Disclaimer: I don't own Bravely Second, all rights to the owners.
Nothing to add really. Aside from that Edea is the easiest character to write of the group, so having this chapter from her POV (so to speak) made it so much easier to manage.
"What are these things?" Edea hisses. Her katana swings in a wide arc, driving the monster back a step. "We didn't run into these last time!"
"We didn't come to the badlands last time." Tiz notes unhelpfully. Frost curls in his palms, and he blankets their foes with shards of ice. "That's probably why."
"I know why, and I don't care!" Edea says. "I want to know what they are!"
"Oh, well I don't know." Tiz says camly.
"Very helpful Tiz, thanks." Edea snarls.
The three moving boulders might look like some odd sort of golems at first, but a quick look down confirms that idea. Long tentacles, each a few meters in length, are spread across the ground underneath the boulders, grabbing and shifting against the stony floor to swing their large boulder 'heads' around like flails.
"Frost doesn't seem to be doing much." Tiz warns. "Trying lightning."
"Got it." Edea hacks at the tentacles on the ground, chopping off segments with relative ease, but to her frustration the tentacles have rapid regeneration and grow back within a dozen seconds of her attacks. "Any luck Magnolia!?"
"Non!" The girl shouts. She's on top of one of the creatures, grabbing its boulder head with one hand and clenching it with her legs to stay on top as it swings around. "I cannot see an opening, or eyes, or anything!"
"Fuck." Edea groans. Her katana can't do anything against the boulders themselves, and hacking the tentacles isn't having an obvious effect. "What do we do!?"
"Keep stabbing until it dies!" Magnolia shouts.
"Brilliant fucking plan." Edea grumbles. She takes a deep breath and goes back to striking at the tentacles. "Of course Yew had to be out of commission when this happened. We know how to fight every other thing in this whole forsaken desert, but the one time our study-nut can't help us is when we actually find something new."
"Complain less and stab more please!" Magnolia requests.
Small arcs of lightning smack into the creatures, dissipating harmlessly into their boulders. Tiz clicks his tongue and again changes spells. "Maybe fire…"
Edea doesn't like stabbing tentacles, she doesn't like fighting on top of these narrow rock hills, and she doesn't like these stupid badlands and their stupid tentacle boulder monsters.
One of the monsters raises a tentacle and slaps it against the ground. The motion travels down the length of the tentacle until the end snaps like a whip, causing a loud cracking noise in the air. Edea winces at the sound and cuts off the offending tentacle, only for it to grow back within the minute.
"Careful of the ends of the tentacles!" She warns. "They can whip!"
"I noticed." Tiz replies. He twists his hand and thrusts it outwards, sending embers searing across their foes. Predictably, it doesn't do much to the boulders themselves, but the tentacles on the ground writhe when burned. "I think we found our solution."
Magnolia leaps off her monster to land beside Edea, giving Tiz free reign to throw fire without worry of hitting her. Tiz gladly does so, peppering the ground with embers and burning all the tentacles creeping their way. The monsters make a garbled shrieking noise, and the remaining tentacles are rapidly pulled under and inside the boulder, leaving the group staring down three inconspicuous rocks just like they were before this battle started.
"Assholes." Edea grumbles. She stomps up and kicks one of the boulders, which promptly rocks back into her and sends her tumbling to the ground. She mutters under her breath as she picks herself back up, and glares at Magnolia and Tiz, daring them to laugh.
Tiz remains as composed as ever. Magnolia hides a smirk behind a hand.
"We didn't even manage to kill them." Edea complains.
"I'm sure Yew will inform us exactly how to defeat them when we tell him about this later." Magnolia says in a way that's probably supposed to be reassuring but just sounds patronizing.
"Maybe he's written about them in his diary." Tiz suggests a bit more helpfully.
"Or we can not tell him that I got smacked in the face by a tentacle boulder." Edea grumbles.
