Craig

When he'd first been dragged back into Cartman's backyard, playing dead as per the rules, Craig had been feeling too bruised to really care about much. He'd fought to the best of ability, inevitably, he'd lost. Really, he'd been perfectly content to let Butters drag him wherever they were supposed to go.

Then he'd seen Tweek and the horrified and panicked look on his face, and suddenly everything had become a big deal.

Because okay, it was one thing to play dead for a bunch of kids that knew he was just pretending but it was another thing entirely when Tweek, someone who already had trouble telling reality from pretend, saw him hanging between two people, not moving. He'd tried to calm him down, but he was pretty sure that had just freaked the boy out more, which didn't his own mental state in the least.

It hadn't helped that the moment Tweek had run off, Kenny had softly muttered to him, "Look at Tweeky, he thinks you're actually dying. So precious." It had been all he could do not to shoot up and do something to stop Kenny from saying things like that.

But then Tweek had returned and he'd had to go back to playing dead, which again, probably wasn't helping.

So to be honest, he wasn't too surprised when the outcome ended up being a very concerned and worried Tweek holding his hand like he might disappear if he let go. Even after he'd been healed Tweek hadn't bothered to let go. Though Craig knew it was probably a bad idea, he let it happen, because Tweek needed it and to be honest, he felt better because of that small point of contact as well.

His only complaint was that Token insisted that he still had to stay lying down because he'd just fought and he needed to rest. Typical Token, playing mom. But Craig didn't complain. He was very aware of the fact that Tweek would likely leap to his defense if he did and he didn't need that right now.

He couldn't stop thinking about what the boy had said to him.

When he'd woken up, the first thing he'd seen was Tweek, crouching over him, an expression of relief and terror plastered over his face. That much hadn't surprised him a bit, what had surprised Craig was that even after everything, after losing to the Elves when Tweek had believed he could do it, the blond had told him that he was proud. Craig hadn't known how much he needed to hear that until Tweek said it.

Pretend game though it might be, Craig was distinctly glad to know that no matter how many pointless battles Cartman threw him into, Tweek wouldn't think any less of him.

Right now, his mind had wandered to the bow that Tweek had somehow occurred at one point or another while he'd been gone. I wonder who gave it to him… Probably Clyde, he's always around the armory.

"-and then Craig kicked this mean ol' Elf off'a the tree! Wh-which looked cool from the ground, 'cause he looked so frightenin'." Drawn from his thoughts by the little laugh Tweek let out at Butters' retelling of the battle, Craig looked over at the boy and raised an eyebrow, even though it pulled at the bruise over his eye.

"He shouldn't have been standing so close to the edge," Craig pointed out, voice flat. Really, that moment had been almost amusing, but he'd been too into the battle to pay attention. Of course, he could have pointed to any number of other parts to laugh at, but who didn't want to kick an Elf out of a tree?

"Ngh- I wish I could have seen!" Tweek exclaimed, his hands tightening around Craig's fingers. "Ugh, I m-missed all the cool stuff." Feeling his twitching working its way down Craig's own arm, the Noirette turned to him and gave him a calm look. It was a losing battle, he wanted to say. We were never going to win in the first place. You should be glad they didn't throw you to the wolves like they did to me.

"Come on Tweekers, that's not true, didn't you have a good time with me?" Kenny pouted, pausing in his weird grooming of Butters' hair to look at Tweek. When the boy only yelped, the Princess rolled his eyes and haughtily commented, "Well I don't know about Tweek but I had a wonderful time teaching him archery. You should have seen him Fucker, he's a natural."

Raising his eyebrows at Tweek, Craig said, "Oh?"

"GAH NO I'M NOT!" Tweek instantly screeched, making several of the other people around them wince. Looking horribly guilty Tweek twitched hard and mumbled, "I'm not that good at it, it w-was an accident the first time and just luck the second." Wishing he could sit up so he could more easily reach Tweek's head, Craig instead simply squeezed the boy's hand.

"I bet you were pretty cool looking," he commented evenly, picturing Tweek firing a bow and finding that he thought it did look pretty bad ass. Glancing again the bow on his back, Craig added, "Especially Mongorian bows, those things are notoriously hard to do well with." Even though Tweek was frantically shaking his head, Craig could tell that he wasn't shaking as badly as he had been before.

"He hit the bullseye every time," Kenny boasted as if he'd been the one to do it and not Tweek. "I'm so proud of my little junior archer, he's excellent at this." Craig's brows furrowed at that tone coming from Kenny, but he wasn't sure why it annoyed him so he just ignored it. After all, it worked with most everything else that irritated him. "Tweekers, you should show Feldspar over here your archery at some point, I'm sure he'd be impressed."

