Alchimia Rex

Rick woke to a body that complained in every capacity it had available to voice its opinion. Just about everything ached, groaned, and hurt. Most of it had been from the taxing nature of the trip itself, but some more had been added due to the night’s activities.

Urtha was still breaking beakers, which meant things had to be taken slowly.

Sitting up and looking around, he found himself devoid of company. The tiny space would’ve been impossible to house everyone anyway, but the lack of anyone nearby implied several things at the same time, none of which he particularly found enjoyable.

Hastily dressing himself, he stepped out to a quiet camp.

An empty camp, the fires smoldering with the final vestiges of hot coals, the guard posts devoid of Orcs, the sky a pitch black overhead. Yet he could still see. The world around him was a mix of looming shadows and a soft bluish glow that permeated outwards from himself.

A chill ran up Rick’s spine, the first impulse to call out squashed firmly. The forest rustled under a soft breeze that, for a moment, added a greenish hue to the light. He sought inwards, towards the bonds. There was just barely enough of a presence for it to be clear no one was dead, yet so distant he couldn’t make out anything other than a vague sense of direction.

Was this a dream?

Everything felt so sharp yet surreal. His mind could summon emotions and thoughts, yet there was a sense of detachment to them, like they were not his own.

His attention wandered to the ground, spotting footprints, catching the scent of sweat and ash. He recognized them, the Orcs and the Hobgoblins. But there was more to it, the smell had layers to it. Stress, excitement, fear, strength, and weakness. It all jumbled, mixing with other different scents, of flowers, ammonia, and blood. Rick felt like he could pick them apart, break them down into the exact individuals each scent belonged to, but his mind was focused more on the direction they’d all taken.

The same direction the bonds called from.

Rick placed his hand at the hilt of his short-sword. He felt a momentary confidence at the familiar touch, which confused him. Normally the first thought that would cross his mind was the futility of the gesture. A human with a sword was, at best, going to buy themselves some time and little else. Yet this time there was a warmth at the sword’s presence, a savage promise of brutality.

Once more he turned to the tracks left behind by the… was it truly Orcs? He wondered, recognizing only one set of footprints as that of an Orc, but the others were smaller, closer to what he’d expect out of a human. And… the more he looked at them, the more individual footprints he spotted, until the entire forest was littered with hundreds of tracks, scurrying, mingling, mixing, yet all moving forward in the same direction.

Looking over his shoulder back at the campsite, he found nothing but trees, the footprints stretching out backwards into the darkness. Had he been following the tracks without realizing it?

Rick shook the thought off and began to walk once more.

The trees were sparse, with plenty of bushes and dirt along the way. The branches loomed low; sometimes, he’d need to duck under one to avoid getting bumped. Yet, despite the obstacles, Rick moved with a sense of ease in every step, as if he were walking on clouds.

The deeper he went into the forest, however, the more hazardous the terrain became.

The roots evolved from simple tripping hazards into low obstacles he’d need to vault over, until they resembled roads within a labyrinth of wood and moss. The trees themselves grew in turn, starting off as simple things barely wider than his own torso, but soon becoming towering structures. These giants were so tall that their trunks vanished into the blackness overhead, each monstrosity wide enough to house a stadium.

Every tree had transformed into a wall of wood, infinitely tall, that circled onto itself, supported by roots that resembled highways. If not for the sense of direction the bonds provided, Rick could’ve easily circled any one such titan without realizing he’d been going in a singular, gigantic circle.

Eventually, the root-riddled distance between each tree became so vast that moving away from one of the trunks would leave Rick surrounded by darkness, with only the roots under his feet for guidance as he navigated to the next point.

It was then that he noticed the forest's silence.

There were no rustling leaves, snapping branches, or even some mild random noise. The absence of sound was so profound that he could hear the rush of his blood in his ears if he held his breath for just a moment.

The crunch of moss and bark under his next step echoed like thunder, shattering the silence. A chill ran up Rick’s spine, as he felt the darkness grow more oppressive.

