“Fighting netherbeasts with an axe? Who in Kalith’s hide trained you? A dying fool?”

Phoebe couldn’t summon up the energy to cough, but there weren’t fingers inside her throat, so that was something. She didn’t recognise the voice, but she did the one that replied.

Gruna snarled, “If you continue to disparage my master, then I will feel the need to bury you along with the corpses of those rotten things. Your bow will not aid you against the fiery wrath of Go’ruuk.”

“A beserker orc. How fuckin’ surprising.” The other one scoffed.

“Whilst I may not be entirely appreciative of my heritage, if you disparage it, I shall gladly demonstrate such attributes of my culture.”

“Got it. Ya pissed. Understandable, all things considered. I’ll just read my book over here, shall I?”

Phoebe tried very hard to crack open one eye, and instead managed to make her left cheek spasm into a wince. She’d never been this exhausted in her entire life. Not even when she’d gone three days without sleep because she and Marcy were a little obsessed with the new Men of Honour shooter.

“You speak as if you are the sophisticated one, above their history. Yet, I feel the need to point out, that you are an elf, and you use a compound bow.” Gruna said with a polite tone that was so very much softer than the words.

The elf sneered, “If one must be technical, one must acknowledge that is a double compound bow. I am not so very primitive.”

“You do not need to mock.”

“Nah, I don’t. But it’s so much fun.”

Phoebe finally managed to make a noise. Just a tired and weak groan, but she heard a scramble of metal on stone, and felt a heavy hand fall against her upper chest, fingers reaching out to touch her face.

“She’s fine. I mean, I’d be talking to a floozy above, in her position.” The newcomer said as crassly as they were trying to be reassuring.

“I would be silent, were I in your position.” Gruna’s patience finally began to crack.

Phoebe groaned and reached up blindly, instantly finding her hand wrapped not in a gloved hand, but the warmth of Gruna’s own. Her skin was tired and leathery, worn with very much work. Phoebe could feel where the haft of the axe usually sat.

There was something instantly comforting about holding her hand, that washed over Phoebe. She felt all the tension leave her body, before finding she was able to blearily open her eyes, finding herself not in a cave, but a forest.

She raised an eyebrow at the concerned face looking down at her, “Wh… Where the fuck are we?”

“A half day’s travel from the mountain, where it was that we first met Drektanion.” The orc answered promptly, before leaning down and touching their foreheads together. She sniffled, and Phoebe instantly felt like she was punched in the gut.

“Hey…”

“We do not have the time for this. There is much to be done.”

Phoebe snapped upwards, accidentally headbutting Gruna and falling backwards. She rubbed at her head, wincing, “Fuuuuck. He’s back, to?”

Gruna seemed unaffected, sitting down beside her and gently stroking her hair, “Drektanion has returned to us, to guide us. He claims that the journey through the cave was necessary to awaken you to your destiny. Such claims were not met with kindness, by myself.”

The newcomer scoffed nearby, “Like a friggin’ knight apprentice could crack a single fuckin’ scale on a dragon.”

“Shadow ghosts make me wanna run.” Phoebe leaned on her elbows, glaring over at the gigantic creature, resting easily between two trees - that seemed to have uprooted themselves and shuffled to make room for him. She also got the feeling they had just done that, rather than Gruna asking politely.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Netherbeasts.” Gruna corrected absent-mindedly, and then nodded over to the newcomer, “This rude stranger, is one called Elion. A name that I believe you know.”

Phoebe looked over, and then stared for a moment as she spotted the pointed ears. She was looking at a real life elf. She shouldn’t be surprised, after meeting zombies, an orc and a dragon, but all the same, she still was. Elves were real, too.

Just like Gruna had pointed out, the man had a bow strung across his back. The two ends hooked inwards with some sort of mechanics that Phoebe had zero clue about. Weirdly, the bow seemed to have two arms, side by side. Probably something to do with extra power to the draw? Phoebe knew exactly nothing about bows.

She had fired one, once, when she was very young. That was not a fun memory. She’d managed to let go of both bow and string, and fire her actual bow and not the arrow, at the target. Even Marcy had picked on her, following that one.

Thinking of Marcy instantly hit Phoebe with a huge wave of homesickness. She did find herself liking this world more and more. She didn’t think she would mind spending the rest of her life here, with… It was Gruna, not the world, that she liked.

