It was a nice day, the sun was shining, the weather was a comfy type of warm, Bruno, wearing a dark brown hooded cloak, just headed out to the fair that was happening on Bonesborough, although they knew that it was one of the cities that had the most concentration of the Emperor's guards.
They were trying to find a special ingredient that was missing for one of the potions that they were studying. It's worth the risk. They thought to themselves as they were passing through the sales booths looking at the variety of ingredients.
In the end, they found what they were looking for, and even more, Bruno was satisfied with their purchases as they headed out of town just to stop when they heard a cry from one of the citizens on the fair.
"Leave me alone! I'm not joining any coven!" The witch shouted as they were being dragged by one of the big guards. "You have to follow the Emperor's law!" Said the other guard.
Bruno quickly tried to escape from there, as they were also a witch without a coven and that was wanted. They walked away through the crowd of people that were watching the witch being arrested, they tried their best to go unnoticed as they towards an alley that led to the forest outside the city.
But little did they know that they were being watched and followed by a very known figure.
The Golden Guard.
He was jumping from building to building and from tree to tree, trying to be sneaky as possible so Bruno wouldn't see him coming. They both ended up in a more isolated part of the forest. The blue-haired witch took their hood off and looked around since they didn't see anyone, they sat on the ground, close to a tree where they could admire their purchases in peace.
But before they could even feel like something was off, they saw a white and yellow figure land in front of them.
"Heyyy!" The figure said with excitement in their voice. Bruno soon realized that the mysterious figure was one of Belos' soldiers, that damn teen prodigy. He was wearing his default uniform and with what it seems to be a red staff on his back that resembled the Emperor's symbol and a palisman staff on his hand.
Bruno quickly ran away from there, deeper into the forest, they looked back to see if he was still following them but they saw nothing, of course, they weren't gonna stop running just because the Golden Guard wasn't in sight, yet they had to stop as they hit something soft and fell onto the ground.
"Ugh!" They looked at their front to see what caused the impact and it was nothing less than the Golden Guard. How did he get there so fast?!
"Uh-uh-uh!" He gestured a 'no-no' movement with his free hand. "Sorry, but you can't just run away from an officer of the law!" He added, Bruno could hear the smirk on his face just from his voice tone.
The witch tried to escape once more, this time in a different direction, however, they were stopped once more by guard "Hello, again!" He said. Bruno then tried to escape gain, only to be stopped by the golden boy again, it seemed awfully like a cat playing with his meal before killing it.
HOW IS HE SO FAST??!! They thought as they started to run once again, now trying to understand how he is moving so quickly. They saw a yellow zap in front of themselves before the Golden Guard appeared.
"Teleportation-!" They whispered under their breath, noticing that the guard was using his palisman staff to go from one place to another.
"Wow! You're persistent, I admire that, but sadly I'll have to arrest you!" He said and pointed his staff at Bruno, but before he could do anything, the witch landed a kick on his staff, making it activate its teletransportantion powers again, except that now instead of zapping them to another planned location, it teleported them to the middle of another forest, except that now they were suspended in the air.
"AAAHHHHHHH!!!" Both of them screamed as they fell, being slightly cushioned by the branches of the trees until they hit the ground.
It took some seconds for the Golden Guard to get up and look at his staff, his Palisman was sightly cracked on the head, must have gotten that from the kick that the other boy landed. "No!" He said, with a worried tone, before looking at the witch who was trying to get up, with a hand at the back of their head.
"You!" He said with a threatening voice, Bruno rapidly remembered the situation they were in and looked at their back, seeing a very, VERY angry guard. I mean, he was still wearing a mask but just from his voice you could guess that Bruno was about to get beaten up.
Bruno tried to get up and run but the Golden Guard was quick to stop them, jumping on top of them.
"I'm going to make sure you get petrified for this!" He said in pure rage as he pulled his hand to his back, trying to get something but as soon as he realized there was nothing on his back he looked back and saw his artificial staff broken on the ground. "My staff!"
