Her two friends join her to support her how they can as they help the town. Clearing bits of rubble, assessing damage, or anything else they can think of. After a time, They realize that many of their food stores had collapsed, and many of the townsfolk were in no shape to hunt. Our pink rider and her faithful hound volunteer to get some meat for the survivors.
Rifana climbs onto Riku's back, rubbing his side. "If you find any skeletons, you can have them," she whispers.
He woofs, rolling his shoulders and pawing the ground.
"Let's go!" She calls, gesturing towards the forest. "Who knows what we'll find!"
He sets off with her back towards a different part of the woods than he fled in before, relatively near a path that leads further inland.
This time she tries something new, holding on to him with one arm while the other grips her bow, ready to use it if she finds and game.
They stick to a fair amount of small game, birds, squirrels, and rabbits alike. Soon the two have a nice bag of future meals hanging from one side of the hound, him having gotten a small snack he now licks off his lips.
She smiles, gently scratching behind his ear as she moves to properly secure the food. "This should be enough for a few days, right?"
He makes a few noises back at her, wagging his tail.
She hums thoughtfully. "You're right, we need more for you." She nods and pulls out her bow, ready to walk further into the woods to find more deer.
Then the sound of wooden rattling reaches her ears, making her pause mid-turn.
Riki's head swivels like a compass, pointing the way towards it as he ducks low.
Immediately catching on to his request, she lowers herself as well, staring at the direction she knows the road is. She silently gestures for them to move forward, carefully placing her steps so that she moves like a ghost across the forest floor. She sends out a silent thanks to Sadeena for her training.
With his natural padded feet and lower center of gravity, Riku quietly follows.
When the two draw near, the sound becomes more distinct, and they can recognize it for what it is - cart wheels. They eventually get to the thick underbrush bordering the road to the village, and Rifana peers out of the shrubbery.
The two of them spot armored soldiers chatting amongst themselves as they walk purposefully. One near the front even points directly towards the village itself.
Curious, she perks her ears forward, straining to hear what they're saying. It might explain what the cart with the bars on it is for.
"How much longer?" One of the younger ones whines.
"We get there when we get there," an older one growls.
"What are you going to do first?" A third one asks.
"I'm going to find a pretty one to have fun with," a fourth one says with a strange expression on his face. "The job can wait a bit."
Rifana pulls her head back, hopeful. This must mean the king is sending help in rebuilding! She climbs onto Riku's back, gesturing to town and not bothering to be quiet.
He focuses and pads off, staying to the forest since it's the most direct route.
They miss the armored man who peeks into the underbrush, his sword drawn to attack.
Riku gets her swiftly back to town, and both their news of food and reinforcements are well received. Some folks start to relax even after all that happened.
"Oh, and they also have bars on the carts they were bringing along!" She finally mentions, miming long lines with her hands.
"Cages? Maybe they hope to capture some of the beasts if there were any left." One person guesses.
"There were a lot of dog-like monsters," another points out, giving Riku an apologetic glance.
He makes a grumbling noise as Keel asks. "What does that matter?"
"They might want to catch them," she says, shrugging slightly in her embarrassment.
"Oh, good, as long as they don't think Riku's one." He nods.
"I think the bandana might be a good indicator," Rifana says, reaching up to straighten it. In the distance they can hear wheels approaching.
He nods, looking towards the sound.
The knights come into the rather dilapidated town, dragging the cages behind them. A few of them have drawn swords, while the one in front carries a large axe.
"…those cages look too flimsy for monsters," one adult mutters.
One of the soldiers looks around. "Yeah, still some usable ones, should be an easy job." He remarks to the others.
Rifana's smile slowly slides off her face at these words, her hand inching towards a sledgehammer on Riku's side. Something about that tone and the looks on their faces is making her uncomfortable, and she wants to hold something for comfort.
Raphtalia looks confused. "…what are they saying? There aren't any monsters here…"
There's a calamitous clanking of metal as another one calls, waving his sword in the air. "Let's get to work!" As the others start to spread, the next moment is almost surreal as the sword buries itself in the gut of a villager.
Rifana stares blankly for a moment, staring at the baker as he falls off the blade. Her eyes widen slightly, the fur on her ears and tail bristling in utter fury as she launches herself at the surprised soldier, bashing his face in with the very hammer she used in the wave. "Riku!" She cries out, the sheer rage in her voice leaving no question that she will fight to protect everyone she knows and that she expects his support.
The man on the ground shouts in pain and frustration. "We got some fighters, boys!" The is accompanied by roars and more weapons starting to clash with flesh and arms alike.
As a shadow looms over her, a snarl erupts from behind and she sees a red blur intercept. Riku grabs onto the armored leg with his jaws, spinning around and tossing the man into one of the others.
The next few minutes are a blur, Rifana slamming her hammer into knights until the shaft breaks from the force, then taking swords from the fallen to continue attacking. She barely recognizes some of the villagers fleeing, but focuses on fighting to distract and hopefully defeat those who would dare to harm those she holds dear.
Eventually they learn to keep a firm grip on their weapons, and she resorts to picking off the ones about to stab defenseless villagers with her bow, getting several arms and one soldier between the eyes, the first one she actually killed.
Keel is nearby trying to hold his own, but wooden training weapons against metal ones and armor prove to be difficult, not even counting their sheer numbers. For every one the fighters down, another takes his place, treating them more seriously. He winces as he sees some in the back taking out bows and shooting the running villagers now.
