Zia's legs felt as heavy as the stone they were comprised of as Vox Machina trudged up the hill her and Keyleth had practically tumbled down earlier. The group was moving at a sullen pace. They were defeated and in no real rush to get anywhere other than the fuck away from this kingdom.
"Could this hill be any steeper?" Keyleth complained, as she leaned on her staff. She was tired from fighting. They all were. The way the day was going it looked like the hill too would be defeating them today.
"Look at it this way." Vex moved a branch out of her eyes. "This could be a shitload of stairs."
"Was that supposed to make us feel better sister?" Vax's eyebrow raised. "Because naming another type of torture doesn't make this current ordeal any better."
"It's not that bad guys." Pike looked around at her friends from her seat atop Grog's shoulders.
"Those riding Grog do not get a say in this matter." Percy grunted stepping over a curved tree root with great effort only for his shoe to land in mud. He scowled, pausing to wipe his shoe on some nearby moss.
"Damn what I'd give to ride Grog right now." Scanlan cracked his back. All this walking was making his gnome body sore.
"So, what you're saying is, you want your ass to be more sore than your legs?" Zia tilted her head eyebrows furrowed in confusion. How could that kind of soreness possibly be better? "Have I got that right?"
"What? No! I meant ride his back not his dick!"
Scanlan protested as he leapt over a large rock.
The gnome felt attacked.
"Somehow I find that unlikely." Vex remarked sending a pine cone sailing into Scanlan's head as she moved a branch out of her way.
Now he really was attacked.
And he wasn't the only one.
Rain pelted down upon the group. The dark clouds letting loose a stinging spray of cold droplets without any warning.
"Oh lovely-rain." Vex complained, "As if today couldn't get any more depressing...."
"Hey, does anyone else smell smoke?" Keyleth wondered nervously, as they traversed further into the forest. This wasn't the exact way they came but it was an easier trek down the mountainside after they conquered that steep hill.
"There was so much back there it's probably still wafting around our skulls." Scanlan remarked. "I wouldn't worry too much about any of it."
Worry...Zia was worried now. Again. Not about the smoke, but about the villagers. How would they react to her walking into their village telling them to leave their livelihoods? Would she have to do something drastic? Crystallize the lake so they couldn't fish or drink? The thought alone made her sick. No. None of her friends were going to make her do that.
They could convince them.
They would have an easier time doing it without her there.
Sure of that thought she clutched at her hand-the one that thanks to her ripped glove-had an exposed palm.
She shouldn't go in with them.
Ever so quietly she made to veer off from the group planning to meet the rest of Vox on the villages other side.
"Please, don't do that."
The voice was unbelievably soft, barely audible over the cascade of cold rain, tinged with an aching emotion that Zia couldn't quite place.
It was the tone more than the words that gave her pause.
"Don't go wandering off on your own after what we just went through. You don't have to. It's needless now. If you're concerned about the villagers reactions-we'll be told to leave anyways if they don't like what we have to say-it likely won't be much worse than that."
She looked back over her shoulder. "Percy..."
Their eyes met briefly through the droplets that dotted the lenses of Percy's glasses-until Zia's attention was stolen by a new voice.
"He's right, Z." Pike spoke up, voice filled with confidence and more than a bit of surety. "We just got our asses kicked. That dragon almost snatched you up. What if he gets greedy and comes back to make another pass?"
"It could comeback!?" Keyleth freaked whipping round-her green eyes suddenly bright with fear. "But it thought we were crushed!"
"Didn't seem to matter to him when he took a clawful of Zia's cursed shit." Scanlan pointed out. "He could decide he didn't get enough of her. It's a common brothel problem, can't say I blame our fearsome winged foe. Zia's a catch."
"Can't you be serious for two seconds?" Pike scowled at the other gnome.
"I am serious! Just look at that finely sculpted figure! Percy, back me up!"
"Scanlan, now is not the time." Percy crossed his arms in a sighing disapproval.
"What are you talking about? It's always the time." Scanlan waved a hand to brush Percy's comment aside, he yelled to Vax who was way further up the trail now- the half elf twins never having stopped moving. "Vax! Zia's hot right?"
"In this rain!?" Vax demanded, his tone insinuating Scanlan was insane. "It's fucking cold!"
"No. Not temperature! I mean like-oh forget it." Scanlan grumbled, though a smirk returned to his face as he eyed Zia. He elbowed her leg. "You know you're good lookin'"
Not a moment later the stone gray skin of her face darkened and the ever present shimmer of her skin tripled on her cheeks.
"Ha!" Scanlan grinned. "Look at that made you blush!"
"Would you stop teasing her?" Pike glared, and Scanlan made a face at her in return. "We're trying to convince her to stay with the group- you're gonna send her running like a startled deer."
Scanlan mimicked her- his words high pitched and indecipherable.
"Ugh. Whatever." The female gnome rolled her eyes in response and refocused on Zia. "Ignore him. My point still stands. You're staying with us."
"Don't even think about arguing about it." Grog added before Zia could get out a word. "Cause if you start going that way everyone else is gonna go that way too."
"You guys..." Zia began but her words trailed away at the earnest look on their faces. She let out a little sigh as she looked down at her hands. "Okay."
"Haha yes!" Pike cheered, her and Grog, Keyleth and Scanlan all began walking in the direction that Vex and Vax were heading in once more.
Zia watched them go on ahead. Then her gaze returned down to her hands, her grip on her exposed hand tightened.
"If you need a new glove, you can have mine." Percy offered gently, he'd noticed how she kept looking down at the ripped one. "It might be a bit big on you, but it'll cover your palm at the very least."
