"Iris!" Eli shouted, taking a long stride over a puddle of muddy water before ducking under bramble.
He heard a short chirp from Glimmer further down the ravine, and quickened his pace.
On a small patch of solid ground on the far end of the pond, Glimmer gripped an unconscious Iris by the torso with an eagle foot. The talons were carefully wrapped around from her back to cradle her ribcage without puncturing flesh, and the griffon gently beat her wings to rise into the air and lift Iris from the ground. From a few feet above the ground, Glimmer kicked down and released her grip, throwing Iris chest first into the ground. Iris landed limply and didn't move.
She screeched at Iris, and then picked her up and tried again. When Iris slapped into the ground the second time, water shot from her mouth with gurgles and coughs. She convulsed with desperate coughs as she tried and failed to push herself off the ground. The rounded top of Glimmer's large, hooked beak nudged her on the side, gently at first but more aggressively until she managed to roll Iris over onto her back. The griffin looked down at her, curiously. For the next several minutes, fits of pitiful coughing interrupted labored breathing. The massive eagle head stared down at her, occasionally tilting or turning to get a different look at her.
"Thanks," Iris croaked, which kicked off another coughing fit that sent her into a convulsive roll to the side. Glimmer chirped.
"Iris!" She heard Eli shout. Glimmer anxiously flapped her wings and let out a short screech as he approached.
He waded through knee deep mud around the edge of the pond until he reached the patch of ground where she lay. After breaking free from the mud, he ran up to her and dropped to a crouch.
"Where are you hurt?" He asked quickly.
Iris answered his question with a cough.
He looked her over carefully. The blue of her robe was barely visible beneath the mud that covered her body, and he spotted deep purple bruising around her collar bone and neck. He glanced out across the pond and saw the floating corpse of the grey-haired beast, still pouring blood into the pond from a wound to its throat. Iris’s hat floated in the water next to it.
"Don't tell Autumn," he said, "but you might be the bravest idiot I know."
Iris laughed, then coughed.
"Are the others--" she croaked.
"They're okay," he said, then his expression grew serious, "Vic is hurt, but she'll make it."
Iris felt her breath returning to her, and sat up with her elbows propped behind her. Eli offered her a hand and pulled her up to a sitting position on the ground.
"Are you tired of waking up almost dead yet?" He asked, his voice lacking the humor it had a moment ago.
"It's kind of a trend," she groaned, massaging the back of her neck.
Eli looked back to the floating corpse with a glare, "Right. Let's get back to the others."
He rose to his feet, offered his hand again and pulled Iris to her feet. He insisted that she climb atop Glimmer for the trek back to the others. Iris tried to protest, but gave in after trying to blip and coming out of it stumbling into the mud and coughing. Eli strapped her into the saddle and Glimmer slowly rose out of the ravine through the clearing over the pond with powerful beats of her wings.
Glimmer landed on a wide root-bridge near the top of the ravine, and Iris held on tightly as the griffon leapt to the next root, and then the next, before breaking out into a reserved sprint. They soon arrived above the others, still at the bottom of the ravine.
"You can drop me off here, girl," Iris said with a scratchy voice, as Glimmer leapt out of the ravine and onto the ledge where they had originally arrived. After unbuckling herself and climbing out of the saddle, Iris limped over the edge of the ravine and planned a careful blip route down to the bottom.
She stumbled with each blip and arrived at the bottom with a mana headache. She wrapped her arms around herself and trudged over to where Victoria was propped up against the ravine wall. Titus had placed her arm in a sling and was now wrapping the upper arm and shoulder to her body.
"You can't heal her?" Iris asked with concern.
"The bones are completely shattered," he grimaced, not taking his eyes off his work, "it'll take someone a lot more precise than me to fix this properly."
"We'll find someone at base camp, don't worry," Victoria assured her, clearly pushing through pain to speak.
A short time later, Eli emerged from the bramble. He spoke with Victoria and Titus first, then pulled Iris aside.
He took a deep breath before speaking, "we need to talk."
Iris felt a pit growing in her stomach, and preemptively defended herself, "I was helping." Her voice was still hoarse from coughing, her clothes still dripped pond water and she shivered from either cold or nerves.
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"There are other ways to help," Eli said sternly, "you could have died."
"Okay, but I didn't--"
"I think we should take you back to the city," he said abruptly, dropping his eyes to the ground as he spoke, "it was stupid of me to bring you along, you're not ready."
"Where is this coming from?" She asked incredulously, "we're adventurers, every day is dangerous."
"Not this kind of dangerous," his voice began to rise, but he caught himself, "Iris, a normal day for adventurers is maybe getting beaten up or sometimes breaking a bone. A normal day is not deadly. You're not having normal days, you're constantly almost dying."
"If I'm a burden on the team then just say that," her voice cracked.
"That's not what I'm saying--"
"No, it's fine," Iris began to yell, "I'll go back to the city and just give up on being an adventurer because it's scary or a little too hard or, gods forbid, I might get hurt. Maybe I'll get another job as a shopkeeper and have a terrible, boring life again, because obviously, I'm either too naive or too stupid to weigh the odds and make my own decisions, and I need you to do that for me."
