I landed on the ground with a sickening crack. A shearing pain from my left forearm screamed out to me as I lay splayed out on the sand face-down. Taking a deep breath, I ignored the pain and used my other arm to heft myself into a sitting position. Wiping the dust from my eyes, I squinted and took in as much of the scenery as I could. Beneath me, around me, and even in the distance, sand touched everything. The picture that the rolling dunes and far off mountains depicted was something I had only seen in textbooks on the Gladiator.
Trying to memorize the picturesque scene before me, I didn’t sense someone was falling above me until I was forcibly pressed against the sand again by said someone landing on me. A whimper slipped through my teeth as my damaged arm was bent awkwardly across my stomach. Knowing that the only creature on top of me would have to be my teammate, having them land on me made me slightly nervous for our future interactions.
After a moment the creature still seemed to be winded from the fall, so I managed to softly ask, “Can y-you get off of me?” in Unia. I hoped that my thick accent wasn’t too garbled to understand.
The creature quickly got off me, “Crap, I’m so sorry.”
With my teammate’s weight gone, I wiped the sand off my face again and tried to get on my feet. But before I could push my body up a gloved hand appeared in my line of vision. Startled, I looked up to see that the hand belonged to my teammate in his Unim form. He had fairly simple features with his curly brown hair and warm brown complexion. The only distinctive thing about him was his forest green eyes. But before I made a fool out of myself for staring too long, I grasped his outstretched hand. He easily pulled me onto my feet, and he stood off to the side as I dusted myself off.
I looked up to ask for his name, but I was cut off by my third teammate falling down. He quickly jumped to his feet and swiveled his head around until he made eye contact with me. Also in his Unim form, his icy blue eyes bored into mine so intensely I had to look away. A long, awkward pause passed with the only wind hitting my ears. The silence was only broken by the brunette softly coughing. “We need to get moving.”
The blue-eyed creature finally shifted his eyes away from me and onto my other teammate. With his gaze gone, I discreetly stuffed my hands in my hoodie pocket. He ran a hand through his blonde hair, shaking out the sand, before asking, “Why?”
The brunette met his eyes dead on before pointing to our right, “There, in the distance a sandstorm is coming. You couldn't tell that the wind has been getting louder and heavier?”
The blonde and I looked at the direction gestured, and to my surprise massive clouds of sand were tumbling towards us. Much more silent and discreet than I expected, the only telling that it was getting closer was the blowing wind.
“Oh wow,” the blonde said. He turned to his teammate. “How did you see that?”.
A look of confusion flashed across the brunette’s face before he simply said, “Good eyesight.”
Gently tapping my foot I asked, “W-we should get moving, yes?”
“Yes, we-”
“We can’t go anywhere yet.” the blonde cut in.
“W-why?” he looked startled, but not irritated, at have been interrupted.
“Her arm is broken.” He gestured to me, “If we wait for too long, it’ll heal wrong.”
My head jerked to look at the blonde in surprise. I thought no one had noticed me hiding my injury. I had planned on just letting it heal on its own with no one the wiser. Feeling a blush crawl up my neck, I slowly pulled my arm from my hoodie pocket and rolled up the gray sleeve to reveal the swelling and redness of the skin along my forearm.
The brunette looked at my injury with a frown before asking, “Can you heal her?”
“Easily.”
The blue-eyed creature to long steps before sitting down on the ground in front of me. “Care to join me?”
I sat across from him and held my hoodie sleeve back. The blonde reached for my arm but then stopped himself.
“May I...?”
With a nod from me, he gently grabbed my forearm with both hands and closed his eyes. His hands started to glow a faint gold as I felt a soothing heat roll over my arm. I stared in awe as the swelling and redness on the surface of my skin faded. Once the heat started to seep into my arm, I grimaced at the feeling of my bones mending together. When the initial uncomfortable feeling left, I closed my eyes and basked in the comforting warmth of my teammate’s ability.