As he began to move again, he noticed that the number of footprints was rapidly diminishing. There were no signs indicating where they would end, no stains or hints explaining why a set of footprints would vanish. Yet with every step, he found the moss, bark, and dirt more untouched, devoid of any signs of passage.

Except for one.

A singular set of naked feet marked the way forward, clawed and padded. They were inhuman in their structure but had just enough human-like features to suggest they were the tracks of a maiden.

The thick roots receded, moving away from Rick's path, forcing him to climb down until he reached soft soil again. Before him lay a clearing, illuminated by a singular beam of silver moonlight that pierced the infinite forest canopy.

There, in the clearing's center, was a familiar school bus.

The machine lay belly up, its yellow paint cracked and corroded. Rust had consumed much of its structure, and shattered glass glittered all around, as if someone had sprinkled it over the vehicle’s carcass. The wheels appeared rotten, sloughing off the rims as if half-melted, and the chassis was so damaged that the vehicle's nose touched the soil.

Despite its dilapidated state, Rick recognized it instantly.

This was the bus he and the others had been on when they were pulled into this world.

The tracks led straight to the bus, to the black figure that stood atop it. The creature was closer to a silhouette than something actually made of flesh and blood, a person-shaped hole that had been made out of reality, leaving behind only the most absolute blackness. From within that void, two sapphire blue eyes gazed at him.

“Monica?”

He spoke the word, breaking his silence. The forest around him shuddered, leaves and pines raining down like snow. Yet, as he’d spoken the word, he realized this was not her. Whatever the creature was, it regarded him with a piercing predatory gaze, looming over the bus like a tombstone, or perhaps like a beast that had laid claim to its prize.

“Weak.”

It spoke with a voice that made the shadows waver and tremble in fear, pulling away from the creature, revealing just a bit more of the wooden skyscrapers that surrounded the clearing.

“Leave.”

The darkness obeyed, and Rick’s footing was abruptly lost, feet sinking into shadows that had not been there a moment prior. He struggled, fighting to escape the tar-like substance, kicking off and trying to move towards firmer ground.

“Stop!” He called out, and for a moment it felt like the darkness became just slightly more solid.

But as quickly as he found a semblance of footing, he lost it, and the shadows claimed him, pulling him under, the last thing he saw being the two blue glimmering eyes full of contempt and anger.

Rick woke up with a start.

Naked, drenched in sweat, and breathing stale air, his face pressed against soft suffocation. He tried to move, but found himself firmly pinned in place by iron beams covered in fuzzy, soft, hot fur. But the panic was short-lived once his brain had made sense of what he was feeling. Monica’s embrace against her naked chest was tight, a near instinctive reaction to keep him from escaping her grasp.

It took several struggling breaths before he could calm his heart down, and several more for him to put his thoughts in order. The feline’s breathing was calm, but there was a tension to her arms that spoke less of attempting to comfort him, and more about trying to find comfort herself.

The bond was muted, her sleeping emotions harder to parse through, but there was a hint of anxiousness within her that needled both of them.

Wordlessly, Rick reached out and hugged her back, pushing through the bond the notion of comfort, peace, and safety. Monica’s hug loosened right away, her body sagged, and with a soft sigh, her hug became limp.

With escape being his priority, Rick waited for a minute before he began to wriggle his way up so that his face wasn’t obstructed by her chest. Fresh air greeted him, and with it, some proper clarity to his thoughts.

The dream felt half-remembered, the finer details already slipping his grasp, but the impressions were vivid enough they stuck around. Had this been his dream or hers? Rick wasn’t entirely sure if the bond allowed for dreams to be shared, so perhaps it’d just been his sleeping mind interpreting whatever emotions were making their way out of Monica. The questions rattled within him, but he couldn’t readily find any answers.

It wasn’t as if he could ask the others either; even Kiara had been surprised at a lot of the things the bond had been proven capable of.

But that was a consideration for some other time. Right now, the only thing he was sure of was that Monica felt nervous. Their path ahead might take them into places she didn’t want him to go, and what could he do? He could only try to reassure her, calm her down, and help her keep a composed mindset.

