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Detraeus stilled as Araceli tensed, and frowned as he watched her panic, fear tensing up the whole of her body. While he didn’t understand this fear specifically, he understood what it meant to be crippled by a thought — irrational or not — and grimaced, stooping to draw a small string from one of his waist pouches and attach a nearby pebble to its end. Like a weighted spike-ball on a chain, he swung the pebble and string in a quick circle formation and stepped forward, clipping back the webbing like nothing in its wake. Thankfully, all the critters were tiny — little beasts, not even enough to fill the end of his thumb, and the sticky white strings came down with barely a whisper.

He cut a full path through the darkness and over the puddles, easily wide enough for both he and Araceli to cross before he made his way back to her. “Come,” he murmured, cutting his thread with a knife and tossing the spider and web-heavy string and ball out into the murk. “Follow. The path’s clear.”

Detraeus tensed, body going rigid the instant Ara’s weight tumbled up against him, but she was gone again just as quickly, and by the time he whipped around to see what the source of her sudden imbalance was, the tunnel behind them was already nothing but rubble and dust. He grimaced. So much for going back now. When he turned back, rolling his shoulders to pull his cloak tighter about himself, he froze mid-motion, and felt his heart thud against his rib cage.

The dark, luminescent eyes of a full grown diabi stared back at him, and for an instant, he forgot how to breathe. He had only once ever encountered a diabi, and had been under the sway of hallucinogens at the time. Martrae’a, not he, had defeated the beast and now, in this moment, he hadn’t the faintest idea how best to battle the creature. When it stretched upwards, though, fanning its wings out large enough to fill half the cavern and opening its maw to expose wet, glistening rows of teeth and a growing circle of dark magic, Detraeus swept to the side, running along the edge of the cavern wall and firing an arrow at the beast’s side to draw its attention.

The arrowhead clinked against the dragon’s near perfect armor, useless, and snapped the next instant under the diabi’s claws as it snorted. Ice cracked under Detraeus’ boots with each downward stamp: thin enough, thankfully, that he didn’t slip, though the rock spires jutting out of the floor made navigation more difficult. Not to mention, with the diabi in the room, it seemed that even the shadows moved against him.

Usually, no darkness stopped him, but the creeping, swirling black smog of the diabi’s magic moved like ink through the air and across the floor. When Detraeus knelt, rooting himself and poising for another, more carefully aimed shot, the diabi spat, lodging a great ball of stinging, coiling, burning, frigid magic at him, and though Detraeus darted behind a rock spire, it curled around it and him, encompassing him in utter blackness.

His skin crawled. His breath going cold and then hot on his tongue and down his throat, into his lungs. Pain came in pinpricks over his skin, and then like knives, cutting from the inside out. As though the magic were freezing and then boiling and setting his blood to burn inside his skin. His muscles bunched, turning stiff as iron inside his veins and he cried out, scrambling to move back, but only falling over like a helpless insect onto his back, limbs imobile. A scream wrenched its way from his lips like retching up hot acid as the magic sank in, and he felt his body begin to twitch and spasm beyond his control.

Pathetic.

‘Is this how you’re going to die? Helpless, and crying because of a single, measly dragon?’

Detraeus groaned, and then wailed, dark magic driving into him like needles in every pore, and his back arched, tendons stringing tight to their limits. “No…” was a choked whisper. “Mother, help…please…”

As soon as the diabi’s magic pulled away from him, Detraeus’ body fell limp, quivering like a rag doll stirred only by a winter wind, and his focus moved entirely to his breath. In. Out. In. The pain was gone. Breathe again. His pulse still beat like a small, frightened bird, darting about between his rib cage and his throat, but he narrowed his attention down, focusing on his lungs. Then his fingers. One digit at a time. Then his eyes.

There was still a dragon out there to slay; he knew it. But he couldn’t convince his body to move because every time he tried another ripple of pain surged through him like an aftershock. So he refocused on breathing, listening to the sounds of the battle going on around him and hating the feeling of being a sentient rock. Immobile. Thinking, but useless.

When the dragon died, roaring in pain and then shattering to dust in a familiar rain of sound, Detraeus drew a shuddered breath and shut his eyes. Araceli. Again. The stamp of her scrambling footsteps approached him and he struggled to lift himself without success. When he heard his name, however, his eyes snapped open, pinpricked and blurry vision focusing on her face. Was she…crying? He watched the beads of wetness slip down her cheeks with blank, open confusion.

She’d defeated the dragon. Why—?

He winced, fighting the pained pinch and lurch of his muscles as he worked to shove himself upright again. ‘Why…?’ As soon as he made it upright — ignoring the pulses of pain that rippled down his spine and, seemingly, through every nameable nerve ending in his entire body — he frowned at her, studying her distressed posture through with an uncomprehending stare.

‘You won,’ his mind insisted to her, over and over, though the words never left his lips.

You won.

‘You won.’

Why tears?

He opened his mouth several times, debating each time and then shutting it again before pushing to a shaky crouch, and then stand, wincing and gritting his teeth as he did. Eventually, “Don’t cry…” was all that left his lips. And it came out hoarse and fractured besides, paired with the mentality he taught himself before he ever made it to a world outside of Seren’s hell. ‘Do not waste your sorrow on those which will never understand your pain. Blood is more powerful than tears. Spend your energy on actions that will make a difference.’

Rolling because I forgot.

She glowed as they took at the diabi much easier than the first. It seemed as if their teamwork always made them stronger. Her wind complemented his arrows and though they were essentially only acquaintances it was as if they had been working together for much longer than just few dragon battles. Her eyes moved to the glittering dragon orbs, widening when she saw that four of them had dropped instead of the normal two.

Ara moved in close, watching as he lifted two of them up. She tilted her head when her name was spoken. “Hmm? What is it Detra?”

The ground shook beneath Ara as she moved towards the fallen orbs. As she tried to catch her balance. The after effects of the diabi's dark magic, however, had still not left her legs. As she stumbled forward, not quite falling, the muscles in her legs pinched, a pain shooting up from her feet and into the rest of her body. She gasped as a pained sound escaped her lips and fell.

Detraeus blinked, attention flitting towards Araceli when she stumbled, and then brow pinching when she didn’t immediately catch her balance. On instinct, he stepped closer, uncertain, and then darted in when she cried out, just barely making it close enough to slow her fall when she crumpled, his arms hammocking her back like a net. Immediately after, completely unused to the weight of a body in his grip, he tensed, cheeks burning and throat clenching up.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came to his tongue and so he frowned, crouching uncertainly and laying her to the earth. “Araceli…?” Thinking on how much she’d helped him in the recent caverns — her own, personal reasoning aside — he winced, and hesitated, wondering if he’d need to give medical attention to her legs, which seemed to be the source of her pain. “C’mon, sky princess,” he muttered beneath his breath, “…you made it this far…”