001. STRIKE ONE
—ERZA FAVERIN, THE FIFTH TO HER NAME, has been wandering this green earth for as long as she can remember. Eons, perhaps. Far longer than she is capable of recalling with detail, and far longer than she cares to dwell upon. It's easier to let them blend together; it helps to keep the sanity in check—not that 'sane' has ever been a great, or even correct, way to describe her.
She's seen the rise and fall of species that believed they were everlasting. She's seen wars ravage the lands, seen incurable plagues decimate with even more efficiency. She's seen the small rifts that tear between worlds, welcoming devastation through their gates—not unlike the one that left her stranded here. She's seen birth and death, creation and destruction, beauty and carnage.
All this, she's seen...and it's getting quite old.
She's bored of watching the inevitable end that always follows the beginning, and the new beginning that comes around just after that. She's tired of seeing the same cycle over and over again.
Incurable diseases? Been there.
Bloody battles? Unoriginal.
Toppling empires? Predictable.
History repeats itself endlessly; such is the way of life. And she's starting to really hate it.
Erza looks up to the overcast and utterly dull stormy sky, to the faceless deity this current generation is so sure presides over them. The evolution of divinity maybe interested her once upon a time, but in all her years, never has she seen proof of any god or godlike happenstance. Thus, she errs on the side of the disbelieving. (Though it is nice to have some arbitrary force to blame and curse when she is in a grumpy mood.)
But she'll pray to this Mother, she'll even pray to that rusted Cauldron; she'll pray to whatever god she has to, she just wants something new.
Rolling her eyes, already humiliated with what she's about to do, she raises her hands in front of her, palms up. Supposedly, closing your eyes is supposed to create a stronger connection to the gods. She calls hokum on that, but if it'll persuade this supposed deity to grant her a miracle, then so be it.
So with shut eyes and awaiting arms, she prays to the sky and earth and anything that will listen:
"We've been together for quite some time, haven't we? I've been here through your good, your bad, and even your ugly—and it's gotten real hideous, at times, you have to admit." Maybe it's better to be well-mannered when in communion with a god, but she's already in this ridiculous position. The least they can do is ignore her attitude for a short minute. "Anyways, I just think that my patience and constancy deserves some sort of reward. Preferably in the form of a natural disaster, like that one you created ten-thousand—no, twenty-thousand—no. That one quake from a long time ago. Really shook things up. Or maybe you could change up the seasons? Those prissy males are getting a little comfortable in their palaces, don't you think?"
Erza cracks open a single eye, a tiny part of her almost hoping for some instant change in the poor weather. Nothing.
She huffs and squeezes her eyes shut again, no longer concerned about being respectful—not that she really had much regard for it before. "Or maybe you could just send a lightning bolt down from the sky to strike me down! Anything!"
Now when she opens her eyes and drops her arms, she knows not to anticipate anything—though, the lightning has a fair chance with the storm clouds still roiling and prepping to downpour. But it's just the open field she'd wandered to just this morning. Just her, the meadow, the rumbling grey sky, and the annoyingly repetitive birds chirping in their tree top roosts.
"I am so pathetic," she mumbles to herself. Praying to a god she doesn't even believe in? How was that ever going to work? She looks up to the sky with her hands now settled on her hips defiantly. "If you really are out there, and you are choosing to ignore me and my reasonable demands, forget I ever said anything...bitch."
Erza's most certainly going to forget this ever happened, so it's only fair that this (imaginary) higher power does, too.
There is a moment where she thinks about adding one last cheeky comment, just to take her mind off the sheer embarrassment she's made of herself. But the boom of thunder interrupts her before she can, and a short distance away a flash of white lightning jolts its way down to the earth. If it's a warning sign to stop while she's ahead, she can take a hint. She wasn't all that serious about the whole 'strike me down' thing, anyway. Sort of; she's a little curious.
Throwing the hood of her nice woolen cloak over her head, she restarts her boundless trek. Without the sun, she isn't quite sure which direction she's come from nor which direction she's going. Not that it really matters; she never has a true destination in mind. Wherever the wind takes her is where she belongs. She just hopes the wind never takes her back to that Weaver's cottage; that is an encounter she will never forget.
Another bolt of lightning arcs across the sky just above her with a crash.
"Okay, okay! I'm moving!" she calls out to the world and hastens her pace to the tree-line.
