Part E: Flayer Jungle
"So, none of us know how to start a fire?" Duo asked as they crouched around a wet and unlit pile of wood.
"It wouldn't help, even if we did know," Trowa pointed out. He had stripped off his armour and was now working with the great leaves and branches of the trees to make them a shelter.
"Why's that?" Duo grumped, pulling his robes around him and tried valiantly not to shiver. The rain was driving down, and Duo was cold. Trowa was halfway through making some kind of round cave tent that would fit them.
"The wood is wet. Even if we could light it, it would make so much smoke it would be intolerable," Trowa said, weaving two branches together and placing their leaves to make more of the wall.
"Spectacular," Duo said, shivering. Heero and Wufei were also stripped of their armour and their equipment was piled in one of the few covered corners. Wufei was poking through their rations, making sure they had enough for a meal or two.
"Strange that we didn't find a way point," Heero remarked.[1] Duo shrugged. Heero stood to offer what assistance he could to Trowa. It took fifteen long, wet minutes to finish making the shelter. One inside, there was barely enough room to stand, but it was watertight.
Wufei offered the others a meal and they began to dig at the rations with the enthusiasm they normally reserved for fighting. After they finished, they huddled together.
Duo listened to the rain hit the shelter and shivered.
"Do you think it's safe here?" Duo asked. He could picture a thorned hulk coming along and stepping on their shelter while they slept; an inglorious end to their party.
"How safe is any place?" Wufei asked rhetorically, moments before Heero replied.
"We cleared out the area. Besides, your undead should alert us, won't they?" Heero asked. Duo blinked.
He doesn't acknowledge them as semi-intelligent beings often. "Yeah, they will. I guess all the trees make me nervous," Duo said. And they did. Even if he couldn't communicate with the trees like Trowa, he could see and feel the corruption in the forest.
"This place must have been beautiful, once," Trowa remarked. "I am more familiar with forests than jungles, though." Duo nodded.
"Perhaps we should try and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day," Heero said. Nodding, they found places to sleep. Duo didn't close his eyes right away, though. He watched Heero do his prayers and devotions as best he could, under the circumstances. Heero stretched out, staring at the leafy roof. He noticed after a moment that Duo was watching him. He smiled, slightly.
Duo shivered. "Tell me about Westmarch," Duo whispered. Heero closed his eyes a moment, then opened them.
"It's a fairly large town, a few days hard ride from the Rogue Encampment. Most of the people there belong to one kind of religious order or another. I was always expected to be a Paladin or a Priest, though in times like these we needed more men and women of action than of words.
"My mentor's name was Odin Lowe. He was the best." Heero's eyes took on a faraway look, as if he was seeing another place and time. "He trained me from the time I was eight."
"Eight? You were a kid then!" Duo whispered, astonished. "At eight I was..." Duo trailed off. "Not a necromancer," he finished, though Heero knew what he meant.
"We had to start early. Training was... We had to learn to ignore pain. Ignore cold. Ignore all distractions, because if we were to show any weakness, our enemies would exploit them. Now that I think of it... training was a lot of running up and down mountains in the rain and not complaining about it.[2]"
"We learned very little about magics like Trowa and Quatre's. Mostly auras to protect ourselves from the elements. More auras to augment our abilities. Combat techniques. The hardest, but first, is called Sacrifice. We sacrifice a piece of ourselves to attack the enemy."
"Wouldn't that... you know... kill you?" Duo asked. Heero shook his head.
"Not the attack, no, but an enemy might take advantage of the weakness and exploit it."
"Should you even be telling me?" Duo asked. The question was a simple one, but loaded with meaning. Heero looked at Duo and sighed.
"You aren't my enemy, Duo." Heero returned his gaze to the ceiling. "You never were. I was just too blind to see it. You were right. Any demon that can raise the dead would have been able to keep raising those undead, the ones that killed Odin. I should have been able to help him. Instead, he told me to run. I shouldn't have! I should have helped him!" Heero closed his eyes, remembering that Odin hadn't screamed once, not even as the demons began to eat him while he was still alive...
"I'm sorry, Heero," Duo said after a long pause. "But, think of it, you were pretty young, I guess, then, right?" Heero nodded cautiously. "Then you would have gotten killed too. If your mentor got killed, and he was as good as you say, you would have had no chance." Heero opened his mouth, but Duo wasn't finished yet. "It wasn't your fault. It was the demons. So we are going to make each and every one of them pay for the lives they took by wiping them out, one at a time. What do you say, huh Heero?"
Heero nodded slowly. He could see what Duo was doing. "What about the other Zakarum? Why weren't they strong enough? And what if I'm not strong enough?"
Duo snorted. "Mephie won't be alive long enough to corrupt you, buddy. You don't have to worry about that. And the others, well, it must be pretty hard living right next to a big, fat prime evil. That one guy managed it was incredible. And it's not like all of your order was corrupted."
Heero smiled slightly. "Mephie?"
"Yeah. And there was one thing your training didn't teach you. You have to learn to laugh at evil and death. Don't take 'em seriously. You'll drive 'em nuts," Duo said triumphantly. "So, I am going to corrupt you, Heero." Heero gave him a startled look. "I am going to make you laugh."
This startled a chuckle out of Heero. Duo grinned. "See, you're starting already. Now, we need to sleep, otherwise we won't have the energy to run around the jungle like the herd of lunatics we are." Duo lay down and seemed for all intents and purposes to go to sleep. Heero lay there a while, thinking about what Duo had said.
Is that how he survived? By learning to laugh at the serious things? Heero wondered. This advice seemed to go against all of his normal training. He looked over at Duo and noticed he was shivering. Heero rolled onto his side and tapped his shoulder gently. Duo blinked at him.
"What?" Duo asked.
"You're cold," Heero said. Duo rolled his eyes.
"Tell me something I don't know," he replied.
"Come here, then," Heero said. Duo scooted closer and Heero put an arm around him, bringing him close. "A sick spell caster will do no one any good," he murmured into Duo's ear before closing his eyes.
And Duo did have to admit, he was very... warm.
1- Welcome to Act III, land of the inconvenient way points. *gripes* The first three are really hard to find.
2- Paraphrased from Protector of the Small, Book 2: Page by Tamora Pierce.
To Be Continued... *insert demonic laughter here*
Back to Act IIId
On to Act IIIf