Freeing his arms from her fuzzy trap, he reached up towards her head. It never ceased to amaze him how the proportions of her body were so much larger than his own. It made reaching for her head a bit harder than it otherwise would have been, but it didn’t stop him from deploying the tried-and-true method to properly improve her mood.

Massaging her scalp.

He dug his digits into the wild, unkempt mess of snowy hair, sinking his nails in and scratching away. Monica loosened further, completely letting go of him, and allowing him a proper escape route for a more comfortable position.

Without stopping his massage, he maneuvered himself completely out of her embrace, until he was sitting cross-legged, Monica’s head on his lap. She shifted just enough to hug his waist closer, rumbling softly while he mulled things over.

The days ahead had so much uncertainty hanging over each and every decision; it was like a sword of Damocles, waiting for a mistake. There was so much hanging in the air that depended on his decisions yet was entirely outside his direct capacity to address.

There was some irony in this. Rick was willing to kill strangers, yet the thought of sending some Orc warriors off to their potential death felt like he’d swallowed a rock. Every time he addressed the feeling, there was an inevitable line of thought that he couldn’t escape. One that whispered of how, had he been bolder, had he been more decisive, more willing to use the people he had available, then he might have been able to ensure the Pinielf had died that night.

Had he not buckled under the pressure of the broken bonds, then maybe they’d have one less threat to worry over.

“Mrrrrr.” Monica complained, her claw reaching out to pull his hand back to her head and making a rubbing motion.

Chuckling, he returned to the gentle scratching and massaging.

In a way, it was reassuring to see her here like this. These past few weeks had seen Monica acting in ways he’d not been able to address or grasp entirely. Their time together had been short, and some part of him suspected that it was part of the reason for her distress.

He’d so easily taken to city life again, and perhaps this was not something that had been sitting well with her. The foul mood reminded him of the time he’d spent living as the Earl’s guest, with the Sabertooth’s ever-growing boredom and frustration. Yet it was not the same; this time he did not have an easy solution.

More time together felt like the easiest solution on paper, yet it wasn’t as easy, not when the nature of his work turned him into a metaphorical skunk to her senses. His gaze lingered on the scars running through the fur on her wrists, on the way her claws twitched without any control on her part.

As much as he wished for Monica to directly tell him what she needed, there was an unfortunate truth that she lacked experience in matters of relationships. Her intuition was sharp, but there was a gulf between her and everyone else, born out of a life lived as a wild beast and only half-remembered.

Maybe her pulling him into her den had been, in part, her own attempt to seek comfort for something greater than the troubles brought up by the resurfacing of her painful memories.

Rick’s thoughts jumbled as he kept trying to figure out what to do, how he could help.

It all circled back to her words about strength.

Maybe that was the reason for the strange dream.

He could only hope that what he was doing now, being here on this expedition, would help him understand. That maybe he’d catch a glimpse of what she’d meant, or maybe… he wasn’t sure. He could only hope he’d recognize the solution if he ever stumbled onto it.

Idly allowing the minutes to pass by, Rick could sense the shift in the guard rotation outside through the shuffling of heavy feet. It wouldn’t be long before a gentle ruffling of the tent’s entrance betrayed the presence of someone else.

“You’re awake,” Dia spoke softly, shuffling inside through the darkness.

“Hard to sleep in,” he whispered back.

Without another word, she made her way around until she’d placed herself behind him. Her hands reached out and pressed against his back; the warmth and refreshing touch of her healing washed over him like a spring breeze. The aches and pains that had been assaulting him vanished within the span of a few minutes.

“Don’t count on this becoming a habit,” she said, giving his cheek a peck. Dia had explained it to him some time ago: healing aching muscles too soon would prevent them from growing stronger.

“I love you too,” was his response, giving her a peck in return.

“Mrr?” Monica complained, flicking her ear at him.

“And you.” He scratched a little deeper, turning his attention to Dia. “You holding out ok?”