The group travels back a minute to find Yew. He's sitting nervously on the slope of the rocky hill, wringing his hands while constantly glancing over his shoulders with unseeing eyes through force of habit.
"Want me to carry him now?" Edea asks as Magnolia takes Yew by the hand and pulls him to his feet.
"Please." Magnolia nods.
Magnolia takes Edea's backpack and guides Yew onto Edea's back. Thankfully Yew is scrawny, which means he's quite light.
His head is resting on her shoulder, and she can see a sad look on his face. Edea rolls her eyes. Excuse her for not being his doting moon girlfriend. His hands tightly grip the fabric of her shirt for a few seconds before he exhales and slumps, looking oddly defeated.
Edea doesn't know how to reassure him, she hardly knows what's wrong, so she awkwardly pats him on the head and hopes that's enough.
(That seems to make him even more sad, and Edea cringes.)
With ten minutes of walking Edea is wondering how the heck Magnolia kept her balance while carrying Yew. Yew isn't heavy, but he does make her top-heavy because he's on her back. She has to slow her pace for the sake of balance and needs to carefully place her steps on the uneven rocky terrain.
The group steers clear of any oddly-placed boulders, and thankfully they don't have to deal with any more boulder monsters. That doesn't mean there isn't any combat though. As they approach where the badlands meld into the desert, the group finds themselves stumbling upon giant venomous snakes more and more often. Tiz and Magnolia can handle them fine on their own, but it's odd just how many of them there are.
Yew would know why. He could tell them how to avoid the snakes.
It's a relief to get out from the badlands and back onto the desert sand, which is something Edea never thought she'd say. The desert is hot and gritty and awful, especially for someone who's used to the cold and snow, but she'll take it over the badland's crannies and hills and snakes and boulder monsters. At least she doesn't have to worry about slipping off a sand dune and cracking her head.
The rest of the day is much less eventful, which Edea is relatively thankful for. She carries Yew until lunch, at which point Tiz takes over, and then Magnolia again after him.
Edea is put in charge of setting up the tent when they stop for the night. She struggles through the complicated setup of the large tent, trying to remember what the magic runes on some of the poles do. There's one to set up each respective side, another to collapse it all, specific runes for the funiture, and this one is to make it warmer, right? Or was that colder?
She hates magic sometimes. There's a reason she uses a katana. She doesn't know how to read runish… runic… whatever it's called. She's tried to memorize which runes do what, but when the tent gets rolled up everything can get kinda jumbled and it can be hard to figure out which rune is which.
So after accidentally turning the tent into a sauna, and then a freezer, Edea finally manages to get the damn thing up without a localized major weather pattern going on inside it. In that time Tiz has started dinner (Edea wanted to make dinner today, and yesterday for that matter, but Tiz is always getting to it before her) and Magnolia is running her fingers over Yew's back while talking about the boulder monsters they fought today, apparently trying to communicate through drawing on his back.
Yew looks confused and slightly embarrassed, so Edea is fairly sure it isn't working. At least he doesn't look vaguely depressed anymore. He's also making an odd motion with one of his hands, like he's grabbing and releasing something. Weird.
Dinner is normal. Tiz makes soup, again, but at least it tastes good. It needs more sugar in Edea's opinion, but it's good despite that failing. After dinner… well…
Usually Tiz does the dishes regardless of who makes dinner. Tiz, not Yew. Especially not blind Yew. Yet Yew refuses to let Magnolia take his bowl and marches up to (see: mindlessly fumbles around until he finds) the tub of water Tiz is using for cleaning, while Tiz is still using it mind you, and attempts to do his own dishes.
Why he's trying to do his own dishes is beyond Edea. He's never cared about doing it himself before. Magnolia and Tiz look just as baffled as Edea as Yew feels around the tub. It's not that Yew can't do it, it's just that… there's no reason for him to do it, and it's more messy than it would be otherwise because Yew can't see the waterline of the tub. He splashes himself unnecessarily and bangs his hands and the bowl against the tub constantly, but he does get his bowl washed.
