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Blood.
It was all Vyncent could see for miles.
His senses were overwhelmed with corroded corpses of the people he knew.
The people he loved.
“Oh… my God…” William breathed shakily.
“Perhaps I should have given a warning before we came across this.” Minerva murmured, clasping her hands together.
Vyncent felt as though his head was plunged into a bucket of ice water. He swallowed thickly.
“I know it’s a sight.”
William looked as sick as Vyncent felt and Dakota seemed to be in a state of silent shock.
“This… is your home?” The redhead spoke softly, like if he were any louder something would shatter.
The tone of his voice made Vyncent want to be sick. That tone of soft pity, surprise, and disgust. Never would that tone have been used years ago.
When the town was full of nothing but life.
Vyncent slipped his shoes off and moved forward a bit with heavy steps. Minerva did the same, a solemn look on her face. Will looked confused but quickly scrambled to remove his as well.
Minerva, through her sorrow, looked mildly amused. “It’s disrespectful to walk over someone’s final resting place with shoes. At least, for the Elvish anyways.”
“Oh, yes, okay, sorry.”
“I didn’t have shoes to begin with!”
Soft buzzing filled Vyncent’s ears as he trekked farther into the open village.
He hadn’t had time to fully process it since he got to Prime, but the events of this festival constantly haunted the edges of his mind.
“I’d like to grab something from my home if that’s alright.” Minerva said, brushing dirt off her blouse.
Vyncent couldn’t bring himself to speak so he nodded faintly.
“Accompany me, William? I may need some magical assistance.”
“Oh, uhh… sure, I guess.”
If Vyncent concentrated, he could almost find traces of apprehension in Will’s voice.
“Will you two be okay here?” He asked, making a strange expression at Dakota.
“Yeah, we’ll be all good, no worries!” Dakota said back, flashing a small thumbs up. He intertwined his pinky with Vyncent’s and glanced over, looking a bit expectant.
Minerva motioned William off, and they were gone without another word.
Vyncent blinked slowly, trying to force himself to process the image before him.
He lumbered forward, gently tugging on Dakota’s hand as he pressed forward. The ground was sandy and dead beneath his feet. As if the magic and livelihood had been sucked from the veins of the island, every plant and animal was horribly silent.
“Vyn?” Dakota pressed softly.
“Hm.”
“Are you sure you wanna do… this? We can always wait outside the entrance.”
Vyncent felt sick. But what choice did he have?
He tried to push out a simple no, but his voice eluded him.
Was it getting darker?
His vision began to fuzz.
After a few seconds of silence, Dakota stepped in front of him, waving his hand.
He released a shuddery breath, head beginning to spin.
For a flash, Dakota’s face looked viscerally burnt as chunks of flesh dripped from his bones.
Vyncent could feel his breath quicken as his heart tried to burst from his chest. His head spun as his stomach lurched violently, threatening to spill its contents from a few hours before.
“Vyn?”
He wrapped his hands around his torso, attempting to pull himself from his haunting memories. He tried to speak, to make the pain stop, but all he could do was mumble.
He stepped backward and his left knee nearly gave out after stepping on an old bone which gave a sickening, resounding crack.
Whose was that?
Vyncent lurched forward as a bolt of pain ripped through his skull as if he’d been struck. Ice swirled up his spine.
“Vynce. Vynce. You’re hurting yourself, dude, breathe. ”
Dakota was going to be nothing but mush and bones at this point.
His heart was going to explode.
Their souls were everywhere.
He could do nothing but watch as they burnt and writhed and shrieked and cried.
Vyncent could feel them tugging on his conscience and imprinting their memories into his brain. They were angry and screaming and scared and hurt and in pain and gods, they were everywhere-
Uzayc, who would always invite him out to paint, was draped over a broken food stand with his intestines splayed on the ground and decaying.
Ontari, who brought him potions when he got sick from food poisoning, was scorched from the chest up.
