“Hhhhmmmmm pretty sure, he’d be the worst spy I have ever seen if he was.” Galena spouted through pursed lips.
Sonne piped up, her one good eye scanning the boy “what do we do with him then?”
Galena continued after, “Ah, I don’t know, just, uh… just leave him some food and we’ll be on our way, he can find his way back, right?”
Al lifted a finger in protest, like a beggar kneeling from the earth, his words silenced as Sonne spoke, “well I mean, you better think of something quick Van’ Roark or I’ll just tie him to a tree and that will be the end of it.”
Galena sighed, just as the other woman finished, and Al thought it would be best to interject. “But… but wait, I still need to learn magic” the wounded warrior’s words coming meekly and feebly.
“Boy!” the raven spoke “you can’t… you can’t just brute force it, or bash your thick little farm boy head against a tome” she simmered out for a second “magic is something you are born with, I am sorry, mages are born mages, and you don’t have an ounce of magic in you, I truly am sorry, really, but I can’t teach you magic, even if I wanted too. There’s nothing here, nothing here for you at least, go home, rebuild, have kids or whatever you folks do out there.”
Al sat back in the dust, eyes wide matching the fierceness of the raven’s but with a different sort of air. “Good job Gal, that was even harsher that I would have put it, and I just said I’d tie him to a tree” the phoenix laughed a hearty one, shaking her rather flat chest plate with each bounding gasp.
Al grit his teeth, clicking and grating white on white, ruining enamel with pure adulterated emotion, his fingers idly playing with a fist in the dirt.
“No…” the boy sputtered, not entirely defeated, “No” he said again, “what?” the raven asked, one perfect eyebrow raised, ruining her whole devilish mask. “I said no” Al continued, only slightly panicked “there’s nothing for me back there… even if there was… please just let me stay, I’ll learn something, anything, I need to get stronger.” He finished, heels against bottom, wallowing in the filth of the forest.
“So,” Galena retorted, “go back, be a soldier, get a bigger sword, I don’t really care, but you’re not going to put us in danger, or slow us down, because of some ridiculous personal farm boy mantra.”
“NO!” Al shouted, suddenly hammering his fists into the sand, Sonne almost reaching for her blade, “I promise, I promise I’ll be useful, and when I’m not, then I’ll just stay out of your guy’s way, I’ll… I’ll die for you, anything, please!” The boy said, eyes glued shut, more like a child throwing a tantrum, than a scared warrior begging for answers.
“Alright, ALRIGHT!” Galena begrudgingly let the shout slip, as she placed a jingling arm against her breast, massaging the shrewd temples of her forehead. “Shut up, your speech is pathetic, and incredibly embarrassing in all honesty, quit groveling. Fine, fine, you can come alright, but we’re leaving you as soon as you start dragging behind, you can learn swordsmanship from the Orc, and everything else from the man, but DON'T bug me about magic!”
Sonne stomped her foot at the comment, Galena returned her look with a slight apologetic one as the phoenix spoke, “ahem, I didn’t agree to that.” Violet eyes went from pleading to dagger filled as they stared down the red-haired warrior, flashing from pleading to puncturing in an instant. A subtle shape blocked out the sun for a moment, the movement of another figure causing Al to jump at the sight of them.
From the side, off out of his view, and originally more towards the back of the camp, emerged the figure of a rather lithe and quaint girl. Her skin blistering in the light, milky porcelain, sheened or not, royal, and pale. Golden cascades of amber marched and bounced with her body, framing the girl's rounder, more elegant face. Deep, bright green eyes, a button nose, and puffy cheeks all accompanied the visage, and studied Al as he did her. Her attire was rather plain, letting a large shawl fall from her shoulders as she made the distance to the boy, clad in an average moss green belted tunic, light thin leggings, and sandaled feet, which was weird for a forest trekker, Al thought. Even weirder were the golden bracers, and moderate amount of jewelry that adorned her fingers and neck, a rich bunch to be sure, probably because of the mage… of Galena most likely, the boy thought. Al felt weird as the girl walked up, sitting on her feet in the dirt before him, her hair the same shimmering color his sister’s had been, although the complexion was significantly off by a few shades.
“Hi” she spoke with a sweet butterfly of a voice “My name is Every, some people call me Tal though, the mage is Galena as you know, the warrior is Sonne, and the lump of a soldier over there is Argjend.” She said gesturing to a bundle of furs and leathers which Al had to guess was the person she was referring too.
“What’s your name?” Every asked, turning back to the boy. “Uh, Al, I mean Albatross Fowle, miss, ma’am.” Every laughed lightly at his remark, “Just Every is fine, no need for titles or family names, or anything of that sort really” she said through glistening teeth, “If you call me ma'am, I’ll rip your tongue out” Galena said from behind, somewhere within their makeshift camp.
Al gulped a little, sure she wasn’t at all the mage he expected, but he had seen the power, the older townsfolk had always told them that mages could turn you into frogs at the drop of a hat, whenever they felt like it.
“Nice to meet you Albatross” Every continued, “we're actually on a secret magical mission right now, but we’re heading back to the capital… although I’d appreciate it if you let us do the talking… all the talking.”