"No. I mean thank you, but these are special. Enchanted...I just need to find some thread." Zia replied, forcing herself to lower her hands from her chest. Her fingers still fiddled together- this time lower down by her middle.
"Perhaps some villagers have some to spare." He stepped forwards, his hand at the small of her back guiding her forwards.
"I doubt they'll be very giving." Zia denied, complying with the push to get moving.
"Even so, people tend to leave things behind when they're rushing out and dangers near. Speaking of...We shouldn't let everyone else get so far ahead. Vex'll start bitching."
Zia hummed, knowing full well Percy was right about that. Though if it was meant to draw a laugh out of her...Percy didn't succeed.
Her eyes remained downcast on the ground. She took stock of all the pebbles and the twigs as they trampled over them until she heard startled gasps from the rest of the group.
Her eyes flicked upwards.
She couldn't hold in a gasp of her own.
The shale steps village was in ruins. Burnt to a crisp- laid waste by a dragons flame.
"Oh, no." Vex breathed, as they came upon the smoldering remains of the once bustling fishing village.
"It wiped them out, all of them." Pike murmured completely stunned.
"We don't know that." Zia denied, her tone uneasy in the face of the destruction. "Some could have fled amidst the carnage..."
"No. These people were all buckling down when we were last here." Vex denied, just as Vax took off sprinting. "Brother wait!"
He didn't.
Everyone else trailed behind taking in the destruction around them. They found Vax inside a house at the edge of the main road. The half-elf sat bent forwards on a crate. The roof of the home had collapsed, and dead bodies- a mother and her child laid on the floor.
A weak groan sounded from somewhere in the back of what remained of the house. Zia met Vax's eyes, and then her and Grog were rushing over to a heavy bookcase. Zia and Grog hefted it up, the statuette careful only to use her covered hand, as Vax pulled an injured boy into his lap.
"See? I was right...there's a survivor..." Zia's words were shaky her and Grog let the shelf drop. The boy looked to be in rough shape.
The boy opened his eyes, coughing lightly on the unsettled dust.
He didn't sound good- his breaths were shallow.
"Pike!" Vax called to the gnome. "Get over here!"
"Shit. Shit, fuck right...okay. Okay." Pike hurried over and knelt beside them. Her palm lit with a familiar ethereal yellow glow.
"Please, Everlight, let your power reach him."Pike whispered, but after a moment her healing hand flickered and was barely able to stay lit.
"Pike." Vax begged her. "Please."
Her palm went dark- even as she tried to force more healing magic through.
"sh¡t!" The gnome cursed eyes shutting in regret. She turned her face away in shame. "No. I can't do it. I'm still too weak from before."
Instantly, Zia blamed herself. If Grog hadn't gotten skewered by her crystal then Pike would have been able to save this boy.
They could to little more than watch him die.
Thunder rumbled in the sky.
"We could have stopped this." Vax closed his hand which was now covered in the boys' blood. "Should have."
"It's not like we didn't try..." Zia murmured leaning against what remained of the fireplace. It was hard for her to look at the dead child. Instead she kept her eyes on her hand. Her words hung in the air amidst a heavy silence.
"...maybe we should have tried harder." Zia rubbed at the fabric of her glove with her thumb-arguing against her own statement. Still, she didn't know what they would have done differently. "This dragon's going to turn the whole kingdom to ash."
Zia's tone was resolute.
"Ash, ash...ashes." Scanlan sung softly to himself. "Rise up from the ashes...before more time passes...fight to kill..work up the will..."
Scanlan started plucking at his lute breaking the weighty silence before it could settle again.
"What the hell are you doing, Scanlan?" Vax demanded, glaring at the gnome.
"Thinking of a rhyme for "dead dragon."" The gnome sighed. "'Cause I... I guess we're killing one."
"Didn't we just agree we were running away from that thing?" Percy demanded, his tone clipped.
"Yeah and it wasn't the right choice." Scanlan denied. "Are you going to be able to sleep at night knowing that dragons out there...killing who even knows how many? Look at this. place. Are we really going to just let it happen somewhere else? We're Vox Machina. Vox Machina doesn't run scared. Who's with me?"
"I'm in." Surprisingly, it was Keyleth who spoke up first. "Uh, I mean I'm not gonna lie, I'm terrified out of my mind." She continued. "But I'm in."
"I was against running in the first place." Pike agreed. "I'm in too. Even though we're probably gonna die..."
"We might not. We survived a fight with it once already..." Zia spoke up. "Who's to say we can't manage it again? Maybe...maybe we could even do better."
"I don't like losin'..." Thunder crashed as Grog spoke. " .. but now I'm feelin' things, on the inside. They don't feel right." Grog denied. "So yeah, I'm with ya."
"That was... actually well stated, Grog." Percy noted.
"What was?" The Goliath looked to the former noble in confusion.
"Uh, never mind." Percy decided it wasn't worth reiterating. "Count me in as well."
"You guys... we're doing this."
"You all realize we're going to die a truly horrible death." Vex reminded her arms crossed.
"Perhaps, sister. But we'll die gloriously, and we'll kill a fսcking dragon." Vax eyes were set in determination.
"That's fucking, great, but how are we getting back to the castle? No way that fucking boat is coming back here." Vex rested a hand on her hip. "They'll take one look down here and think we're as dead as these people."
"Guess we better start walking."
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Aaannd that's a wrap for episode 1! Finally! Episode 2 will be out soon! Not sure exactly when but sometime within the next two weeks! (I'm aiming for February 7th.)
Okay? Okay.
Stay tuned! I'll see you then!