Bruno took this as a chance to get out of his grip and ran away from him as fast as possible. The Golden Guard ran after him, now filled with rage.
"GET BACK!" He shouted at the other witch as they ran. Bruno could only let out an 'eep' sound, in fear of getting caught again. They ran, dodging any tree, branch, and bush that was in front of them, and the soldier was still following getting close at some times but missing the chance to grip the witch.
Bruno saw an entry to what seemed to be an old mine, well, they couldn't be picky now that there's a bloodthirsty soldier after them, so they ran into the mine and, of course, the Golden Guard ran after them.
As both of them were now inside the mines, the guard cornered Bruno and jumped in their direction to land a punch on their face but instead, he hit the wall, the blue-haired boy dodged the punch and ran to the side. The soldier was trying to hit them incessantly, punch after punch after kick, the witch tried to dodge them as much as possible, but they ended up being knocked to the ground.
The soldier held their body to the ground as he was ready to land a punch again, but the other boy moved fast as dodged the punch as he saw a wood staff and grasped it, pulling to hit the face of the Golden Guard that had them stuck on the ground. When the staff was pulled from its place, a few rocks and dirt from the wall started to fall off.
"UGH-!" The Golden Guard exclaimed as the staff hit his face with full force. That was gonna leave a mark.
Bruno used this opportunity to yank the annoying teen to their side and quickly got up. "HAH! TAKE THAT!" Bruno said with confidence, which soon faded away as they saw the golden boy, now with a cracked mask, get up and going in their direction.
"You little-" He said as he was ready to attack the other boy, but he stopped muddle sentence when he heard a loud noise. The noise that giant rocks make when they start falling.
They both stayed silent as the noises started to get louder and louder and suddenly the whole mine start to shake. The mine was going down.
"RUN!!" Bruno shouted, more at himself than at the Golden Guard. They both ran down the mine, escaping from the rockfall.
Gladly they both made it to somewhere safe, it was dark, but not too dark, a light must be coming from somewhere, but they were tired to think about that, from fighting and running. Bruno was panting but was still paying attention to the guard's movements, waiting for his next move. They saw him look on his cloak for something and he got a red bird out of it. It was his palisman, still hurt from their previous kick that got them into this situation. Bruno felt bad, he didn't want an innocent creature to get hurt, but again, they both were trying to kill them.
"Ah, you're ok, thank Titan!" He whispered to himself, but Bruno heard it. "Now, you!" He hid his palisman back on his clothes and looked at the boy on the other side of the room.
"Aw, come on!" The witch said, they were hoping the soldier would just give up on trying to arrest them.
But before the Golden Guard could get closer, a thunderous noise filled the mines. Is it another rockfall? Bruno asked himself.
The noise got louder and clearer, it wasn't the sound of rocks falling.
It was a roar.
"Oh no." They said under their breath as they knew what was following that sound.
Right after the last roar, a giant shadowy figure appeared behind both of them, it was the creature! It came from one of the tunnels that were in the compartment. It was silent for some seconds, the Golden Guard and Bruno froze, looking at the giant monster, from what they could see it had a giant mouth, full of teeth, no eyes, six feet and it has a slender form.
The creature roared again, sending waves that were so strong that knocked down both of the intruders. It started to move towards the guard, but he was quick to get away from it, sliding under it to get closer to where Bruno was.
The snake-like creature hit its head on the wall and growled, roaring again. The impact of the roar made the guard fall and the witch to be thrown against a wall, it hurt but gladly it didn't knock them out. The shoulder strap from Bruno's belt pack broke and it was now loose and the guard's palisman fell out of his cloak.
While Bruno was still trying to get up, the creature wiggled its tail in the guard's direction, this time he couldn't dodge and it hit him, making him go flying and hit the wall next to Bruno. Before the creature hit its tail again, this time in Bruno's direction, the boy was able to dodge it, leaving their belt pack behind without noticing.
