Tags: M/M, Guide/Original Character, Character Study, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Obsession, Possesiveness, Mutual Pining, Blood, Death, Angst, Horror
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
chapter 1: the first point of contact is always the most extreme
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Black velvet nothing is what surrounds him.
Blacker than the fuzzy, womb colored warm spot behind eyelids, blacker than anything; than void.
In what shape of existence is he meandering to be able to even notice such things as this? He knows words, but not the origin. Hears nothing, but knows there should be something other than endless deep dark and his own scattered, mumbled thoughts. If only he could open his mouth to speak, at last, there might be sound. Brief, so brief, is the fear of what he may sound like. Even more than that, the fear of breaking the silence and being rewarded what might follow after. There's fear in speaking a question, if only to lay in wait of what might answer.
But more than the fear is the wonder, the curiosity that's deep seated within whatever it is that makes him who he is, whoever that might be, so he opens his mouth.
To speak, no, he doesn't quite make that leap yet, because as soon as his lips part, air floods into his lungs and all at once he's alive and the dark has fled. The sun in the blue sky above him is blinding in it's cheer, nearly bleaching his irises, but he refuses to close his eyes again and risk returning to void. The most he can compromise with is a squint. Air rushes up his nostrils, smelling of grass and soil and that's very fitting, seeing as how that's what's all around him. His hands dig into grass and squeeze. A bug crawls on his arm.
Sight, smell, touch, it all creeps up on him as much as the bugs do. Awareness fills him with dread, so much so that he launches up into standing, eyes looking all around him frantically. He's in the middle of a grassy clearing, yellow and orange flowers scattered here and there. Circling the clearing, is a forest, the trees hailing above him like obelisks.
It strikes him, how beautiful the sight is, as much as it strikes fear in him.
The forest is dense enough that the sun doesn't permeate through the canopy, at least not efficiently. Should he venture into that shade or should he remain here, warmed by the sun and for the most part, alone? As the panic of this decision joins the dread of still filling into his own skin, he catches movement in the corner of his eyes. Startling, he whips his head to the left, mouth parted and breathing heavily, and between the shade and the bright sun above him, it's difficult to see things clearly. He squints, really squints, and sees that standing just on the edge of the forest, one hand placed on the trunk of a tree, is a person.
A man.
They're dressed in a thin, long-sleeved shirt. Green like the leaves on the trees and appearing to be made of wool. Dark pants are tucked into leather boots. A leather satchel rests over one hip. Odd, how he can make these things out; that he can even make out that their hair is light brown, short, and sits all over the place, but not their face. The shadow their figure casts into the grass is as dark as the shadow that engulfs their face.
In the dark, featureless depth of their face, are two eyes, striking, in how the white's of them contrast with the shadow. Two eyes, gray, peer at him with an emotion he fails to understand. They don't move, nor do they say anything, and the more time that passes, the more he feels intimidated. Perhaps he shouldn't be staring at them. Perhaps he shouldn't even venture towards the forest to take a better look at them, but he does, because what he discovers about himself immediately, or more, that he's always known, is that he dislikes nothing more than just standing around. Being idle feels akin to torture.
So he walks across the clearing, onwards towards the shade of the forest and the man.
He stops a foot and a half in front of them, the canopy of the tree they're both standing under hiding the sun's warmth from him. It feels degrees colder now, enough to make a chill run down his spine and for his shoulders to shake with the feeling. Close now, he finds the man's face no more discernible, but does find that they're taller than him by a handful of inches.
"Hello." He says to them, swallowing hard, but still smiling a little because even if it's terrifying, it's still nice to meet someone; still nice to see that he isn't the only one in existence in this place.
After a tick of silent studying, the man speaks. "Hello." They return, voice quiet and even and perfectly audible, despite the heavy breeze that shakes the trees. It's as if they had spoken directly into his ear.
"I'm Zachariah," He tells them because he's not sure what else to say. How he knows that's his name, he isn't sure, but it had felt right to say it, so he doesn't take it back.
"Zachariah." The man repeats, tasting. They have an interesting way of saying it- almost reverent. It makes him feel important, like he really didn't exist until the exact moment they had uttered his name, confirming that yes, he is in fact a thing with a name.
And maybe he didn't. Could a person be a person if there was nothing and nobody to recognize them as such?
Their right hand, which had hung at their side this entire time, extends out to him. "I'm Kieran."
He slips his own hand into theirs. Kieran has long, deft looking fingers. On the pads of their index, middle and thumb, he feels callouses, which he realizes are from the leather quiver and bow strapped to their back, which he had failed to notice until just now.
The urge to ask them where he is vanishes as quickly as it had emerged. He knows where he is. He knows, approximately, who he is, and now he knows who they are. More and more, his skin is starting to feel like it belongs to him.
"It's a beautiful day." He tells them and means it. He can't help but look back towards the sky in amazement, his hand still holding theirs. When he returns to face them, his small smile now a grin, he sees that while nothing of their face has changed, their eyes seem to be a little soft.
"It is." Kieran agrees. Their hand, which is cool to the touch, maybe even cold, slips out of his and moves to readjust the strap of the quiver on their shoulder. "You must be hungry. I was just about to hunt. Did you want to come with me?"
"Of course!" He grins, and Kieran watches him for a moment, eyes flickering all over his face, before their eyes crease in the corner and they slowly turn around, facing the forest.
"Come along, then."
Trailing just behind Kieran, the two of them wander deeper into the woods in what he thinks might be companionable silence. He takes in the sights, the way the sunlight barely lights up the forest, but does so just enough that the beams of light that flicker through the canopy make these mesmerizing patterns on the dirt. There's a lulling ambience to the forest. Peaceful. It feels wrong to break the silence, but there's no fear attached to it. Not this time. The two of them are passing by a tree that looks the same as all the others, when Kieran extends their left arm and succinctly stops him in his tracks. They peer over their shoulder at him, one eye boring into him, before the arm that's extended moves towards their face. Holding up a single finger to where their mouth should lie if he could see it, they gesture for him to be quiet.
Kieran slips gracefully into a crouch, balancing on the balls of their feet while they slip off their bow and pluck an arrow from their quiver. With practiced ease, the arrow is notched and Kieran points the readied bow towards the bushes.
He studies them, fascinated by how they don't at all lose their balance; of how their chest rises and falls slowly while they ready their shot. Its a moment later he thinks to look at what they might be aiming at, and after looking closely at the bushes, he notices a decently sized rabbit peeking out from behind it, their head, and half their body peeking out. The second the rabbit turns, left side of their body offered, the arrow flies.
It lands right in its heart.
Not wanting to be useless, he stands to his feet and walks over to the bush before Kieran can even straighten. Picks up the rabbit by its legs and holds it level to his chest and pulls the arrow out. The arrow comes loose with a single tug, and seeing how it's still perfectly intact and good to use, he slashes the air with it to rid the tip of blood. He turns, meaning to walk back to them, but finds Kieran standing just behind him.
He startles, jumping a bit, but it had clearly been an accident, so he just laughs. Offers both the arrow and the rabbit to them.
Accepting, Kieran takes the rabbit in one hand and the arrow in the other. Uses the blood stained arrow to point at the foot of a tree. "Look over there," They instruct, so he does. "See those mushrooms?"
