The light flickers from the corner of Godien's eye once more, and that's it—he spins on his heel ready to give that stupid rock a piece of his mind for playing tricks with his peripheral vision when—Godien's mouth goes dry.
The soul stone is glowing. That stupid, dull, reddish-brown stripey rock is actually glowing.
Godien can't help but gawk at it from his position on the prayer platform, having just leapt back over the moat with the intention of leaving the room. Not that he plans to do that any more, because—
"Holy…" Godien swallows against his dry throat. His fingers twitch from the urge to... he doesn't know. Touch it? Turn it off? Why is it even glowing in the first place—how is it even glowing?
His reflection in the water looks a tad paler than usual—he frowns. The gold makeup on his left cheek is smudged. He tries to fix it with the tip of his talon, scratching at the edge to resharpen the line. It just makes it worse. He resists the urge to roll his eyes and make an obscene gesture at his reflection—
The stone's glow begins to brighten. Godien looks back up, eyes wide and lips dry.
That's... probably not good.
Knock knock.
"Ah!" Godien definitely doesn't shriek, flailing his arms about like a madman until his foot slips from the edge of the prayer platform. Splash! He falls face-first into the holy water, ensuring everything but his backside is immediately soaked.
Great.
Fantastic.
He yanks his head from the water with a strained gasp. His hair is sopping wet—he feels the metal band of his diadem slip right off his head and fall back into the water with a resounding plop.
The prince groans and picks it back up, sliding it back into place. Blasted, ominous glowing rock—
"Godien?" Father Faolan calls through the door, his tone deeply concerned, "Is everything alright in there? I thought I heard a splash."
Godien freezes into place.
For a man currently dripping in holy water, his lips feel incredibly dry right now.
"Uhm," he clears his throat, pushing his dripping bangs behind his lower horns, "No—I mean yes, everything's fine! Nothing to worry about here. I, uh... I just sneezed?" Godien cringes at his own lie, "Aren't you—I mean, when's your next communion again?"
The soul stone begins to pulse a white light in his peripheral vision, now bright enough that it looks more like a lamp than a rock. He cautiously gets to his feet, mindful not to make too much... water-based noise.
"You... sneezed?" The Holy Father asks after a long beat, his tone hesitant; "Are you sure that everything is alright? And be honest with me, child."
The glowing keeps getting brighter and brighter, and he's not sure how—if there even is a how—but something tells Godien that he needs to make it stop. He doesn't know why, but—his eyes dart around the room, palms dripping a mixture of sweat and water back into the moat.
His pulse quickens; his skin feels both hot and cold. He doesn't want to be known as the prince who broke the soul stone. What if he's confined to his room for eternity, or worse—disowned by the people he loves?
Godien begins to wade through the water one step at a time, squinting against the growing light. He reaches out towards it.
"Uh—yeah," Godien replies, his hand hovering over the stone and partially blocking the light, "I'm great—everything is great! Nothing to worry about here..."
Steady, steady... he begins to close his hands around the joint marble palms of the Gods, the soul stone gently nestled between them. Godien's hands glow a faint dark red as the light passes through his skin.
He carefully scoops the stone into his closed palms—it's surprisingly cold to the touch for how bright the light seems to be... he can't help but pause and crack open his hands to get a glimpse of the miniature stone sun hidden between his—
Someone rattles the door handle loud enough to shake the wood itself. Godien's shoulders jump to his ears, and the glowing stone is flung from the gap between his palms. It skips across the sun and moon mosaic and the path leading to the door before splashing back into the moat on the opposite side of the room.
There's something hauntingly beautiful about the way the stone's light refracts through the water, bouncing against the walls.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Your Highness, please unlock the door!" Someone new calls—Godien feels himself turning paler than his paper-white cousin. He's doomed.
Blast it.
He scrambles for the stone—reaches for it, his fingers outstretched as far as they can go—
"Godien!"
The second his fingertips graze the cold, glowing surface of the now-underwater stone, light bursts from it so bright that he shrieks, scrambles back and lands gracelessly on his bottom with a dramatic splash. He instinctually curls his body around his head—his eyes—oh Gods, his eyes, augh, ow, bright, it's so—he can't tell if he's tearing up, or if he's just dripping that much water down his face.
Someone bangs on the door—Father Faolan's voice is panicked as he orders the clergy to get into the room.
Godien flails through the water as he scrambles to find that blasted, stupid, unwanted, ancient relic of a glowing rock—his hands blindly splashing through the water as the light gets brighter and brighter and brighter.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The handle audibly shakes—the door rattles as the clergy try to get inside.
