Larky was still in the hospital bed, dipping in and out of sleep. Battle had always exhausted her. The harsh cold of El Nath slowly worked into her body, and if not her her fire/poison friend next to her and her blanket, she would surely be dead.

Wait… Aster…

The next time she awoke, Aster’s body was gone, the spot he was in frozen through. The makeshift tent was no longer protecting them, and a blizzard was coming soon.

“Excuse me, uhm… Larky, is it?” came a soft voice. Female. God help Larky if it wasn’t a cleric.

The exhausted ice/lightning looked up, staring daggers at the girl for interrupting her thoughts. She had black hair, only a bit shorter than her own. Red streaked through the hair in random intervals as highlights. Her left eye showed, black as night, while her hair covered the right. Maybe her eye was injured in the war?

The female flicked her head so to move her hair from her face. No. It was just red. Nothing was even considered unusual anymore, since this war had been raging for so long, so Larky thought nothing of it. By her clothing, she was a mage. A raven fluttered in from the opening of the tent and perched on her shoulder, squawking. Clyde’s ears perked at the sight of the bird.

“…are you… a cleric?” croaked Larky, finding her voice.

“Yes. I’m the one who you called to save your wolf during battle. I’m the new recruit cleric, Ava. Lovely to meet you,” said the girl, extending a hand. She withdrew it after a moment, rebuking the action. She had forgotten Larky couldn’t move.

Larky attempted a smile. Her face was still numb. It looked like a scowl. “I suppose that’s three times I owe you my life… once for Clyde, twice for me.”

“Twice?”

“You are here to heal me, aren’t you?”

“Oh… well… really..”

Larky swallowed, breaking into a cold sweat.

“Is there something wrong with me?”

“Well, you’ve already been healed, for the most part. But you have a scar on your cheek that will never heal completely, and we wanted to check you for disease, as you were next to a corpse for over a day…”

“What!? A corpse?” Anger fueled Larky’s limbs to lift her torso. She felt whatever bandages had been on her body fall onto her lap. She feverently glanced around, scanning for Aster.

“Yes, that red headed boy next to you died in the night. His wounds were so serious the he bled to death before we could heal him completely.”

Her anger was gone. She fell with a dull ‘thump’ to the bed, staring blankly forward.

Aster… was dead.

As much as she hated it, the sting came to her eyes. She blinked repeatedly to fight them, but they came, stronger in numbers than the archers that caused her friends death. The burning hot tears, seething warmth and life into her face.

Was that the work of Aster? His final warmth before he left her for good?

“You should be happy, though. He was a fire mage. He kept you alive with whatever warmth his magic had left,” said Ava, trying her best to make Larky feel better.

Larky was silent. She was sick to her stomach again. Clyde sensed her pain and padded softly to her, hopping onto the frozen bed. He lay down next to Larky, whimpering for her, laying his head on her stomach.

“Larky, if you…,” began Ava, taking a step towards the mourning soldier.

“Get away from me. Go heal others,” she said, turning her head to look at Aster’s newly occupated spot.

Ava gritted her teeth. “I…”

“I said get away. Obey the orders of a higher ranking soldier, Ava.”

The cleric narrowed her eyes at the injured ice/lightning. “You don’t have to be an idiot just because I was trying to help! Death happens, we’re in a war, stupid! You’ve killed, you’ve seen those killed, and what’s just another death? God! I just can’t believe some people!” she hissed, turning on her heel and crunching through the icy snow that was the floor of the tent. The vibrations of her stomping made the raven waver in it’s spot, fluttering so as to not fall off.

Larky didn’t even attempt a reply. Just this morning… yesterday? three days ago? who even knew anymore?… Aster was whispering to her and laughing… and now, now he was gone. Buried under the snow with the thousands of other bodies. Thrown in like the rest of them, as if he meant nothing to anyone, just another soldier, another cog in the machine…

“NO!!!” Larky shouted, her heart breaking at the thought. “Aster was more than that! More than just another soldier! He was my friend, damnit, my friend!”

Patrons of the hospital who could stared at her for her outburst. The culprit of the shout stood shakily, hastily marching from the hospital tent, the last of her bandages falling away as she walked. Clyde followed her faithfully, snarling at a final onlooker as they left.

She felt so sick to her stomach, that when she left, she actually hurled. Blood was in it, the green and red discoloring the water crystals she stood on. She stood slowly, kicking some snow over the vomit, and tried her hardest to drag herself to the mess hall (or the tent serving as it, anyway). She took the meager food she could, wolfing it down ravenously, and when she finished, ambled to the Commander’s tent.

