None of Us Would Ever Come Home Again [closed]

[Twinflame]

((Takes place immediately after The Scorpion of Shan'Gai Chah. Make sure you read them in order!))

 

They got so close. The sent of fetid Drybone blew out over the dirt, unmistakable. The road leading to Highbridge was in few. The dirt had turned muddy, rocky, and stiff budding plants stuck out from the cracks in search of sunlight. Rodents moved among the shrubs. Larger, white-furred animals stirred a hundred yalms further into the wilderness. They could almost here the splash of the pool that K'ile had said would mark his tribe's location, could almost smell the scent of a troubled population of miqo'te. That was how close they came.

 

Just over a dozen of the large, white-furred creatures milled. Some lifted their faces and ears to observe the pair of tattered dead things and their red-headed captive walking north and east. Others among the beasts kept their faces to the dirt, walking a few fulms at a time to seek scrub brush. Then, all at once, they stopped and looked to the south, ears and bodies primed to move. They stood, frozen.

 

K'ile had gone unconscious at some point and and hung limp from Thal's grip. Beside them, K'aijeen walked with a smile on her face. The rest of her shattered features were covered by a tattered shroud, a torn, filthy cloth the only covering of her torn body. She had not forgotten that Thal had told her to remain away from the tribe when she arrived, but her tireless form moved with a lightness to its step anyway. over laborious hours, she had managed to swallow the sand that had worked its way into the wound in her throat, and covered the wound with her hand. Now she spoke more clearly than she had in days, her grating voice holding a hint of the high, small voice her living body would have had. "You'll see when we get home. You won't have anything to be afraid of there. They'll take care of us."

[Naunet]

"You're still staying out of sight, kiddo." During their trek, Thal had found more and more of his attention diverted to particular parts of his body, though he was trying very hard to ignore it all. There was little greenery in this desert, and he was hungry. Starving. K'ile over his shoulder did not tire him, but Thal thought that the way his joints felt when he lifted each leg seemed too stiff. He was aware of his skin as a separate entity from his muscles. It was unsettling.

 

Rolling his eyes behind his mask, the miqo'te flicked his tail back towards D'aijeen. He felt the movement all the way up to the base of his skull. He looked towards the large, white creatures ahead and chuckled at their awkward forms. Red ears lifted in interest as the creatures as one suddenly stilled. Thal kept his pace and demeanor light, though his eyes flicked around behind his mask, alert. "And I'm gonna do that as much as possible, too, so don't go trying to claim I'm being unfair."

[Twinflame]

"But if they don't see us how can they help us? Why are you scared of family?" K'aijeen trotted ahead of Thal, fixing him with a very upset, saddened, but not angry look. "They won't be like the other people! The other people didn't know us."

 

The small herd of white animals turned northward and began to run in a sudden movement, their distant movement dramatic but quiet.

[Naunet]

"I don't know that and you don't know that. They may not even recognize us." Which would be a good thing. "You already saw how one family member reacted. I don't really want to..." Thal's words trailed off as the animals appeared to bolt. He slowed his pace so that he was walking a bit closer to D'aijeen.

[Twinflame]

"I do know. They're family. He's..." K'aijeen pointed at K'ile's unconscious form. "He's bad. He always has been. The others are good. I know. I know them." She did notice Thal's slowing, and she matched it, but didn't want to relent on her point.

 

The bolting herd didn't come close to the pair of undead miqo'te. The number of white animals would cross their path well in front of them, but the reason for their bolting became clear before then. Sun drakes hounded the herd, chasing them with surprising speed. The drakes surrounded the herd, moving it, biting at the outermost members. But none of the drakes went for a kill. They just bit and growled and ran, herding them.

[Naunet]

Thal frowned at the predators, though he relaxed a hair. "Like I said, I'd rather just play it safe. I think we're getting close, so I'm gonna start looking out for the best rock to stash you behind." He injected a grin into his tone as he spoke and lightly nudged D'aijeen's arm.

[Twinflame]

K'aijeen frowned at that and pulled her arm away. "I'm not hiding." She turned to keep walking.

 

In that moment, a metal bolt almost as long as Thal was tall struck the man in the back, and an amal'jaa hunting call broke the air from behind them. In response, the sun drakes turned from the white animals they'd been herding. They turned toward Thal and K'aijeen.

[Naunet]

Though he felt no pain from the bolt, Thal more than felt the force of its impact. The miqo'te staggered forward, grunting, and dropped his unconscious charge. His ears pressed back at the blaring of a horn as he struggled to maintain his footing, dropping to one knee.

