Dawson woke up to Rumfuss making a fuss out of his new cottage. He blinked as the curtains ruffled in the early morning breeze, his eyes adjusting to the morning sun.
He got out of his bed to spy Rumfuss next to the dining table, trampling stuff under his feet as he turned around.
Dawson's cottage was small and made of wood. He had tried to make a sleeping place for Rumfuss by the dining table, but as he could see, it hadn't worked very well. A week ago, they had five chairs. Now, after seven days of Rumfuss attempting to make himself home, there were only three left.
The Great Beast who had once been trapped in the palace garden of Glengavin seemed to be finding the limited space almost as restricting. He was trying to move around, but being a giant boar, wasn't able to do so without tripping over something.
His spruce tree, though, wasn't touched. Yet.
Even though the Boar looked clumsy, Dawson knew that he could level villages with ease. Maybe not anymore because he was just the size of the biggest boar there could be right now, but before the Second Devourer War ended with the Great Beasts' sacrifice, he definitely could have done that and much more.
But Rumfuss wasn't known for being destructive. He was very calm. He was sweet and nice and did not like levelling villages for fun. An animal of death and destruction? That wasn't Rumfuss.
Dawson left Rumfuss to make sense of the chaos he was causing; he was to be very particular about how the things he stamped were supposed to be squished. He set the quilts on the bed and looked around the room.
The blue Trunswick insignia seemed to blaze with pride as he looked at it, as he had done every day from the day he had inherited it. He was grateful to the residents of his town for giving it to him when he had returned, and it filled his heart to see it retain the regal blue colour even after the Castle had been burnt down.
It was recovered by the Great Beast called the protector of Eura, and it would stay in its full glory for as long as the legacy lasted. Dawson would do all he could to make it last as long as Erdas had humans.
Dawson felt the sunlight soften at the thought of his spirit animal. It'd been six months since Dawson had rejoined with him, after the nightmare that the Wyrm proved to be.
It'd been only one day of the making of the bond when Zerif stole him away, but the pain had been unbearable. He still remembered the day his brother had come to meet him and had caused a revolt in the process.
The guy was a pain in the wrong places for everyone.
His father had tried to sell Rumfuss. To Zerif. Devin and the girl he called Raisha had fought. Devin wielded the broken Trunswick sword. It was an even fight, despite the weapons and the conditions of the people involved being very uneven, and Dawson was scared.
He had never thought of Devin as the hero kind. But that day, his brother had shown heroism, in the Devin kind of way.
Zerif had picked up Devin by his neck, showing inhuman strength. He turned out to be inhuman after all, having been Wyrm's harbinger all along.
That day, Zerif had forced Dawson to give up the boar by threatening to throw the older brother off the rooftop. Devin had tried his best to make Dawson hate him by reminding him of the times his cruelty has spilt onto Dawson. He'd asked Dawson to run away, to protect the bond. Dawson didn't.
Dawson had made a choice between his brother and his newly-acquired great beast. The pain he felt when the worm settled on Rumfuss' forehead was unbearable. Then Zerif had thrown Devin off the rooftop anyway. Dawson was horrified.
"Sorry, kid." he'd said, not looking the least apologetic. Winking, he had slightly shown him a bit of his chest, where there was a tattoo of... a boar squatting.
Dawson remembered blacking out.
When he woke up, he was lying next to his brother, both having been hidden behind a wall by a tall Niloan. A revolt was raging Trunswick.
Devin had survived the fall. Unscathed. The Niloan guy, Karmo, was likening him to a cat. That day, Devin had vowed that Dawson would get Rumfuss back.
And he did come back.
Dawson remembered the day Rumfuss had returned, as well. A couple of weeks after Zerif had jumped into the lava pool, getting rid of Wyrm once and for all. Dawson had woken up to a brighter world. It was like he was finally... full again.
He had been under the hospitality of the Redcloak base at Nilo, a newly built one. It was named the Door, in the sense that it welcomed everyone who needed a shelter. Dawson had seen the welcoming nature in display daily for almost a month, and knew that the Redcloaks strived to make sense to the name.
They had invited him to stay with them with open arms, and he thanked the generosity. Some others though, like Kirat, had turned it down outright and moved out to live their lives wherever they chose. The fact that the Redcloaks did not force their hospitality, increased his trust in the group.
His room was a small one, with just enough space for him and his stuff. That was from where he had learnt that even a small cottage would fulfil his needs.
He had made friends there. Grif, the summoner of Arax, was a small guy, but was surprisingly gutsy and were those daggers deadly! Anuqi was the girl from Arctica, who had summoned Suka. She and Grif were pretty warm, even though they were from the chillier parts of Eura.
Cordalles was another summoner. She had summoned Halawir. The eagle was the first one to return, and as soon as he did, he'd pooped on her head. Apparently, that was some code between them. Dawson was fairly sure that he didn't want a similar code with Rumfuss.
Niri, the summoner of Mulop, also was a nice person to be with, even though she had an unnerving habit of pulling out snippets of thoughts from his brain and occasionally switching to telepathic communication.