I didn’t know how long we sat there, but eventually the heat began to recede and I slowly opened my eyes. As if coming back to reality, I quickly covered my ears to block out the loud, harsh wind. The healer helped me up and I frantically looked around for my third teammate. With the dust filled wind blowing everywhere, it was hard for me to see anything that wasn’t up close. I pushed my strands of hair away from my face and stared at the blonde it mild panic.
He caught my look and shouted over the wind, “You good?”
I gave him a nod and we both looked around for our third teammate. Squinting, I saw a figure a distance away and waved my hands frantically, beckoning it. As the figure got closer, the dark shadow faded away to reveal my teammate. I sighed in relief. The brunette took a quick look over me and the blonde behind me before shouting. “Let’s go!”
The brunette took off running but before I could follow something grasped my hoodie sleeve. I turned around and saw the blonde looking down on me expectantly. I assumed that in order not to get lost in the dust, he grabbed on to me. Not minding it, I quickly ran after the brunette and the gentle hold on my sleeve remained firm.
*^*
We finally managed to break free of the dust clouds and were able to see the rolling mountains in the distance again. Eventually the sandstorm lagged farther and farther away from us, and the wind grew quieter with it. Moving in complete silence, we only began to walk once the wind barely even ruffled my hair. Now at a slower pace, I was able to fully admire the different landscapes we passed through. We walked through clusters of sand dunes and in the distance I could see ruined structures peeking from the sand.
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As the sun began to set behind us, the brunette, the one in the lead the whole time, turned over his shoulder and clicked his teeth. Looking at his expression, I knew the sandstorm was getting close once again. He turned forward and picked up the pace, and I could hear the creature behind me groan.
We didn’t stop once for a break, and only when the moon began to peak out did I start breathing unevenly. But despite our brutal pace, the sandstorm could be clearly seen gaining on us. I knew we wouldn’t be able to outrun it all night so I started to look for someplace to weather it out. After a while, in the distance, I could see specks of grass poking out of the sand.
Excitedly I shouted, “ Grass!”
The brunette nodded and started to follow the grass specks. Observing the ground, the grass specks eventually turned into full patches of grass. Not looking up, I suddenly bumped into the creature in front of me. Having stopped abruptly a chain effect occurred and the blonde stumbled into me. Leaning around the brunette’s body I gasped at what I saw.
At his feet was a wide cliff that dropped into an oasis. In the center was a huge, crystal clear pond that had grass and small plants circling around it. To my right was a small spring that connected to the pond, and I turned to the left to see rocks jutting out of the ground to form an opening to a cave. My other teammate walked from behind me and also took in the breathtaking landscape.
“I’ve only s-seen this type of stuff in textbooks,” I mutter. The blonde hummed in agreement.
“Let’s find a way down,” the brunette said.
After taking one last look at the view, we started to carefully shuffle along the ledge of the cliff until it softened into an incline we could go down. The brunette went first, not hesitating to slide down the slope with ease. Next was the blonde who, while more careful than the previous man, also made in down fairly fast. Both men looked up at me in exasperation as I slowly scooched down the hill.
The healer sighed, “Slow one, ain’t ya?”
Only giving a shrug for an answer, I made it to the bottom and we walked towards the cave entrance. Staring into the mouth of the cave, the brunette was the first to step in and get swallowed by the darkness. Turning to the blonde, I saw him give a look of contempt at the dark cave., the blonde looked at the dark cave in contempt.
“It’s too dark,” he said as he clasped his hands and began to rub them together. A golden hue seeped in between his fingers until he cupped his hands around something. He slowly opened his hands to reveal a bright yellow orb.
“Is that a-also a skill you can do?” I looked at the orb in awe.
“I’m not just a glorified medic, Red.” He smirked before pointing the orb towards the inside of the cave, “Let’s go!”
I walked in step with him as we made our way deeper into the cavern. The walls on either side of us gradually grew wider apart until they opened out to make a large room.
