No Pain for Fiends

[Gamzee Makara]

It’s been a good while since the two fools’ victory against the woodland spirit.

“Come along. I shan’t wait for you to prance through my realm like hapless ninnies.”

The duo hardly ever actually saw the goddess, practically being led by her by voice. They’d been following the brownie beastie for a while now, enduring innumerable complaints about how pathetically slow they were. Strazio, in his defense, was forced to half drag, half carry an incapacitated dumbass through gnarled bramble and bush. Gamzee giggled. It’s like the very earth itself was tickling his feet and scratching his back, which was all kinds of tranquility.

He missed his motherfucking circles though.

So focused on his burden was he, Strazio just barely avoided the grave, deadly error of stepping on Avana’s fluffy fluff tail.

“What’s the hold up?” The mage asks through an exhausted breath.

“What you seek is nigh. There is a clearing, some forty paces straight ahead,” She gestures with a nod of the head, “His presence is so loud and full of agony. I would make haste, were I you.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Strazio begins. At about this time, Gamzee insists on sitting down for a moment. The Defender of Darkshire could only hope to assume that he was gathering his senses for the ensuing hunt.

“I am afraid I will not be able to witness this hunt. We are on the edge of my territory and,” Avana pauses, taking this moment to spit on the ground in front of her. The expression was far more ritualistic than a simple expression of disgust, “that particular piece of land is tainted.”

Before either of the heroes could respond to this new piece of information, Avana whirls on them, the glow in her eyes halting any incoming questions Strazio might have began to form.

“Do not return to my woods without good cause, one that you would be willing to die for. Adieu, prey.”

And at that, the spirit evaporated into a fine purple-pink mist, dissipating into her wooded world once more.

-----

Peter was scared. He was so very, very tired of being scared, but his body and his mind just would not have any of that ‘bravery’ or ‘courage’ nonsense. He lay in the middle of this clearing, the world around him tinted in hues of swirling darkness. A pitch black, harsh violets, brutish blues, and a few dismal grays. He was trapped in a haze of swirling dark magicks, pinned to the cold forest ground with just enough freedom of movement to curl up and hug his knees to his chest. God, this was pathetic. And he knew that.

But he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t do anything about anything anymore. Through the miasmic prison, the young man could see the silhouette of what he could only assume to be his captor. The ghostly being came out of nowhere, as if he were a shadow. Even with Peter’s senses heightened by his disease, he was none the wiser. Easy prey.

Tears stung at his eyes and threatened to well over. There was nothing left for him, no future, no hope of seeing his mother, no chance at seeing the light of day. At that thought, Peter screamed. He howled, he roared. He cursed being afflicted with this disease, he cursed his captor, he cursed the Omniverse and its sick, twisted God. He swore until he ran out of swears, and then he started over.

But nobody heard him. He was just another muffled scream of anguish in the Pale Moors.