Phoebe blushed, and tried to cover it by rising to stand.

Elion laughed loudly, “Oh, this one has bedding on the brain. I came here, because of a disturbance in the realms. I heard the whisper of a dragon, and the call of destiny, and instead I got one who wanna see an orc in a wedding gown.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” Phoebe stared.

“Silence. There is much to be done.”

She shivered and glared over at the dragon, “I know it’s rude of me… But is there like a way… You can… Not talk?”

“No, do not!” Gruna said quickly, but too late.

A voice, louder and deeper than the rumbling dragon voice that shook the earth, suddenly screamed out between Phoebe’s ears, from deep within her mind. It pierced every inch of her entire existence, shaking and curling her muscles as she found herself devoured by something that seemed to make her realise the existence of a soul - and that it really should not be touching the voice.

Phoebe hit the ground, curling in on herself, shaking and shivering. Her teeth pierced her bottom lip, as her face became bright red. She dropped instantly towards darkness, the vertigo punching her violently in the throat.

“Come back. Come back to me.”

She shook her head, shivering, before rolling onto her side and violently retching. Her stomach heaved, hitting again and again before she could get a chance to speak or say anything, but nothing came up.

Gruna rubbed her back gently, “That… Is not meant for mortal kind, Drektanion. She is but a human. Mortal, and all that entails.”

“She is the one of destiny.”

“Mortal though, ya dumb cunt.” The elf laughed, shaking his head, “I mean, shit, that stuff can knock me sideways, and I’m two thousand years old. What’s she? Two decades? Fuck me, she ain’t handlin’ no shit like that.”

“N-n-nearly three.” Phoebe shivered, and then glared around, “W-what are you… All doing? I just want… I want… To go home.”

Elion shrugged, “Not to put too crass a point on it, but… Tough shit. You’re the destined one. The whole universe wants to play, and you’re the dice it has to roll. You’re goin’ nowheres.”

“Crudely put, yet accurate. Destiny swirls around you, young witch from a distant land.”

Phoebe clenched a fist, glaring at the dragon, “I… Am not… A motherfucking witch!”

As she swore, the ground around her burst outwards, the grains of dirt and mud turned black before crumbling to ash and disappearing in the blast of wind.

Gruna groaned as she stood up from where she’d been knocked onto one knee, frowning as she looked down at her un-gauntleted hands, inspecting them to see if they were burnt. Not finding anything, but not exactly approving of what Phoebe had just done.

Which she could not exactly deny was her own thing.

She sighed heavily, “Why do I have to be some heroine? I got sucked into another world. Can’t I just… Go home?”

“Nope.” Elion shook his head, “I’ve been around for literal eons. Not quite as long as ol’ Drek here, but a very long time. The minute you got here, I sensed fate wrapped around you like a bitch. Never seen anything like it. You have a stronger destiny than actual gods, and that’s sayin’ something.”

“And you… Came here, instead of running the other way?” Phoebe laughed.

He shrugged, “I might be a bit of a dick, but eh… I’m a fated one, too. Running from destiny only gets you into deeper shit. Gotta play by the rulebook on this one, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, really, but we have to do this.”

“And what the fuck is this?”

Elion frowned and then shrugged, “Some trial or another that needs a dragon, and elf, an orc, and a witch? No prophecy I know about. But something important.”

“Follow.”

The dragon knocked them all sideways as it took to the air, leaving a luminous trail behind as it began to soar through the skies above. Elion just shrugged and started walking.

Phoebe bent down and helped Gruna to her feet, pausing to hold her cheek, “I… I’m sorry.”

“You are not permitted to apologise to me, ever again.” Gruna replied fiercely, and then gave the softest and gentlest kiss to her lips, pulling back and smiling, “I steal this first from you. I will be the one to say it. I love you, Phoebe of the Earthen Realms.”

Phoebe stared, blindsided, as Gruna turned, shifted her axe so it was sitting properly on her back, and just set off behind the elf.

It was only as she watched them go, that she finally noticed all the chips and cracks in the armour. Fresh damage, presumably from the shadows in the cave. Something Elion had suggested he had saved them from, but Phoebe wasn’t entirely certain. Gruna might have saved her. Gruna would have saved her.