He does. Their caps are yellow with orange-red spots, the stem beige.
"They make a decent meal, but they're better used for rudimentary healing potions." They say and when Kieran walks over to the bushel of mushrooms, crouching once more, he follows along as if being pulled by a string and crouches down next to them. The rabbit is handed over to him and the arrow is tucked back into the quiver.
Kieran reaches inside the satchel on their hip and pulls out a very shiny knife.
"Never cut from the root of anything, unless you want it to be gone for good. Cut from the middle, like this." Kieran clasps one of the mushrooms by the cap, the pads of their fingers forming a tripod on the stem, which they bend to one side before gliding the dagger through it.
A handful of mushrooms, not even half of what's growing there, is tucked into the satchel.
"Always leave some of whatever you find. If you take everything, it'll have a harder time growing back and might not grow back at all."
He nods, tucking the information away.
With the rabbit and the mushrooms procured, the two of them walk out of the forest, but not fully, not when he spots a slightly rusty axe embedded in a tree stump just a few yards off. He opens his mouth to ask Kieran to wait a moment, but finds they've already stopped and is looking at the axe as well.
Taking that as confirmation he won't be left behind, he steps over branches and brambles to make it towards the stump. Instinctively, he knows to put one foot on the stump as leverage, before curling both his hands around the handle of the axe and pulling.
The axe pulls loose with not much effort and he feels immensely better now that he has something to help gather food for the two of them.
"We'll need some firewood, if you're wanting to test that out." Kieran says in regards to the axe.
He's more than happy to have something to do. Is even happier that instead of exiting the woods to get started on preparing the food, Kieran leans against a tree and relaxes; watching as he fells a tree and processes the wood into logs. The sweat dripping off his face and making his shirt cling to his skin is validating.
With enough firewood for a dozen campfires and sticks sharpened to hold their food as it cooks, the two of them step out of the forest and pick a spot in the clearing. He gets to work on setting up the fire, but realizes he has nothing to light it with. Just as he's making peace with the fact he'll have to rub two sticks together for an absurd amount of time, a pale hand slips into his vision. Kieran's knife and a piece of flint are offered wordlessly, Kieran themselves not even looking at him. With a thanks, he gets to work and has the campfire going after the third strike of flint. He hands the knife and flint back over to Kieran, who begins processing the rabbit.
He doesn't know Kieran, not at all, but he thinks they look perfect as they are now- sleeves rolled up to the elbow, blood on their hands and caked under their nails as they skin and gut the rabbit.
Their face is pointed down as they work, but as if intrinsically knowing when someone was staring at them, their gray eyes flicker up to meet his. He doesn't look away, despite being caught.
"Is there something you want to do after eating?" They ask, eyes moving from his to observe how one of his legs are bouncing with the need to get up and do something.
"I'm not sure." He answers, before thinking of something else. "Are you going home after we eat?"
He hopes not. Or, if they are, that he's allowed to visit sometimes.
"I don't have anywhere to call home." Kieran says nonchalantly. The rabbit's hide is laid carefully on a large rock to be cleaned and dried later. The guts are tossed into the grass for small critters and bugs to feast on.
He thinks of the axe now in his possession. Thinks of the abundance of trees and how nice a little cabin in the clearing would look.
"I could make us one." He speaks the thought aloud before he can really consider if Kieran would be opposed to shacking up with someone they had just met. Nervous, he looks towards them to gauge their reaction. It's difficult to make out what them pausing their work entirely to give them their attention means. What the marginal tilt of their face to the side might entail.
"Could you?" Is asked of him, not with a mocking tone, but with curiosity.
"It won't be the finest place." All he has is an axe, after all. "With no nails or rope, I'll have to carve out very accurate wedges for the logs to slot in place with each other. The floor is going to be grass, and there won't be any windows. Now that I think about it, this should probably just be a temporary spot for us, before I-"
His breath catches in his throat. Not only is Kieran full on staring at him, the weight of that gaze substantial by itself, but it's with great interest, it seems, that they watch him. Their arm has moved to rest its elbow just below their folded knee, their bloodied right hand cradling their jaw. He can see their pale hand and fingers, but not the outline of the jaw.
Swallowing hard, he continues. "-before I make us something better. It'll be very rough as homes go, but I know I can make better when I find more tools."
Their eyes crease in the corners with obvious mirth. "And you want me in this home with you?"
"I do."
Quiet, before a hum. "Then I'll stay with you. Keep in mind that we'll need to work quickly- there's only so much daylight left."
He brightens at that. "You'll help?"
"Of course.”
--
There are other things besides animals, he soon finds out as he busies himself with chopping down tree after tree. A round, gelatinous thing undulates it’s way towards him, picking up dirt and debris on its path. The blue of the creature is the same shade as the sky above. There’s not telling whether it will bother him or not, so he decides to leave it be, that is, until he sees it capture a squirrel on its way over to him. He watches as the squirrel thrashes and struggles to rid itself of its sticky prison, only to be drowned in what he guesses to be jelly. Or slime.
He readies his axe, not at all wanting the thing to jump and attach to his face, if possible.
Before he can take a swing at the thing, an arrow strikes it, hitting the still drowning squirrel between the eyes and putting it out of its misery, as well as hitting the round thing in the center of the creature eating it.
Once that center has been hit, the thing dissolves into a puzzle.
Turning around, he finds Kieran lowering their bow. “During the daytime, slimes are about all you’ll need to look out for. At least, on the surface.” They say.
“And at night?”
Kieran takes a corked glass bottle out of their satchel, bends down and scoops some of the slime into it.
“Much worse, I’m afraid.”
A little nervous at that, he simply nods. He spends the next handful of hours processing the mountain of logs he’s acquired and spends many more on the beginnings of their humble abode. Really, its more of a hut, only enough space for the two of them to stand and lay down, with the distance of one wall to another being cleared in only a few steps. There’s no windows or fireplace or anything else a nice cabin is supposed to have, but he keeps reminding himself that this won’t be home as of yet. It’s just somewhere to sleep safely for the time being.
Still, a place like that should have a door, but he can’t seem to figure out how to provide one, which is annoying, seeing as how it’s the most important part aside from the roof, which he had managed to build just fine. He can’t make hinges, not without metal or a forge, and lacks the nails to simply nail the door in place to work as a standing barricade.
“The sun is setting soon.” Kieran tells him from the empty doorway, tone calm, but he still gets the impression that he shouldn’t take this reminder lightly.
Standing in the middle of the hut, he chews his bottom lip and clenches his fist around the handle of the axe. He said he would finish this, but he hasn’t, because he can’t figure out this one, stupid thing and-
A hand settles on his shoulder.
“We can sleep in the trees. It won’t be comfortable, but we’ll be safer.” Kieran tells him.
“If we just blocked the door with something.” He remarks with frustration. He has so much wood left over, he could easily stack them in front of the doorway and spend all night leaning against it while Kieran slept. Maybe he should have made a fence before anything else.
He’s thinking and thinking and fails to realize just how quickly the sun sets when you don’t want it to.
“Zachariah.” His name succinctly pulls him from his thoughts. “It’s night.”
And now the two of them are still without a door or barricade and they haven’t made it up a tree.
He slips a hand into his hair. Grips tightly.
