Collab between Orpheus and Fox
The pink-haired Lost Soul, the one who was always around Martini giggling about some fashion show along with another boy, was now yelling in her face. The mermaid seemed to have frozen up; she didn’t do anything to defend herself, not even when Lesley smacked his palm down on the table like Martini was some low vermin he had to interrogate in order to catch the mafia boss.
‘Like she did something wrong. Martiniwhyallofasudden.’One of the other humans got agitated as well, although it wasn’t that
dumbmouth Hakuren he was angry at. Songbird was glad Harper punched the idiot before
he had the chance to hurl the toolbox at Hakuren to shut his big mouth. His collars were tugged and he was put on pulled down by Leon. Another one of Martini’s
friends.‘I thought they liked her?’Why were the two of them the first to scream at her like that?
The question was plastered all over the mermaid’s face too, underneath all the shock and weariness.
He was overcome by a complex feeling and his stomach churned in an unpleasant way as the human continued to ask him questions, throttling him by the collar like he was…
a… suspect?Leon yelped when Songbird suddenly opened his mouth wide and gnashed his teeth, and he instinctively let go thinking that the item hunter was meaning to bite him. The enamel colliding down against each other made a sharp, threatening sound. “You haven’t answered my quest- Ack!” The human tried to grab onto the white-haired nobody’s scarves again but Songbird slammed their foreheads together. Leon staggered back and fell down on his butt in a dazed heap.
“Get out of my face, punk,” Songbird snarled and then rushed off towards help Martini.
“Stand up,” Avian pulled Leon up to his feet and aided the boy towards his other friends. The dragoon was, in a way, the middle party here. Sure, he was a nobody, but he was unaffiliated with Queen Delirium and the real reason the kingdom sent him as a guide was to retrieve the lost dragon and the captured riders. He had nothing to gain by pledging his loyalty to another monarchy while his King yet lives. “Songbird! What was that for!?” He snapped uncharacteristically before going after the livid item hunter.
“You’re not the only ones going through “trouble” here! You’re not the only one making sacrifices! Are we in perfect condition, you blind trolls!?” Songbird went in between Lesley and Martini, his arms spread out as if he was trying to prevent any of them from going near the mermaid. True to his words, none of the guides looked good. Avian was, for one, was in worse shape than most of the humans. “You got a limb cut off? Anyone could have lost their hand today, for pity’s sake! Anyone! I’m sorry you had to go through that, but this wasn’t anybody’s intention!”
“'You left your family'!? OH WOW! BOO HOO!
I LEFT MINE TOO! All of us did just to accompany you humans on this quest of yours! None of them died on you, did they!? Mine did! That blasted Mado friend of yours attacked my friend and now he doesn’t have half of his tail! Do you know how painful it is for micekits like Bark to get their tails destroyed!? Fjotli, Mard and Dibby fell off the Shakespearean and so did "your" Emily! You think simply because you’re all “humans” that you’re different, that
that sets you up a bar from us “nobodies”? That we can’t feel what you feel, get hurt and bleed and cry and die like any of you do!? That because of that you can think of us as lowly sniveling creatures up to no good?” He screamed in pent-up frustration. He had tried so hard to talk with these humans for them to accept him, to make it easier for them to ease up at Nowhere’s oddities, but most of the time he was ignored while they talked with one another.
“Who is Delirium to us that we follow her!? She’s our queen! OUR QUEEN! THIS IS NOWHERE, NOT YOUR WORLD! Don’t force your ideologies on us, that this has to be like this, that has to be like that because IT ISN’T! None of what happens in YOUR world happens in OURS! Isn’t that obvious enough already!?
AND IF ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY LISTENED TO WHAT WE SAID WHEN WE INTRODUCED OURSELVES, YOU WOULD HAVE THE ANSWER TO ALL OF YOUR QUESTIONS BECAUSE WE ALL SAID THIS WAS OUR FIRST TIME TO BE GUIDES! But we tried to help and we did! We bought supplies, mapped out rest spots, patrolled whenever everyone was asleep so nobody died, and THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY US!? By being huge, sarcastic-“ a pointed look at Hakuren- “jerks!?” Songbird snarled out, too far gone in his rage to consider their feelings. Only a few of them saw things through the guides’ eyes anyway.
Things went from bad to worst when Inadi jabbed that spear of his towards the guides.
"What are you doing?" This was unbelievable, Riley's eyes flitted from the wobbly Jasper to the spear twirling Inadi. Emotions were skyrocketing and things were getting out of hand. "You can't just point your spear at them, Inadi!" Yes, she was a human. Yes, she didn't trust these guides 100 percent. Hell, how could she, after she had met
them? Something in Nowhere seemed fishy, but these guides had done nothing but risk their own lives for them and they didn't deserve this crappy treatment, not by a long shot.
Martini had a shocked look on her face, and was just about ready to start crying.
"I get it, we're all tired," She shoved herself between Inadi and the guides. "We're confused and we're angry, but we can't take it out on the people who have been trying to send our butts back home." She let out a huff, her eyebrows furrowed in irritation. Frankly, without the guides they would have been dead long ago. "So just take a deep breath, and calm yourselves," Her eyes flitted towards the pale healer. "You're all scaring Jasper." Lesley, Inadi, and Leon were her companions and friends, but this wasn't right. "C'mon, we're almost through, let's not turn on each other."
Harper gave Hakuren one last glare, the guides had been with him since day one and he didn't like the way they were being treated either. Surely, Jasper and Leila understood how he felt. Haku probably didn't, but all the same, they would have died back on the Shakespearean if not for Brandy throwing the cherry bombs overboard. "This is going too far, let's just put down the spear." He made his way towards Jasper. Harper wanted to offer his friend a reassuring smile, but couldn't even manage that, so instead he offered the healer a hand and led the wobbly girl to a nearby chair.
