“Touwon says he likes your brother more than you, Oskar. He says Erik talks less"

Oskar went wide eyed at the comment.

Surely Touwon knows Erik is missing his tongue, right?

His concern was unnecessary, however. Erik’s shrunken form bounced with his quiet chuckles. In the long day they’d just spent together, they’d been through a lot. But bonds soaked in the blood of life or death struggle was something that only those who'd lived it could truly understand.

Which is a good thing, Oskar concluded.

Bloodshed changes you. It takes a lot of introspection, a long time, some luck, and close friends for that change to be for the better, and not everyone has access to all of that.

For the first time since the escape, Erik peered over directly into Oskar’s eyes with his own haunted green one and nodded once, placing his only hand over his heart. For a moment, Oskar almost lost his composure, but abruptly noticed his brother had filled back out a bit somehow.

Time? The Wayspring?

Oskar had so many questions about his brother’s power and how it worked, but seeing his brother noticeably improving already gave him hope... and kept his welling eyes from betraying him.

Nodding back to his brother, Oskar turned to watch the now entirely purple sky, not trusting himself to talk out loud.

***

After a snack, Erik lay back and instantly fell asleep again, effectively killing Oskar's original plan of making a little more progress before sleeping. Touwon took the first watch and gently woke Oskar at what he guessed was just after midnight. He stayed awake for about 3 hours, with Fox waking after a few hours and sitting with him for the last portion of his own watch. This ensured someone was always fully awake, partially because it was this world’s peak night-predator time, and because they knew they were being chased.

This was also around the time Penny woke up the first time. The Pangolor slept less than even the Kobolds unless she was cuddled up with someone or if she was bored.

He and Fox agreed that they still needed to be ready to move in a moment's notice, so they just used the one tent. If needed, Oskar could lay down a spare tent cloth on top of the sand and sleep under the stars when he wasn't on watch.

The Kobolds needing much less sleep than human's was a huge asset. Between Oskar's ability to find water and their natural attentiveness, they could be living the easy life if not for the genocidal maniac that had it out for them. Oskar knew you couldn’t technically “catch up” on quality sleep, but Oskar desperately appreciated trying to prove that myth wrong.

He needed one question answered before he went back to sleep, though, and he finally had a chance to do so.

"Who was Joker?"

He hadn't been able to get the big Croc out of his head. He wanted to know the big guy's story and how he'd gotten the Kobold's trust so quickly. Fox didn't have answers, but she shared what she could.

She grinned fiercely. "I do not know his story, Oskar. But what you heard him yell was his name in our language. Being given a tribe name is the greatest honor someone outside our species can receive. I do not know his story, but he must have done a great service in his life to our people to have been given that name."

"What was it?

"Mamoru. It mean's 'to protect.'"

"He was well named. He saved our lives. All-Red the Protector."

She nodded, deep in thought as she looked at the sky in silence. The conversation was over, Oskar was tired, but he watched her for just a moment. It would be almost impossible for him to convey the immense value he placed on the Kobolds’ loyalty and trust, but he made sure to thank Fox quietly anyway before he went back to sleep.

Oskar settled in the tent, trying not to wake Erik. His brother slept unmoving, other than a few jerking motions that Oskar suspected might have woken Erik up more than he let on. However, each time, after for a minute, eye still closed, Erik’s breathing would eventually slow again and he’d softly began to snore.

At one point, just before Oskar lay back down to rest, Erik whimpered quietly. It was a pitiful, alien sound to Oskar’s ears that made him want to go back and smash Gramm’s body into paste. Then Fox, on the dune nearby, cleared her throat loudly enough that Erik stopped, freezing in place again with his eyes closed. Oskar could hear his brother’s heavier breathing. After a minute, and after Penny wedged herself up under his brother's arm, his breathing slowed, and he went back to sleep till morning without a sound.

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Not Oskar, though. He just lay there, thinking about his current situation. He thought about Joker and what had tied his heart, and life...so close to the Kobold people. He sat in the warmth of watching his little family take care of his brother, and wondered what he'd ever done in his life to deserve all of this love.

The rested and much improved Dorn Collective filled up their bellies with food from Touwon’s curious bag, and waterskins with water from the Wayspring before the red sun illuminated the vast expanse of dunes. They were ready to move after that and took off in the same direction they’d been traveling the night before, the temperature steadily rising. Touwon’s bag, swaying gently ahead of Oskar as they walked, was a source of silent fascination for Oskar, leaving him curious about how it worked.

Watching it now, he remembered that when Gramm’s people had dumped the bag after their surrender at the Point, all that had fallen out was an assortment of molding food, dirty rags, and dented, flimsy cookware, plus a single watertoken- "Good for one refill at participating Collectives." The token was just inside the top flap, obviously hidden in plain sight to make the dense Croc’s feel like they’d found and emptied the Kobold’s "secret" stash.