 

"Get down, now," he snapped at Aijeen and felt around the bolt that protruded from his chest. The weight of it made it awkward to stand, and he could feel it pulling on muscle and bone. He tried not to think about the details as his mind kicked into survival mode. They were surrounded, hunters behind them, drakes in front. He recalled his earlier fight with the beasts and had no wish to repeat it. "We need to run." He needed to get this thing out of him.

[Twinflame]

As soon as K'ile hit the ground, he rolled to his feet and bolted away from the pair. His red ears and tail were like plumes of fire as he leapt over shrubbery and darted off with the speed of a rested -- if wounded -- man. To the south, Amal'jaa beastmasters stood with chains and spears in hand, shouting commands their drakes. West of Thal, reptilian archers set metal bolts to massive bows. And from the east came the drakes.

 

K'aijeen shook the plain branch she carried after the fleeing Tia. "Him!" But her anger only lasted an instant before she noticed all that was going on around her, and she did lower her head as though she could simply duck away from it. When she looked at Thal, she was fearful. "What do we do?"

[Naunet]

Thal swore after the Tia's retreating back, taking a few awkward steps after him before growling and grasping the bolt lodged between his ribs. "Come here and help me get this out. And quick." Blue eyes darted left, right, ahead. Dead lungs drew in air they didn't need, filling nasal cavities that returned to him far more information than sight alone could manage, while his ears did the rest. Fast. They were coming up fast. "Really fast, kid." He pushed on the bolt and tried to ignore the disturbing sensations of it sliding past organs and bone.

[Twinflame]

K'aijeen darted behind Thal and grabbed hold of the bolt with her free hand. Her tattered body didn't move as naturally as it might have, arms swinging a bit more, spine bent forward by instincts telling her to protect the wounds on her torso. But she was able to get enough leverage -- by kicking Thal in the back at the place where the bolt pierced him -- to rip the metal shaft out of him and let it fall to the dirt.

 

As she stumbled, she swung the branch in her other hand toward the dirt, generating a brief green glow and a gust of wind that threw dirt up behind Thal. The hiss of more bolts oncoming came from that direction. The dirt vexed their aim and they thudded in the dirt around them. She returned to Thal in the next instant, "We should run to the tribe! They'll help."

 

The sundrakes were close enough that the snapping of their teeth was audible.

[Naunet]

Thal stumbled forward once the bolt was free and turned around in time to watch a number of other metal shafts bury themselves in the dirt around them. He grimaced and grabbed at D'aijeen's arm. "And bring angry Amal'jaa down on them? No, not gonna happen." Then he scooped her up and ran, angling vaguely in the direction K'ile had fled, towards where his senses told him the encroaching beasts were thinnest.

[Twinflame]

Curling up close to Thal, letting herself hide her body against his, K'aijeen pulled her tail and her staff to her. "Then where will we go?"

 

The Sand Drakes would not be outrun. Thal had barely begun to run before they were ripping through the tracks he left in the dirt, one getting distracted by the taste of his ichor on the bolt they'd abandoned.

 

K'ile's red hair made him easy to follow. His quick sprint was already slowing as weakness and wounds pulled on him, and he ran low with his fingers dragging in the dirt.

[Naunet]

He immediately wished he'd taken one of the fallen bolts for a weapon as he ran, holding D'aijeen as close as possible to shield her from bolt or teeth. The sundrakes were so close that their scent overpowered almost everything else, and he frantically scoured the desert ahead of them for a rock. They needed higher ground. Sundrakes didn't like to climb.

 

He couldn't remember knowing this information before, but it didn't matter now. A steep outcrop jutted up from the ground ahead and he lunged for it. He felt teeth graze his tail and jumped forward, stumbling before sprinting with every ounce of speed he could muster towards that rock. When he was close, he all but threw Daijeen up and towards it, barking a sharp, "Climb!" before following.

[Twinflame]

When K'aijeen hit the rock, she hit hard and took a moment to start climbing. Panic drove her on before she even had her balance, clawing with battered limbs. The Sun Drakes fared worse than this when they tried to follow their prey. The belly-dragging predators pressed their necks and chests to the rock to push themselves, but their elbows pointed out and up away from their bodies and their fingers were meant for cutting skin, not carrying great weight. They did not climb. They bellowed and snapped their teeth.

