Son of Fire

Chapter One Hundred and Nine

The past week had been fairly hectic for Josh.   After Mal and Uma had told him what the mission was, everyone was working in overdrive. Chad hadn't slept for the past four days, trying to get the ship ready on time. And everyone who had two pair of hands, or a hand and a metal one for Anna's case, were creating a stockpile of supplies for the journey. Which seemed slightly overkill since there were only a few of them going.

But today was the day they went out. Leaving the safety of Auradon, just for the smallest hope of help. It seemed desperate, but Josh knew that they were desperate. Even with conscription within Auradon, along the people they freed from his father's prison within Auradon, they were still outnumbered massively.

Josh and Jay and just finished loading up the ship, his arms weirdly sore after. He had been carrying things to and from the ship for hours, and without his accelerated healing that his powers gave him, he felt the burn along his arms.

"Hey, you ready for this?" Beca asks as she walks along the boardwalk next to the ship. Josh looks up and smiles at her.

"Ready as I'll ever be." He responds, rubbing his arm, trying to massage the tension out of them. Beca notices this and chuckles.

"You're doing it wrong." She comments. Josh raises his eyebrow at her, to which she rolls her eyes and takes his arm in her hands, which were in a slightly different position than his were and applied pressure as she worked her way up it. Instantly, he felt the tension ease along his arm.

"See?" She smirks as she moves onto his other arm.

"This is how you took over the Isle, huh? Superior massage skills?" He teases.

"Something like that. You know what our M.O was. Keep moving. That meant that we had to carry alot of stuff around, you learn how to ease the pain from it." She tells him.

"I was quite surprised when Harry told me you were joining in the mission." Josh states as Beca pulls her hands away, and Josh flexes his arms. The pain was still there, but felt alot better.

"Well, like I said to Mal, there's every chance I don't come back with you. I wanna see what these people have to offer. If it's better than here, I might have a change of location." Beca tells him. He couldn't exactly blame her. She had swapped one type of solitary for another. Granted, her current one was better but it was still very restricting.

"I guess I understand that." Josh admits, looking across the sea infront of them. "Sometimes I think of just leaving."

"Seriously?" Beca asks, surprise written on her face.

"I love Auradon, and I would and probably will die protecting it, but yeah. Sometimes I just wanna run away from everything. Get away from the war with my father. Just... I would like to know what peace feels like." Josh tells Beca.

"I think that's all any of us want." Beca responds softly. "But, your heart is born to fight, Josh. You have fought all your life, for one thing or another. I doubt you'll ever find peace." Josh was certainly surprised by this, but he knew that Beca was someone who said the truth. And he knew it was that. Josh bad never really had peace. Even the few months after Ben's corination, his mind was in the coming fight the Dragon Minions had presented.

"Maybe. But who knows? After this war, I might retire. Get a farm or something." Josh shrugs.

"Well dating the Queen would make that easy." Beca admits.

"That just sounds wierd." Josh comments as he quickly counts all the boxes that were on the deck. "Looks like we have all the supplies ready. You should get aboard, we'll be leaving soon."

"I'll see you on there then." Beca nods as she walks across the fairly narrow wooden plank onto the ship.

"Hey." A soft voice calls from behind Josh, a voice he knew was the woman of his love.