The Commander was a hard bodied man, extremely muscular. He stood at about five an a half feet, with a face disfigured in a countless amount of scars. He wore an eyepatch and was missing two of the fingers on his left hand. When Larky entered his tent, he was slamming his three fingered hand onto a map.

“Damnit! I don’t know how they found our camp… we were hidden behind a plethora of trees! It must be crows… flying in from that damned Jipang to eat all of the dead and the trash. Filthy creatures,” he mumbled to himself, turning. He was taken aback at the sight of one of his best soldiers standing in front of him.

“Larky, your face…” he said, reaching towards her. She slapped his hand down.

“I know. What happened to the archers?”

“After you pulled the arrow bomb out of…” he stopped, face falling into a frown. “..out of… Aster… it exploded next to a lone standing tree. It killed many of the archers and threw back our men, but it did end this battle. You saved us, do you know that?”

Larky didn’t care. “Commander, Aster is dead because of me. If I had used lighning just a bit sooner…”

“…then the arrow would have fired into the air instead of into Aster, the archer being on the ground, and it would have had no effect when it exploded. You did the right thing, soldier,” the Commander said, placing a hand on Larky’s shoulder.

She couldn’t even look him in the eye. “Is that all we are to you, Sir? Bodies to be used as vessels for arrow bombs and fighting? Are we as dispensable to you, Sir, as teh trash the crows eat?”

“Larky… I…”

“Sorry I’m late, sir!” said a familiar female voice. Larky slumped her shoulders in that ‘oh, god…’ kind of way, then turned her head at the sound of flapping wings and crunching snow. Ava entered, out of breath.

“Ah! Ava, the new Cleric. I saw your work in the tents and on the field. You’re fairly good. So I’m assigning you to be in a permanent party with Larky. You’re replacing the two dead clerics, so do a good job!” said the Commander, a bit too cheery. He was obviously happy to be done with the conversation about the battle.

Ava gulped. “Dead…?”

Larky clicked her tongue. “They were both shot at the same time with ilbis. One of them got away, the other got sliced open by a Nine Dragons. The one who ran failed to heal himself well enough before he died of blood loss.”

Ava slumped into a pile on the ground. “I don’t want to die, Sir!”

“Then do your job correctly, and you won’t. I must go check on the hospital tent, ladies. Good day,” he said, giving Larky a death stare as he exited his tent.

Clyde pawed at Ava’s feet. The raven looked down at him and fluttered to his shoulderblades.

“Wolves and ravens are supposed to be friendly, according to mythology,” Larky commented, turning on her heel and walking from the tent.

“Wait!” called Ava. Larky didn’t. Ava after her. She grabbed Larky by the shoulders and turned her around.

“Listen to me, Larky. Whether you like it or not, we’re in the same party now. And if you don’t treat me nicely, you’re the one who’s going to be missing a cleric saving your ass on the battlefield,” she said sternly.

Larky huffed a breath out. “I know. I’d rather die and be in Limbo with Aster than in this damned war now, but my body won’t let it happen. Thanks for the input, Ava, but do the least saving of MY ass as you can.”

Ava mumbled to herself. “Tsuki! C’mon off of Clyde, we have lives in the hospital tent to save.”

Tsuki, the raven, didn’t move. Instead, he cawed ominously.

“Tsuki…?” asked Ava, approaching him. The raven stared forward, and slowly opened his wings and puffed out his feathers. He cawed again, then again, and finally, Clyde howled.

Larky stopped in her tracks, turning.

“Clyde,” she said, running back to Ava and the two pets. “Clyde never howls…”

In the distance, Larky heard the slightest snap of a stick. She caught the faintest flicker of morning light, glinting from something.

“Was that a Bazlud…?” asked Ava, cautously, staring off in the distance for a bit longer before turning back to Larky.

Larky bit her lip. They weren’t ready for another attack, not yet. But she had to do it.

“Ava, go tell the commander. Clyde! Come!” she called, taking off toward one of the upraised foothills of snow. They had erected sentry tents on them. She entered the sentry tents, but…

The two soldiers in each tent had been slaughtered. Larky’s breath caught in her throat as she felt cold metal against her throat. The weilder of the weapon showed himself: a bandit with a Maple Wagner.

“Ready to die, mage?”

This chapter was boring. :/

Ignore the “she wolfed it down ravenously” pun. I was laughing when I wrote it because I didn’t really think about it.

Don’t worry, I’m adding your other characters in eventually… bleh. -needs to describe the next camp better-