The light becomes so bright that, even through his eyelids, all Godien can see is white.
His palms scramble beneath the water, knocking aside rough stone and sediment until he finally—aha! Godien grabs the smooth stone from the moat floor and scrambles back over to the prayer platform.
He cracks open an eye and winces—slams it shut again. He's definitely found it. Ow.
Godien flounders from his position on the path's edge. Now, what? Does he try to smother it? Talk to it? Feel around for some kind of mechanism to turn it off?
The light beyond the skin of his eyelids is getting brighter. The stone begins to shake in his palms. He's running out of time.
He needs to do something—anything—
The jiggling of the door handle stops, and the lock clicks.
He's out of time. He needs to stop the rock and he's out of time.
What does he do?
How does he stop this?
He's sitting drenched in the middle of the sacred spring, holding a stupid glowing rock, and he doesn't know what to do.
The handle begins to turn, the creak of its hinge unmistakable to the ear. His hands tremble with the stone, though he wouldn't know if it was him or the rock causing it at this point. He tightens his grip.
He's out of options, not that he had the time to try any of them in the first place.
The door begins to creak open and he just... Godien's breath quickens, his hands tremble, he doesn't know what to do. He's out of time, he's out of options, the handle is twisted, the door is opening—Godien's mind goes blank. He—he needs to get rid of this rock. He can't be—if the Holy Father sees him holding the soul stone, he's going to—he needs to—Godien's fingers twitch and he doesn't think, he just pelts the rock at the stone wall in a last ditch effort to... to... he doesn't know! Why did he just do that? Tears of agony stream down Godien's cheeks as he watches the stone make contact with the wall and—crack!
The light shatters.
For lack of a better word, it shatters—splinters into two distinct streams that ricochet off the walls. The lights bounce through the water, the columns, the stone floors as Godien scrambles to avoid the—
"Ow!" Godien rears back with a pained yell, clutching his freshly pierced palm to his chest—his eyes slam shut as light becomes too much. His ears ring as the sound of crashing glass rains down around him. He curls his body, covers his head, it hurts, it hurts, please, Gods, make it stop, it hurts so much—
"Your Highness!"
Something loud, heavy, slams opens with the echoing thus of something far heavier than a knight's boot, and suddenly strong arms are shielding Godien's head from the endless stream of glass pouring down from above. He curls tighter into a ball, buries his head into the knight's chest and remains frozen in place until the endless glass cacophany finally slows until it stops.
The arms release him from their hold.
Godien's fingertips pulse with the beating of his heart; his lungs ache with every shallow breath. A liquid thicker than water coats his palm and his cheeks. He's so cold—he's dripping wet. He's shivering. His eyes hurt. His hand hurts.
He curls tighter into a ball and just… he can't—everything hurts and people are talking and moving and he can't—he can't think. Everything hurts.
Everything just… hurts.
───※ ·❆· ※───
The wind is whipping through Allen's hair, and Jenna is screaming into his ears, and they are still falling. The world is dark, and Ana is silent, and they are still falling.
Jenna screams at him to open his eyes, and they are still falling.
Absolute darkness turns into a blinding light, and for a split second, Allen wonders if his time has finally come...
The light settles and the first thing Allen sees are trees. Tall, thick, vibrant trees sprawl as far as the eye can see—no, there's a sharp edge to one side of the tree line, immediately followed by either a sea of thick, grey clouds or a deep, dense fog. It could imply anything from a short drop to a steep cliff, it's impossible to tell.
The sky is overcast, and the thick scent of petrichor permeating the air is so overwhelming that he could drown in it. His short, black hair whips at his cheeks and the old ring on his necklace smacks against his lips as he tries to breathe it in. The air is cold—his lungs tremble with every breath as gravity drags him closer and closer to the ground.
He's faintly reminded of that Brazilian cloud forest he once saw in a travel documentary, either that or the conspiracy theory that there is a whole new world hidden in the centre of the earth.
The canopy is getting closer.
Allen closes his eyes.
"Grab the trees!" Jenna screams.
Allen's eyes snap open as he blanches, twists—barely has time to comprehend that Jenna isn't holding onto him anymore before—
His body smashes through the forest canopy, and they are both screaming and shouting, and he is grabbing leaves, vines, branches, and everything he can get his hands on to slow his fall because the ground is rapidly approaching and—crash! The wind is knocked straight from his lungs as his body bounces on impact, rolls through the dense underbrush, and slams stomach-first into a thick, vine-covered tree trunk.