“I’m sorry.”
He follows the motion of Kieran shaking their head. “There’s still time to make it up a tree. Our project will still be here tomorrow to finish. We can make it if we hurry.”
Taking a deep breath, he nods. Turns towards the doorway to leave. Stills, when he hears wet gurling, like someone choking on their own blood. The sound is just around the corner of the shack.
His hands grow sweaty and he readjusts his grip on the axe. Hears the now familiar sound of Kieran notching an arrow on the string of their bow. From the dark comes a shambling figure. It’s only when the torch they’ve place outside catches it, illuminating, that he sucks in a gasp.
The thing growing near had been human at some point, but it certainly wasn’t anymore. It’s skin, falling off in some places as if waterlogged, is a grayish hue. Rotted hands reach out for him, clawing and desperate, and the face that stares at him is completely decayed, save for a row of teeth in a collapsing mouth.
The only reason, he thinks, that he’s able to ready his axe to kill this thing despite the fear coursing through him is the fact that he had gotten Kieran into this mess and he needed to get them out of it. Kieran, who he had known only for a day, not even fully, but had treated him with such kindness that he thinks that even if he dies, that he would have been grateful for the short encounter.
If he’s going to die, he’s going to die for them- if only to give them a chance to make it to the trees.
He lunges for the monster, axe raised.
The hands reaching out for him are easily chopped off. He doesn’t waste time glancing at the still wriggling hands on the grass. The axe is raised again and this time he sinks the rusted blade into the monster’s skull. It cleaves through their head with the ease of a taking a breath.
He flinches away from the black blood that spurts out as the thing falls to the ground in a truly lifeless heap.
It’s a short-lived accomplishment.
In the distance, pouring out of the forest, is a hoard of the things. Turning around to Kieran, who stands just behind him, he sees that their eyes are hard with resignation.
He opens his mouth. To what? Apologize again, now that he realizes his single-minded goal had gotten them both death sentences?
“It’s alright.” Kieran tells him, voice soft, even though their eyes aren’t. “You can make a run for the trees while I cover for you.”
His heart drops into his gut.
“No.” He tells them immediately. “No, I’m not- if anyone should escape, it should be you.”
He turns his back on them once more, readying to walk further out from the shack and stand his ground for the inevitable hoard, but a hand curls around his shoulder and stops him from doing that.
“I’m not going to leave either.” Kieran says while sliding next to him.
Than whatever happened next, good or bad, the two of them would face it together. And it’s together that they take down as many monsters as they can.
He sinks his axe into any and everything that moves and Kieran lands shot after shot in between eyes and into hearts. But, they’re only two people, and they’re sorely unprepared for such an amass of monsters.
From his blind spot, one of the monsters latches onto his arm with their rotten hands, interrupting his axe from lobbing off another monster’s head and the next time he blinks, one of them is sinking their teeth into his arm.
He gasps, sharp and pained, and tries to shake off the monster, but it clings to him with dogged determination, it’s teeth tearing at his skin and the muscles beneath.
“Zach!” He hears Kieran call out just as another monster rakes their sharp, boney fingers across his back. Their hardened gaze has melted away to reveal panic.
Despite the group of monsters around them, Kieran readies their bow to the ones accosting him. He’s not going to screw this up anymore than he has. Gritting through the pain, he pulls his arm from the monster’s mouth, losing more skin with the motion, and shrugs off the one trying to latch onto his back. Kills them both in a frenzied sort of dance.
He barely takes care into dodging further attacks. All he can think of doing is keeping the monsters off and away from Kieran. He’s paying for that, now that he’s been tore open and bitten over and over, he’s losing blood and losing it fast. He’s sloppy with the axe, failing to make most of the attacks he makes. It won’t be long until he’s on the ground, he knows that in a deep way, like an animal caught in a trap.
Despite the dread welling up in him like a geyser, the fervent need to protect his companion keeps him going.
Kieran yelps and the sound of it cuts through him more than the claws at his back had. He whips around and finds them wincing as a monster latches onto their shoulder and takes a bite. Another, unable to stand, curls their hands around their ankle.
He tries to ready his axe to help them, but he doesn’t have the strength to lift it anymore. He’s on the ground suddenly, nose probably broken by the face plant, and he stays there. He doesn’t have a choice, but to stay there. He’s failed, he realizes. He’s still conscious enough to feel the weight of this failure, just as he’s conscious enough to feel when the monsters start to bite and tear into his flesh.
The pain isn’t why his eyes are stinging with tears, not entirely.
The last thing he sees past the grass and blood and scrambling mass of undead is Kieran using the tip of an arrow to ram it back into the monster’s skull just behind them. Their uninjured foot kicks off the monster on their ankle, before sending it slamming down with enough force to break through its skull and brain.
Kieran makes a run towards him, picking up his fallen axe and cutting through the monsters that get in their way. Close enough he can still smell the campfire’s scent on them, Kieran lifts the axe above their head, both hands braced on the handle.
The axe comes down and he returns to the void.
--
With a sharp gasp, he wakes up in a grassy clearing where a shack sits nearly finished. Sitting up, he looks down at himself. He’s wearing the same clothes as before, but they’re stained with blood and torn all over.
Yet, there isn’t a single injury beneath his shirt where the blood warns of injury.
He reaches for his throat as the memories start to flood in. There’s a jagged, thick scar that runs all the way around his neck from where his head had been chopped off.
Standing to his feet so fast it makes him dizzy, he looks all around for Kieran, the feeling of guilt so heavy it threatens to pull him back down. He’d been given a mercy kill so he wouldn’t have to experience being eaten alive, but in granting that mercy, had Kieran reserved that fate for themselves? Why has he returned? And where is Kieran?
He feels terrible.
Tears sting his eyes.
“Zach.” Says a voice from just behind and hope hits him hard in the chest.
Turning around, crying, he sees them. Really sees them.
Kieran stands there in the clearing, dressed in clothes just as torn and bloody as his, but all he can do is stare at their face. Their face, which is pale, despite the abundance of sun, and perfectly symmetrical. Long, with a straight nose and thick, even straighter brows. Some of their hair falls over their gray eyes, which are punctuated with dark circles.
He can’t help but step even closer to them. “I’m so sorry.” He says first, because he has to. If nothing else, he has to say that. “I couldn’t protect you like I said I would. I couldn’t finish the shack like I said I would either and I’m sorry for getting us into that mess in the first place.” He dips his face down, unable to look at them, and fat tears continue to spill from his eyes and fall onto the blood stained grass.
“Despite all that, you saved me! Even though I-” He continues, breathing hard, but quiets when a hand, so, so cold, settles on his shoulder.
“It’s alright.” Kieran says with the same soothing lilt as the previous night.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “It must have hurt.” He remarks, unable to fathom the pain of being full aware as monsters began eating them alive. His senses had been dull when it had begun to happen and he’d been mercifully killed before it progressed any further.
“Look.” Kieran says and he does. Lifting up his face, he watches them take back their hand to roll up their left sleeve to reveal a pale wrist, which is sporting a thick, crooked scar. “I used the axe and moved around until I bled out. They didn’t have a chance to finish me.”
In his relief, he laughs.
