Kai POV
I slowly open my eyes to see a clear sky and bright sunshine. I try to move but my body is stiff. After some effort I eventually sit up and look at my surroundings. In front of me is a large pond surrounded by trees that stretch out for miles. Next to the pond is a huge mountain cliff that has to be hundreds of feet tall. I look down and notice half of me is sitting in the water. I start to move my legs but pain comes from my ankle. I scoot myself out of the water and onto the bank. I stretch my leg out in front of me and examine the damage. I rip away the fabric to expose my ankle. My ankle isn't broken, just sprained.
I examine other parts of my body to find any damage. I end up finding that I'm covered in dry mud, there is a deep cut on my arm, and a smaller cut on my face. Great. Add another scar to my face why don't you?
I try to recall what happened and how I ended up here. We were fighting those assassins, then a grenade went off, and Lloyd grabbed me... wait... LLOYD! I look around frantically for the blonde. I then see a head of blonde hair on the banks not too far from me, half of his body in the water like me.
I get up as fast as I can and I limp painfully over to him. When I make it to him I kneel besides him and I shake him to wake him up. When he doesn't respond, I flip him onto his side, careful of his shoulder wound, and I look at the damage. He's in worse shape than me. He is also covered in dry mud, his shoulder wound is covered in dry blood and mud, and he has a lot of dried blood on the side of his head. He must have hit his head. I hope he's okay. He isn't in his draginkin form. I wonder why...
I shake him once more. "Lloyd? Lloyd buddy wake up! Come on, we have to find the others!" He doesn't respond. I check his pulse. Still a heartbeat. I check if he's breathing. He is, but it's slow. I need to get him medical attention immediately. I stand up again and I limp/drag him further onto the bank. I then see that he has a gash above the knee on his right leg. I look at him for a bit, not knowing what to do, then I look at the sky.
"You can tell what time it is by the position of the sun, the color of the sky, and the atmosphere." Katie's voice rings out in my head. Okay, so last time it was almost evening, the sky was yellowish, it was cooler, and a storm was coming in. I look at the sky for any of these characteristics. The sky is blue, and the sun is off to the side. It feels humid and are no storm clouds in sight. It's morning. We must have slept through the storm. That must be one of the reasons why we're covered in dried mud.
I look at my unconscious friend. I could try to carry him, but my ankle... I get up and walk into the forest. I find a sturdy stick and I take it back onto the bank. I snap it in half and I put them to the side. I take my ninja hood and I rip it into strips. I take the sticks again and I make a makeshift splint for my ankle. I then get up and limp over to Lloyd. I decide to get to his wounds later and I walk over to the lake and clean my wounds. I take the rest of my hood and I wrap it around my arm to stop it from getting infected. I decide the cut on my face will be fine and I make my way over to Lloyd.
I rip off the fabric around his leg wound and I look at the damage. The cut is really deep. I drag him to the edge of the bank and I clean his wound. I rip off part of my sleeve and I wrap it around his leg. I move to clean his shoulder. I take off his shirt to clean his wound but I stop to find myself blushing. I've seen all the guys with their shirts off many times, so why do I get flustered around him?!? It makes no sense! I mean, I like girls, I always have! But his abs... I almost slap myself. Wtf Kai?!?! The guy is practically dying, clean his wounds already!
I clean his shoulder but I wouldn't have enough cloth to wrap it up. I guess he'll just have to manage. I then move to his head and I clean away the blood to find a nasty bruise in place of it. Seeing it sets me off so I check his pulse again. Still alive. I finish cleaning him and while I have his shirt off I try to clean the mud off of him. After I've finished with that I look at the sky again. The sun is almost in the center of the sky. It's almost noon. I return his shirt onto his body and I look around, unsure of what to do next. I try waking him up again.
"Lloyd. Wake up. We have to go." I say to him. Nothing. I nearly give up when I see movement coming from the blonde. He grunts in his sleep and shifts a little. "Lloyd?"