Allen wheezes, his lungs tremble—burn—as he rolls back and finally comes to a tumbling halt not too far from his original crash site. He trembles, coughs—his hands clawing at the earth as a cold sweat forms on his brow and he tries to breathe. Allen's experienced a lot of agony in his life, but this is something else. He gasps through the pain, fingers clawing at the various roots and leaves littered across the rainforest floor. This is... definitely going into his Top 5 Worst Pain Experiences, right after the time his mother ran over his foot when he was thirteen.
Jenna curses something loud, raw, and obscene from not too far away. She's okay. Thank God.
Allen shudders, trembles. Every inch of his body screams—did he break something? He might've broken something. He's not sure—his ribs burn with every agonising breath. His hand trembles as he drags it out from the underbrush to test his—ow—he hisses, yanks his fingers away from his aching ribcage. He grimaces—not good. He definitely needs to go to a hospital. Hopefully they can find a doctor or a nurse or… something out here, wherever that is.
Allen groans—focuses—begins to slow his breathing. In. Out.
In.
Out.
His knuckles are white from their tight grip on the soil—it's damp. The air is humid. Cold. He winces, trembles as his lungs struggle with every breath. In. Out.
Allen forces himself to sit up through the pain. He's okay. Bruised, fractured, and feeling like death itself, but he's okay. He tests his wrists, arms, legs, ankle—he hisses, instinctively curling over the cut on his left—ow!
He flinches back, hand slapped over the lower left side of his rib cage, teeth gritted against the sudden burn—he immediately eases his grip and contorts his expression to control the excruciating pain. He breathes in. He breathes out. The beat of his heart pulses through the palms of his hands. He needs to control it. He can manage. He's had worse. He'll be fine.
The tips of Allen's fingers tremble against the knitted fabric of his short-sleeved sweater as he feels around for any hints of blood or a protruded bone. Nothing sticking out, no blood seeping through—that's good. It's probably just a fracture. He can deal with a fracture. He can do this. He's done this before.
He can do this.
Allen's legs tremble as he uses the trunk of a nearby vine-covered tree to drag himself to his feet. His ankle radiates a dull ache, dyeing the hem of his tan trousers a darker red with every step. Trousers are replaceable.
He elects to ignore it.
"Jenna?" Allen croaks—clears his throat, "Jenna? Are you alright?"
"Just peachy," she growls from not too far away. Allen pushes aside a large, yellowish leaf to see her leaning against a narrow tree trunk, inspecting her torn mesh undershirt with a scowl; "You?"
"Could be worse," he replies, hobbling to her side. She definitely looks worse for wear, and her clothes have seen better days, but overall... she looks all right. Her feet are steady, she's not cradling any of her limbs, and she's lively enough to be upset about the hole in her favourite undershirt. His shoulders slump a little in relief.
Thank God.
Allen's eyes begin to dart around the thick foliage surrounding them—from the unfamiliar trees and vines to the dense, twisting underbrush below. Something caws (or croaks?) in the nearby distance, and there is an unnatural sweetness to the air. Even the fog is strange, crawling across the ground like a blanket of dry ice rather than evenly dispersing through the air.
He turns back to Jenna with a frown.
"Did you see where the kids went?"
Jenna freezes, her eyes go wide—her gaze snaps to Allen; "No? Did you?"
Allen shakes his head, fingers turning numb from a different kind of cold—dread. Horror sets into his bones as he realises, remembers—he didn't hear them when they fell, he didn't see them as they broke through the canopy. He only saw Jenna, he only heard Jenna... and no one else.
"No, I didn't," he replies, hands shaking; "We need to find them. Now."
───※ ·❆· ※───
Ana shrieks as her body crashes through the thick forest canopy and plummets towards the ground. She tries to grab hold of whatever she can, but the sticks, leaves, and branches evade her every grasp. Before she even has the chance to think, she's already shot past everything within arm's reach.
She screams, and she falls—
"Ana!" Blake shouts, his hand outstretched towards her.
The ground—no, the roof of a circular hut—is rapidly approaching, and she strains, stretches out her arm as far as it can go. Her first, second, third attempt fails and she's not going to make it, she's not going to reach him in time—
He grabs her hand, yanks her to his broad chest, flips them around and holds her tight as they—crash! They shout, cling to one another as the wood and cloth of the hut roof explode around them. Torn fabric, dust and splintered wood rain from the sky as their bodies slam into the rudimentary wooden floor and fling apart.
