arms around Thomas's waist, a power within flickering to life near instantly as she threw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Up the ramp she raced, diving over the rubble effortlessly as she made a mad dash for the bonfire, uncaring for the blood and mud that was steadily soaking into her robes.
Quelana slammed to a halt when the cave began to widen around d her, before turning to the bonfire nearby. Gently she lowered Thomas down nearby it, before letting the power within wear off.
"Oh…" Quelana slumped to the ground just as Thomas was, the toll from her enhancing spell taken. Everything hurt, badly, yet she still made sure Thomas was lying comfortably before she let herself fall to the floor, her everything aching and burning at the same time.
In their dazed mindsets, neither Thomas nor Quelana noticed as their arms found each other in the dark, nor how Quelana fell asleep leaning back against Thomas's shoulder. Had either of them known, more than likely a lot of startled apologies and moving away would follow. Neither did.
Thomas woke from sleep slowly, his eyes taking a deal of time to focus as he returned to full consciousness. Quelana fared similarly, her eyes fluttering open as Thomas tried rising to his feet, only to find Quelana leaned up against him.
The two locked eyes silently, both curiously looking at the other.
""I'm-"" Both froze as the other spoke.
"You first." Thomas said hastily.
"I'm, I'm sorry about the last few weeks." Quelana said quietly, her eyes roaming to the side, where Thomas had set up a pile of sticks he'd collected from below. "Just… all of this new information, and thinking of before…" Quelana trialed off slowly.
Thomas nodded slowly in agreement. "I was just so bored." He stated simply. "You didn't want to talk, and the swamp was always 'too dangerous' to go into… so I waited for you to nod off before sneaking away. I guess that wasn't a very good idea." He laughed dryly as he looked down at a number of large holes cut out of his robes, exposing his pale skin to the world. Quelana cringed slightly when she saw them.
"I'm sort I didn't-" Thomas cut her off with a wave of his hand.
"Its not your fault, they attacked me, and it was because I was stupid anyway." At this point, he did sit up, Quelana moving away as he did so.
"Those aren't even the worst this out there, are they?" Thomas asked a few minutes later. Quelana shook her head slowly.
"Past those are a number of horrible spider creatures that spit flames and fly, and beyond those ten foot tall hollow miners that wield boulders as tall as you, and easily as wide. All through he swamp there are also mosquitoes the size of your hand, with deathly poisonous bites." Thomas blanched at the mention of the mosquitoes, already scared of one kind of bloodsucking creature.
With a heavy sigh Thomas rose to his feet, before finding a suitable stick to act as a club until he could find a new one.
"I'm going to see if I can go any deeper, and see if anything is there. It might take a while." With that, he descended a nearby branch that sank into the darkness, swallowing his figure in an instant. Even the small flame he used for light faded after a few moments, leaving Quelana in utter silence.
Quiet sobs wracked the hollow as Quelana sat in silence, angry at herself, Thomas, and every creature that inhabited the gods damned swamp preventing their escape.
Thomas angrily stormed down familiar branches and paths he'd taken numerous times, his light guiding him well enough for the time being. He hated that he had so easily fallen to the leeches outside, and that he was so incompetent at even defending himself that he'd had to make Quelana think of her past because of it
Quelana. He wasn't sure how to think of the chaos witch now. Of course she taught him pyromancy, and had provided him companionship for almost a month, but every time he turned around she was either scared, mad, or plain confusing, such as how he had awoken earlier.
With a sigh Thomas banished all the thoughts from his head, focusing on the darkness ahead of himself instead. The next path was always confusing, for it required a slight drop down that always caught Thomas off guard. After finding a tiny blue twinkle off in the distance Thomas flared his light, illuminating a small patch of wood below himself that jutted from the wall below. He fled proud when he dropped down without flinching, his feet sending twin thumps through the tree.
Instead of the usual branch leading farther below, Thomas decided to take another route this time, aiming for a hollow that seemed to twist downward into the archtree where the platform he stood on met the wall. With cautious footsteps he moved forward, waving his hand left and right to illuminate the small cavern.
Momentarily he was distracted as a ledge above caught his attention, the only possible way up to it a small branch that curved sharply downward nearby. In his momentary lapse of caution Thomas gave a start as his left foot suddenly encountered nothing but air, his scream failing to fully escape him before his breath was knocked out by the root he landed on.
"Ohhhhh…" Thomas groaned as he tried to pry himself from where he'd fallen, his back releasing a series of possibly back popping noises as he straightened it. As he sat up he flicked a small flame to life in his palm, illuminating the cave he'd dropped into.