Looking at Craig almost nervously, Tweek squeaked, "N-no! I don't think I want to!" So he'll do it for Kenny but not for me? Squashing that particular rouge thought before it got anywhere, Craig simply sighed and struggled upwards so he was sitting up instead of lying down. "W-what are you doing!?" Tweek squawked, his eyes widening.

"I'm sitting up," Craig told him evenly, before combing a hand through the boy's hair and turning an irritated expression on Kenny which only made the boy smirk. "If he doesn't want to do archery, don't make him," Craig said shortly, his tone not one that encouraged debate. Under his fingers, Tweek calmed down, which in turn made the Noirette feel better. Briefly, he wondered when his emotions had started to hinge so entirely on how Tweek was feeling, but then it escaped him when a particularly annoying voice invaded his general space.

"Feldspar, what the hell is this supposed to be?" Quickly removing his hand from Tweek's hair, Craig turned to face Cartman, who was storming towards the sick tent with an angry look on face. Getting ready for the shitstorm, Craig tuned out Tweek's frightened yelp and simply focused on giving Cartman a bored impassible look. Part of him wished he was standing, but the rest of him knew that he'd only get more grief for breaking character.

"The Elves were too powerful for the number of people you gave me to work with," Craig said blandly, not really caring if he offended the people he'd fought with. They should have known it was a losing battle. "We fought as hard as we could, but without proper forces-"

"No, I'm not talking about the fact that you all look like a bunch of pussies for loosing," Cartman dismissed, waving away Craig's attempt at a well-crafted response. "I'm talking about this!" Shoving his way through the other recuperating soldiers, Cartman shoved his iPad into Craig's face. "What the hell is this?!"

Glancing down at the screen, Craig slowly said, "It looks like me climbing up the tree to retrieve the Stick." From behind him, he could hear Tweek's sharp intake of breath, as though he was awed. Craig couldn't even begin to pretend that the little sound didn't make him feel infinitely better. See Cartman, someone thinks I did okay. "What's wrong with it," he ventured to ask, lifting his chin and raising an eyebrow.

"What are you doing with a knife in your mouth!?" Cartman demanded, sounding furious. Narrowing his beady eyes, Cartman spat, "We are not playing pirates, Feldspar, we're warriors of fucking Zaron!" Huffing, he pulled the device out of Craig's face and said, "I never want to see that again."

"Oh, be nice Grand Wizard," Kenny chided, his arms folded over his chest and his eyes disapproving. "Feldspar did a better job than anyone else would have in that situation. He was doing it purely for convenience sake." Craig didn't particularly want the boy to stand up for him, but he decided that this was one of those things he wasn't going to fight.

"Lady McCormick, I'm just trying to make sure my warriors are at the top of their game," Cartman attempted to explain, clearly perturbed that Kenny would argue with him. "I don't want the Elves to die laughing at us because then Kyle might say that we're cheating. Clearly, he's the cheating one, that dirty Jew." Crossing his arms, he glared at Craig, who just blinked passively and didn't react. "Just don't do it again Feldspar, you are a Thief so kindly act like it."

"But he still did good, right?" At the sound of Tweek's voice, Craig quickly turned around and looked at the boy. He was watching Cartman nervously with wide green eyes. "He almost got the Stick! D-does it really matter if he looked like a pirate?" Huffing at Tweek's question, Cartman looked at his iPad as if it had personally wronged him.

"Well, I have to admit, everyone who fought had a practically miraculous kill ratio," Cartman said, tapping away. Looking over the rest of the tent, who was now paying attention, the boy muttered something under his breath before holding his arms wide and saying, "Humans, soldiers of Kupa Keep, I understand that you kind of suck because you all lost, but you still fought bravely and your efforts will not be in vain, we will take back the Stick and we will make those Drow Elves suffer for every drop of blood that was shed today."

"What do you think you're doing, giving war speeches in here?" Suddenly, Token appeared beside Craig, his arms crossed and a skeptical look on his face. "This is a sickbay, not somewhere for you to be causing disruption." Looking at Craig, Token asked, "What do you think you're doing. Lay back down, you almost died." Sighing, Craig fell backward, hardly complaining when Tweek caught his head with a squeak, clearly worried about it hitting the ground.

Turning back to Cartman, Token said, "These people have just fought a major battle, they need to heal if you want to have them back in commission." He made sense, which obviously annoyed Cartman.

"Yes, but I need to go over this battle with Feldspar because he was the one who led it," the boy argued. "So you have to let him out."

"B-but he's still injured!" Tweek insisted, twitching. "He should be in here for a while!" Craig, on the other hand, actually agreed with Cartman for once. Then again, with Token standing over him, Craig decided not to annoy the black boy. I'm fine, it's just a game, after all, I'm not really that badly injured, just bruised.