Something snaps—Blake screams until he slams into a crate along the opposite wall, the wind knocked from his lungs. Ana barely manages to cover her head before she crashes into a stacked pile of crudely cut logs on the other side. Dust explodes around her and within seconds, she's buried under the timber pile.
Ana hears her boyfriend groaning in pain on the opposite side of the room. Her whole body trembles, muscles screaming, as she attempts to push her way out of the log pile. Her lungs ache with every breath, with every cough caused by the settling dust.
The logs tumble away from her back in what feels like one piece at a time. By some kind of literal miracle, they survived.
She weakly pushes herself onto her knees and drags herself free from the log pile. Her lungs cry out in pain as she coughs herself hoarse on the resulting sawdust. Her body collapses just beyond the settling logs—she needs a moment to breathe.
In. Out. She trembles through every breath. Her lungs are on fire.
"Bl–" Ana enters into another coughing fit. After a long moment of struggling to breathe, she tries again, "Blake?"
His groan is guttural.
"O–Over here," he replies after a long beat, his voice barely audible in the silent room, "You—you okay?"
Ana drags herself towards him, one agonising movement at a time. Her limbs—her whole body aches from scrapes and scratches. Her left wrist screams when she puts too much pressure on it. Her muscles tremble with every crawled step. Even her throat hurts when she tries to swallow the pain.
"Yeah," she replies, unable to hide the rasp in her tone, "I'm okay. You—"
She freezes—her eyes locked onto the steady flow of blood dripping down Blake's face, pooling behind his head on the floor. His right arm is twisted at an almost grotesque angle, but the lack of blood seeping through his sleeve at least gives Ana hope that the bone hasn't broken through his skin.
Her eyes blur with tears—she blinks them away. Now is not the time.
"Blake," she starts cautiously, dragging herself the final few feet to his side, "You're bleeding."
He closes his eyes and hums in response.
Blake's already pale skin is an almost pallid shade of grey in comparison to Ana's light brown fingertips. She gently brushes aside his bangs to get a better look at the wound—her fingertips tremble against his face. She knows head wounds always look a lot worse than they are due to the increased amount of blood vessels near the scalp. She knows this.
But it still—it looks bad.
It looks really bad—she needs to stop the bleeding. Her eyes dart around the room, landing on the various pieces of torn cloth from the ceiling—no. Bad idea. He needs something safe, something that won't come with an immediate risk of infection.... she grabs her shoulder bag and swings it into her lap, flipping open the lid to rifle through it.
Phone... sunglasses... hand sanitiser... pepper spray... no, no, no—the first aid kit was in Allen's hiking pack, wasn't it? She deeply resists the urge to curse, her brows pinched in frustration.
"Ana?" Blake groans, the fingertips of his good arm grazing the hand clutching the outside of her bag, "What's wrong?"
Ana forces out a long, trembling breath—her lips resisting the smile on her face as she gently laces their fingertips together, "I'm just... really glad you're okay."
She pulls the hand sanitiser out of her bag, and gives Blake's fingertips a gentle squeeze before she lets him go. There's only one thing in this room that she trusts enough to be relatively okay with using as a temporary bandage—she puts the hand sanitiser aside and begins to tear at the hem of her skirt.
Blake's eyes go wide—he slaps his good hand over her own—she flinches and freezes in place.
"Wha–?"
"Whoa, hey—what are you doing?" he asks, a dash of panic in his tone.
She resists the urge to slap his hands away; "Blake, you're bleeding. This is the closest thing we have to a sterile bandage right now."
Ana goes to tear her skirt again—his hand doesn't budge.
"Blake."
"Use my coat," he pleads, weakly shuffling aside to free the fabric from under his back—he's not very successful.
Ana frowns, giving him a look, "Blake, it's just a skirt. I'm only going to tear off enough to make a bandage."
"That's not the point, Annie," Blake replies, returning her look with one of his own, "I just don't want you to—" he stops—he sighs, "Can't you please just use the coat?"
"But you love that coat—"
"Please," he implores with a gentle squeeze of Ana's hands, "Not your skirt."
They stare at one another for a long beat as blood steadily trickles down the side of Blake's face.
Ana sighs. His gaze is firm—he won't change his mind about this. Even bleeding out onto a derelict wooden floor, her boyfriend remains as stubborn as ever. She nods, a silent agreement to use his coat instead.