--
“I found some more supplies.” He tells Kieran one night. A door with a dead bolt has now been fixed to the entrance of the shack. Outside, the zombies wander aimlessly, some approaching the shack to rake their fingers across the wood uselessly.
The two of them sit side by side in total dark, backs against the logs making up the shack’s walls. There’s no windows, so a torch for light is out of the question unless he adds some ventilation. Dying in their sleep to something as avoidable as carbon monoxide poisoning would be really stupid.
“I can finally make that cabin.” He continues. “Two of them, I’m thinking. One for you and one for me.”
“Tired of sleeping next to me?”
“No,” He says automatically, because he really isn’t, but then it occurs to him that he should probably be embarrassed about that, so then of course a second later, he is embarrassed. “It’s just, you deserve better than sleeping on the grass in a shack every night.”
He can’t see them in the dark, but the rustling of their clothes and the way the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, he knows that Kieran has turned to look at him.
“So do you.” They say.
It’s sincere, he knows, but all he can think about is his own failure that very first night. He doesn’t think he’ll get over it anytime soon. Or ever.
“I’m going to build our cabins side by side so we can be neighbors.” He says instead of addressing that guilt. “And maybe after I’ll just keep building houses for fun. Maybe other people will show up. We could have a community.” And he knows that they shouldn't be able to see what expression he’s making in the dark, but he still ducks his face in his folded arms anyways, before adding: “But, even if it’s just the two of us, I wouldn’t mind.”
Kieran hums in a thoughtful sort of way. “I wouldn’t either.”
--
He builds Kieran’s cabin first, of course. It takes a while, but he does and it is a house, a proper one, not like the shack he had hastily built. It's a cabin, made of the nicest wood he could find in the forest. He'd used dark oak, because he thinks darker colors suited Kieran best.
The cabin consists of one large room, with a smaller room connecting in the back hidden by a door. The roof, the walls and the flooring, all of it has been treated to be water resistant and to have a nice sheen. There's two windows, one on either side of the cabin so sunlight can pour in and illuminate. He'd found a couple of curtains from a dusty old chest in an abandoned house that was halfway underground, so he'd washed them before setting them up. He's really glad he found them, so Kieran doesn't have to stare at whatever monster is sneaking around just outside their home.
An entire day had been spent making the wooden frame for a bed, which sits at the back of the cabin in the leftmost corner. Bedding had been difficult to make, but with enough fabrics, wool and feathers and Kieran's help, a mattress and pillows had been sewn together and the leftover fabrics turned into blankets.
On the opposite wall of the bed, seated in the middle, was a fireplace made of cobblestone and mortar and near it, a small wooden dining table and two chairs. In the top right corner, a work desk with salvaged tools to brew potions, because Kieran is always telling him about what herbs and flowers are good to use for potions and always remarking on the potions he finds scattered around that they could be stronger, if only brewed better. So he had found a small cauldron, a mortar and pestle, and glass bottles. All of it sits on the work desk neatly.
The separate room in the back with a door, the bathroom, is small, but it fits a wooden tub and toilet, the later he had salvaged from the same abandoned home he'd found the curtains. The weirdest thing is- he hadn't needed to dig out and install plumbing. As soon as he had set the toilet down, water had magically filled inside of it and he was able to flush.
He doesn't think about it too much, or at least tries not to.
The bathtub is deep and long enough that he can stretch out his legs all the way and water stops just under his chin. The water pump he'd installed also just...worked. The cabin still needs a lot of things- bookshelves, dressers, a rug or two and maybe a vase for flowers. He tells Kieran as much in an apologetic tone as he leads them over to the cabin.
"Show me." They say.
He opens the front door of the cabin and moves aside to let them in. Kieran is quiet as they walk into their home. Their gray eyes inspect the bed, the fireplace, the table, but stay on the work desk the longest. They peek their head into the bathroom before closing the door.
Do you like it, he wants so badly to ask. Is it good enough, will echo after.
Kieran stares at him for nearly as long as they had stared at the desk. "I do." They say, which catches him off guard until he realizes with a flush that he'd asked them those questions aloud. "And it is- it's a lovely home. I can see just how hard you worked." They move towards the dining table and drag their fingers across the surface.
He can't help himself, he walks over to them and slips his arms around their waist and hugs them. Kieran isn't warm and he likes that. He himself runs hot. The differences in temperature is nice, like dipping his feet into cool waters.
He's been sweating all day and has twigs and sawdust in his hair. Kieran probably doesn't want to be hugged by him at the moment, or at all, but when he thinks about letting go, Kieran at last brings their arms up and returns the hug.
"Thank you." They say, quiet as always, but its got a weight to it.
--
After building one cabin, building another isn't as difficult, although it takes approximately the same amount of time. Kieran refuses to let him sleep in the shack when there's a perfectly good home nearby, not to mention an actual bed, so he accepts their invitation and sleeps by their side for a few nights. He likes sleeping in bed near them even more than he'd liked sleeping in the grass with them. Kieran keeps him cool and he in turn keeps them warm. Each night, he falls asleep before them and when he wakes up, Kieran is already awake and watching him. Despite sharing a bed for a few days, he hasn't actually seen them sleep, but waking up each day and having them be the first thing he sees makes him so content he forgets about that fact entirely.
He's going to miss all this terribly when he at last has his own bed.
--
Time passes. His home has been finished and sits a dozen feet away from Kieran's and has sunflowers planted just near his door.
"They ward off monsters." Kieran had told him after he informed them very loudly of how much he liked sunflowers.
"Why's that?"
"The worst of the monsters come out at night. Perhaps a reminder of the day is staggering enough for them to avoid places the sunflowers are growing." They'd said, and he notices once the flowers have sprouted that even without blooming, there have been less and less monsters shambling near his home.
When the flowers do bloom, he hardly finds any at all. They all choose to shamble in the darker parts of the clearing.
With his and Kieran's home built and now warded to a degree, he starts working on another cabin, even though he's yet to see another living soul. When he's not doing that, he explores further and further out from the clearing.
And of course, while doing all that he dies many times and in new and terrible ways. Each time, a new scar appears on his body. So far, he's got the scar on his neck from Kieran, the bite on his stomach from the mandible of an antlion, and a burn on his legs, hands and chest from a rigged treasure chest. He really, really hates those.
Still, he's glad that it's only the thing that kills him that leaves a scar, otherwise, he wouldn't have much left to himself.
--
He's walking back home from the desert one day and as the sand turns back into dirt and grass, he spots someone sitting on a stump and smoking a pipe. It's an elderly man, white-haired with an equally white beard, and dressed in a light brown coat that drags on the grass.
"Hello!" He greets, excited and smiling as he runs up to them.
The old man chokes on their pipe and flinches as he approaches. He frowns and stops in his tracks. It takes a moment to realize what he might look like to them- dressed in a full body of armor, which is caked with monster blood and gore. The flail in his hand does not at all make him an inviting sight.
"Sorry- didn't mean to scare you." He says sheepishly while tucking his flail on his hip and taking his helmet off. The breeze sweeps the hair out of his face and gives relief to the sheer amount of sweat he's accumulated that day. He walks the rest of the distance towards the man, who now seems calmer, but not by much. "I just wanted to talk to you."
Burnt bits of tobacco and ash are hastily wiped away from their beard before they stand to their feet.