When they tried to get something from inside of the belt pack, they noticed it wasn't with them anymore, they were right under the creature, defenseless, they were about to get out of there when they noticed the harmed little bird, it was under one of the creatures feet, Bruno didn't think twice and ran to its direction, grabbed the palisman and got out of under the slender monster.
Meanwhile, the golden soldier got up and tried to think of a plan, while ducking the creature's tail attacks. After landing beside Bruno's belt pack he thought of something, he remembered that some of the information that was given to him about the witch was that they were known for making dangerous potions, ones that could blow up an entire building.
He grabbed the belt pack in a hurry and looked inside it, the potions were kept in small thin bootles. From the other side of the room were Bruno and the palisman looking at the Golden Guard, he grabbed one of the bottles, it was green.
"Wait! Don't use that one! Use the light blue one!" Bruno shouted, making the creature try to hit them again. The creature missed.
"Why should I trust you?!" The angry boy shouted back.
Bruno tried to think of something when they remembered they had the guard's palisman in their hands. "Look! I-I have your palisman!" They said, with their voice shaking, they didn't believe that they were about to threaten to hurt the GOLDEN GUARD's palismen right in front of him. "If you don't do as I say I'll f-feed it to the monster!"
The soldier gasped when he noticed that his palisman wasn't with him. The little bird made a chirping sound in fear, but Bruno was quick to assure him that it was an empty threat. "Don't worry, I won't actually hurt you!" They whispered.
The guard tried to think of something else to do other than to follow the criminal's commands, but he couldn't think of anything. "Dammit!" He said to himself as he pulled a light blue bottle out of the belt pack.
"Throw it at the monster!" Bruno shouted, having to duck one of the creature's attacks, once again. The Golden Guard did as he was told, he threw the bottle at the monster.
When the bottle hit the creature, an incredibly loud noise came out of it, and since the monster used echolocation to perceive its surroundings, its hearing was quite sensitive. The sound made the monster get confused and irritated as it tried to wipe the potion out of its body. But there was a problem, the loud noise also made the mine shake once again. Parts of the roof were starting to fall off.
The witch took this as a warning to leave the place before they were completely buried, they ran towards one of the exits, opposite to where the Golden Guard was, and he also ran away towards another exit, since the monster was in front of him and he couldn't pass it to go to the same exit the criminal and his palisman took.
The rocks fell again, covering from where they came from.
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After a while, Bruno and the little bird were still walking down the dark hall, with only a light orb to see.
"Ugggghhhhh... My legs hurt..." Bruno states, with more laziness than pain in their voice, they were certainly tired of running and fighting, but they weren't feeling any actual pain.
The cardinal chirped on the witch's shoulder.
"Really? You aren't tired? Well, I mean, it's not like you weren't just running for your life since this morning." They said, with a little sarcasm in their voice.
The bird chirped again, this time they seemed surprised.
"Uh, yeah, I can understand you. I specialize in creatures, so I had to know the basics, like communication." They said, waving their hand around as they talked. "You know, you could talk to your witch a little about his anger issues, he really was trying to kill me."
The bird chirped a reply to them, trying to explain something.
"He has a hard life, huh?" Bruno replied, then whispered to themselves. "Like that would be an excuse to go around and kill people."
The cardinal heard it and chirped back with an irritable tone in his notes.
"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot I hurt you, sorry..." The boy said with guilt, he regretted hurting the bird. "... Maybe I can help, can I see where I hurt you?" They stopped walking and opened his hand for the red bird to jump on.
He landed on their hand and Bruno was able to see where it was hurt. There was a big crack on his head, it seemed to hurt. Bruno touched it and the bird made a small squeak. Yeah, it hurts.
"Okay, lemme just-" Bruno tried to get something out of their belt pack when they remembered that it wasn't there anymore. "Ah! Dammit! I forgot that the golden dumbass took my bag!"
They felt a peck on their finger. "Ouch! What was that for?"
The cardinal chirped and huffed.
"You're angry that I called him a dumbass?" They said, letting out a small laugh. The bird pecked again.