With a nod, she leaned into his shoulder, resting her head in place. “I’ll take some sleep during the next part of the journey. You should as well, if you can. According to Embla, we should be finding the first signs of their scout patrols before the day ends.” She made a face. “I don’t like it.”

“What?”

“How quickly Embla agreed to help us,” Dia whispered. “She barely spoke to anyone before, but now… Kiara got to her, and not knowing how concerns me.”

“Kiara knows more about these sorts of things than any of us,” he said.

“But…?” The question lingered; Dia’s voice hitched. “No, never mind, if you trust her, then I’ll work around that. We can’t risk dissent, not this close to the battle.”

Rick nodded, steeling his resolve.

According to Kiara, one of the points Embla had stressed was that their rebel group had been trying to phase out their need for collars, using Barry as the focal point. In this way, they were able to no longer need human prisoners, just one. And it was this exact strategy the reason why their raid would operate like a spear, to push in hard and fast and get a hold of him.

Their biggest theoretical threat was the Warlock, Embla’s mother.

At best, the way to deal with her was using Embla herself to break spells. But none of them could really trust their prisoner, instead opting to keep her in the dark about the details of their operation other than a promise that they would retrieve Barry alive. Because of this, the plan was to have Monica and Eli seek out the Warlock discreetly, to end right as the raid started and avoid a ritual from being used.

Once Barry was under their control, a simple threat to his life would make any attempt at resistance crumble. If they found the Pinielf among them, then Kiara would step in to extract everything she needed before finishing her off. The last part of the plan was the one Rick had the most reservations about, but he had kept them to himself. There was something about Kiara stepping into a metaphorical or literal position of “technically not quite but actually a torturer” that left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“It’s time.”

Dia ushered the warning following a cue only she could detect, summoning a small magelight to illuminate the tent’s interior as she made her way to the flap.

Rick nodded, ignoring Monica’s sounds of complaint as he began to shuffle his way around to get dressed. “I’ll be out in a minute,” he promised, watching her nod and step outside. He glanced back at Monica. “Are you feeling alright?”

She glanced at him with those piercing blue eyes, huffing. “Danger is far,” was her response, her tone holding a warning edge to it. The maiden reached out to wrap her hand behind his shoulder, pulling him closer. She pressed her forehead against his chest. “Rick, stay safe.”

“You too.”

There was nothing more to be said.

She walked outside as naked as the day she was born, and he finished putting on his clothes and travel gear before exiting to a camp that was already halfway wrapped up and ready to go.

“I’m surprised you can walk, Father, especially after last night,” Urtha laughed as she approached, entirely suited up and with the ‘chair’ already securely strapped to her shoulders. Her comment brought some chuckles from the rest of the tribe.

Rick cocked his head. “And why would that be, Urtha?” He asked with the most innocent of tones. “I wasn’t the one that started snoring after just two rounds.”

Urtha’s face took a slightly deeper green as the other Orcs barked out with uproarious cackling.

“Beware a man’s tongue, for it can cut deep no matter how thick your skin.” Sheel slapped Urtha’s shoulder.

The three-meter-tall green giant scratched her cheek awkwardly. “I, uh…” Shaking her head, she turned away, exposing the back where his seat awaited. “Just… let’s go? Father?”

Nodding along, he stepped up. “For the record, I did need some healing to get the aches out,” he whispered just loudly enough to get some wolfish whistles from the others, and a decidedly increased boldness to Urtha’s mood.

They set off.

That night they would not encounter any signs of the wildlings, nor the day after.

On the fourth day since leaving Sinco, Rick's right hand exploded in pain. With a scream his mind rushed through, sensing a spike of fear, anxiety, and desperation. Eli, the Hound, Kiara's right-hand-maiden. He latched onto the feeling, realizing she was being attacked and in agony. He pulled on the pain and waved at everyone else as they rushed to his side.

"Eli's under attack, she found something, or someone." It was all he could manage to squeeze out through gritted teeth. "Monica!"

He needn't say another word, she was already gone. Rick groaned as Dia moved in to use her powers, soothing his body even though the pain he was pulling out of the Hound could not be mitigated.

It appeared Eli had found something.