"You're only alive because you haven't been unlucky yet!" he yelled, "you keep tempting fate like you're special and you're not. Sooner or later the luck runs and you fucking die, and I don't want to be responsible for that!"
"You're not my dad, Eli," Iris exaggerated the words to emphasize how ridiculous she felt saying them at all, "I'm trying to carry my weight around here, and I know what I signed up for. Either figure out how to put up with me or just kick me off the team!"
She stomped off through the mud for a few steps, then blipped away.
Eli's arms dropped to his side and his expression fell as he shook his head and cursed.
----------------------------------------
Sometime later, Iris was sitting on a root-bridge near the middle of the ravine's depth, watching from a distance as Eli, Titus and Autumn climbed their way out of the ravine. The rest of them had waited here while Titus and Eli went back to retrieve the ears of the beast floating the pond, which Titus needed as proof for his kill. He also brought back Iris’s hat, which she hadn’t noticed was missing yet. While they were gone, she had washed the mud off in the river, changed into plain clothes from her bag and draped a blanket over herself. Her robe was sprawled out beside her to dry, and her adventurer journal was open in her lap.
IRIS ORION
Hero Rank, Level 5
Experience Points: 5204 / 6680
Progress to next level: 77.90%
She had gained over 60% of the experience towards her next level from that one encounter, an absolutely massive amount compared to the pittances of experience she'd received from recent fights. Keeping up at the pace she'd been moving, it would take her weeks to level up even once, and months to reach Level 10 and get her next power, but if she gained 60% from every fight she'd be leveling up twice a week. She didn't have to wonder why she'd gained so much experience, as the journal spelled it out for her beneath the experience tracker.
Recent Accomplishments:
Powerful foe slain, 3500 bonus experience awarded.
If she wanted to stay with this team she would need to level up, and if she couldn't stay with them then she needed to level up even faster. No matter what Eli or anyone else thought about it, she didn't have time to waste as a low level adventurer, and her path forward was clear.
A gentle mist wafted through the air and settled on the root beside her, then slowly solidified into Victoria.
"Should you be doing that?" Iris asked, nodding towards Victoria's arm.
"It won't make it any worse," she shrugged with her good shoulder.
They were silent for a moment before Iris spoke, "did Eli send you?"
"He tried, but I scolded him for it. Told him to come talk to you himself or not say anything all," Victoria said. Iris gave her an appreciative smile as she spoke. Victoria returned the smile and continued, "I'm here to talk to you as me, if that's alright."
"Go for it," Iris said, closing the journal and stuffing it into her bag.
Victoria was quiet for a moment, then asked, "what makes you keep trying? A lot of people quit the first time they get hurt or almost die."
Iris thought for a long while, then spoke hesitantly while she still considered it, "I grew up in a little valley nestled between the only two mountains for a few month's travel. I watched year after year as people came from all directions to gawk at our little town and climb our little mountains like it was the time of their life. You know what that told me? It wasn't just my town that was boring, everything for hundreds of miles in all directions was so boring, that those people actually came to my boring town to have fun."
Iris stopped herself as the resentment rose in her voice, then continued, "I spent my whole life pretending I wouldn't grow old and die in that valley. Now I finally get the chance not to. If constantly almost dying is the price I have to pay to enjoy living, I'm here for it."
Victoria nodded, "I guess that makes sense. You risk your life for a lot more than just that, though."
Iris gave her a curious look.
"Titus told me what happened," Victoria said, "he said you didn't even hesitate to take on the biggest beast there because I was hurt. It's not the first time you've thrown yourself into danger for one of us, either."
Iris looked away, "I'm probably just reckless."
Victoria laughed, "oh you're definitely reckless, I just think you might have a tiny little hero complex."
"No I don't," Iris defended, "wait, is it that hard to believe I care about you guys?"
"No, but are you telling me you don't imagine yourself as the main character of your own adventure magazine?"
"I do not-- there's nothing wrong with day dreaming," Iris stammered, "I feel like these personal attacks are undermining the moment we were having."
Victoria laughed, "actually, I'm trying to loop the moment back around," she nodded across the ravine towards Eli, "he's the same way, always has been. He's got a short list of nickname ideas for himself when he makes Titan one day."
"You can't pick your own nickname," Iris said, "that's not how it works."
"He thinks he can do it if he just convinces a few people to get it started for him," Victoria rolled her eyes, "the point is, you two have a lot in common. He sees himself as the hero of the story too, and I think on some level he's aware of that and how dangerous of a role it is to take on. You can imagine that if you combine knowing you two have that in common with a deeply rooted sense of responsibility to keep everyone else alive, you make him nervous."
"So I should forgive him?" Iris grimaced.
"I'm not saying that," Victoria said, holding her hands up, "he was kind of an asshole about it, but he's coming from a good place. I think you should talk to him."
Iris rolled her head back and groaned, "fine, but I'm letting him feel guilty for a while first."
Victoria laughed, "I guess that's fair," she nodded towards the others, "they're almost to the top, should we meet them?"
"Yeah," Iris said with resignation.