Hyida, whose bright brown eyes shone when the sun hit them just right, had her skull grotesquely split open.
Kizan, who made him a flower crown once during The Festival of Utopia, had a rotting gash directly through his stomach.
Iza and her older brother Sorazan, who never stopped fighting, died in each other's arms.
And Virion watched.
Virion stood still and watched as they had their lives taken from them.
Virion was a coward.
And they all knew it.
A girl who he-- somehow --recognized to be T’naya lifted her head from the ashes. reached up from the flaming hellscape. If he tried hard enough, he could picture the constellation of freckles that dotted her face and her gap-toothed smile through the flames. Now, though, all Virion could see were maggots worming her eyes and bits of her muscle slipping from her skeleton.
She grabbed both of his hands and tilted her head upward even further. Her grip was as strong as iron and as hot as coals. Her touch felt as though it sent flames under his skin, painfully flaring where she touched.
It burned.
The eyes of a thousand flicked to stare him down.
A thousand more mouths opened to utter a single word.
“Coward.”
“Vyn?”
Dakota stared in horror as Vyncent dug his nails into his skin and blood began to drip down his arms. He whined sharply.
“Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Vyn, man, you’re fine.” He stressed, wondering if he should run to go grab William or stay and try to calm Vyncent himself.
He stumbled back but flinched forward when he stepped on a stray bone and snapped it in half. He gasped and shuddered.
William would know what to do.
But Vynce would tear himself apart by the time he got back at this rate.
Panic began to flood Dakota’s own mind. “Vynce. Vynce. You’re hurting yourself, dude, breathe.”
What could he do to help? Vyncent normally didn’t care for touch, so maybe that wouldn’t be the right approach. Or was it the opposite now? He was sensitive to sound, would not talking help? How was Dakota supposed to get him to stop hurting himself if he couldn’t speak to or touch him?
William would know what to do.
Vyncent ripped down his arms, creating long, brutal bleeding scratches across his biceps. In a panic, he quickly lunged forward to grab Vyncent’s hands to stop him from harming himself any further.
He finally-- finally --looked up at him, eyes blown wide and dazed with a wild terror. He froze, tears welling.
Dakota tried not to hold his wrist too tight in fear of breaking it.
“You’re okay, you’re okay.”
His words did nothing to calm the other. Vyncent sobbed harshly and slowly sank to his knees. Another soft whine escaped his lips.
Dakota loosened his hold.
William would know what to do.
He glanced around, biting his lip.
Vyncent curled in on himself, rocking back and forth.
“Vynce, I…” He trailed off, afraid of making things worse than he already had.
William.
The expression on Vyn’s face made his stomach hurt.
Go get William.
“...Hang in there, Vyn. I’ll be back, I promise. ”
William heard Minerva sigh heavily from a room in the back.
Half of her house was gone and the other half was entirely ransacked and trashed. Bloodstains covered a few of the large doorways and overgrowth split a few of the floorboards in half.
He couldn’t even remotely imagine going back to his home and seeing it covered in vines, blood, and filth. All the people in Deadwood massacred like this. His heart stuttered as he envisioned all the people--the innocent people--that had to have died to create this much gore.
For a moment he almost envied Vyncent and Minerva for even being able to take a step into this ghost town.
He wondered faintly where Vyncent’s old home was.
William had a slight idea of what happened here from the Elf’s vague, offhand comments.
Never could he have thought it was this horrible.
William could feel broken wood boards creaking beneath his feet as he stepped forward.
Minerva huffed once more and stepped out of the backroom, eyes slightly tinted red. She swept her violet hair behind her shoulder and clasped her hands in front of her. “I… couldn’t find what I was looking for. My apologies for the wasted time.”
“Umm… wh-what are you looking for? I-I… I might be able to help in some way.” Will stuttered, tracing the ground with his eyes. If he could help in some way, he would do it.
“A book. Thick, magical. You’ve got a hand in sorcery, so you may feel it before you see it.”