“This is bigger than w-what it looks like from the outside,” I commented as I traced the cold stone wall with my fingers.
“Whoa, Red look.”
I peered up and saw his orb illuminating jagged rocks that reached down from the ceiling. “T-hose are called w-what again?” I couldn’t remember their name despite the countless books I’ve read.
“Stalactites,” a deep voice muttered from the shadows. I jolted in surprise as the brunette came into the light of the yellow orb.
The blond raised an eyebrow, “Learn something new every day.”
Only looking at the orb in the blond’s hands, the brunette asked “How long do those orbs last?”
“I can go until tomorrow morning.”
“Can you make more than one?”
He shook his head, “No, but I can make this one bigger.”
The brunette nodded, “Good enough. The howling outside seems to have gotten louder, I’ll peak to see if the storm is finally hitting us. Can you light up this space?”
“Of course, Captain.” the blue-eyed creature fake saluted.
‘Captain’ rolled his eyes before walking back into the darkness. Once he was out of the orb’s light the blonde walked up to me and said, “Open your hands.”
I looked up at him with a confused frown, but nevertheless cupped my hands in front of me as the sphere was placed in my hand.“There you go.”
I peered at the light in fascination. Interestingly, the orb wasn’t actually in my hand, it was hovering just above the warmth of my fingers. The blonde chuckled before turning around and walking away to presumably make another.
After watching the orb gently bob up and down in my hand, I pulled my eyes away from my mini-sun to see the blonde holding an even bigger sphere in his hand. Looking back at the one in my hand, it slowly dimmed before disappearing altogether.
“Alrighty.” the blonde placed the globe on the ground, “Let’s get to work.”
Completely absorbed in what he was doing, the light manipulator slowly increased the size of the orb. While he worked I shuffled to the side of the cave and quietly watched him.
In the silence that followed I slowly gathered enough courage to stumble out the words, “W-what’s your name?”
The blonde let out a laugh. “Good question! I’d just been calling you Red in my head.”
Once the orb reached almost his height, he turned to me and bowed his head. “The name is Nucan.” He looked at me, Yours?”
I mimicked his bow and said, “Issosaria.”
“Is...so...sa...ria,” the blonde slowly worked over each syllable of my name, “Pretty name.”
“T-thanks.”
Before the air between us turned awkward, the shuffling of feet could be heard, indicating the brunette’s return. “The storm is passing through now. We’ll have to spend the night.”
“Now doesn’t that just sound like the perfect bounding time?” I could feel the sarcasm rolling off of him, “But this is a lucky find to spend the night regardless.”
“I guess.” I shrugged.
Glancing between the two of us for a moment the brunette blurted out,“K-Knapowth.”
“Huh?” Nucan’s face scrunched.
“That’s my name,” the brunette said as his shoulders relaxed, “Knapowth.”
“Wow, both my teammates have such pretty names.” Nucan crooned.
Ignoring Nucan’s antics I introduced us both with a bow, “My name is Issosaria, and he’s Nucan.”
Knapowth bowed his head, “A pleasure.”
We soon found ourselves sitting around the light source. Looking at the small cracks on the ground, I didn’t look up until Nucan asked, “Ya wanna do more of a formal introduction now or wait till the morning?”
“Tomorrow please,” I said, trying to keep the exhaustion out of my voice. Although I couldn’t stop my eyelids from slowly drooping. Blinking to keep the sleepiness away, I almost missed the downwards twitch of Knapowth’s mouth as he looked at me.
“Let’s wait till tomorrow, I’m tired.”
“Couldn’t agree more! All the running tired me out.” Nucan laid on his back with his arms behind his head. “No training on the Archer could have prepared me for that.”
Knapowth laid down next with his back facing us. Following their leds I laid down on my side and tucked my hands underneath my head. The last thing I heard before drifting off to sleep was a soft, “Goodnight.”