"It's," They pause, taking a breath as if to calm down. Or stave away annoyance. "-fine. Really. I was just distracted."
He's relieved to hear that. "You're the second person I've ever seen."
The old man adjusts his pipe in their mouth and gives a look. "And the first?"
"My best friend." He answers. His only friend, but still, the best. "We live in the clearing of the forest east of here."
"I see. Always good to have friends."
He nods. The two of them stand in silence.
"Well, I'll be on my-"
"I'm Zach." He says, not hearing them, and extends out one of his grimy gauntlets for them to shake. "Its nice to meet you. Do you live nearby?"
The old man blinks a few times as if sand is in their eyes, before looking down at his offered hand. Hesitantly, they shake it.
"I'm Edmund. And no, I don't live nearby. I don't live anywhere, actually. I guess that makes me a traveling merchant, instead of just a regular merchant, but I'm afraid my wares aren't as...odd, as the fellow that is a traveling merchant."
It takes him a second to process all that. "So you're a merchant. That's great- what do you sell?"
Edmund pulls out their wares from somewhere, he's not sure. Maybe their coat is bigger than it looks, although he doubts an anvil could be that well hidden. He ends up buying the anvil and a few coils of rope. And shurikens, just because they gleam menacingly in the sun.
It's only after he's handed over some of his silver coins that Edmund seems happier to be talking to him.
"Is there anyway you can deliver this anvil to where I live? It's not far and I don't know how you keep it hidden like you do." He asks.
"Delivery costs extra."
He considers that. "Well, you said you don't have anywhere to live, right? There's a cabin you can move into if you bring the anvil for me. That's more than fair."
Edmund chews on their pipe while chewing on the offer. "It is. You said it's just you and your friend living in the clearing?"
"Yeah. He's really nice. Smart. You'd like him."
"Does he like to shop?" They ask.
He blinks. "I'm not sure...?"
"No matter." Edmund sighs. "We all need to buy things at some point and quite frankly, there's no one to sell to around here anyways." They look around. "Except you, I suppose."
"So you'll come live with us?"
"Yes, yes, and I'll put the anvil wherever you want."
He grins, but the expression is soon hidden when he slips his helmet back on. He leads them back to the clearing, making it there in no time since he'd cleared out the slimes when he'd left. Kieran is outside gardening, which is perfect, so he leads Edmund up to them.
"I see you've brought someone along." Kieran says before either of them can speak, the only clue to another person being with him the extra shadow that falls across where they'd been working. Kieran straightens, clapping dirt off their hands, before turning on heel and looking at the two of them.
Kieran's taller than Edmund, but he is too, so he doesn't understand why the height difference is enough to strike a look of fear in the merchant's face. The hand holding their pipe is shaking just a little.
He brushes it off as being nervous about meeting someone he's spoken highly of.
"This is Edmund," He says. "He's a merchant. He's going to live in the other cabin and he's going to set up an anvil for me." He's really excited about the anvil. He should be able to make even better weapons and armor now.
"I see." Kieran says. The entire time he's talked, their attention has stayed on Edmund. "You have Zach to thank for all the lovely homes. I don't doubt you'll make yourself comfortable."
Edmund doesn't offer a hand to shake and neither does Kieran, but he thinks for them its because there's dirt and grass all over their hands.
"N-Nice to meet you. Kieran, right? If you, uhh, need anything, I sell quite a lot of different things." Edmund get out after several attempts and clearing their throat.
Kieran offers a smile, but it’s not at all the small, secret sort of smile that makes their eyes light up. Those are the smiles he’s used to. The one they're offering Edmund is all teeth and hardened eyes. "I'll keep that in mind."
The conversation lulls into comfortable silence.
"Let me show you to where I want that anvil." He chimes in and Edmund flinches as if being pulled from a trance.
With a loud swallow, Edmund nods before following after the direction he leads them. He doesn't see how they look over their shoulder to peek at Kieran or how their hands start shaking again.
--
Things fall into a pattern. Each morning, he rolls out of bed and steps outside into the morning light to do a big stretch and just stand underneath the sun for a minute or two. While warming up, he always looks over to Kieran’s cabin. Sometimes he spots them inside through an open window, readying their things to hunt, and when their eyes meet, they always smile and offer him a nod, which he returns with a grin and a wave. Other times, he finds them crouched in the grass just outside of their home, pulling weeds or clearing out a plot for more gardening.
And as always, no matter how quiet he walks towards them, they always beat him to the punch when it comes to saying the first greeting of the day. Its the mark of a skilled hunter, he thinks, to always know when someone is drawing near. Or staring.
Although he isn’t as skilled at hunting as he is with slaying monsters, he can without a doubt gather his own food. Kieran’s taught him how to process animals, what plants are safe to eat, yet they always insist on making the two of them dinner. He’ll never question it, never bring up the fact that he can forage for his own meals, instead soaking up the generosity like a sponge.
--
One afternoon it starts raining slimes and he realizes just how glad he is that he’d water proofed the cabins. Still, it’s going to be a pain clearing up all the slime off the roofs.
Kieran is outside his door, waiting, when he steps out dawned in his armor as usual. There’s a woven basket gripped into their left hand, which he sees is filled to the brim with bottles of healing potions.
“Here,” Kieran offers the basket. “Always good to have some.”
He’s got a few healing potions he’d found while exploring, but they’re really only for emergencies now that Kieran’s started brewing some specially for him, so he accepts the gift as always, with a grin.
“Thank you. I’ll probably need them with all these slimes everywhere.”
Something flickers in Kieran’s eyes, something knowing, and it’s not the first time he’s caught that. Kieran has a seemingly endless amount of knowledge about things. The odds and ends he brings to them are quickly identified, barely needing longer than a minute for their eyes to scan the weapon or item. Despite knowing leagues more than him, they don’t give him the answers he’s looking for, not always.
When he’s having a problem with making something, they get the same knowing look on their face as they have now; as if keeping a secret. He knows by that look that if he would only think a little harder, a little more creatively, that he’d figure out whatever it is he’s stuck on. And he does, for the most part. It’s when he’s truly at a loss, that they give him a hint- just a nudge into the right direction.
Right now, though, he’s not sure what vital piece of information he’s missing.
Stepping forward, Kieran stares down into his eyes, mouth settled into a straight line, not at all smiling.
“Be careful.” They tell him. The intensity of their undivided attention leaves him speechless, but only for a moment.
Blinking, he nods. “Of course. You too.”
And with nothing more to be said, Kieran eyes him one last time before heading off into their home.
He spends all morning killing slimes. His iron armor and flail are caked with his efforts. While tedious, there is something satisfying about swinging the ball of his flail into a row of slimes and having them burst one by one.
He thinks this has to be nearly the two hundredth slime he’s slain, as he gathers his flail from the latest pile of blue slime on the grass. Thinks next on how many more will fall from the sky, because he’d really wanted to go out exploring today, but he doesn’t want to leave Kieran and Edmund to deal with this mess while he’s gone.
Like magic, the slime rain suddenly stops.
He hears something like a vast amount of water suddenly going down an unclogged pipe and feels a shadow fall over him.
--
On his back, adhered to the grass by slime and perhaps his own blood, he stares up at the now clearing sky, basking in his victory. All around him is scattered, equally slimy loot, which he’ll gather up and clean when he musters up enough energy to stand to his feet again.