“Right, okay, yeah.”
William assumed that was permission to look through her house.
He glanced around, feeling uneasy. He moved over to a half-broken bookshelf and began sifting through its contents. The books ranged from history to fables, but he couldn’t find a single spellbook.
Feel it before you see it.
He wondered if he could expand his magic field and sense the book somehow. How could he even go about that?
William closed his eyes and felt focused, grasping for anything magical in the area.
Softly, faintly, he could hear his name being called.
William…
William.
“William!”
He jolted at the sound of his voice being called in the very real world.
William quickly ran to what was left of the doorframe to see a mess of red, gold, and brown bolting from door to door. He caught sight of the ravenette and– somehow –picked up speed, just barely stopping himself before they both ended up on the ground.
William was inclined to make a joke, but the frantic look reflected in Dakota’s eyes made him pause.
“What? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“It’s Vynce..!” He gasped, wrapping his hands around Will’s wrists, “I-... he’s having some sort of panic attack and I didn’t know what to do so… I thought I’d come get you..!”
“ Wha-! And you thought I’d know what to do?”
“You two spent almost a year alone together! Why wouldn’t you know what to do?”
“Because I was never the one doing the comforting!”
“Just-!” Dakota threw his arms up in the air and then thrust them down, reddening with frustration. “William, please! We could not have less time for this! Come on!”
The redhead grabbed his hand tight and pulled him forward, nearly yanking him across the dirt pathways. “K-Kota!”
The two made it back around the entrance of the village, and William’s heart wrenched seeing the sight before him.
Vyncent looked terrified, face flushed and smeared with tears. His fingernails were caked with crimson and raw scratches slit his arms.
William gnawed on his lip, trying to calm himself before he moved onto Vyncent. “Hey, hey, hey,” He stressed.
Blood dripped from under Vyncent’s nails. He wheezed and shuddered, muttering things in a language William couldn’t understand.
“Vyncent, you’re having a panic attack, alright? You’re uhh… you’re gonna be okay. I’m not gonna leave you. I won’t go anywhere.” He knelt down.
He could see self-reproach on Dakota’s face out of the corner of his eye.
One issue at a time.
William placed a hand on Vyncent’s and his eyes flicked upwards, filled with pure panic.
“ Vyncent. Can you hear my voice right now?”
“Please no more, please.”
“We’re gonna be alright, you're gonna be alright.”
William pressed his hands against Vyncent’s face, thumbing away tears. A gentle flash of recognition shown in his eyes. He sobbed and leaned into the other’s touch.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Vynce, really.”
Vyncent buried his face in William’s neck, shivering.
“ I want my home back. I want my people, I want my Momma. ”
William felt his heart shatter. “ ... I’m sorry. ”
“I betrayed them all. I left everyone to die. I didn’t mean to, I swear, I swear. ”
“You didn’t, Vynce, you survived. They wouldn’t be angry at you for living. They shouldn’t be anyways, I dunno. My point is,” William gently rubbed his back, going silent for a second. “You’re okay Vyn. You’re gonna be okay.”
Vyncent shook with a tragic intensity, his tail wrapping around the shorter’s torso and squeezing tightly.
“It’s gonna be okay.”
They sat in each other’s arms for a while, and Dakota sidled up next to them after a bit as well. William listened silently to Vyncent’s uneven breathing, mulling over the events of the past few minutes.
“I bet your home was pretty.” Dakota offered quietly, smoothing his thumbs over his knuckles.
“...It was,” Vyncent whispered, “Really pretty. Wish you coulda seen it all lit up.”
William nodded, recalling all the unspecific descriptions he was given through a voice filled with thinly-veiled emotions.
“I wish too.” He replied softly, nuzzling in closer.
They sat in each other’s embrace for a while, wallowing in sorrow.
They had missions to complete, monsters to kill, people to save,
For now, though, those things could wait just a bit longer.
For now, they were the much more pressing matter to each other.