Jesse sprinted down the narrow, long corridors of the cave, ignoring the uneven ground and the rocks in the way and the fact that there was already a stitch embedded in their chest, their breath catching as they kept running and stumbling and catching their balance after almost tumbling off of loose rocks.
Something bounced off the back of their legs, the area in front of them abruptly barely illuminating in a rosy glow for half a second before it was pitch dark again, except for the glowing purple eyes that darted through pillars of stone and vanished and reappeared far above.
They glanced over their shoulder.
Reuben was ducking in and out of their backpack, throwing the little redstone packets that had completely slipped their mind to the ground, leaving a clumsy, zigzag of a path-
And then the ground suddenly dropped out from under Jesse's foot and they were pitching forward and they cried out and curled into a ball to avoid hitting their head or breaking their neck or-
Their body crashed into some water, which managed to cushion the blow enough that crashing onto the side of their head didn't do anything, besides perhaps raise a bump on their head and make them grunt in pain.
It was quiet, except for Reuben giving a little squeal and then snuffling and tossing another redstone packet onto the ground behind them, just to mark that they'd been down there.
Jesse took inventory of their body, still half-floating in the water and a bit dazed from conking their head slightly on the bottom of this shallow pool of water.
Anything broken? Not that they could feel.
Anything bruised? Most probably everything.
Anything serious? No, they could move around just fine.
They were remarkably glad that the water was there.
Jesse rolled over in the pool of water and lifted their head, feeling their body drip beads of water that were probably absorbed by the darkness, so pitch that for a moment they thought they'd fallen through the world and had to feel rough stone under sore fingers and the clammy wetness soaking into their skin to confirm that they were still there.
Still there.
"Aiden?" Their voice was hushed as they called out, squinting into the darkness in an attempt to see him. "Are you there?"
At first, there was nothing except for the sound of their voice echoing in the cavern, the quiet gush of rushing water and dripping from somewhere above them into a pool of water.
Then there was a grunt- a weak, almost fragile sound. "J...?"
"Aiden!"
Jesse almost just decided to blunder forward and find him, but then realized the stupidity of that. What if they just dropped into another hole?
Jesse reached into the backpack, ignoring the wetness of the outside, and scooped up one of the packets. In a desperate motion, they crushed it in their fist, light seeping through their fist until they opened their hand, now dusted with red, to show their surroundings.
They'd been rather lucky, as apparently the small pool they'd landed in dropped off into a waterfall that gushed off into a dark hole that you couldn't see into after a few feet and they'd managed to land in the area that wasn't caught in a current. The bottom was littered with things- a few little gold trinkets and things in the corner that twinkled in the red light, what looked like straw, and another little pool of water a few feet of way.
Aiden was in the pool.
"Aiden!" Jesse hoisted themselves out of the water, feeling little streams of water come off their clothes, and stumbled to him, holding the little source of light closer.
Perhaps it was the fact that the little amount of light that they were clutching in their fist was red, bloodred, barely lighting anything at all, but the wounds looked bad. Jesse couldn't even see them under his jacket and shirt, nearly-black stains covering his front, changing the color of his shirt so that it went from red to almost black. Swirls of something (blood, blood, they knew it was blood) filled the pool around him, gleaming red.
Maybe it was just the red light.
Maybe.
He scowled slightly at them. "What..." He winced, teeth gritting as he repressed it, eyes still fixed on Jesse. "Wha're you...?"
Jesse splashed through the pool and knelt, trying not to panic at the sight of dark, gleaming blood soaking him and staining his skin and ignoring his question hanging in the air and the water now soaking into their socks. "We gotta get you out of the water- I dunno how clean it is, and we don't want that to get infected, if we wanna keep you alive..."
They babbled, trying to hook their arms around him and haul him out of the pool of water without making too much contact with him.
He didn't like them much, after all.
"Okay, Aiden, this might-" They took ahold of him under his armpits with their arms and heaved.
Aiden made a guttural sound the second he lifted not two inches out of the pool, water streaming off of limp arms, face contorting in agony. Jesse almost immediately set him back down, sending a little tidal wave of water splashing out from where he was. In fact they almost dropped him.
"Fucking hell-" Aiden squeezed his eyes shut, teeth gritted. Tears reflexively streamed down his face from the pain. "What- what the hell, Jesse, do- do you know-"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- are you-?" Jesse was frantically trying to figure out what to do with his horribly damaged body; they couldn't move him but he was losing blood at a pace that Jesse couldn't help but worry about.
"That- tha' hurt-" His eyes opened, red eye glaring at Jesse even though tears still gushed from his eyes and his teeth were clenched shut.
He broke off, voice trailing off into silence and surprise. His eyes had suddenly widened slightly, staring at Jesse, lips parted slightly as his breath froze in his lungs.
Well, that wasn't quite accurate.
His eyes were staring just behind Jesse.
Jesse knew what was behind them before they turned around.
Maybe it was because they could read the fear in Aiden's eyes, the way his choking breaths had caught in his chest and refused to come out.
Maybe it was because they could feel that sudden weight of magic, feel the heat of the smoke singing the back of their clothing, see the way the cave's darkness had begun to be illuminated in faint violet light, watch the reflection in Aiden's eyes.
Maybe they just had a feeling that something like this would happen.
But they turned around anyway.
The dragon stared them down, purple eyes blinking once, twice, staring into Jesse's eyes.
A/N: And so marks the beginning of shorter chapters
To be fairly honest this might be better anyway; I tend to lose motivation on long chapters and shorter ones might keep me going better.
But oooof, Jesse.
I am a cookie. Reviews are chocolate chips. I am a chocolate chip cookie.
Responses to reviews!
ThinMintE: Big dragons are hard to fight, yeah. Plus the Ender Dragon isn't easily damaged or hit (partially due to crystals and nonsense but also dragon armor is a big oof). And he's not doing great but he's still alive, so that's good xD / That too! Honestly, my thought process was "redstone = red = red light", and I wasn't so smart about the disrupting night vision thing, but that's a good thing to have! / Thank you!
Toni42: Hehehe xD / Well, also, if they DID get a good look at it, they ded xD / Magic sensitivity is generally like that. The heavier or stronger the magic, the 'heavier' it feels. It's a bit disorienting to be honest. / Yep, poor Aiden xD / hehehehe xD
TheAmberShadow: Yes, hopefully xD / Nope. / Maya can be practical. She can also be something of a ditz sometimes, but then again so can everyone. / (smiles) / I was counting on that ;P
Darkbeast Dend: Yep, that's not great xD / Thank you very much!
Guest: Yep! xD
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