He slowly opens his eyes only to shut them and squint from the sun in his eyes. I redirect the position of my head to block the sunlight from his gaze. He reopens them and stares at me. "Kai?" He asks weakly. I nod. "Yeah, it's me. You feeling okay?" I look at his eyes and see he's having trouble focusing his eyes on me. He tries to sit up but he fails and lands back on the ground.
"Woah, hey take it easy there greenie." I tell him. He groans. "That made me dizzy..." he tells me as he slings his arm over his forehead, only to wince in pain from the bruise. I grab his hand and move it away from his face. "No, no don't touch it." I say gently. Geez he's messed up. "Do you remember what happened?" I ask him.
He spaces out. I'm about to ask again but he interrupts me. "I... can't remember. What did happen?" He asks me.
"We were fighting the assassins, and an explosion went off. We were caught in the middle of it and I'm guessing that's how we ended up here. Do you recognize this place?"
He looks around. "There are so many places that look like this..." he says tiredly.
"Hey, Lloyd don't fall asleep." I tell him. "You need to stay awake. Can you stay awake for me?"
His eyes remain closed. "Sure hothead. I'll stay awake."
"You need to open your eyes." I tell him.
"I'll try..." he responds tiredly. Geez, how hard did he hit his head?
"Hey, you!" I hear someone yell. I look to see two people with weapons calling to us. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" He's speaking Dark Islander.
"I... uh..." is all I say. I can't understand a word he's saying. He starts speed walking towards me and I put my hands out in front of me to stop him. "Wait! Hold on!" I tell him. He stops walking. "I don't know if you can understand me, but he needs help!" I say gesturing to Lloyd, who is struggling to stay awake. He looks at me confused and he says something to his friend. "Did you get any of that?" His partner shakes her head.
"He... doesn't speak Dark Islander." Lloyd calls out tiredly. The two strangers look at him. "He's..." he trails off.
"What?" I ask him.
"What?" He repeats.
"What were you going to say?" I ask.
"I wasn't saying anything." He says.
"Um, yes you were...?" Then I realize. Oh no, he has a concussion.
He starts to fall asleep but I shake him continuously. "No Lloyd! Stay awake! Come on!" I grab a handful of water from the pond and flick it at his face. He flinches himself awake. The strangers look at each other and start to talk to one another.
"We should help them." The girl inquires. "Are you crazy? We don't even know these people, and the red one doesn't even speak our language. That has bad news written all over it." The guy remarks.
"Oh come on, look at him!" The girl says pointing to Lloyd. "He needs help." She pleads. The boy looks at the two and back to the girl. "Fine..." he gives in. "But remember, this was your idea." The two strangers walk over to them and the girl lays a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"We're going to help you." She says as the boy picks Lloyd up bridal style. I reach out for him, not knowing what they're doing but the girl looks me in the eyes. She has yellow eyes and tan skin. She has long, silky black hair that reaches past her elbows. "Don't worry. We're here to help." She places her hand on my shoulder and quickly squeezes a part of my neck, which is slightly painful, and it suddenly causes me to black out.
~~~time skip~~~
I slowly wake up to find myself staring at the ground while being carried over the shoulder of someone. After my vision clears up I look around and see that the person carrying me is the girl from before. She's walking up a small mountain. She realizes I'm awake and she turns her head to me.
"Morning sleepy head!" She says something cheerfully. "Sleep well?"
"What the-" I say as I look around more. Damn, she is way stronger than she looks.
"He can't understand you, remember?" I look over my shoulder to see the guy from before still carrying Lloyd. The girl places me down on my feet and I try to gain my balance. "I know you can't understand me, but I just wanted to say sorry for knocking you out back there. The journey would have been painful for you to walk through on that ankle." She makes gestures with her hands to try and help me understand her better. But even with that help, I can only slightly understand her. I rub my neck in the place she grabbed me and she laughs nervously while she shrugs.