Blake withdraws his hand with a thankful smile. He tries shifting to give her better access to his coat— "Ah—ow, sh—my arm."
"Blake—!"
"I'm okay! I'm okay, just—" he grunts, his face contorting through the pain of jostling his broken arm, "Yeah. Can you—?"
Ana holds him steady with a trembling hand while she tugs at the base of the tan coat hidden beneath his back, "Already on it. Just... I'm gonna tug it out on three, alright?"
Beads of sweat have already formed on Blake's brow, and his breathing is heavy; pained. He nods, sharp and short. His good hand is visibly trembling by his side.
Ana takes a deep, stuttering breath herself. She's trained for this. She needs to focus—to treat Blake less like a partner and more like a patient. She can do this. She has to.
"Three... two... one..." She yanks the fabric out from under his back—it jostles his arm.
"Ow—fuck!"
"Blake."
"My arm's broken—let me fucking swear!" Blake snaps—he stops, winces, and softens his tone, "Sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—Ow, Christ. Hell in a handbasket."
Ana rearranges the coat's hem so that she can tear off a piece without jostling his arm again. She stops—frowns, "It's fine—did you bring your lucky lighter with you?"
"Wha–? On the hike?" Blake asks; he sounds confused.
Ana nods, "Yeah, did you bring it?"
"Uh," he furrows his brow, eyes blinking rapidly as he tries to think, "Not sure. I can't—My head hurts; I can't remember."
Ana touches his unbloodied cheek with trembling fingertips, "It's okay. Don't worry about it."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," she reassures him with a wry smile—she then brings the hem of Blake's coat to her mouth instead, "I can improvise. Now hold still—these fancy fabrics aren't the, uh, easiest to rip."
Blake chuckles—his throat seizes and he breaks out into a short, sharp coughing fit. His lips twist into a pained grimace and he groans. He offers her a weak thumbs-up from his good arm to give her the green light. Ana can't help but giggle in response, mindful of the ache in her lungs. She can worry about herself later.
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, then she bites down into the small tear already present in the jacket's fabric and begins to rip.
───※ ·❆· ※───
"--odien. Godien!"
Godien gasps awake, eyes snapping open to see— "Ow—Blast!" He slams them shut again, curling in on himself because good Gods, his eyes are on fire—he makes a noise that's definitely not a whimper and covers them with his hands.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Father Faolan soothes, his tone as gentle as the hand rubbing circles on the prince's back.
Godien resists the urge to scoff or make a sarcastic remark. His eyes hurt, his hand hurts, he's sopping wet and he's cold. He'd bet that his cheeks are even covered in a mess of ugly gold smudges thanks to the holy water dripping past his face—on what plane would he possibly be okay?
"Breathe, Firelight."
Godien's eyelid twitches, but nevertheless he tries his best to breathe in, out. He even tries to open his eyes—nope, bad idea, ow. Why does everything around him have to be so bright?
He feels someone move his body into a sitting position, his wet hair slapping against his cheeks as he gets into a proper seating position. He grimaces—eugh.
"Ugh... what happened?" he croaks, trying to shove an annoying strand of wet hair behind his lower left horn—it doesn't work. He pulls a face as it smacks right back into his nose with a wet plap.
"That's what I would like to ask you," the Holy Father replies.
Godien freezes. Right. Yes. That. He furrows his brow—nausea spins in his gut as he tries to think about that stupid glowing rock and what—oh. Oh no. The pain in his hand throbs, and he instinctively hides it behind his back.
He opens his mouth to say something, anything—
"Your Holiness," a new voice speaks up in an apologetic tone, "Please forgive me, but I could not locate the Saint."
Godien quietly shuts his mouth as the Holy Father releases a deep, tired sigh.
"I'll retrieve him," Father Faolan replies, removing his hand from Godien's back, "Please take care of his highness until my return—and Godien?"
Godien squints just enough to see the stern look the Holy Father sends his way before the pain becomes too much and he has to close them again.
"Yes?"
"Don't move," Father Faolan states—no, orders, "We will discuss… all of this," he gestures to the room at large, "once you have been seen to by the Saint. To say that I am... disappointed in you at the moment… is an understatement."
Godien swallows nervously—he's unsure if it's sweat or holy water dripping past his brow. It could be either. It could be both. It doesn't matter. The sound of Father Faolan's footsteps leaving the room has him shivering. It's either that or the cold. Not that it matters either.
Oh, Gods.
He's doomed.