"Ow! Ow! Ok, ok... I won't insult him anymore!" Bruno said as he put the little bird on their shoulder again. "You really care about him, huh? What made you choose him? From what I heard, palisman don't affiliate with bad people."
The bird stayed silent for a while, looking at his little feet, he chirped some notes, like when someone starts telling a story, he seemed sad. Bruno listened to him carefully, not missing a detail. The conversation seemed serious.
"That's... That's awful..." Bruno said out of words. "I would never imagine that he was going through things like that... Why does he even stay there? Why doesn't he just run away?"
The little bird made a sad chirp.
"He's trying to help his uncle? Why?! All he does is hurt him!"
The bird replied, it was easy to notice the sadness in his voice.
"He doesn't know that? He believes that his uncle can be a better person? What?!" The witch replied, upset. "Oh, no, no, no. I've been there, caring about someone who doesn't give two shits about you is gonna tear you down, piece by piece. It'll make you feel worthless like you have to constantly try to prove yourself until you realize they never did care from the start." They spoke with conviction as if they had gone through something like this.
The bird just stood still on Bruno's shoulder, he was amazed by how well the young witch understood him. Well, it's not like it was that complex, the boy is having a rough time, to the point where he has anxiety attacks and mental breakdowns, anyone with a little bit of empathy could notice that he has problems. Suddenly, the palisman had an idea, he chirped some notes to Bruno. The witch stopped walking and looked at the bird with a skeptical face.
"... what?" Bruno asked, slowly as if he was trying to process what the bird told him. "Help him? me?" They stared at the bird with a blank face. "An hour earlier he was trying to kill me."
The bird chirped a few notes while it flutters its wings.
Bruno signed. "Look, little man, I don't think I can't help him. I mean, I don't even know his name, he was trying to arrest me moments earlier today and I'm pretty sure that when he sees me again he'll try to drag me to a coven, or worse."
The Cardinal stayed quiet, the witch walked down the tunnel, hoping to get to the end or find a way out of the mines.
Bruno continued walking and walking and walking. It seemed like an eternity.
"TITAN this tunnel is long! Heh heh..." They left out a nervous laugh, trying to break the silence, after all, it felt kinda awkward staying silent after the bird telling them most of the abuse that his witch is going through. The bird stayed silent.
Bruno felt even worse. Oh, Titan, why is this happening to me? They continued walking, their thoughts getting louder and louder on their head. Maybe I should help him, that can't be that bad, can it? He probably just needs someone to talk to...
The boy shook his head. No no no, WHAT AM I THINKING??? Don't empathize with the enemy! He is gonna stab you in the back when you're not looking!
They tried to keep those thoughts out of their head as much as possible, but it didn't work.
But what if I'm the only chance he ever gets to talk to someone? What if I'm the only help he can get? That is incredibly unrealistic but we live in a world that anything can happen... I'm probably reading too many fantasy stories... Bruno took one deep breath. One day, my empathy for people with serious mental issues is gonna get me killed.
"Hey, um, little guy?"
The bird moved its head to look at Bruno.
"So... Umm... Maaaybbeeee I can help him..." They said, almost regretting their choice.
The red bird had a sparkle in his eyes, he was about to say something but was cut off by Bruno. "But only if you make him promise that he will let me go. No arresting, no coven, no turning me into stone."
The bird thought for a moment, then chirped happily.
"Okay then, it's a deal!" They placed pinky in front of the bird's little feet. He placed one of his feet on top of the pinky and they 'shook hands'.
"Now we have sealed our deal, I promise to do my part if you do yours!" Bruno said with a smile, looking back at the path before them.
They noticed that there was some light coming from the end. "Look!" Bruno exclaimed. "Maybe it's a way out?"
Their company on their shoulder let out some enthusiastic chirps. Bruno smiled even wilder and ran towards the light source.
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Meanwhile...
"I can't believe this." Said the Golden Guard, looking at the wall of rocks in front of him. He let out a groan.
To be continued...