Requiem - Chapter 12

Soren walked aimlessly along through the forest, exhaling heavily as he did so.

After getting away from the others and running as far as his trembling legs could take him, he had collapsed, where he had slept for several long hours. Upon waking, he had freaked out for a moment, angry at himself for falling asleep after he had just ran away from his ‘pursuers’.

Once he had assured himself that the Greil Mercenaries weren’t around, he had risen up, hacked the lone rope from his neck, and started walking, too tired, hurt, and hungry to run.

And so here he was, walking along ever so slowly, his paws hurting. He wanted to stop and rest some more, and his head was hurting worse than ever, but he made himself keep going.

And going.

About an hour later, he was still walking along, but was now so hungry that he knew he had to stop for a hunt. He sniffed around, moving as quietly and skillfully as he could through the bushes, then paused when an unfamiliar scent made him wrinkle his scaled nose in distaste.

Whatever that was, it had a sort of prickly smell about it. But food was food, and he wasn’t too picky right now. Once he located the bush the creature was behind, he began creeping towards it, moving slowly and carefully.

Closer and closer he crept, until he was right within striking distance.

With a roar, he vaulted up and over the bush, claws extended and teeth bared, for his prey.

Which turned out to be a very large porcupine.

The resulting roar of pain was probably one of the loudest things the forest had ever heard.

Soren backed away as fast as he could, yowling and growling and roaring out in pain. At least twenty sharp porcupine quills were stuck in the left side of his face and left foreleg. One was dangerously close to his eye, and it infuriated him so badly that he even tried attack the porcupine again.

Another ten quills later, and the dragon stumbled away on the verge of angry tears.

Completely and utterly fed up with everything that had happened to him, the black dragon plunked down right there in the middle of the forest and started cursing and chanting things in the ancient languages of magic, too upset to care that his emotions were running wild.

He roared and cursed and chanted old spells for a long time, until he had expended his frustrations, then turned with a heavy, deep sigh to face his newest problem.

One by one, he started working the quills from his body, starting with his foreleg. After he ripped a quill loose, he immediately pressed his tongue to the spot, waiting until it was healed before working on the next.

With ten quills down and twenty to go, his hunger was now a burning pit in his stomach, his instincts nearly growling and snapping at him to go find something to eat.

He kept working, however, until he had about ten quills left. The hard part now, though, was that these were the ones in his face. Without a mirror to look into or his regular small beorc fingers to grasp them delicately with, he risked major damage to himself…or worse.

He could poke his own eye out with the one that threatened its border, for all he knew. So, for lack of a better idea, he started walking aimlessly.

At least, he thought briefly, I got all the quills out of my leg. It doesn’t hurt too badly to walk…

He kept going, until he walked so slowly and so despondently that his nose nearly bumped the ground and his tail dragged it.

He exhaled heavily, thinking about the Greil Mercenaries, how they had tried to find him and talk to him. Acting like they wanted to help. It was a ruse, he decided. A ruse to get him to come down so they could stab him in the back.

Well, his best friend had already taken care of that.

He'd had no idea, of course, that Ike had been there. That the young Commander had stayed behind for a moment to speak with Caineghis and Nasir.

Soren had no idea.

So he just kept walking and kept walking, until a rustle in some bushes up ahead made him jump. He stared at the bushes for only a moment before anger (and hunger) filled him once more.

Knowing there was something alive behind those bushes just seemed to make him lose all sense of reason. He ignored the fact that he had just gotten twenty porcupine quills out of his body.

He was angry and hungry, and that alone was enough to make him strike once more.

He leapt over the bushes again, a feral snarl tearing from his lips, and he had only a moment to realize that the large creature he was falling upon was quite furry.

And blue.

Realization dawned a bit too late.

“YEEEEEEOWWWW!”

Soren’s claws sank into Ranulf’s fur as the dragon literally landed on him, causing the blue cat laguz to screech and buck like a horse, shouting incomprehensible things that might’ve been either curses or just nonsense.

Finally, Soren managed to free his claws from the laguz and leap clear, sliding to a halt nearby. “Ranulf?” he questioned, wondering why he was so glad to see a laguz. He hated laguz. Yet…

Ranulf sat down and examined his blue fur for claw marks, of which there were a few, then looked up at the black dragon in front of him. “Who are you?” he asked, standing and facing the dragon. “How do you know my name? Why did you attack me? What’s a Goldoan dragon doing this far from Goldoa?”

“I’m not a Goldoan dragon!” the once-mage snapped. “It’s me, Ranulf! Soren.”

Silence.

Ranulf tilted his head to the side, then said “Soren? As in Greil Mercenaries Soren? The quiet little guy with the black hair and red eyes?”

Slightly miffed at being called ‘little’, Soren snorted and said “Yes, it’s me.”

Ranulf frowned, as if debating on how sane the creature in front of him was, then said “Oh…oh! Hey, I recognize your little squiggly mark on your forehead. You really are Soren, eh?”

Soren exhaled heavily in annoyance, then said “What gave it away? My voice, my scent, or my dashing good-looks?”

“Well, it’s hard to recognize anyone with that many quills in their face,” Ranulf answered with a grin.

Immediately, as if reminded of his injuries, Soren’s vision swam before him and he nearly fell over.

Ranulf shifted forms at once, taking on the appearance of a beorc with cat ears and a long blue tail, and stepped forward, catching Soren’s head and neck before the sharp quills in his body could hit the ground and further embed them in the once-mage’s body.

“You poor little thing,” Ranulf said, crouching there on the ground as he carefully lifted one hand and rested it on the dragon’s neck. “I’ll save the questions for later. Let’s get you seen to, shall we?”