For a long time, it felt as if he’d lose, but it turns out that if he throws enough bombs at something, sooner or later, they’ll die. He’s glad he’s been stockpiling them. Even more glad he didn’t accidentally bomb any of the cabins.
A shadow falls over him, but he doesn't flinch this time. It’s only Kieran, who stands above him with a smile that’s definitely pleased.
“You did very well.” They tell him, and the fond look in their eyes has his heart stuttering. Their hand extends down to him.
“I just wanted to protect you.” He says, before flushing. “Us. I wanted to protect all of us.”
He’s pulled to his feet easily, his knees only buckling a little as gravity reinforces the weight of his armor on his weary muscles. Kieran offers him a healing potion, freshly brewed, and he slips his helmet off to pop the cork and toss his head back as he chugs it. Their healing potions tasted a lot better than the random ones he finds in chests.
“And you did. Why don’t we celebrate?”
“Really?” He perks up.
That night, after all the slime has been cleaned away and he’s taken a much needed bath, Kieran, himself and Edmund all sit outside letting their hand made lanterns soar into the night sky like little hot air balloons. There’s really only one thing that could make this better- wine.
He’s about to fork over the coins needed for a bottle from Edmund, who he knows has a decent stock in their home, when Kieran slides next to him, thoroughly freezing Edmund in the middle of their sales pitch of buying not just one bottle, but two.
“Free of charge.” Edmund spits out after clearing their throat several times. When he frowns, brow quirked at their change of tune, he’s dismissed quickly by a wave of their hand. “We’re celebrating aren’t we?”
“Yeah.” He agrees with a shrug. He didn’t mind paying. There’s not much he uses his gold and silver for.
Edmund hangs out with the two of them outside long enough to finish a single glass of wine, but says something about being old and tired, so they retire early for the night, leaving nearly a bottle and a half for the two of them to enjoy. Not wanting to drink too much outside and be bothered by a wandering monster, Kieran invites him over to their home.
He drinks and drinks and he can’t stop grinning. He must be annoying, as he rambles about this and that, sometimes losing his train of thought and just picking up a new one in the middle of his sentence.
“You’re my favorite person.” He tells Kieran far more loudly than he’d meant to as he slouches in his seat across from them. “I’m so glad I met you.”
Kieran smiles around their next sip of wine. Doesn’t speak until the glass has been lowered to the table. “How fortunate; I feel the same.”
The giddiness he feels is overwhelming.
Bored of sitting, he starts pacing around their home, remarking aloud what improvements he wants to make or what things he wants to add, and he doesn’t notice just how sloppy he’s walking or the fact that he’s barely keeping himself upright anymore, instead keeping a hand on the wall or really, whatever that was nearby so he doesn’t fall.
Kieran stands from the table, walks over to him, and slips the wine bottle out of his left hand, which he had entirely forgot was there.
“I think you’ve had enough to drink.” They say, and he can’t help but agree. “You can sleep in my bed tonight. I don’t want you wandering around at night when you can barely stand upright.”
Yeah, okay, he thinks and allows himself to be led to their bed. He’s sat down on the edge and Kieran slips down to their knees to unlace his boots before tugging them off entirely and setting them together neatly on the floor.
With some struggling, he manages to go under the sheets, instead of just falling asleep on top of them. Kieran even tucks them around his arms a bit. He catches their wrist as they’re walking back to the table, probably to put away the wine and clean up the glasses.
“Yes?” They ask, turning towards him.
“Sleep with me.” He blurts. “Next to me, not-”
“I understand.”
His heart calms.
Kieran slips out of his hold to walk over to the fireplace and snuff it. Returns to the bed and sits on the unoccupied side, taking off their boots. They slide under the sheets, resting on their side to look at him, while he himself lays on his back, staring at the ceiling. If he looks at them head on, he’s positive he’ll say something he shouldn’t.
“G’night.” He says, instead of many other things that threaten to spill from his brain on a daily basis.
“Goodnight.”
--
"You look like hell."
Looking up from the hole in his gut, he sees a middle aged woman dressed in all white. She wears a pencil skirt that ends just above the knee and a short sleeved blouse that isn't buttoned all the way up. Blonde, with the locks tucked away into a neat ponytail. A little white cap sits on top of her head.
She's smoking a cigarette and tapping her heeled shoe on the dirt impatiently.
"Did you hear me, or is there a hole in your head too?" She says with a wrinkle of her nose.
"Sorry. I've lost a lot of blood." With a wince, he tries to stand up, but can't.
A snort. "No kidding. Listen, I'll patch you up enough so you can get where you're going, but it'll cost you."
He tries and fails to reach into his satchel to pull out his money. When he fails for the third time, the woman huffs with annoyance and bends down to do it for him.
She shows him how much she's taking- twenty silver, which is tucked away into her backpack.
"Alright. Let me take a look at you."
She throws some gloves on and gets to work pushing all his guts back where they belong. It hurts like hell, but he doesn't make a sound because night is falling soon and he doesn't want to attract any monsters to kill the both of them.
"Tougher than you look." She remarks when she injects something into the side of his stomach and all he lets out is a sharp inhale.
With amazement, he watches as the hole in his stomach starts to knit itself back together. He's still woozy from the lack of blood, but now that he isn't actively bleeding out, thinking comes a lot easier. If he had any healing potions left, he'd take a sip to help with that, but then again, if he had any at all, he wouldn't be like this in the first place. He stands to his feet and takes a few experimental breaths.
"Thank you."
"Uh-huh." She readjusts her backpack on her shoulders. "Try not to die on your way back home."
Despite the unsteady dirt and tangles of grass and her heels, she clears a good amount of distance from him while he's still sorting himself out.
"Wait!" He calls out and surprisingly, she stops. "What's your name?"
She turns on heel and fixes him with an unimpressed look. "Margaret."
He catches up to her and smiles. "I'm Zach."
She nods. "Did you need something else, Zach? I don't sell medical supplies- it's hard finding stuff in the first place."
"No, no, I wasn't going to ask for that."
"Well than spit it out, kid. I'm sure there's more people bleeding out for me to find."
The way she looks at him makes him feel stupid, but there's worse things to feel so he doesn't back down.
"If you need somewhere to stay, there's a vacant home where I live."
She crosses her arms and starts tapping one foot again. Looks him up and down as if sussing out what he's made out of. "Why invite me? You've only just met me."
"You helped me."
"And you paid for that help. I wouldn't have done it if you were broke."
He smiles even more. "I don't think so."
"Excuse me?" She blinks at him.
"I don't think you would have left me to bleed out."
For a solid minute, she studies him, brown eyes cut into accusatory slits. "It's easy to think I'd help you after I've already done it, isn't it?"
"True, but..."
She holds a hand up to stop him. "Look, if you're offering me a place to stay, I'll take it. I'd be stupid not to. But don't think I'll patch your sorry ass up for free the next time you run into trouble."
"Great! I'll lead the way."
--
His entire trek home has been uncomfortable. For one, despite it being night, he hasn't run into any monsters. Any relief he might feel in regards to that has been replaced with anxiety, because what was worse than having the feeling of eyes on him was the feeling of eyes when no one and nothing was around. The desert at night feels menacing. It feels limitless and quiet and terrible.