"Give him another health potion then, I need to speak with him." Giving Token a stern look, Cartman said, "You're a good Cleric Token, but I need you at the strategy table as well. As with you Lady McCormick. I'm sure you understand." At the mention of strategy, Craig's eyes widened and he struggled to sit up again, despite both Tweek's and Token's protestations.

"I managed to get a look at the Drow Elves' strategy board," Craig said, his words making Cartman's eyes go greedy and Token's eyebrows shoot up. "I used my- Uh…" He fished about for a game appropriate name for a moment before saying, "My glass of future sight to preserve an image of the board for you to see. I thought that maybe it would be of some use to you."

Apparently swayed by this, Token called, "Scott, do you have any healing potions left?" Looking up, the diabetic boy tossed over a package of chips, which Token caught and passed to Craig. "Very well, I suppose this does take precedence over him resting. We'll meet you back in the Castle soon, Grand Wizard."

"Excellent, I'll await your presence," Cartman said before turning to Kenny. "You too Princess, I expect you to be with them, after all, you are one of my chief tacticians."

Glancing down at Butters, Kenny gave a very princess-like sigh and said, "Grand Wizard, if I may, I'm sure you can deal with this on your own. I'll probably just get in the way." Craig almost snorted, because he was pretty sure that the only reason Kenny wanted to stay here was because of Butters, but then he'd never understood the strange boy so he didn't comment.

"G-Grand Wizard King!" Butters struggled to sit upright against Kenny's attempts to keep him down so he could sit up. "Before you go, d'y'think I did well against the mean Drow Elves?" He looked like a puppy, so eager for praise, Craig almost felt bad for the boy. "I mean, I didn't last as long as Craig here, b-but I did do pretty well, right?" Whatever else he did or didn't think, Craig didn't miss the look of irritation that crossed Kenny's face.

"It's Feldspar, Butters," Cartman corrected, sighing in annoyance. "And yes, you did fine."

"On second thought, I think I will come with you!" Brightly bouncing to his feet, Kenny straightened his skirts before skillfully edging around Cartman and walking towards the castle. "I'll see you there, Grand Wizard."

Rolling his eyes, Cartman muttered something under his breath again and walked after Kenny, leaving the rest of them alone. Looking between a confused Butters and the quickly disappearing skirts of Kenny, Craig shook his head and decided not to question it.

Opening his package of chips, the Noirette expediently ate a few of them before realizing he hadn't had any food since last night at Token's house and wolfing down the rest of them. Seeing this, Token sighed and said, "Just don't tell Cartman," before going and grabbing another bag of chips, which he passed to Tweek. Glancing at Craig, the boy asked, "Did you really get a picture of the Elves' strategy?"

Craig nodded. "Yeah, I did." Waiting for Tweek to finish his food, because he was taking the blond with him, Cartman be damned, Craig pulled his thankfully uninjured phone out of his pocket and brought up the picture. "It's a decent one too. You should be able to get some useful information from it."

Glancing over his shoulder, Tweek let out a squeak. "Jesus man! They're way better at strategy than we are! W-what if we lose?!" Patting the boy on the head absently, ignoring the look that Token gave him, Craig shrugged in response to Tweek's question. "Ghn- I hope that you can do something!" Tweek exclaimed, looking up at Token.

"Don't worry, we're not going to fail," Token told Tweek. "Now, we should probably go, before the Grand Wizard comes back to yell at us." Looking over at the other medic, Token called, "Scott, you're in charge. Butters, if you've got the energy, it would be great if you could help."

"You got it!" Butters exclaimed, whatever confusion he'd been feeling earlier gone.

Getting to his feet, helping Tweek to his feet as well, Craig quickly stooped to grab Tweek's coffee thermos before taking the lead and leaving the medical tent. The blond followed him close behind, though he didn't grab Craig's cloak. Glancing sideways at him, Craig had to admit that he was looking more and more like a barbarian by the day. Now with a bow over his back and his pan still hanging at his belt, he looked more armed than most of the other kids there and he definitely looked more wild, what with that war paint streaked over his face.

I wonder when he redid it…

Pushing his way into the tent that served as the keep, Craig allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimmer lighting before turning to look at the gathered group of people around the strategy table. There was only one more seat open, which he assumed was for Token, so Craig simply stood to the side, waiting for Cartman to give him an order.

"Craig! You're healed!" Clyde cheered, grinning at Craig from his seat at the table. Cartman glared at him, probably for using the wrong name, but Clyde ignored it in favor of grinning at Tweek. "Tweek, you're here too? Wonderful!" Tweek simply squeaked and twitched, whereas Craig flipped the boy off. Clyde pretended to look offended but he was too busy grinning to make it work.

