Thankfully, with the power of the wind on their side—the noxious approaching army is dispelled—actually, frozen into grotesque shapes
before being dispelled into the winds.
Before anything else, though, someone
falling catches his eye and he swaps out Tornadus for his own Braviary, screaming as the avian rocketed skywards to hopefully catch the falling
Elise Calcifet in time from becoming a pancake!
“We have to get back,” he remembered saying, hopeful and optimistic.
“Back home, to where we belong.”But… little did he know that this was
not going to be the end of everything. Oh, hell no. in fact it was just the
start of what felt like a
neverending nightmare…
Oh, how wrong he was to be
that optimistic. That was a bad, bad,
bad idea to look forward—to hopefully get this all wrapped up, and back where they
really meant to be.
He’s not blind to the shock, or the utter anger, or the bubbling rage that simmers among everyone present in Hammerlocke.
Basically put, it’s an
‘oh shit, we’re fucked’ kind of situation.
(How was he going to apologize to his
boyfriend partner now? He’d left in a huff, with just a singular note on the kitchen table…
And then, with a sinking feeling of dread, he belatedly realized he
also left his phone and wallet with the note.)
One month later.As a part-time lorekeeper, he wants to commit all of this information that the Calyrex delivered to memory. But the thing is, how can he—when he doesn’t have much in the way of paper? Why did he forget to bring that tiny little notebook with him
now, of all times?!
Unless he found a way to wrangle or acquire some paper, then he wouldn’t remember most of this. Oh, shit. Instead, though… it was night, after night, after sleepless, restless night of trying to sleep but
not being able to.
Why did they have that argument before he left? What if… what if that was the
last time he would see the other man again? Were… were they going to die here? In this… in this little ‘reality’ where they were not supposed to exist?
Determined to keep the snide, cruel laughter that was ringing in the back of his mind at bay, he turned his attention to the crafting of a weapon. While not the same as the
Avian Bow that he and
Shalin Nariya had, it was a reasonable facsimile… even if it did come at the cost of him having to hunt down a piece of wood suitable enough for him to practice with, for the time being.
And yet, that feeling of anxiety never left him.
One year later.How long had it been, now…? A year, or so?
He’d learned to go without haircuts, although some strange force possessed him to tie off a certain part of his lengthening hair… which for some reason was turning purple and not fully white. Was there something in the strange air of this strange place that was causing this?
And then, he realized—he’d actually made it to thirty. Thirty fucking years old. For someone like him, that was an achievement in and on itself. Now the question was, would he survive however else long they were stuck here?
To keep himself busy, he practiced the way of archery. Since close-quarters combat was a no-go for him (due to certain reasons) he’d decided to fully embrace being someone who rained down utter hell from the rear guard. Or from up in a tree.
(Damn, he missed climbing trees.)
Alongside the attacks, he would always come to the city’s defense, Tornadus making his timely appearances (and disappearances) when the poisoned hordes were about to strike.
He remembered one particular attack that year—how in the fuck could a
g h o s t grow that big?! Where did that mouth lead to, the Underworld?!
Two years later.By then there’s a rudimentary postal system established thanks to
kepler brueshaber, and he immediately takes advantage of this, wrangling what pen and paper he could find to send out letters to as many people as he can plausibly think of that he’d seen before they were all warped away to their respective cities.
In each letter enclosed is a blue Braviary feather, an immediate tell to those who knew him that he was there, alive and well—
One to
Shalin Nariya, and one to
angelo vestri. Those were the familiar faces he remembered, however he wasn’t sure if it was possible to try and contact
Josh Devlin as well, because what if sending out too much mail at once got the letters lost?
He’d been getting countless proposal requests from the families within Hammerlocke with regards to his availability, however he would have to gently decline all of them—as best as possible, of course.
“I am humbled to be considered as a potential match for your daughter, however I will have to respectfully decline.”Little did he know that those were the words that he would continue to fall back on in the years to come…
Three years later.That time he’d tried to leave Hammerlocke to go in the direction of Spikemuth to confirm what the Calyrex had said previously… didn’t go too well. Who knew that traveling between cities was going to be hard, if not impossible?