Just as Erza is about to breech the edge of the clearing to look for a hidey-hole of some sort for the night, she is slammed down into the ground from above. The burst of surprise and shock from the hit is so fleeting she almost believes she really was just smited by a god for her insolence. But after another moment, she's actually quite sure she's been knocked down by a fallen tree, if the persistent crushing weight on her back is telling enough. She can't exactly lift her head off the ground to inspect the damage, but it feels like a big spruce or a pine.
So long as it's not on fire—she sniffs the air. No smoke, thankfully.
She wonders how long she'll have to lay here before some hunter or traveler comes along and finds her. Probably days; she's a small journey outside all the nearby city and town limits. It doesn't help that she went rather far off-trail for this particular venture with the divinity to avoid potential onlookers.
Oh, days without food or a bath. How tragic.
Just as she considers taking a long nap to pass the time, she picks up on the twitching of her tree while feeling slowly returns to her back. She realizes that it's been going on this whole time and she'd just dismissed it as aftershocks from the lightning that must have hit it. But now that her attention has been drawn to it, it's hard to ignore how...squishy her tree is.
Erza grunts with exertion as she attempts to nudge the tree-that-is-definitely-not-a-tree off of her. Little by little, she's able to get most of the weight onto the back of her legs and backside. Huffing quietly to herself, she finally stretches and twists around to look at what hit her.
She blinks through the downpour. She...isn't quite sure what she is looking at. There's a wing or two in the way, and it's hard to identify what creature it is based on the looks of those. An overgrown bat is her best guess, though she hasn't ever seen one. Shoving its body a little bit further down, she reclaims one of her arms with a quick budge and tries to move a large membranous wing out of her way.
With so little room, it's difficult to lift the massive thing, and when Erza finally does get it off her back a little, she immediately drops it back down with a hard and painful thump.
Its head is nuzzled against her backside.
Or what she assumes is its head, rather; she didn't see an actual face. Just some dark soaked fur, or feathers, or hair. She doesn't know which of those options is worse.
Granted, it looks and appears dead despite all the twitching it's doing, but this position is still really quite mortifying. Most inappropriate. And she's had quite enough of these humbling occurrences for one day, so she puts even more effort into crawling out from underneath this body, going so far as to kick and shout at it.
"Get off, you tree! You weigh more than a horse! Ever heard of eating in moderation?!"
Screaming at, and insulting, the dead. Not her classiest move, she'll admit.
Once she's got both of her arms and one leg free, she thinks she's finally in the clear. But then it groans back into the living with a full body tremor, and she startles. She's seen more than her fair share of beings get hit by lightning, but she can't say she's ever seen any of them survive. And certainly never heard of one who has done it without proper medical attention.
Erza pulls her last leg out from underneath the body with a resolute yank. She absolutely does not want to be under the creature when, or if, it wakes up. Danger isn't something she minds much, she can handle herself just fine (she's been doing it for millennia), but that doesn't mean she likes to be caught unawares. Especially under less than ideal conditions where she's completely drenched and just tired.
Frowning at the bruises she can feel forming on her body, Erza crouches down slowly to lift that wing again. She's curious to see what kind of creature can withstand a bolt of lightning. The wing is just as heavy as she remembers it being settled on her back, but it's much easier to maneuver it around without her whole lower body stuck.
Holding the edge just above her eye-line with one hand, she uses her other to turn its head, cautiously avoiding its mouth as she does. The last thing she needs is to be bitten by some bat with who-knows-how-many illnesses.
But the very last thing she expects to see is a very male face on the other side. She expected a snout, or four eyes, or maybe some sort of beak like a bird. Honestly, horns and fangs were also on the table. A handsome face is a pleasant surprise.
Then again, she hasn't seen or felt it move since it stopped twitching, nor has she heard it make any other sounds. Dead for good this time, then.
"What a shame," she tuts, and drops the wing on the male's face with a shrug.
And then he groans again. She purses her lips, regretting her choice to not check a pulse while she'd been admiring his rugged features. She backs away, not taking any more chances now that she is sure he will wake up.
But she doesn't ditch him completely, deciding to stay near. She's still a bit boggled that he managed to live.
"I'm never drinking again," a low and husky voice emerges from underneath the cover of his wings. Wings which have now begun to spread and stretch off the male's body as he collects himself and stands to his full lengthy height. Toned and tall. Tree is still a very accurate descriptor, she notes.
Erza does nothing to give away her presence. Instead, she just takes in this strange moment. She wonders if he really had been drinking, or if he's just mistaking his confusion and pain for a long night off the wagon. It would be a good excuse for flying out in a storm like a lunatic, if he had been drinking.