And its inhabitants.
Suffice to say, Thomas released an ear splitting screech when he first locked eyes with an enormous, bulbous ringed pair staring at him out of the darkness. His breath came out in terrified pants as he scrambled back, his hands searching for purchase on the smooth archtree wood he was on.
The eyes came closer yet, soon followed by a second pair that emerged from somewhere to the left. Dozens of thought scrambled for purchase in his mind as Thomas tried to figure out what to do. He was weaponless, his stick somewhere in the darkness, and his pyromancy was far from strong enough to kill, even when he'd dropped a fireball on his foot the only damage it'd done was burn a circle in the hair it touched and left a small red spot for a few minutes.
The bulbous eyes eventually made it into his circle of light as Thomas bumped his head against a wall, revealing dark, lizard's bodies that awkwardly waddled toward him with soft croaking noises. The noises grew to a crescendo when a third lizard emerged from the darkness, this one seemingly signaling the other two, as they all simultaneously reared back, their throats bulging oddly.
Before Thomas could think to move out of the way they dropped, spewing a chalky, heavy cloud of dark grey smoke across him with long hisses, engulfing him, and his vision entirely. Thomas gagged as the dust wormed its way up his nose and down his throat, a scream trying to work its way past the noxious gas.
Thomas's last thoughts before his eyes glazed over and her turned to stone were of how he regretted not having done more in his short time since waking in the hollow a month earlier.
Quelana was pulled sharply from her thoughts as a gasping cough erupted from behind her, followed by the sound of rapid dry heaving, and soft moaning. She gasped upon turning to find the noise's source, for there next to the bonfire was Thomas, his body trembling as he dry heaved over the edge of the platform.
"Thomas…" Quelana gaped when he turned to her, his eyes betraying the fear he no doubt felt at the moment.
"Quelana." Thomas croaked, moving toward her. His movements were jerks and slow, and his skin drawn tight, with a dark, leathery look to it.
Thomas had died.
Quelana drew in a breath and hurriedly moved to Thomas's side, guiding his shriveled body toward the bonfire as her mind worked on overdrive trying to guess what happened.
"Quelana I… I died!" Thomas shook and clenched her arms as she pulled him to the flames, his body as light as a child's. When she looked to his face, Quelana found pure terror there.
"Th-they were big, ugly black things, and, and they puked on me, and-" Thomas collapsed onto the floor in a ball, shaking and moaning softly.
"It all hurts!" He cried suddenly, startling Quelana. "Why didn't I die?! How did I…?"
Quelana made a soft 'shh'ing noise as Thomas rocked back and forth, her hand finding its way to his own leathery one.
"I didn't tell you, because I didn't want you to be reckless…" Quelana said slowly, her hand massaging a small black circle on Thomas's left hand. "This… is a darksign. It revives you when you die… but at the cost of your humanity." Her words came slowly, and Thomas turned at the mention of humanity.
"Like, that warm black stuff that was into there?" He pointed a shaky hand at the tunnel leading to the outside, and Quelana nodded.
"Would… would this work then?" Thomas reached into a pocket, before carefully drawing out a humanity sprite from within. "It was on top of a pile of ripped clothes down there, I found it a while ago."
Quelana nodded, and almost immediately Thomas clenched his hand around the sprite, absorbing it instantly. His breath felt sharper as he pried himself off he floor and wiped his face, which was just as leathery feeling as the rest of him.
"Why do I look old?" Thomas asked suddenly as he noticed his hands. Quelana covered her smile with a hand as she pointed to the bonfire.
"Now you've got to offer the humanity to the bonfire, it'll fix your skin, and you'll look normal again." Thomas skittered to the fire warily, before reaching a hand out to it slowly. A small spark jumped between the two, and he jerked back suddenly, his hand now human. When he felt his face it, too was normal again. He heaved a sigh and turned to Quelana.
"Thanks." He said softly in the darkness, before surprising her with an embrace. After a moment she nodded and lightly reached up to pat his back. When he pulled back, his eyes were half lidded already, and before he could say more he passed out in her arms.
Sorry I was late yesterday. Am totally absorbed in My Hero Academia right now, and might be planning another fic for the future. This will come first though, at least until I hit about bed of chaos or so. At that point I might switch up my schedule, I don't know yet.
On a similar note, if anyone wants to be an editor PM me and I'll Gert around to it as quickly as possible