Clearing his throat, Cartman frowned and said, rather loudly, "Okay, I believe we're trying to strategize right now, Clyde. If you wouldn't mind focusing that would be nice." Turning to Craig, the boy said, "First thing's first, Feldspar, for your bravery and your strength fighting against the Drow Elves, you're now level three."

Tweek let out a cheer as did Clyde, but Cartman just rolled his eyes and said, "Now, I believe you have something to show us Feldspar?" Nodding, Craig pulled out his phone and tossed it onto the table with the picture proudly displayed on the screen. "Very nice Feldspar, I'm impressed that you thought of something like this."

Grabbing the phone, Token quickly looked it over. "Interesting. Kyle clearly knows what he's doing when it comes to strategy." Falling silent, he studied the screen for a moment, his eyes focused. Craig knew that Token could spend an hour just looking at that strategy map and he'd still find something new to talk about. But as he'd expected, Cartman didn't have that kind of patience.

After about thirty seconds of silence, the boy interjected, "Um, excuse me, but what's interesting about it?" Leaning on his staff, Cartman glanced at the screen over Token's shoulder. "All I see is Kyle trying to be a sneaky Jew Elf like always."

Mind wandering, Craig glanced down at Tweek, who had his eyes fixed quite plaintively on the coffee cup in Craig's hands. Remembering himself, Craig quickly opened the thermos for Tweek and handed it down to the blond boy, who shot him a quick smile of thanks before sucking down. As he watched, Craig found the sudden desire to run his hands through Tweek's hair overwhelming his mind and he jerked his eyes back up towards the strategy meeting at once, unsure what he was supposed to think about that.

He's not even panicking about anything. What the fuck?

"What I want to know is if it affects our other plans," Kenny commented, lacing his hands under his chin and staring at the board contemplatively. "I mean if everything goes according to plan, we should be luring them out to fight tomorrow so we can take back the Stick, right. That does make the most sense after all."

"No, they're expecting that," Token said, shaking his head. "Kyle's got this figured out really well. If we try to do something like that, we're screwed." Reaching out blindly, Token started shifting pieces on the strategy board, his attention still focused on the screen. "Grand Wizard, we have control over the territory by the Princess's residence, correct?"

"As far as I was aware, yes," Cartman said, frowning, trying to keep up. Suddenly looking horrified, he exclaimed, "Oh, don't tell me that Elf is trying to take control of that land again. That is so not cool, we have had three battles over that piece of land. They have most of the forest but I'm not giving up this part of it! I don't care if he does have the Stick, he's not taking that piece of land from me again!"

"The last time we had a fight there, two kids ended up getting attacked by homeless people," Clyde added, looking concerned. "Why would they try to take it back?" Remembering Clyde's retelling of that story, Craig leaned forward and looked at the board. Noticing where Token was moving the pieces, Craig frowned slightly.

"So why are you moving us towards the park?" Craig asked slowly, working through what Token had clearly already seen. "You made it sound like they were attacking the edges of the forest." As if suddenly understanding, Kenny's eyes widened and he smiled, nodding at Token, who raised his eyebrows.

"You're right, they will be attacking from that direction, but most of their forces are going to be coming from the Park." Looking between Cartman and Clyde, who were starting to catch up, Token explained, "If we send most of our forces to head them off at the park while only sparing as few soldiers as necessary to hold the line in the forest, we can probably take the park from them."

"That," Cartman said, his mouth stretching into a grin. "Would be so cool. If we have the park then we'll have finally taken back all the land that Kyle stole from us last week!"

"It would be on Monday, an hour after school gets out," Token warned, looking around the strategy table. "So we wouldn't be able to take the Stick back from them tomorrow, but we can use tomorrow to plan out a more thorough defensive strategy."

"I think that's a splendid idea," Kenny announced flipping his hair behind his shoulders. "What's more, I think that Tweek and Craig should lead the defense in the forest. They're both good warriors, despite being new, why not let them show us their strength?" Craig could feel his blood starting to quicken at the thought of fighting with Tweek again. He knew that they could do it and this would be the best possible time to prove it.

Squeaking from where he stood huddled beside Craig, Tweek let out a, "Rrrr- Th-that sounds dangerous! Are you sure we're ready for something like that? I don't know man, that's a lot of pressure!"

A malicious smirk crawling across his face, Cartman said, "You know what Tweek, I think that you are." Thumping his staff on the ground, Cartman announced, "Well men, I suppose we have our strategy decided. Tomorrow, we prepare, on Monday, we attack."