The three other members of the group watch in mute confusion as Yew proudly holds up his clean bowl, then tries to find a cloth to dry it with. Tiz hands him one, lets the boy clean off his bowl, then politely but firmly takes the bowl from Yew's hands and puts it away.
The wrists of Yew's clothes are soaked and he's dripping water onto his pants. He nods to himself (or at least Edea assumes it's supposed to be to himself) tries to wipe his wrists, realizes that his shirt is wet, then turns around and smacks into Magnolia who's standing right behind him.
A bewildered Magnolia tries to pull Yew to the tent so he can change out of his wet clothes, but Yew refuses to be led. He gropes around blindly for a few minutes to find his backpack, then spends a similarly unnecessarily long time feeling around for the tent while a concerned Magnolia hovers by him before Yew finally finds the tent and ducks inside to change.
Edea stares at the tent flap, and then turns to Tiz. "What the fuck was that?"
Tiz shrugs helplessly.
Edea turns Yew's actions over in her head, coming up short as to a possible motive. "If I ever go that crazy, just put me out of my misery."
"Edea…" The admonishment in Tiz's voice is well-deserved, because even Edea knows her joke is insensitive the instant it leaves her mouth.
"Sorry, sorry." She mutters. She kicks some sand and purses her lips. "I don't suppose you know some sort of spell that could let us talk to him? You're the one who uses the magic asterisks most of the time."
"If I did, don't you think I'd have used it by now?" Tiz asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah." Edea sighs. "I was hoping I was wrong though."
"Mmm." Tiz hums. He grabs a plate, rolls up his sleeves, and starts to wash the dishes. "Maybe Agnès will have an idea. We can ask the next time she contacts us."
Agnès is even better at magic than Tiz. She was the group's dedicated mage during the days when it was Edea, Tiz, Agnès, and Ringabel travelling the world. That said, Edea knows that compared to most learned mages, Agnès only has a basic understanding of magic. She's skilled in combat magic mostly thanks to their adventures, but her magical education is incredibly basic and she's learned most of what she knows in the years since Oroborous was defeated.
"Don't get your hopes up." Tiz mutters.
"Yeah, I know." Edea says. "I wish we could just esuna Yew and be done with this."
"Yeah." Tiz says. "Hopefully we can keep him safe and sane until we get to Al-Khampis."
Edea knows without it being said that Tiz is thinking about Yew's panic attack. She thought it was cute to see him and Magnolia sleeping under the same blanket in the morning, though it was decidedly less cute when Mangolia explained how that came about. The worst part is that none of them can offer words of reassurance or find out if there's a specific problem. They just don't have a way of talking with Yew.
"Magnolia probably has that covered." Edea says a bit hesitantly. The girl in question is still hovering around the tent entrance. "I'm not going to argue with not needing to babysit Yew all the time."
"I'm worried she's going to wear herself out." Tiz says.
Edea is inclined to agree, but at the same time… "Well, you'd do the same if it was Agnès, wouldn't you?"
Tiz pauses, then says, quietly, "I suppose I would, though I don't think they're that far along."
Edea pokes him in the shoulder and smirks, just to try and lighten the mood. "I dunno, you got attached pretty quickly. This seems about on par to me."
Tiz cheeks go a bit pink and returns to cleaning. He steadfastly refuses to look at Edea.
"Also, you're thicker than a full-grown tree, how would you know 'how far along' Yew and Magnolia are?" Edea huffs. "I spent half our first adventure trying to push you and Agnès together! You have no room to say you see anything."
Tiz rolls his eyes and wisely doesn't comment.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully. Tiz finishes the dishes, Yew doesn't do anything strange after changing, and everyone goes to sleep once the sun falls below the sandy horizon.
Yew shan't sit around and be useless! He'll make himself useful or get soaked trying!
Poor guy.