It's then when I realize it's no longer noon. The sun is lower in the sky than before, close to sunset, and we're in a completely different place than before. We are on a small mountain that is clear of most trees and the jungle is thick and luscious at the foot of it. Further up the mountain sits a village that looks very different from Lloyd's. This village is more open with way less trees, but the houses have the same ancient look to them. Did she seriously carry me for hours and up a mountain?! She might be stronger than Cole... The girl slings my arm around her neck and she drags me towards the village. As we walk through the village through, I notice not one person is around. Odd, why is no one around?
We finally come upon one house that has a large red cross on it. This must be a hospital. A young man, probably a little older than me, and an older man step out from the house and see us. They must be doctors. They rush over to us. "Willow, Chase, who are they? What happened to them?" The older one says something. It sounded like he was saying names. He looks at the two and then to me and Lloyd, concerned.
"We don't know. We found them like this." The boy says. "This one can't even speak Dark Islander." He says gesturing to me with his head.
"Will you help them?" The girl says to the doctors.
After a moment, the younger one says. "Of course we will. Bring them inside." The younger doctor leads us inside and Lloyd is taken to a separate room. I'm brought into another room with the younger doctor. "Okay, what's wrong with him?" He says to the girl.
"I don't know. But it's not like we can ask him, he can't understand us." She looks me over. "But, you can tell his ankle is injured, so is his arm, and he has a cut right here." She points to my face. I'm guessing she's looking at my injuries. He nods and moves to remove the makeshift bandage around my arm. He looks at it and moves over to a table, picks something up, moves back over to me to show me a needle and thread. Oh great, it needs stitches. I sigh and nod, indicating that I understand. He cleans the wound and puts disinfect on it, which causes it to burn a lot. I wince and he notices. He grabs some kind of stick and points to it, then to his mouth, then to me. He wants me to put it in my mouth? I put it in anyway and he gets to work on my wound. I bite hard on the stick in pain. Now I see why he gave it to me.
He finishes the stitches and then cleans the cut on my cheek, putting a bandage on it afterwards. He then removes my makeshift splint and looks at my sprained ankle. He grabs an ice pack and places it on. He grabs my hand and places it on the ice. I hold it there. He checks me for any other problems but finds nothing. He says something to the girl and leaves the room. She smiles at me. After a while of waiting, she then points to herself and says a single word. "Willow."
I look at her. "Willow?" I ask her. She nods. I then point to myself. "Kai."
"Kai..." she repeats. We sit in silence for a little when she pulls out a piece of paper and puts it in front of me. She draws a few lines that cross each other and then she puts an O in one of the squares she made. She wants to play tic-tac-toe? She hands me the pencil and I take it, drawing and X in another square. I'm so bored, I might as well. We end up playing many different games on the paper. They were pretty fun. Despite us not understanding each other, we had fun and we laughed. Eventually, after an hour or two, the young doctor comes back and says something to Willow. The doctor puts a splint on my ankle and Willow slings my arm around her neck again. They're taking me somewhere.
They lead me into another room with two beds in it. One bed is empty and untouched, but in the other I see the head of blonde hair, Lloyd. He's still awake and sitting up. "Lloyd!" He turns to me and he lights up. "Hey! Are you okay?"
"Am I okay? Are you okay? You scared me there." He doesn't have a shirt on, his shoulder is bandaged along with his head and leg. He has ice in his hand that he's holding up to his bruise. "I'm fine, sorry to worry you." he replies. "I just have a concussion. I must have hit my head during the fall." I limp over to him and sit on the bed.
"Yeah, you were falling in and out of consciousness. Do you remember what happened?" He nods.
"I can't remember everything, it's still a bit fuzzy, but when that explosion went off we were knocked backwards and off of the cliff. You were unconscious so you don't remember, but we were falling and I couldn't fly, because of my wing, so when we hit the water I eventually fell unconscious as well. I'm guessing I hit my head on impact because, ow." He says gesturing to his bandage. I laugh. "What happened after you woke up? I can't remember anything after the explosion. Chase said you patched me up and made sure I was okay, so thank you for that."
His heterocromia eyes look into mine and I blush slightly. "Wait, who's Chase?" I ask him.