There's something ominous, something evil in the air. He's not at all prepared for what it could be.
The wind dies and it truly falls quiet. His ears start to ring and his hands grow clammy with sweat. Was he poisoned on accident? Is that why everything feels wrong and why his heart is close to bursting with fear? He looks all around him, delirious with the feeling of dread and he only finds nothing which is worse.
But there is something, although in the distance. It's nearing closer and closer by the second, a mass in the horizon. It looks like the moon is flying right at him, until he realizes it's not- it's an eyeball, about the same size as the King Slime he had fought a few weeks back. The eye is bloodshot and has nerves hanging off it as if freshly plucked out. The electric blue iris and void like pupil is dead set on him.
The eye doesn't stop even when it's close enough for him to comprehend the sheer magnitude of it. It continues on, gaining momentum, and knocks into him. He slams into a cactus, a whole bunch of them in fact, before landing on his back. Some of his ribs have definitely broken and there's needles from the cactus that had crept in through the gaps in his armor.
With gritted teeth and labored breath, he struggles to balance on one knee, a healing potion already uncapped and ready and being gulped down. He takes off into wobbly run that progresses into something proper as the healing potion does its work. Fast as he is, as he can be in this heavy iron armor, the eye closes in on him once more.
He feels too slow, too weak and too stupid. He can barely managed to lang a hit on the thing before he's knocked back into the sand with more broken bones. This time, instead of just breaking, his ribs stab into his lungs and he hacks up blood. Flat on his back, flail still clenched into his right hand, he sees the eyeball fly high into the sky before racing down towards him like a meteor.
He dies on impact.
--
He wakes up in bed with dented, ruined armor, an absurd amount of sand in places they shouldn't be and with a seething bloodlust.
For two weeks, he works. His ruined armor is melted back down into ingots, some of which are formed into throwing knives. He spends hours in front of the forge, shirtless, because the only thing that'll keep him from continuing his work is heat stroke and he's in a bad enough mood that he thinks he could defeat that too, if he really wanted to.
The entire time he's by the forge, he feels like he's being watched, but whenever he glances up, there's no one to find. Everyone is in their homes. It must be lingering paranoia from his encounter with the eye. Said eyeball abomination doesn't make another appearance until much later, when he's got a new set of silver armor, has learned to set his flail ablaze with the help of flint and slime, and has stocked himself with bombs and throwing knives. He knows it's the eye, because all life, undead or otherwise, has made itself scarce and that feeling of being watched has returned.
It's a gruesome fight, the hardest yet and he's downing healing potions like its wine. He blows chunks off the eyeball in haphazard spurts, running like a madman as it follows after him. When half of its form slogs off into a pile of flesh on the ground, he naively thinks it's been defeated- until he sees a great, gaping maw filled with teeth like sword. If he gets stuck in those teeth, it's over.
So he runs and runs and dodges the monstrosity as best as he can, all the while tossing more bombs and sending his burning flail right at it.
It gets a few good hits in, but unless both his legs get broken at the same time, he refuses to stop moving. When he's got one stick of dynamite left, he makes it count. He stops dead in his tracks, breathes in smooth and evenly like he sees Kieran do when they're hunting, and waits for the absolute perfect timing. Yards off and fifty feet above him, the eye starts to descend to smash him into red paste again. It's when it's halfway that he rears his arm back and tosses the dynamite right into his mouth.
It implodes in a thunderous wave of gore, most of which covers him. Amidst the gore, is the loot- a satchel of crimson seeds he's unfamiliar with, some ore of the same color, and a pair of binoculars, which he finds endlessly funny.
--
Another celebration passes and he's back to work at expanding the small community in the clearing. He's got another cabin finished, but if he wants to keep building more, he's going to need to chop down more trees to make room.
It's as he's shirtless and chopping down some oak trees that he feels something. Not skin crawling and invasive in the way the eye staring at him had been, but definitely hard to ignore. He thinks of the star in the bottle in his cabin- how the hum of magic feels.
"Hello there." Says a voice in the forest and the grip on his axe tightens. Turning around, he sees a woman, bronze skinned with long, braided green hair. She slips out from behind a tree, or maybe she slips from out of one? He's not sure.
He's also not sure if she's technically wearing clothes, or if the dark green leaves and vines across her body are as much a part of her as her hair. He keeps his attention on her warm brown eyes just to be safe.
"Hello." He says, unsure. The axe suddenly burns in his grip like contraband. "You aren't going to scold me for chopping down the trees, are you?" He hopes she hasn't been calling this forest home all this time.
She doesn't smile, but her eyes soften. "No, I'm not. Although it would be wise to be mindful of how much you take from the natural gifts given to you. Have you planted any trees after cutting them down to make your home?"
He hasn't.
"I see." She says and he lowers his face, guilty. "I'm not saying you have to plant an entire forest for every tree you fell. Just be...mindful. There needs to be a balance; give and take."
He nods. "Alright. I will." And then he feels the need to confirm: "Do you live in this forest? I've never seen you."
"I don't. I tend to stay in the jungle, but I sensed something had changed and so I went to investigate."
He takes a seat on a stump and wipes the sweat off his brow with his forearm. "Yeah? Did you find anything?"
"I found you." She tells him.
"...You did." He agrees.
The woman walks closer to him, stopping just in front of him and when she looks down at him he feels small. Microscopic.
"You defeated a great enemy recently, didn't you? Something that made your blood run cold and your heart catch in your throat."
He swallows hard. Funny how he feels that way now with her looming over him.
"I did. It was-" He isn't sure. "An eyeball. Huge and bloodshot. It killed me the first time I went against it."
She nods, not in the least surprised. "But you sought it out again. Why is that?"
He blinks. "I didn't want anyone else to be hurt by it." He hopes a simple answer is what she's looking for because it's all he has.
"You're brave." She tells him. "tender-hearted."
"...Thank you?"
She takes a step back from him. The sun catches her eyes and he realizes they're the same brown as the soil beneath his feet.
"You will need that same tender-hearted bravery for the trials yet to come. There is evil in this world, lurking. Spreading. The balance of this natural world is hanging by a thread. None of us can comprehend the repercussions if it were to be snipped."
He takes her word for it.
"What is your name?" She asks.
For the first time since waking up, offering his name feels like there's a catch to it; like he's lost something now that she knows him. He hopes she treats his name kindly.
"And you?" He asks, nearly forgetting that she might be something with a name as well.
"Iris."
Saying that it was nice to meet her would be a lie and she looks very good at spotting one when she hears it.
"Are you the one who's built this humble community?" She asks, looking in the direction of the clearing.
"Yeah. Yes." He clears his throat.
"Would you mind if I became apart of it?"
He shakes his head. "No, of course not. You're more than welcome."
She at last smiles and he feels a distinct sense of accomplishment. And fear.
--
"I wish the fellow with all the guns would stop flirting with me." Iris tells him one evening while he's buying purification powder.
He frowns. "Khalid? Have you talked to him? If you don't want to, I can." He's not upset that Khalid, the arms dealer, finds her attractive. Anyone with eyes can tell that she's beautiful.
"I can talk to him myself. Maybe if I tell him how old I am he'll lose interest." She sighs.
