[i]Smoke.

So much smoke...

Fog...[i]

Bor coughed. When he came to, his eyes refused to clear the predatory smoke that clouded his line of sight. No, it was real smoke, it got inside his nose, his mouth, his eyes... his eyes were watering. His feet felt rock.

“Shaman Samai!”
The old, tattooed man tottered and doddered his way through the hazy landscape. In his hand, he held a small hatchet.
“Shaman, I’m so glad you’re here! Do you know a way out?”


The old man didn’t seem to hear. In the uneasy silence, the old man simply limped closer.

“Shaman?”

Samai - or, what at least looked like him - collapsed into a monstrous being. What it was exactly, he did not know. He would never know.
“Get off! Get OFF! GET OFF! GET - AUUGH-”



“Woah, woah, brother! Calm down.”

“W-wha-?”

“Brother?”

Bor forced his magnetic eyelids open. The smoky, hazy feeling was gone. He attempted to sit up, but a forceful, hateful, determined [i]thing[/i] shoved him back down. “Aaagh...”

“Bor?”

That voice. He knew that voice. He couldn’t be dead... yet. 
“Gezar?”
That same soft nose, those same fierce, bony cheeks, those same emerald-green eyes that burned with a passion that had been unquenched for decades, and yet was so calm, like a lake of a thousand tiny, green mirrors. 
The same tattoos of blood on his cheeks. 
Bor sat up to embrace his blood brother, but was immediately forced back down again. What was it? He looked down, and saw his torso wrapped in white bandages now stained with blood.
“Take it easy, [i]keljar[/i]. You lost a lot of blood in that explosion.”
[i]What explosion?[/i]
“The... the one with the talking tree?”

Gezar knitted his features into a soft frown. “There was a tree, but it didn’t talk...”
Bor nodded. "What brings you here?"
"Shaman said so, apparently from a vision and whatnot. He said that I'd know what to say to you when I got there. Well, now I do!"
"Mhmm."

Bor groaned and lay down again. His back pressed against uneven, uncomfortable rock. They were in a cave, not unlike that of a great beast’s throat. Sunlight spilled over into the small grotto. Bor suddenly felt a subtle lurch in his gut - they were embedded in a cliff.
“Not exactly the chieftain’s hut, but it will have to do.” Gezar reached over Bor’s torso and retrieved a container filled with some sort of blue liquid. “Try not to wince. This may hurt.”
Bor struggled to contain his obvious discomfort as Gezar reached under his bandages and spread the liquid.
“That will ease the pain for a bit. Morris!” 

Bor was immediately relieved as a certain vineman poked his head into the small space. 
“Go and fetch flowers. The white ones.”

The vineman seemed to understood, a slight smile on his ‘mouth’ at his master finally coming to. He then bounded off.
“Do not worry. We are far from the fire, and Morris avoids the soldiers with ease.”
“What soldiers?”
“The ones that tried to [i]kill[/i] me a few minutes ago, brother.” Gezar’s ensuing frown seemed to blemish his tattoos. “We should be wary of them.”

“Yes, yes...” Bor put a sweaty arm over his eyes, then removed it. “My axe.”

“What axe?”

“My woodaxe.”

“I didn’t find anything except for you at the explosion site.”

Bor silently cursed and closed his eyes, his hands again straying to a certain silver amulet.
“Ah. The god-amulet.”
Bor vainly attempted to conceal the Relic as his comrade raised a brow. “By Darratu law, possession and use of one is naught but death. I assume you remember that.”
Bor felt embarrassed that he had just been outspoken by a man skinnier than he. “Y-yeah...” 
“Do not worry.” Gezar clapped a hearty hand on Bor’s soldier. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
“I... it’s our secret, right?”
The two shook hands. “Right.”