Prim and proper the girl stood, Sonne coming up behind her, drawing a smudging thumb across her dented gorget in a rather grim gesture.
“And why, oh why, would you ever tell him that?” Galena spat, with the smallest bucket of venom, rolling her eyes as she massaged her aching head even more.
“Soooo he knows, and doesn’t spill the beans, you know? He’ll keep quiet, I know he will.” Every smiled, not a hint of anything, but the boy's heart was rather still, only a few threats and mild confusion, but Albatross thought it best to obey, and not overstay his welcome, as coarse as it may be.
“There wouldn’t be any proverbial beans to spill, if you hadn’t cooked and spoon fed them to him! Whatever, whatever, we’re here now, he doesn’t look too much like an idiot so we should be fine, worse comes to worse” Galena paused, shrugging to an invisible conversational partner, “we’ll all just die a horrible death, but who am I… Just a court mage… I know nothing.” She huffed off, the older raven stomping away with her shoulders rolled in defeat.
“So uh” Albatross tentatively entered the latter half of the conversation, “so, you guys are heading for Paarino?” Every, lifted her lids to respond, but Galena beat her to it from a ways off, somewhere in the trees, “Yup, straight to the heart of the kingdom of purple… Paars, to be specific, we got business to attend to, well more like we got done with some prior business.” Her voice trailing off again, “Ah” meeting the woman’s words, stringing from Al’s mouth.
As the conversation began to halt, Al tried to stand on creaking shaking knees, Every standing back but staying close as the boy planted a hand on the wood behind, slowly straightening his spine in the process. Knees shuffling in the dirt, he wobbled up slowly.
A gruff voice cut the boy’s journey short, it shot with a sternness that reminded Al of his father (what little he could remember) “well, well, well, this is a rather unusual happening, now isn’t it, very unusual, if not rather interesting” the voice paused, lowering without losing any of its aggressive charm “and mildly annoying to be sure.”
Galena whistled in agreement, her jewelry clinking in the newfound wind. The covering, that previously sat on the far side of the camp, (which Al fully thought was just a bundled tarp and which Every had gestured to prior), began to move. It unveiled itself, with a rather tired flourish, followed by a significant yawn, moving with stiff conviction, the thing made itself know, with swift crunching boot steps, it closed the gap between it and the boy. It was a man, a grizzled old man, with streaming, cropped white hair combed over to one side, clad in beaten armor. Al guess he had to be between the ages of sixty-eight, or perhaps seventy-five. He was almost as scarred as Al himself, they cut channels across his face, through his bushy pure white eyebrows, his mustache, and even his short, weathered beard. The man was about Al’s height five ten at most, with tanned skin and a square nose. His body was wrapped tightly in a simple metal-plate, leather-banded suit of armor, leather gloves, shoulder armor, and leather chap like leg armor, with fighting boots. All midnight dark, deep black dyed hide and painted steel, like a shade it matched the man’s grizzled and fierce demeanor, in any other circumstance Al might think the man evil. Weirdly enough, despite the stealth of his design, a large shock of red adorned his right side, a short cape, fastened at the apex with faded golden thread, the darkness hiding, glints of blades and other items hidden within, not counting the large thin straight sword on his hip. He looked wise, but also terrifying. The man waltzed with a practiced animalistic stride, meeting the boy, before he wrenched him to his feet, Al letting out a pained yowl, as the man lifted him with utter ease.
“Let me get a good look at ya” the man said, roughly between a hiss and a growl. “Don’t hurt him too badly Argj, he still appears to be rather injured” Every whispered, to which the animal replied “aye, I saw him back at the town, an interesting one indeed” he grasped the boy’s face with his callous dirty hands, like sandpaper on skin, “we’ll looks like we got some sort of apprentice, or a pet” the old man gripped the boy’s jaw like a vice, turning his head over, back and forth, rattling his brain, as his piercing dark eyes studied the young man, a predator examining its meal.
Much to Al’s dismay, the shade sniffed him, with nostrils flared, rapidly moving over him, “you stink like a rat dog, absolutely filthy” he threw Al by the head, as the boy's back slammed against the tree, and he yelped once more.
Every slithered up rapidly scurrying to sniff the boy as well, wherein she recoiled, falling back, holding her nose as she feigned retching. “Oh, my he does smell awful.” Every sighed in a nasally voice. “Ah, and it looks like he’s bleeding again,” the girl said, pointing at the warm stream that had steadily started to trickle from the boy’s armored chest, dripping out from under the breaks and folds of the metal.
A subtle silence fell over the clearing, as Al pressed himself to the tree, feeling like a cornered wounded animal before Sonne sighed from behind the rest of them.
“Alright fine ye lot, if no-one wants to deal with em, then I guess I gotta, plus I need a wash too.” The Orc stomped up to the boy, pushing past the gawkers like a figure parting water, as she grabbed Al by the top of his cuirass, right below the nape, dragging him backwards into the tree line, east. The boy struggled slightly, out of pain, rather than anything else, his armor dug into all the wrong places, and he swore he heard a few giggles, as he was abducted back into the shade.
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