"...How old are you?" She looks around the same age as Maggie, who didn't give him permission to call her that, but he still does. Physically, the both of them are well into their thirties, but with Iris there's a world weariness to her eyes.
"Four hundred."
He nearly drops the pouch of powder. "You're very...spry for your age."
She gives him a look. "There are trees much older than me."
"Well, yeah." He shrugs. "But as far as people go, you're definitely the oldest I know."
"There's someone else older than me." She says and right as she does as chill sweeps into her home and kills the warm fire. In the dark, unperturbed, she adds: "It's not for me to say."
--
Sometimes he just walks in one direction for hours on end to see where it takes him. He had gone west, and once past the jungle, he finds the mud drying out and turning into sand. A yellow sand beach with palm trees baring fruit greets him with a warm, salty breeze. The breeze is so nice that he takes off his helmet. It's burdensome adventuring with a full set of armor, but he knows the second he goes wandering around without it, he'll encounter one monstrosity or another and be reduced to a pile of broken bones and guts.
It's daytime, and since he's on the surface, he figures there really can't be that much to be worried about. There aren't even that many slimes around. So he picks a palm tree to lean against and starts undoing the many clasps of his armor and sets it all down into a neat pile.
The water of this beach is a richer blue than the sky and sparkles invitingly. What keeps him from diving in is the fear of what might lay below the depths.
That fear doesn't at all frighten the boy who's fast asleep on the surface of the waters, although he supposes they are close enough to the shore that nothing worse than a crab or curious fish will take interest in them.
Quietly approaching, he sees that the boy's skin is tan from the sun and heavily freckled. Somehow, the gray boonie hat they've got on stays perfectly in place on their head. There's a few fishing lures hooked into the brim for decoration. Or emergencies.
The boy is dressed in a long-sleeved blue shirt and over it, a brown khaki vest. Their jeans are tucked into a pair of yellow rain boots which he assumes are waterlogged from their current position. He wonders why they hadn't taken them off and set them aside next to the fishing pole and tackle box that are by the nearest palm tree.
Short, ash brown hair peeks out from the hat, and then soon, blue eyes.
"Do you mind?" The boy asks him, clearly annoyed as they crack open an eye to regard him. "I'm trying to nap here."
"You aren't worried about floating away?" He asks instead of leaving, which only annoys them further.
"No."
They close their eyes again. He walks away from them, but doesn't leave. He rolls off his shirt, sets it down with his armor, and slips into the water. It's nice. Warm, but he's still nervous about not being able to see his own feet when he looks down. He tries to float on his back effortlessly like the boy, but he uses too much force and salt water goes up his nose and he flails.
He hears laughter.
Scrubbing salt out of his eyes, he turns and sees the boy now wading out of the water to come over and watch him. Despite the attention, he tries again to float and he does for a second, until he thinks of something swimming below him and attacking and he sucks in a breath of air before flailing again.
"You're awful at this. Really, it's sad." The boy tells him, arms crossed and a smirk on their face.
"How do you do it?"
"Why should I tell you? Watching you fail is hilarious."
He sighs and makes another attempt. He isn't improving at all and his eyes and nose are raw from all the salt water he's ingested. He isn't about to quit though.
"Spread your arms and legs wider. And curve your back." The boy tells him and he's about to ask why they've changed their mind, but figures it's best to just accept what he's given. So he does as told and his body feels a little better as it starts to float.
"Now relax. Stop thinking of whatever stupid things you're thinking and just enjoy the water." They instruct him.
He casts away the thought of being attacked, his own embarrassment at being bad at this, and focuses on the wind and sun on his face and the water at his back.
He isn't sinking. He even tips his head further back to be able to offer the boy a grin.
"Thank you."
The boy makes a disgusted sound. "Shut up. Now that you aren't making so much noise, maybe I can go back to my nap."
As much as he likes floating, he needs to start drying off if he wants to make it back to the clearing before night. He slips out of the water and walks back over to this things. Leans against the palm tree to keep the sand off his drying pants. Despite saying they were going to go back to sleep, the boy is very much awake and staring at him. He pretends to not notice for a while. Maybe there were merely interested in all the scars on his body. Maybe they were imagining how the pile of armor at his feet might look on him. Either way, he keeps his eyes to the water.
He dries in no time, even his pants, so he tosses his shirt back on and starts the process of slipping his armor back on too. There's enough dampness in his hair that when he settles his helmet on, the heat in the metal and the wet of his air turns it into a kind of sauna.
He can't wait to take a bath later.
"Is it just you out here?" He asks the boy while strapping his greaves on.
A scoff. "Does it look like anyone else is around?"
"I meant-"
The boy whips their face towards him, brows furrowed and nose wrinkled. "Yes, I l know what you meant. No, I don't have a mother or father and no, I don't want you to take up either of those rolls, stranger I've only just met."
He stills. "Not interested in being a parent." Although he wouldn't mind being a big brother.
"Thank the stars for that." They sigh magnanimously, picking at a few shells they've scooped up in their palm.
He eyes the sun that is soon to set. Feels worry claw up inside him as the blue of the waters inches nearer to black.
"I'll be heading home." He announces, standing to his feet and patting away any wet sand off his armor.
"Goodbye." The boy says harshly, turning their back to him.
He doesn't take a single step.
"Well? Aren't you going?" They ask, peeking at him, although they make it seem like they're interested in finding more shells in the sand more than they are to see if he's leaving.
"You could come with me." He turns to them to offer.
"And why would I want to do that? I can take care of myself."
"I'm not doubting that." He frowns, although they can't see it. "I just thought..."
The boy stands to their feet and closes the distance between them. Glares at him with enough heat that his helmet threatens to smelt. "Thought what? That I was waiting to be saved like some princess? That I need an adult to hold my hand and show me how to feed myself?"
He lowers his gaze, the metal of his armor clinking as he clenches and unclenches his hand.
"I just thought you might be lonely." He says.
The boy stiffens at that, blue eyes widening. It's a vulnerable look, one they don't allow to be shown for too long before crossing their arms and looking away.
The conversation dies. He turns to watch the sun slowly setting.
"...Let's say I did go with you." They start, quiet, and he tries not to be hopeful but he is. "What kind of place do you call home?"
"A forest, east of here. There's a clearing where a few of us have gathered. You could have a house all to yourself."
A suspicious look. "How many is a few?"
"Five."
The boy visibly chews that over. "I don't like being bothered by people. Are they noisy? Or overly friendly like yourself?"
He shakes his head.
"And where would I fish?" They point towards the fishing pole and tacklebox. "Nothing beats the beach."
"There's a lake in the forest, but I could take you back here whenever you wanted."
"Whenever I wanted?" Disbelief shines in every feature on their face. "And what if I wanted to fish everyday?"
He shrugs. "As long as there isn't an emergency, I'll take you."
The boy mulls it over, one foot kicking up sand.
"Fine. Fine. I'll go with you." But before he can say anything, they point a finger at his face accusingly. "But you better keep your word and if this place of yours really gets on my nerves than I'm leaving."
"Fair enough." He nods.
The finger retracts and the boy turns on heel to grab their tacklebox and fishing pole.
"Will." They say.
"Will what?"
"My name, you walking, talking headache."