"He's the guy who found us and took us here. He and his friend Willow. We owe them our lives." He tells me. I nod.
"Yeah, who knows where we'd be if they hadn't found us when they had." I agree. And right on que, the older doctor walks into the room.
Lloyd POV
The doctor walks into the room and walks up to us. "Well," he starts. "I don't really know where to start with you two." Kai looks at me in confusion. "I'll tell you what he says later." I say to him. He nods.
"Chase and Willow found you two next to the lake on the boarder of our territory." He says to us. "You were in bad condition. I guess I'll start with, who are you? And where did you come from?"
"I'm Lloyd. And this is my friend, Kai. I'm from a small village near the southeastern coast and he's not from around here." I say gesturing to Kai. The doctor nods.
"Well, I'm Doctor Aaron. The other doctor you saw is my former apprentice, Doctor James. You are currently in the mountain village, Everglade. How did you get in the state you were?"
"We were fighting an enemy, and there was an explosion. We were blown off a cliff and into the lake you found us in. I can't remember anything after that."
He adjusts the glasses in his face. "Well Lloyd, I'm glad say that you and your friend are well enough to be back on your feet in a few days. But you need to stay away from all roughhousing and anything extreme due to your concussion. Kai must be very careful with his ankle to reduce swelling. You both should keep water away from your stitches and you shouldn't move your shoulder as much to keep from messing with them. The wounds will leave scars but that cut on Kai's forehead will not. Are there any questions?"
"With all do respect, we don't have a few days. We need to get back to our friends right away." I inform him. "Thank you, so much. If it weren't for you and your partner we would be in quite a different state right now. But we cannot stay, we have a very important job to fulfill." I say as I start to get up. But Doctor Aaron stops me.
"No no! Please stay in bed you are in no condition to we waltzing about. Please, at least stay the night, it's already sunset." He pleads. I sigh and sit back down. To be honest, just doing that made me dizzy. He's right, I'm in no condition to be traveling, but we have to get back. Who knows what the others are thinking? And Katelyn...
"Okay, we'll stay the night. But we must get back first thing tomorrow." Doctor Aaron has a look of unsureness on his face but he nods. "You both can sleep here tonight." He says. "Or, at least Kai can. You're not sleeping tonight due to your concussion. If you need anything, James and I will be in the other room."
"Okay, thank you Doctor Aaron." He nods and exits the room. "Soooo...?" Kai asks me. I spend the next few minutes filling him in on everything.
"Lloyd, I don't think it's a good idea." He says to me.
"What isn't a good idea?" I ask him.
"Us leaving tomorrow. I can see it in your eyes you are in no position to travel and you know it. Just trying to stand up makes you dizzy."
"I'll be fine Kai." I reassure him. He shakes his head.
"We're not leaving until you can move around without getting dizzy. Plus, I'm guessing they won't let you sleep tonight, you'll be exhausted tomorrow."
I scoff. "Kai, we can't stay here. Think about the team, think about your sister! They're probably worried sick! Plus, we have an enemy to destroy. That's already been pushed back enough with you guys training us. We have to get back."
He places a hand on my shoulder. "Well, we can't defeat the Overlord with one of our main assets falling in and out of consciousness. Ignoring your health won't help anything, it will only make things worse. The last thing we need is for you to not be able to fight because of your head injury. You'll only get in the way. Besides, the doctor said we can get moving in a few days, and a few days of rest won't kill you."
I sigh, knowing that he is right. He sees the defeat in my eyes and goes to comfort me. "Hey, they'll find us. From what I know about my team and yours, they're pretty stubborn and smart. Add two stubborn and smart teams together, and you have an unstoppable force. They'll be fine in the few days we're gone." I sigh and nod.
"Okay, I'm gonna hit the hay. I've been waiting in that room for hours. And I'm beat. Goodnight!" He says to me.
"Goodnight..." I say back to him. He moves over to the second bed and he climbs into it. I stay sitting up. He looks over to me. "Are you going to be okay?" He asks with concern.
"Yeah," I say back to him. "I'll be just fine."