02-23-2016, 03:12 PM
Quote:Pre-Kopaka&Company
Trunks traveled through the duration of the night with the posture of a drunk. He took breaks often—when the aches of his body took too large a toll he'd find a tree to lean against, and catch his breath. Under his coat, he imagined a scenery of beet-colored skin, cracking and peeling with his every movement; eventually, he would have to remove his coat, but not until the notion lost the companionship of ripping off ever layer of skin with it.
The deeper he trekked into the forest, the more he saw oddly shaped constructions—toppled monoliths, fragmented and shattered. They were composed of marble, crafted elegantly with designs. A bronze arm holding a sword jutted from the ground, next to a pile of ruins to the swordsman's east. The swordsman noticed how fresh the earth was around the bicep of the statue; a pile of dirt, matted down to grass-level, encompassed at least twelve times the width of the arm.
He went to approach the ruins, but a sound caught his attention; bushes rattled from behind the buried statue. The swordsman furrowed a brow. He pulled the rifle from over his shoulder and clutched it with both hands as he walked over to where the sound originated. How many bullets remained in his gun was a great question, but one that Trunks had no time to explore.
His eyes widened as he parted the bushes and high-stepped into a clearing. “You again,” he murmured.
The white wolf, from earlier, stared him straight in the face. It jumped back, startled, and pled.
Trunks believed her; her eyes gave her words validity. He apologized back: “It happens.”
The wolf carried on, sharing some of experience and perspective of the entire ordeal—Tuecer's Revitalization Program. She just wanted to help where she could, and survive. Simple enough. Trunks had the same the same goal. He failed to hold the same optimism about the Spirit, but kept those thoughts undisclosed (two things always destroyed alliances: religion and politics, and in a weird way, he felt as if this fell under the latter).
She quickly changed topics, offering Trunks an animal-sized buffet—a mixture of berries and nuts—as a symbol of their partnership.
“Sure,” Trunks replied, smiling; even if his belly hadn't been subtly growling for the past few hours, it would have been rude to decline. He kneeled down in front of the wolf, grabbing a handful of the 'forest mix'.
The disc levitating above the wolf's spine did a spin, and the flame engulfing it flared up. “Oh, and I'm Amaretsu,” she said.
The swordsman chewed his fill, and swallowed. “I'm Trunks.”