Blood of my Brother

Varian and the Great Tree, pt. 5

Y'all, this absolutely amazing fanart was done by @toatoons on Instagram! Go check out their work!

Now on to the angst!

Trigger warnings: blood, concussion, injured animals, mentions of thoughts of death (not suicidal)

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His lungs were stinging, shivers wracked his frame, the pounding of his head threatened to drop him off into the pit of unconsciousness he had only recently crawled out of...

He coughed violently, water pouring from his lips. His chest ached. Something was underneath him—no, he was being shoved against something?

He forced his mind to come to grips. He'd fallen, right? Fallen into the river, hit something—a rock?—nearly drowned, ran into something big, held on for dear life, just barely keeping his head above water. Then he'd blacked out.

His senses started returning, the first thing he noticed unfortunately being pain. Forcing his weary eyes open, he looked at the sun. He probably hadn't been out for more than a few minutes, but that was still too long. Turning his head, he could see that the structure supporting him was none other than the busted caravan.

Kiki and Kubwa skidded up to the edge of the river. Hector grimaced and pulled himself along the edge of the broken caravan, and the bearcat grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out onto solid land. He hacked up more water, the fire in his throat competing for attention with the throbbing in his head and the sensation of boulders crushing his abdomen. His fingers brushed against the side of his head, where blood mixed with the river water and matted his hair. He'd hit his head, right?

He turned to look back at the caravan. "Whe—az—t—" The broken attempts to speak caused a harsh cough to tear from his lungs. Weakly, he waved towards the caravan, which Kiki jumped on to and slipped in through a window. A moment later he returned, shaking his head.

It took Hector's dazed mind a moment to determine what was wrong with that situation. When it hit him, he yelped and tried to sit up, a sudden wave of nausea threatening to tear out his insides. He groaned and placed his forehead against the cold ground.

A concussion.

Great.

He tried to push himself up, but Kubwa gently nudged him back down. "C-can't," he rasped. "Tr—Var."

The animals looked up at the Tree in whose shadow they stood. Kubwa moved so Hector could grab the saddle and pull himself up, Kiki steadying him. As soon as he was on the rhino's back, Artemis flew down and rested on Kubwa's head, eyeing Hector judgingly. He probably looked like death, to be honest. He grabbed a canteen of water and downed about half of it in one swallow.

He tried to keep his balance on the swaying back of his loyal rhino, which was much harder than it should have been. He hadn't had a concussion in years, and this was the worst possible time to have one. Through the fog clouding his mind, he was dimly aware that Varian was in danger. Why? Riki was with him, wasn't he? He'd sent the bearcat with him to protect him. But if the invaders got to the Tree, which he was sure they must have by now, then Riki might not be able to fend them all off. Especially—

Oh, crap.

His sister was here.

She'd kicked him off the cliff. She was with the Sundrop. More than likely, Varian would garner no sympathy from her.

So it was one bearcat, one raccoon, and one child versus seven enemies. They had to hurry, before anything bad happened.

If his nephew so much as had a single bruise when Hector got to him...