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The Manglegrove is new to El, everything has been new to him in the last few days. But the Manglegrove is thick with trees and plants: humid in a way that Cobblestone never got. The heat was something that made his hair stick to the back of his neck.
The Tricky Devil had been a hard fight, El wasn’t used to really fighting things worse then a few slimes. Even when he’d been rushing through the caves under Heliodor with Erik at his side he hadn’t really thought about how hard this would be. Yet this fight had been an eye opener – not because it was hard but because of the end.
The Tricky Devil was like a cornered animal at the end and its last attack had been in a blind panic. El had heard Erik let out a small sound as the Devil’s attack hit and then the thump of him hitting the ground, but El hadn’t thought much of it. He had run forward and slashed the monster across the chest as it jumped back and sent the little thing flying. The puff of it disappearing and a feeling in El’s ear like when a storm was coming made him sure the spells the little thing had woven must have broken.
When El had looked over at Erik. The other was still on the ground and El had a moment thinking the other had just been knocked down, winded by the last attack. But the blue haired thief wasn’t trying to push himself up or making a quick joke of the situation. It sent a shiver down El’s spine as he rushed to the others side.
Erik still wasn’t moving. El felt the panic rising higher in his chest as he tried to shake the other awake, mustering the energy to cast a healing spell that did nothing.
Why wasn’t Erik getting up? The other man was always quick to move when a battle finished.
He felt nothing as he pressed a hand to the older mans chest, no thumping. No rise or fall of even the smallest breathe.
Bile began to rise in El’s throat as he knelt beside his only companion. Someone El had already started to see as a friend. The grove seemed to go silent around him and a distant ringing seemed to descend on him, but he had only a single moment of clarity.
A story his grandfather had told him once about how, on his travels, Chalky had sworn that a distant Goddess statue in a cold forest had seemed to speak. Quiet words he hadn’t been able to make out but seemed to ease the rough edges of a wound he had gotten. It wasn’t much, nothing really in the grand scheme of things, but it was something.
El’s hands shook as he grabbed his friends arms – it wasn’t a body, couldn’t just be a body – and pulled Erik onto his back. It was a move he and Gemma had had to do with each other when they got hurt playing.
The humid air was hard to take in. Maybe it was just the heat and El’s panicked mind that made it feel like Erik’s skin was cooling where his cheek was settled against El’s own neck. He raced back to the nearest campsite.
Was there a time limit? Would the Goddess ignore his pleads if he took too long?
The roots of the trees seemed to move as El moved. Everything was settling to a pinprick of focus. El’s foot caught on a stone of the fire pit and he stumbled. Falling to his knees right before the statue.
He was sure his grip on Erik’s arm would have bruised him and the stumble had nearly thrown the smaller man off of El’s back. He could and would apologize for everything if this worked. If somehow the statue before him could help him.
El tried his hardest to lay Erik down as gently as he could. It was awkward. When it had been just El and Gemma neither of them had been unconscious.
Not dead, El had never been in a situation like this before what was he supposed to do?
It ended up in a sprawl of limbs. Uncomfortable. Another thing to apologize for if - when - this worked. His hands shook as they were clasped in front of his chest, head bowed and eyes closed as he prayed to the Goddess.
Where he might have once spoken lightly and wished for something like rain or good fishing now he thought desperately of saving his friend. Begged silently in his mind for a miracle.
In the middle of his pleas there was a soft tinkling and a gentle voice that seemed to be everywhere around him.
“My dearest Luminary, I have heard your heartfelt pleas. How can I help you?” Her voice was like a chime and yet it didn’t make him feel any better.
Words stuck tight in his throat. El had never spoken much, his tongue feeling heavy and words unwieldy. Yet in his mind his thoughts were clear and desperate.
“Please, can you save my friend?”
“Of course by dear Light, your faithful servant Erik will be returned to you. It is not time for his leaf to fall from my branches. But be warned – my powers can not work without a cost. Beware abusing them as you continue your journey.”
The light sound of the Goddess’s voice faded from inside his head. Her words left him feeling sick. Erik was not his servant, he didn’t want anyone to be a servant to him, to loose their life for him.
El only moved when he heard a shuddering breathe beside him. Uncurling from the prostate bow before the statue and scrambling on legs filled with pins and needles to his friends side. The cold wave of relief that washed over him as Erik’s chest rose and fell again. He settled a hand over the others chest. Feeling the warmth there he was sure had been disappearing before. The steady rhythm of a beating heart under El’s fingers finally let the tension and fear unwind from his body.
That unwinding left El shaking, tears building up and falling down his cheeks. El hadn’t ever felt that scared before, even being called the Darkspawn and thrown in the dank dungeons to rot or be killed hadn’t been a fear like this. That fear was distant, someone more powerful had all the control.
This, fighting and dying for one person, this felt like it was on him. El was the Luminary or the Darkspawn like the King of Heliodor claimed. Erik would have been safer not joining him. Sitting on the ground beside his friend was too much. The worlds weight was settling around his shoulders and in all his years alive El felt terrified about what was to come.
What was the cost the Goddess warned him of? What could he do to protect his friend and himself as things got more dangerous. The knights of Heliodor were sure to catch up to them at some point and how could he be prepared to fight them? Could they even win, just the two of them?
El unraveled, tears soaking the ground as he waited for Erik to wake up. Hoping they’d be able find a solution, hoping the other man would be able to push some sense into El. But for now he settled for being the scared eighteen year old he was – unprepared for the mess he had willingly walked into only days before.