@herebedragonflies / herebedragonflies.tumblr.com
You may be fighting gods, but you have gods on your side, too. Three of them to Tcaolin and Kuroyama’s maybe one-and-a-half. Yeah, you have to do the fighting yourself, but everyone seems to have magical weapons, yourself included.
You just hope you manage to win before all hope of future is destroyed for good.
Not-Kano’s not leading you to enemy leadership, apparently. Last Cho said, you were kind of looping lazily towards Ir. Tcaolin could be there, you guess, but it seems unlikely now that she’s apparently turned everyone there into zombies. Tonbo had taken a thousand souls into herself, but you’d seen nearly that many zombies over the past few days, with no signs of her running out. She has to be getting new souls from somewhere, and that means Ir, and who’d want to stay there when they’d eaten all the souls? They did her bidding without her presence, and decomposing bodies kind of smelled.
You chafe at the wandering, at the aimlessness. You want to win.
She was right. Silent not-Kano has been a lot more use out here than Kano would be, because not-Kano can keep the dead from you while Starless leisurely incinerates them all. He looks sad, but merely by holding up his hands they can’t advance farther. You and Cho are kind of useless here except for pulling watch duty while the wonder twins sleep. It’s not like either of you are even allowed to give directions anymore: not-Kano has his own direction, and wanders off that way no matter what you try to chivvy him into. Cho’s given up, so you’re all following the madman. Only Starless seems sanguine about it. You want to go back to your princess.
The crazy kid seems to have an unerring instinct for trouble. Every day for the last six, you have found at least one camp of Kuroyama’s, and at least one nest of zombies. Most of the time Kuroyama’s monsters don’t even expect you. Once, you surprised them still all sleeping, and killed them with their own axes.
You are the nick, and you don’t like where your life has been going the past couple weeks. Well, really just the last week. The time you were reunited with your princess was . . .
Well.
Yeah.
Morning wood is awkward in company, and that train of thought isn’t helpful. Your present company is, a bit: Cho’s been crabby as fuck the past few days. Not hard to understand why, with the other champion as out of it as he is. You can’t bear to call whoever he is Kano, because whoever that is walking around in the body, it’s not the same person.
It’s held you back as you go forth to defend the World Tree - you can’t leave him behind apparently, since Dee says he’s the way you’ll all stop Tcaolin. Dee is, of course, insane.
“I’ve been sent to find you, then. Well, him.” The furry shifts to stand protectively between you and the space cadet. “Oh, aye?” You flashstep around her and press your sword to the space cadet’s neck. “Tell me how to release the princess’ soul.”
He turns blank panic-eyes on you and twitches a hand up to touch your arm. He’s short and skinny and mostly hair, so you’re not worried about him trying to shove you away until his hand touches your arm and everything goes white and black and Pesterchum lights up like it’s goddamn Christmas.
The furry is behind you, winding up with her black-glowing fists and she’d punched right through the guard’s head with that fist oh shit.
You sit up real slow, like some kid who hasn’t mastered the flashstep and isn’t hiding a sword in their bed. “What’s going on?” The furry swears, all English accent and violent surprise. “Bloody hell, it’s a kid. Kid, what the shit are you doing out here?” “These guys were just . . . did you kill them?” “Yeah, you’ll be okay now. We won’t let them hurt you.” The chick in the dress leans on her staff that looks like it might still be growing trees. “I am not sure it was their intent to hurt him. Dalai and Monster may have found their replacement for Kamang in someone who looks just as harmless as they do.” “But he’s just a kid, Starless.” You need to deflect. “Are you the Queen’s Champion?” you ask the space cadet. He - probably he, despite the hair - just keeps looking at the trees. The furry glances at him and sighs in annoyance. “Aye, kid, he is, most of the time.”
It’s 5:34am, and you smell blood and fire. You don’t move, in case whatever made your ‘guards’ bleed is still around. You look around without moving your head, eyes safely hidden by your shades. Two are still in camp, sleeping in bedrolls: bedrolls that had been empty when you went to sleep, so these were the night crew. The other five are empty, which might just mean they’re mostly early risers. You’re not good at optimism anymore, so you don’t think so. You stay wrapped up, because you look harmless and sleeping, and wait for what’s going to happen to happen. You’re ready for anything. You’re always ready for anything, because you’re a Strider. You fetch your broken sword from your strife specibus and hold it flat against your leg under the blankets. You hear footsteps, but they could theoretically be your guards.
Except for the part where one of them is stomping. You watch as a scantily clad furry and a spaced-out looking redhead who sort of looks like that asshole come in to camp. The furry’s fist turns black, and she punches right through the head of one of the sleeping guards. Shit. And now, from the opposite corner, comes a chick in a dress, pointing a staff at the other sleeping guard, and he now has blood leaking from his ears. He isn’t getting up. The redhead’s the one you’re supposed to kill, but he looks harmless and only a few years older than you. He’s the one with the captive soul, too, but you have no idea how to rescue that. Maybe it’ll just happen naturally with death, corpse fountaining souls like it’s double rainbow day and he’s the goddamn pot of gold.