They’d taken it with triumph, stomped the moldy food into the rock to Touwon’s dramatically anguished face, and threw the bag on the ground, forgotten and empty.

The moment they'd shuffled away, Touwon walked over, his face expressionless, and swiftly retrieved his bag. He'd settled back into his corner, took out dried lizard jerky and a compact multi-tool, and immediately became engrossed in tinkering with his PUB’s Bracer.

That added a million question heads to his proverbial Curiosity Hydra, but knew he’d not get any answers, so he kept them to himself and tried to focus on the upcoming ordeal that had led them

Being reminded of Touwon tinkering with his Bracer though, made Oskar realize how spoiled he’d gotten with his own matched Gear set. The regular Gear sets were glorified sunglasses. And unless they worked or hunted at night or in the early morning, even menial tasks became difficult as the day got brighter. Vulk had apparently hated his Goggles, and so his instincts had saved Oskar’s life when he’d kicked the sand into his face.

There were so many times Oskar had ridden the line of life and death, scraping by on luck and circumstance.

Although Erik always told me that at some point… you have to look past luck and give yourself some credit for setting you up for success. I did, after all, know he didn’t always wear his Goggles. Luck or not, we beat him.

He’d washed his clothing last night before he’d went to sleep, and that morning, Erik had done the same. In the growing arid heat of the morning, the clothes dried rapidly. Meanwhile, the Kobolds changed their clothes from Touwon’s bag and then Fox had gone hunting with Penny. They eventually returned with some pale berries and a fat lizard, but they’d not cooked it, only put it in Touwon’s bag before they'd set out. Putting a dead lizard, fresh or not, right in the bag seemed gross to Oskar, but the meat always tasted decent when cooked, so maybe Touwon’s magic sack also kept food from spoiling. Curiouser and curiouser.

The group, clean and full, were making steady progress. As he strolled along, he felt around him with Sora and Talau, and watched the sand streamers pass above him.

They resemble glistening, almost liquid ribbons when they're blocking a sun.

He found them fascinating, partially due to not having a clue about how they worked. He had come to terms that there were certain things in this world that drifted beyond the limits of human comprehension.

At least if they based it solely on earthly understanding, Oskar thought, marking his point by using Sora to spool sand and air around him with impressive control.

I'm a man of the land, baby.

Talau felt odd, and took a stronger hand than Sora, and so using them both took an odd balance of mindset that didn't come natural to Oskar. He spent much of the time they walked trying to learn the patterns of Talau in the sand instead of just manipulating everything willy nilly. He had eventually learned drastically better control over Sora by doing that, and did not intend on repeating the same mistakes.

Now that they were more rested, he looked forward to diving into the Insight Gem he'd gotten from Gramm, hoping he could manage an ability related to Talau out of the Gem, but that would have to wait until they got a break today. He didn't know how long the Gem would take, not being a greater, and they needed to make headway above all else.

Around midday, Penny perked up tensely, and Oskar felt a sense of alarm from her as his own senses caught up to what she’d felt. Fox and Touwon had already stopped, their fur standing on end as they listened intently for signs of the threat.

The Hyena-men had arrived; cackling, swiftly flying specks in the distance heading straight towards their position. It was uncanny how they seemed to know the group’s exact whereabouts and were quickly closing in on them.

Suspiciously exact.

// They were heading straight towards you as we cleared the opening. Their trajectory did not shift even a fingerwidth. So yeah, suspiciously exact. //

They'd done everything right. They hadn’t made a fire all night, they'd shifted direction the moment the had been clear of Valla's scouts. They'd stayed below the dune crest, even when on watch the night before.

Yet, despite their precautions, they’d been found.

Holding his spear, Oskar turned his attention to his brother. Despite his frail appearance, Erik remained steady. He looked significantly better than the previous night, but his miraculous recovery had plateaued. The effects of months of torture, including the amputation of an arm and losing an eye and tongue, couldn’t be completely reversed overnight, maybe never… even with magical healing.

Touwon helped Erik equip one of his gauntleted shields with the foot long, retractable blade he’d called a lantern shield.

Well, Fox said he called it a lantern shield. It would be hilarious if she was a compulsive liar, though.

Touwon briefly mimicked to Erik how to use and engage it while Fox gave him a heads up about the potential poison the Hyena-men were notorious for. Oskar wasn’t sure Erik could live through getting poisoned, even if he could heal himself, so he made it a point to protect him at all costs.

“They are coming. Try to stay close to the dune walls so that you do not find yourself flanked. Hopefully, we can get them to land,” Fox said.

“Looks like someone let loose the dogs of war,” Oskar said, irritated. “I hate these things.”

Turns out, Erik could still groan without a tongue.