(And yes, he’d tried to do it by air, however that didn’t end well either.)
Little by little, he doesn’t realize he’s shutting himself away from everyone else—always first to rise and be out at the archery training grounds, and last to turn in for the night.
It doesn’t sink in, until
Thomas Benoit had checked in on him one of those nights. He didn’t care,
he didn’t care, he didn’t—“I don’t want to be useless,” he remembered himself telling his friend.
He needed to keep his hands busy, his mind distracted—for the snide voice in his thoughts was only getting louder with each passing day. Always a grim reminder of his failures, of why they were stuck here, of how his own
inability to contribute to the general populace always hounded him.
He’d already settled on what his role would be the longer they stayed out here—a loner; stealing away in the night, sharp gaze always staring out beyond the walls; the one who sounded the first call for any invading noxious ‘creatures’.
However, when he was needed, he would
always be at
Remiel Calcifet’s side at a moment’s notice.
Five years. later.By then he’d also gained the reputation for having turned down almost all of the families’ proposals at this point—yet they still kept trying to woo him!
What was up with them, did they not—
oh, that’s right—he remembered what had happened when
Ashley Shepard had gotten ‘married’, how taboo it was. Between a ‘king’ and a ‘commoner’, and adding that he was certain that the two were gay, to boot—
It only reminded him of the offer that
Selena Desmarais had given him, which he’d immediately declined because he was loyal to only one.
To only one… but… what. What did. What did
Guillermo Marceliño look like, again?
The dread from five years ago, him not bringing his wallet… (what even was a wallet at that point, they dealt with pouches of coins mostly these days) that had their pictures, still bubbled and festered in his mind.
‘You were such an idiot, you know? Leaving without a single word, and right in the middle of an argument, too! How rich of you! You’re going to be stuck here forever, and you haven’t—’‘Shut up.’‘What, upset that I speak the truth? Admit it, you’re going to be stuck here. You’re going to die here, without him, without—’‘Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up? Stop wearing me down!’‘Oh, so it’s working?’‘What did I tell you?!’He would spend nights tossing and turning, staring out into the inky darkness and trying not to listen to the harsh, cruel truth that the snide voice was repeating his way. The problem was that… what if it was all true?
There would come a certain time of the year, when he couldn’t sleep… why was that, though? What happened?
The time he couldn’t sleep, and was almost always awake, only stealing fleeting moments, for fear of being snuck up on and—
What was this
fear, where was it coming from?!
Ten. years. later.He’d lost track of time, honestly. Going day to day was of the utmost priority now, as well as honing his own skills at being a rearguard support.
That also meant his skills with the bow continued to improve—as long as he was careful.
Careful not to injure himself, because he was rather certain that nobody had a way to treat his condition. Just the thought of that made his stomach lurch… and then there was also the memory of
Guillermo Marceliño, still there—although due to so much time passing, he can’t remember how exactly he looked—just the name, and some blurred recollections.
(Did he have long hair? Yes, the last time he saw him—he did. Oh, how little did he know how much the other man had changed. Was… was he even looking for him now? A decade missing? How did that even work?)
Something good came out of this, though—he’d finally received a crafted bow powerful enough to handle the
Dragon Hammer arrows he’d been crafting.
Yet he knew he had to be careful because those arrows were finite. So he made
many. As many as he could possibly make, in between the usual ‘raids’ and ‘attacks’ by those poisoned hordes.
_r2Mc8eB
• location: Hammerlocke
•
why are you so optimistic you’ll be back home soon, Alex?• time literally passes, however separation anxiety from his partner developed, and is rather deep by the time the tenth year arrived
• his weapon is a bow imbued with energy to fire off
Dragon Hammer arrows
•
yes the separation anxiety is real• ten years and he fancies himself as good as Hawkeye, maybe? Possibly?!
• +10 timeskip FC:
Yuri Leclerc from FE3H
@tags up there as mentioned
