Wayward souls cross paths,
Strong roots take hold in our hearts,
A faint hope blossoms.
Breathing a sharp gasp, Baldwin violently stirred from his slumber, thrashing his burly arms to shed the heavyness on his chest and rolling onto his side, buckling over in a bloody coughing fit. Once the storm settled, the leper filled his lungs and sat up hunched over still, pulling his linen hood over his face as he shed his mask, and dug a hand into the leather pouch at his hip. Shoveling out some pungent green powder, he coated the inside of his mask with it before donning his bronze facade once more, hearing the pitter-patter of little feet approach,
"Sorry, sorry! I didn't know- I didn't think that-!" Poppy stuttered, scrambling to take back the greathammer she had placed in Baldwin's hand and on his chest, but he weakly laughed it off,
"Please, do not be alarmed, you did me no harm," he softly assured her in his low, raspy voice, eyes narrowed through the mask at her gargantuan weapon,
"Is that yours. . .?" he pointed to it, asking with genuine curiosity while he sat there, taking time to parse what about the fluffy blue child before him was real, and what was imagined,
"Oh, this? Naaah I'm just holding onto it until I find the hero!" Poppy beamed, awkwardly rubbing the back of her head,
"Is that so?" he responded, his curiosity reaching new peaks as he slowly rose to his feet, hefting a massive weapon of his own into his hands,
"Yet you appear like no courier I've ever known - in fact, your armour bears the sheen of a true hero's own," he commented with a smile, noticing a fluster in the little warrior through his sickly haze,
"Me?! That's ridiculous!" Poppy was quick to shut that notion down, dismissively waving it off,
"I'm just a Yordle with a hammer,""A Yordle? Hm. . ." Baldwin's focus turned inward. He had thought before arriving here, with his body turning numb and his eyesight going completely, that disease had finally claimed his life. Stood in the company of such a strange creature as this - a
Yordle - he believed it true, yet the heavyness on his chest remained. . .
"Tell me, how is it you came to this place?" he flatly asked, taking the first real look at his odd surroundings,
"Y'know. . .I'm not sure!" Poppy took a moment to think before answering, quizzically rubbing her chin,
"My body turned numb, everything went black, and then-!" she jumped on the spot and her ears perked up as both her and Baldwin whipped around at the sound of screaming, just in time to watch Negan collapse into a frothing mess on the cold floor,
"A daemon spreads its wings. . ." Baldwin murmured, looking up at the woman looking down on all of them. Holding his weapon with fists clenched, his leather gloves whined in protest,
"Quickly, we must brace for the coming storm," the leper firmly ordered, beckoning Poppy to follow as he traveled his glass cage.
----
"Foreign winds, familiar weather. . ." Baldwin breathed a sigh of relief as he approached a trusted ally with a hopeful smile,
"Dismas! It appears the threads of fate have more in store for us, does it not?" the leper greeted Dismas in his usual half-prose, while Poppy trailed close behind him, looking Dismas up and down as if sizing him up for something,
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