Soren couldn’t argue, despite wanting to. He didn’t like the cat being in such close proximity to him, but there was nothing he could do about it.

So he tried to say absolutely nothing as Ranulf shifted forms and began tugging the dragon to his feet, saying “That’s it, lean on me. There you go, easy now.”

Soren found himself leaving heavily on the laguz, and though his thoughts swam with unpleasantness, he forced himself to walk, slowly and steadily, with the help of the laguz.

Ranulf helped him along until they reached a small campsite obviously owned by the laguz, with a crackling fire and a few logs pulled up for seats. There was a bag leaning against a tree, but it looked empty.

The thing that caught Soren’s complete and utter attention, however, were the two rabbits cooking over the flames.

“I was out hunting for more when you jumped me,” Ranulf said conversationally as he carefully helped Soren lay down on his right side, shifting back to beorc form in order to work properly. “I doubt I’ll ever forget that moment in time.” He chortled, not unkindly, and turned to the fire, taking both rabbits off.

“Hungry? I imagine you are,” Ranulf said, smiling when he saw the look on Soren’s face flicker at the thought of taking something from a laguz. “Here, you can have both of them,” the laguz said gently, setting the stick the two rabbits were stuck on onto the ground in front of the dragon.

Soren didn’t move for a long moment, clearly waging some internal war with himself.

“Well,” Ranulf said, moving his hand out lightly. “If you don’t want them, I’ll just-”

With a nearly frantic roar, Soren grabbed the rabbits and set on them like a half-starved dog.

Ranulf, who had gotten his hand back almost too late, merely grinned before turning back to the flames.

There was silence between them for a long time as Soren ate, scarfing his food in a way he had never done in his life.

Once he was done, he felt a delightful sensation of drowsiness come over him. He was tired and just wanted to sleep, but the quills still stuck in his face were now burning like fire, so painful they were…

“Here.”

Soren flinched at Ranulf’s voice, having partially forgotten he was there, and looked over to see the laguz holding one hand out to Soren with the other clutching a small bowl.

“Will you let me get those nasty things out of your good-looks?” Ranulf said with a small smile and a wink.

Soren had wanted to argue, but he found he couldn’t say anything in light of Ranulf’s kindness towards him. He had pretty much just saved his life, in a way.

So other than a small grunt, he chose to say nothing as Ranulf shifted close to work on his wounds.

He couldn’t keep his silence, however, at the way Ranulf chose to do it.

“Get your mitts off me!” Soren shouted as the cat slid the dragon’s head onto his lap.

“Hey, hold still!” Ranulf shouted back, clapping a hand to Soren’s muzzle in effort to get him to lay still. “Stop it!”

“You stop it!”

“Soren, I’m not going to let you go without proper treatment!”

“Then why do I have to get so close to you?!”

“Have you ever tried removing porcupine quills at long-range?”

“No, but-”

“Do you want to keep your eye?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then be quiet and let me work.”

Soren growled, then said “You’re ridiculous…” But the fight had mostly gone out of him.

“Yeah, I’ve been told that by a few different people,” Ranulf said rather cheerily, then concentrated on his work.

Soren couldn’t help but relax a bit as Ranulf gently began working his fingers along the dragon’s muzzle, feeling the quills and the way they were embedded in the soft, like-leather scales.

Ranulf carefully dipped his fingers into the bowl he was holding, which revealed that it held a thick, pale gray paste. As soon as he spread it around the bases of the quills, all of Soren’s pain evaporated.

Soren nearly whimpered with joy at being relieved of the pain, and Ranulf smiled at this.

Then he began gently working the quills out, one by one, slowly, until they were all stacked in a neat pile next to them.

“There you go,” Ranulf said gently, then just sat there stroking Soren’s muzzle and head.

Soren, who was much more sleepy now, said quietly “What are you doing…?”

“Nothing,” Ranulf said, then asked “So what are you doing out here, in the guise of a black dragon?”

Soren sighed heavily, thought about it for a long moment, then hesitantly decided to spill the beans and see how Ranulf reacted. He might as well. The worst that could happen would be if Ranulf got mad and chased him away or something.

Or tried to kill him.

Yeah. That.

So Soren began to speak. It was hard and he clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but as he kept going, he grew more and more animated, and before long, he was speaking so quickly and vividly that Ranulf knew he had been wanting to talk about this for a while.

Soren was left panting by the end of his tale. He hesitated, then sneaked a turn of his eyes up at Ranulf, to see his reaction.

He was staring down sadly at Soren, and when he opened his mouth, it was to words the mage didn’t expect.

“You’ve really had the bad end of things lately, haven’t you, Soren?”

Those words, spoken so plainly and simply and with such a calm tone of voice, made Soren’s heart hurt.

The words reminded him of something Ike would say.

Before he could stop himself, tears budded in his crimson eyes.

Ranulf spotted them at once and gently lifted Soren’s head so he could stare into his eyes. “Don’t hold it in,” he said kindly, softly. “If you hold it in, it’ll all be worse later on. Just let it out. I won’t tell anyone, not that there’s anyone to tell.

“Just…let it out.”

And Soren did.

He closed his eyes and let the tears fall, a soft sob escaping his lungs before he could stop it.

Ranulf gently pulled the dragon close, cradling his head against his chest and stroking a hand tenderly down his long black neck, trying to comfort him as he cried.

Once Soren felt better, he just sort of slipped off into sweet unconsciousness, which seemed the last place he had to go where there wasn’t a storm of emotions he didn’t like.

Ranulf sighed as the once-mage passed out, then settled down as night fell around them.