Tasha was Niri's inseparable friend. They had only met recently, but the clumsy summoner of the graceful swan Ninani and the girl who couldn't walk had formed a strong bond.
Anda was a nice kid, but he was deeply troubled by Tellun's absence. He was all over the place the day Tellun had returned and left for Amaya the day after, to meet his tribe.
Dawson had a memorable stay at the Door, but the return of Rumfuss had brought back the memories of Trunswick. Soon after, he'd boarded the ship to Eura.
Dawson was brought out of his thoughts when he heard a noisy crash. Rumfuss had probably brought down the table. He rushed to the other room, to see Rumfuss stand next to an overturned table. Dawson's orange hoodie was draped over his back, and he kinda looked cute in it.
Rumfuss tried to scatter the cups and plates fallen around him with a low growl. The entire room felt shaky for a moment, but the cups and plates would not heed to the warning. They made no effort to move. Rumfuss seemed to be irritated by them not accepting his dominance. He growled again, this time slightly louder.
Rumfuss' tusks were adorned with decorative bells and red hats that were on the table. That, with the orange hoodie on his back and the plates and cups around, Dawson thought he looked like a very big, very excited baby addressing a crowd of utensils. It was cute, except for that Rumfuss' tusks were probably sharper than most babies' teeth, and he could use them to skewer the thickest of hides.
Dawson tried to picture a big orange hoodied baby trying to bite and puncture through metal. He decided that he needed to imagine less horrific thoughts.
Before Rumfuss asserted his dominance over the cups and plates by using his physical strength, Dawson stepped in, his hands spread out like he had seen Stead diffusing a fight between two redcloaks.
Rumfuss seemed relieved by the sight of Dawson. He grunted at the utensils as if warning them not to question his authority again and tried to walk up to Dawson. The cups and plates hadn't listened yet! His fury knew no limits. He knocked them over, and they toppled.
Dawson smiled at the boar. He smiled back proudly, as if they were some sorts of enemies he had vanquished. Dawson took the hoodie off, set the dishes and cups aside, and placed the table properly. Then he removed the bells and hats off Rumfuss' tusk.
Now, he looked like Rumfuss, the Great Beast. The boar nuzzled ' tusks were ginormous, but to Dawson, he was probably as dangerous as an apple on an apple tree. But then the tusks came dangerously close to his face, and Dawson remembered that even apples on apple trees could kill.
The other day, a fellow from the Tomisill town had died after an apple had fallen on his head. His name was all over the neighbouring town the next day.
From what Dawson had heard, he was a bright young man. About what his name was, Dawson always seemed to forget.
Ah, yes, his name was Newton.
Rumfuss stood steady as a military buddy. Dawson grinned at the remembrance of the term his father always used to mock Devin with.
"He embarrassed me out there, in front of all those Dukes," he would say to a ten-year-old Dawson, recounting the tale of when Devin had tried to sing at the birthday of a fellow Duke's son. It was one of those days he would have had a normal talk with his mother and had tried to become a good father.
"Dad!" Devin would protest, but Eric, the Earl of Trunswick had never heeded to protests. "He stood there, steady like a buddy, and everyone around laughed!" Eric would guffaw, and Devin would try to shrink. He had believed that being a good father was being funny, laughing around, and mocking his sons.
He wasn't wrong by much a margin, as Dawson always felt that those were the only days Eric Trunswick had been himself. The other days, he had been a rage infested man, trying to conjure up as much power as he could to leave his children a vaster inheritance.
He had always planned much in advance. He wanted to see Dawson and Devin and Daphne as the ideal royal kids, playing with the costliest toys and wearing the shiniest dresses, but his father, David Trunswick, had ruined the treasury, and all he had inherited was a run-down mansion with little to no valuables and a debt-ridden town to rule over.
If Trunswick mansion was as great as it was today, it was Eric Trunswick's hard work, even though half the time it looked like he was being a massive grouch of an Earl.
Oh, right. It wasn't shiny and grand anymore.
What his power greed had led him to was going to be a dark page in Dawson's life. His father had left like a bad man, but he'd left Dawson an important lesson, and Dawson was grateful for that.
His thoughts brought back his dreams of having a complete family, and that brought back the tears he had fought ever since Eric Trunswick, Daphne and his mother had gone missing. Devin was too busy to visit him.
Dawson felt lonely again.
Rumfuss shook himself, and Dawson jolted back to his cottage. His eyes seemed to know what was deep inside Dawson, his craving for a family. Rumfuss nodded at Dawson. Rumfuss' small but ancient eyes bore into Dawson's. He felt a tingle he hadn't felt since the day he had summoned the Great Boar.
Dawson stood up. In the sunlight streaming into his room, Dawson let loose a bit of his robe, exposing his skin. Rumfuss looked up at Dawson, who nodded. Then the Great Beast disappeared into light, reappearing as a tattoo of a boar charging, on his left shoulder.
"Ha! Take that, Newton!
Oh, also, thank you for reading this far! It motivates me to do better. And do not forget to comment on what you thought about this part!