Rifana focuses on the archers, giving Riku one of the swords to see if it helps him. She starts getting injured because she fights the ones in the distance, avoiding crippling blows to get superficial cuts, instead.
As her hound runs around, cutting legs where he can, a strange sense comes to her, though it takes a moment to realize why it is so. The screams are changing, the ones of the villagers are getting less and less numerous, and the jeers and cries of the knights increase.
Her body shakes in both fear and anger, the latter driving her to attack even more ferociously. She needs to protect the town, needs everyone to be happy. They can't get away with harming her friends, her family!
She freezes, realizing that she hasn't seen her mother all day. Not among the fallen, not among those who had survived only to be torn down by these knights. Where is she?
Her moment of distraction costs her, as a massive man backhands her to the ground. He slams his axe into the ground, the blade digging in on either side of her throat. "Are you the leader? Such a tiny, pathetic thing."
He's tackled off her by her faithful hound, but he doesn't manage much more than pushing the large man a few feet away, being tossed after.
Rifana, her heart threatening to beat out of her rib cage, stabs him in the foot with an arrow when he gets close once more, hoping to at least save Riku. When he leans down in pain, she uses the weight of the axe to land a kick to his face, breaking his nose.
"Stubborn little-!" He pulls a dagger out of his boot and raises it high to plunge it down at her.
She can vaguely hear Riku fighting against other knights now, the steel flashing in the sun as it comes down towards her. Suddenly a tonfa slams into the hand holding it, changing the angle so it goes into the earth near her instead.
"Keel!" She gasps, struggling to lift the axe from the awkward angle she got pinned at.
Her friend dives at the man, gettign a few hits to his chest before he is simply grabbed by the throat and lifted to a growling voice. "Stubborn little sprogs. You may have spirit, but you'll break just like the rest."
Seeing red, Rifana grabs the knife he used and slings it at the man straight between his legs with as much force as possible, her only thought to get Keel free from that grip. She doesn't know how else to stop him from her position, and she couldn't live with herself if she lost her two closest friends.
It bounces off his armor, but does serve to distract him long enough for Keel to swing himself free and knock the axe over.
The weasel girl stands, grabbing the axe as she does so and glaring at the knight before her.
He grins at her. "Feisty eh? We can fix that." As he says 'we' she notices the others around all slowly closing in.
She frowns, lifting up the axe easily three times her size and bringing it down on his head. "Go away! You caused enough problems!"
There's a brief bit of silence as the other soldiers take in the now unmoving knight with the axe lodged in his skull. "Oh, you've done it now, girly!" The over a dozen and a half of them all advance with their swords.
Rifana, having acted in a fit of anger, now stares at everyone around her, tense with horror as she realizes that there were too many and she lost her only option for close combat.
Keel looks around, judging everything including Riku dealing with three soldiers outside the ring, He swallows before suddenly charging one of the approaching foes with such ferocity they pause. He gets them in the legs so they crouch and he tackles against them, yelling. "Riku, get her out of here! There's too many! I'd slow you down!"
The dog meets his eyes before he howls, feinting and managing to slip under a pair of armored legs. With a series of springs, he jumps off the back of one knight, onto another, and into the ring, grabbing Rifana by the back of her tunic and tossing her onto him. Keel struggles against two knights now, but keeps one low enough that Riku can jump over them, now running away from the group.
The pink haired girl turns, holding on for dear life but reaching out for her friend. When her hand misses him, she cries, her vision blurring out everything that wasn't his brave face. "I'll come back!" She calls out through the tears. "I'll save you!"
She briefly sees him give a brave smile before he's covered in armored bodies. As Riku continues bolting, similar scenes of horror greet her everywhere she looks in town, from bodies of townsfolk to what appears to be Raphtalia being wrangled into a cage, face streaked with tears.
"Raph!" Rifana calls, tears in her own eyes. "Don't worry! I'll come back for everyone!"
Her hound turns now, heading into the deepest parts of the forest as he spots a few soldiers nocking arrows or turning towards them.
She presses herself against Riku's back, making herself a smaller target. It has nothing to do with drying her eyes on his fur. Nothing at all.
Thunking arrows are soon replaced by rustling leaves and snapping twigs, eerily reminiscent of a day prior, and yet this time it's somehow worse.
For the rest of the day, all Rifana can do is mourn the loss of her friends and village. She barely has the presence of mind to eat some of the food tied to Riku before she passes out against her loyal friend.
Unknown to her, he doesn't sleep that whole night. The red hound stays up to watch out for them in the darkness, eyes occasionally looking up to the sky and then back to the sleeping girl beside him. He curls around her more securely, eyes and posture daring anything in this forest to try and take one more thing from her.
Thankfully, nothing rises to his challenge, even if a few smaller beasts eye the two of them in passing.
The night proceeds in silence, and the sun rises to a passed out girl and the big red dog, offering warmth and the hope of a better day.
The fatigue finally starts to get to Riku as the sun hits them, a few discolored patches of his fur bothering him. He licks a few of them to clean the injuries before he lays down his head, trying to keep his eyes open.
Alright, apologies for this being late. I had so much going on the past few days, I lost track of everything. That said, here is the next chapter, and it has hit the fan. I have no idea if this is going to change the rating of the story, or if it even is required.
Thank you for the thirty follows and favorites, as well as the reviews, and yes, Riku definitely needs a moonblade. If only someone knew how to make such a thing…
Have a nice day! Enigma out!