 

Green light flaring around the stick in her hands, K'aijeen again summoned wind and through the dirt into a cloud around them. It was perhaps the simplest spell possible, easily cast without thought. The dirt spun around them well before any more bolts could see them, but they also couldn't see the Amal'jaa or the red-haired figure stumbling away from them.

 

Almost completely obscured was the narrow, crooked figure that stood strangely straight on the slope immediately to one side of Thal. The figure's narrow, dusky armed lifted and pressed its hand to its face, its tired voice grating at a near-whisper. "Such incredible trouble you manage to find in the middle of nowhere."

[Naunet]

Thal spun and very nearly attacked the duskwight standing with them. His tail lashed, fur standing on end, and though he wasn't tired, his body went through the motions of breathing hard from the adrenaline of the chase. "You really got the best timing," his words came out a little sharper than intended while his senses continued on high alert, nostrils flared and ears swiveling behind him. "Don't s'pose you could just 'wander' us outta here, huh?"

[Twinflame]

"Doubtful. I would encourage you to wander south." The rush of dust consumed the vague figure, a shadow no longer cast, and as the dust began to disperse sunlight pierced the air where the Duskwight had been.

 

"What?" K'aijeen, who hadn't seen the person Thal had been talking to, returned to the paused man in confusion. She tugged at his arm. "Where now? They'll find a way up!"

[Naunet]

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Blue eyes sought out the vague, red-topped silhouette of K'ile Tia. Injuries had slowed his retreat considerably. Thal grimaced and scooped up D'aijeen again. "We're goin' now." Then he ran, to the opposite side of the outcrop that the sundrakes clambered at, and leapt to the ground. The landing jarred up his spine, but it barely paused him before he darted after K'ile, stirring up a small cloud of dust in his wake.

 

The Tia was easy to catch up to, given his pace, and he swerved into the slightly smaller man, grabbing at K'ile's arm. "You wanna live, you go south with me. Unless you like being drake food."

[Naunet]

Curling close to Thal, K'aijeen watched with wide eyes as the dead man chased down the fleeing Tia.

 

K'ile pulled away from Thal, growling at him. "Why? The Amal'jaa won't hurt me! They're here to-" A bolt thudded to one side of them, followed by a number of others in the dirt around them. K'ile only paused for a moment before insisting, "They're not going to hurt me."

[Naunet]

"Don't be an idiot," Thal snapped and set D'aijeen down. "Some cover, kiddo," he muttered to her and then to the Tia, with a shove against the man's shoulders, "Go!"

[Twinflame]

Once on the ground, K'aijeen had no idea what to do. Cover? Oh, he meant... She swung the branch and stirred up the dust around them. It was thinner in this place, though, the ground underneath them more rocky. K'aijeen kept one arm on Thal as she did this, and as soon as she was done, she clung tightly to his arm.

 

The Tia, once pushed, spun around on Thal and glared at him weekly. One ear twitched. "I'm not going anywhere you tell me to. I'll fight you again."

[Naunet]

"I'll knock ya cold again and drag you. That what you want, stupid?" Thal stepped right up into K'ile's personal space, blue eyes flashing behind the mask he still wore. "Got no desire to see you eaten, so get going!"

[Twinflame]

"They're trained, you... have always been so stupid!" K'ile turned his angry glare on K'aijeen. "Why couldn't you have brought him back smarter or something?"

 

K'aijeen pressed her face against Thal's skin, her eyes closed, and made a small helpless sound. The dust around them had begun to disperse. More bolts thudded into the dirt around them. Fewer this time. K'aijeen flinched and tugged on Thal.

 

K'ile backed away from them. "The longer you drag me around the longer they'll chase you. They've got plans that need me alive."

[Naunet]

"Oh they do now, huh?" Thal had to jerk to one side to avoid having his foot skewered by one of the bolts. He growled, red ears laying flat against his skull. "I got plans that keep you from making a huge mistake with those beastmen that ends with a lotta people I don't remember but still bloody care about getting killed, so--"

 

Thal had crouched slightly as he spoke, and before he finished his sentence launched himself at K'ile, intending to bowl the man over and knock him unconscious again if he had to.

[Twinflame]

K'aijeen keened when Thal pulled away from her, stumbling with the suddenness of his movement and pulling her hands close to her veiled face when she found herself standing alone.

 

Poor K'ile had been getting a lot of shit thrown his way lately. He was tired of getting pounced by Nunhs. There was no need to knock him unconscious, his former concussion renewed and flaring as he hit the hard ground beneath them. He lay stunned from that, limbs weak.