“Inadi, what the hell!?” Avian’s voice rose and it was a good thing Jasper already pulled him down. That wasn’t a good move to make. Threatening the guides in what was already a hostile situation? Was he crazy? What was he trying to prove, that he can stab the nobodies if they didn’t- Urgh!
"You've made it clear on several occasions that your trust for us nobodies is basically at zero amount, but you don't have to be so
rude!" The dragoon’s head pounded and he intervened, forcibly pushing away Inadi, Lesley and poor Jasper and setting himself in between the warring groups. He gave the humans a lingering look, each and every one of them, that told the extent of his disappointment and shock that they had been harboring these suspicions for so long and, Avian made a point to scowl at Inadi for this one, actually threaten the guides with
physical violence.
The room froze over. Songbird was rooted in his place, and his face was hidden from view by his long white hair. The murderous atmosphere was enough to tell anyone how he took having a spear pointed at him, no, at all of them, like that.
“Yes, we’re paid to look after this batch. It’s a smaller sum than the one we get from our original jobs, but for some infernal reason… We took it,” The item hunter finally said in a completely different tone of voice. He raised his head and stared at the humans with eyes that were glazed in ice cold fury. “This just proved that it was never worth the trouble.”
Never worth the trouble...
Harper winced. The guides, they had every right to be as upset as they were.
Time and time again they had been saved by these nobodies. Lesley's and Leon's comments had been isulting and beyond rude and Inadi, he actually had the nerve to point his spear at them. He wanted answers just as much as they did, but this was ridiculous.
"They're right you know," Inadi had been nothing but kind to him, but Harper couldn't help but glare disapprovingly at his friend. They were all stressed, they all wanted out, and this! Well, this wasn't an excuse. "Jasper, Leila, you guys get what I'm saying, don't you?" He took a step towards the mermaid then turned to look at his friends. "If Brandy hadn't thrown those cherry bombs overboard, we would have died on the SSF." His eyes fell on the shaky mermaid. "If Martini, Songbird, and Brandy hadn't come back for us in Yonder, we would have become fish food."
Riley nodded at this. "Think about it, if they hadn't helped us back in Sol, those elemental wolves would have torn us apart."
Harper's eyes went steely, "And if they hadn't come back for us in that cave, those criminals would have taken away our list." The boy placed a hand on Martini's shoulder, his eyes flitting to meet the item hunter's own. "None of you guys deserve this. I can't speak for everyone in the group," he gave Hakuren and Lesley a somewhat pointed glare. "But we're sorry."
The fire mage backed him up, for someone so timid, Harper managed to step up whenever he was needed. "I haven't known you guys for long, but I do know you didn't deserve that. Emotions are high and we're all a little scared," Hakuren didn't look very apologetic and a part of her wanted to kick him where the sun didn't shine. "You don't have to forgive us, but personally, I'd thank you guys a hundred times over."
She shot Inadi an angry look, but what happened next was completely unexpected...
The house let out a shrill creak and the rafters started groaning as the wind howling inside the cabin intensified. The rusted pots and pans stacked up on the shelves rattled and fell down one by one and the furniture shook. Suddenly an immense force caused the front wooden wall to cave in from the door outwards; splinters and chunks of torn wood were sent flying at everyone, but what stood out the most was the item that had been sent crashing through the wall.
Thrown right in the middle of them all was the unicorn's limp and battered form, its white coat stained a fresh crimson.
"The unicorn, what's going on?" Riley took a step forward, but suddenly the house shook and an eerie coolness filled the room. A tremendous force knocked them back and Riley slammed into one of the many bookshelves, there hadn't even been time to yell.
The same thing happened to everyone in the room, including the guides. Even though her vision was blurring at the edges, the fire mage could have sworn she had seen a flicker of dark wisps. At one instant they had been almost in reach, but in the snap of a finger they disappeared, only for the wisps to reappear before Leila.
The witch wasn't dead at all.
"NO! LEILA!" Riley launched herself to her feet, but with a flick of the witch's wrist, she found herself knocked back into another shelf. The girl curled up on the ground. DAMN IT ALL. The witch was now in front of her friend, whole, alive, and with a dagger raised right above the archer's chest.
"Get out of the damn way, you french loaf!" Songbird was winded from getting thrown against the wall, but he was near enough to notice the witch's approach. He didn't have time to express his shock; he simply acted out of instinct and got up, tackling Leila out of harm's way and ending up at the mercy of the revived witch. The hag's arms swung down and she disappeared once more, and the item hunter was frozen in shock. The blade had been rammed through his shoulder, buried to the hilt in his flesh, and he soundlessly crumpled down to the floor.
Harper coughed and sputtered, he had crashed into a nearby wall, the air knocked right out of him.
The witch, it was moving too fast for them to even see. They would catch glimpses of dark wisps, and blurry outlines of a human being but aside from that, nothing. He could only watch as the woman reappeared behind Lelsley with claws that were now as long as swords.
He wanted to shout out a warning, but the woman raked her sharp talons into flesh after suddenly materializing above the stunned human, only it wasn't Lesley's...
Avian Rider. Harper felt the world tilt, as dark splotches of red began falling to the floor.
The witch twisted her talons into him, a squelching sound filling the room. She had stabbed her entire hand through his armor like it was butter. Avian's eyes glazed over as she lifted him up single-handedly, her colorless eyes seemingly glowing in manic glee as his blood ran down in rivulets over her arm. His daggers clattered uselessly from his hands to the stained floorboards as his head finally hung limp.
And then she threw him away, out into the field, like one would do to a rag doll that has fulfilled its use for entertainment.
Scout