Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

34

Bad's struggling to drag himself onwards through the ash. It keeps piling up and up, clinging to his clothes.

The voice hasn't talked to him again, but he can see the haze slowly beginning to lift ahead of him.
Almost there. Maybe I'll be able to breathe once I get out of the smoke.

He feels someone grab his arm, and turns around for a second, uncertain if it was real.
He sees nothing. Bad shakes his head and continues walking onwards, deciding that the dream must be getting to him.

The thinning smoke fills his lungs even through his scarf. He's been walking for days in the dream— at least two, for sure. He began with that direction, and eventually there was a light.
He feels the sensation of a hand on his arm again, and turns faster this time, seeing a brief image of...

"Skeppy?" He utters softly. It was him, certainly; scarred, tanned skin, wide chocolate brown eyes that look up at him with panic, and his disheveled hair.

But he's gone, without a trace.

Bad shakes his head and continues on. This is just another form of torture to him. Just another way that they're trying to break him.
Pressing forwards to the light, he breaks free of the smoke bank, drawing in a gasp of cleaner air and—

Waking up. He's waking up, and he searches the area in his cell with wide eyes, looking around him nervously.
The eyes blink at him languidly, and he glares back.

You know what?? Screw you! He would've said it aloud in the moment, but he keeps his mouth shut and waits, seeing movement outside the door.

First Lum peeks in, stepping around the edge of the door, and then another familiar face joins him, a slightly taller, more slender figure...

Bad's expression lights up, and he can feel magic surge through him as he sparks with excitement. Lum puts a finger to his lips, and Assu picks her way over, hooved feet carefully silent against the stone.

"Hello, Darryl," she whispers with a smile, brushing a hand through his hair (she notices ash on her fingers and on Bad's, but doesn't worry about it right now.)

He beams at her, and Lum reminds her,

"He won't talk, hasn't for cycles." Bad winces and nods, but Assu smiles regardless.

"I am not here to just," she pauses, "catch up, sadly. But here is what I need to tell you; I am going to get you out within a...week? Soon. I need you to be ready— you will need to run, but when things begin, Lum—" Bad notes faintly that unlike Lum, she says his name similar to 'Loom'. "—Will let you down and give you a potion. Whatever you do, do not let any of the skeletons see you. Do not let them hurt you or you will be very weakened. Even a tiny cut can cause the withering."

Bad shivers at the memory of the ashen skeleton with its stone sword that radiated evil. He doesn't need further encouragement. Assu waits for him to nod, and Lum interjects,

"She wanted to see you're alive, and intact, you know?" Bad feels a bitter amusement bubble up. He's alive and intact, but for how much longer?

Well, if it makes her happy.

It seems to. She's very gentle as she hugs him, careful to avoid the clear injuries that have yet to heal. Her touch is almost maternal, and she glances back nervously, before reaching behind her head and seemingly unclasping something, a chain and pendant materializing as Bad watches her. It's a pendant made out of a cream metal, beaten into a disk and set with a stylized heart made of green stone. It flickers in an oddly knowing manner as he stares at it.

"I want you to take this," she says softly, and clasps it around his neck, the pendant warm against his skin. It beats like a disembodied heart, and as she releases it, it feels like it vanishes, the only trace of its presence a white line on his skin that he sees as she traces a finger over it; it matches the line that she herself had before taking off the necklace.