"Where in the hells did they drop me?" he mutters to himself, looking up and around the clearing with his back still to Erza. He sighs. "If they dumped me on the blasted continent again..."
He isn't making much sense to her, but she didn't even think he'd be this lucid.
"You're in Prythian," she calls, thinking it may ease his mind to get some answers.
The male whips around, wings flaring out to his sides defensively. A blade she hadn't noticed before is clasped in his hands and he's holding it out in her direction warily. He blinks at the sight of her standing so casually against a tree, but doesn't drop his arm away.
"Who are you?" he asks, voice now dripping with commanding power. She quirks an eyebrow at the swift change.
"You fell on me," she says, expertly avoiding the whole 'name' debacle. The longer she sticks around, the trickier it is. Using her true name is asking for trouble, and using a new name everywhere she goes is such a hassle. It's better to just be nameless. "Would you put your sword away?"
"I fell—" he stops and looks around the ground, to the struggle marks she'd made in the dirt where he stands and the mud all down the front of her precious dress and cloak. His arm falls away. He looks properly abashed. Good. "Ah. My apologies. You aren't...injured?"
She would be, if she were anyone else.
But she still isn't above milking attention...and money.
Being a nomad pays very little, you know.
"My ankle wishes that were so," she scoffs, discreetly placing more weight on her left side so it looks as if she is nursing an injury on her right leg. "And my clothing is a mess. You could have killed me."
And now he looks horrified. "I cannot apologize enough. I don't understand how—"
Just as she thinks he's about to start groveling and gifting her with the idea of recompense, he clutches his chest and falls to a knee. There he goes, dying again.
This is also getting very old, very fast.
Before he even tries to come up with a plausible explanation for what's happening to him, she supplies the truth. "You were struck by lightning. Your heart is probably arresting."
The male still kneels there, hand over his chest as he tries to labor his breathing. "Son of a—! What is it trying to arrest?"
Erza rolls her eyes. She really doesn't know the first thing about medicine or healing. She's just seen enough people die in so many different ways to recognize when someone's heart is struggling to work properly. If she is to guess, his heart has probably stopped beating a couple times since getting struck down. It's a wonder he's even still breathing—a miraculous feat.
"Just—" she sighs with frustration. "Just lay down or something."
He does so, but he glares at her as he goes. "Aren't you going to do something?"
"I am doing something." She hasn't even stepped closer. She knows she's not doing anything other than helping along the decaying process, but admitting to that is a little too artless for her tastes.
"Go look for help or something," he groans, his body contorting in ways she didn't think his long limbs could achieve.
"We're far from any kind of help," she says bluntly, picking at some dirt underneath a fingernail. She's let it dry in her distraction. It will be a hell of a time getting that out later. "We're all alone out here."
"You can't be serious." He constricts again, struggling to coherently speak. "If this is about me—about me falling on you, then I am sorry! Your ankle, your fucking dress, I'm sorry! Please, just do something."
Erza hears his angered and vulgar desperation, and recognizes it for what it is: fear. It's the same old cry of the helpless, of the dying. She knows what happens next, she knows exactly how this story goes. It's an ending, a conclusion. The closing chapter to a book she won't even get to read.
He really is putting up a good fight, though.
She watches with thinly veiled amusement as he uses his last remaining strength to crawl and lunge at her. She's not too worried that he'll hurt her, even as he grasps her cloak and brings her to his eye level forcefully. He's weakening by the second; all he would need is a swift kick to the chest and he's a goner.
"You heartless bitch," he heaves, and she cracks a smile in his face. It's not the first time she's heard that, and she knows it won't be the last. "Do you want me to beg or something? I'll beg. I'll pay for a thousand dresses, I'll make you a thousand dresses myself. I am not dying like this, do you hear me?"
A tempting offer. But honestly, what does he expect her to do? They really are too far away from anything for her to go for help. She supposes she can act like she's going to get help and actually just leave him here to die. That way, he'll think help is coming and die in peace knowing that. But then she'll have that on her conscience; at least, this way, she can say she gave him the honor of a pretty face in his last moments. She shrugs.
He pushes her away from him with a growl of frustration and collapses back to the ground on his back. He flinches again.
Then he begins to whisper under his breath, wistful and compelling. She's drawn closer to it, curious. And she realizes, with no small amount of horror, that he is praying. Specifically, praying to the Mother that she slighted only minutes before he got struck with lightning—which she might have even asked for—and crash landed on her. All after she brought up the idea of boredom.
Erza looks up to the sky, really displeased with what she now thinks is going on.
And as she sits there, staring down this invisible god, the storm clouds begin to lessen their torrential downpour and open up to blue skies. The sun blinds her almost immediately and she has to look away. If that's not some sort of answer to her unasked question, she doesn't know what is.
"You are joking me." She pinches the bridge of her nose, and slumps down completely into the mud. Turning away from the dying stranger, so he can't see her flaming cheeks, she holds up her palms and closes her eyes in just the same way she did earlier.
"I'm sorry I called you a bitch earlier," she starts off, already cringing at how humiliating this is, now with an actual audience. "I was speaking out of anger. You know how I do that sometimes...Okay, a lot of the time. But I think we've both done things that we regret today, hm? There was no need to drag this...unfortunate soul into this."
She doesn't think she can speak too kindly about the male after he's ruined her clothes, held her at sword point, jostled her around, and called her a rude name. So she chooses to divert back to herself.
"I only wanted to change things up a little. I'm just getting stir crazy down here, I'm sure you understand. And if you don't, then maybe you can empathize? In any case, I think this little adventure today was enough craziness for at least another century or two, so if you would kindly restore this...charming stranger back to his former health, it would be much appreciated. I get the point, and I am...sorry."
She lets her arms drop, feeling physically drained at what she just submitted herself to. How embarrassing. The male is stone silent at her back, and she thinks he might have passed on during her little spiel to the Mother. So much for nothing.
But then she hears a raspy chuckle erupt from him and huffs with irritation. She just saved his life...at least, she hopes she did. She doesn't confidently know whether this has just been some wild series of coincidences, or if the so-called Mother really is pulling her leg with all of this. And he is laughing at her!
"That was brutal to listen to. Is that how you normally speak to the gods?" he asks, and she isn't sure if it's wishful thinking, but he actually does sound better. More lively. "I'm surprised you weren't the one struck down by lightning."
She frowns, recalling how she practically dared the deity to do just that.
"I don't make a habit of talking to other people's gods. Today was actually my first go at it, and you see how that turned out." She brushes off her lap self consciously, but there is nothing she can do for the mud stains. "Never again."
There is a very still moment of quiet, and Erza can't help but think he keeled over again. She doesn't have the face to turn around and look at him, yet, though.
"You are very strange." Not dead, then. Just rude.
Her mouth purses with annoyance, not that he can tell. "Well, you are strange...looking."
A terrible lie, and rather immature. But today isn't going the way she planned at all, and it's getting on her nerves just a tad. She thinks she is afforded a moment to be childish.
The boisterous laughter she is awarded is not what she wants to hear, but it is not at all unpleasant to listen to, unfortunately.
"I think your little plea in my favor worked," he says after he's calmed down. "My chest feels much better. My heart is done...arresting."
"Good." Erza blows a stray strand of hair out of her face before climbing to her feet. Now, she can wipe her hands of all that's happened and leave. "I will be on my way, then."
She doesn't make it very far when the husky voice of the tree-like stranger reaches her. "It looks like the Mother also healed your ankle, then?"
"It's a miracle," she twitters with false enthusiasm, knowing she's just been caught in her previous lie. He snorts and it sends her into a faster exodus.
"And what about your dresses? I did promise to make some in return for your help. I don't offer my tailoring skills for just anybody." Is it possible to hear a smirk just from someone's voice? Because that's the only thing she can focus on.
Without turning to face him, she waves a hand dismissively over her shoulder. "Deal's off. I think I shall wear trousers from now on."
No, she won't. She loves dresses.
"Your name then," he calls to her retreating back. She wonders if he is truly as fixed as he claims, still sitting in the muddy grass and not even attempting to follow her as he beckons her attention. "You never said."
She has no plans to see this male again, not if she has anything to say about it. And in all her years, she's never met someone twice. Not with the same face, anyway. So what will it hurt? she thinks, already knowing that thought will come back to bite her in the ass.
"Erza," she says and continues on her journey to nowhere and everywhere.
"Erza," he echoes her name like a prayer just as more thunder claps above them. In those same hushed tones he used for the Mother, he says, "May we meet again."
She nods softly as she disappears from his sights, but even she knows that lightning never strikes twice.
NOTES ;
I DON'T HAVE MUCH TO SAY
OTHER THAN "WELCOME."
ERZA FAVERIN IS A DELIGHT TO
WRITE ABOUT. AND SHE'S JUST GOT
SO MUCH SPUNK. AGAIN, SORRY
IF SHE'S NOT YOUR VIBES
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!