The Legend of Vox Machina: The Curse of Zia Zircon

Ch 10: Return to Ruin

Zia's legs felt as heavy as the stone they were comprised of as Vox Machina trudged up the hill her and Keyleth had practically tumbled down earlier. The group was moving at a sullen pace. They were defeated and in no real rush to get anywhere other than the fuck away from this kingdom.

"Could this hill be any steeper?" Keyleth complained, as she leaned on her staff. She was tired from fighting. They all were. The way the day was going it looked like the hill too would be defeating them today.

"Look at it this way." Vex moved a branch out of her eyes. "This could be a shitload of stairs."

"Was that supposed to make us feel better sister?" Vax's eyebrow raised. "Because naming another type of torture doesn't make this current ordeal any better."

"It's not that bad guys." Pike looked around at her friends from her seat atop Grog's shoulders.

"Those riding Grog do not get a say in this matter." Percy grunted stepping over a curved tree root with great effort only for his shoe to land in mud. He scowled, pausing to wipe his shoe on some nearby moss.

"Damn what I'd give to ride Grog right now."  Scanlan cracked his back. All this walking was making his gnome body sore.

"So, what you're saying is, you want your ass to be more sore than your legs?" Zia tilted her head eyebrows furrowed in confusion. How could that kind of soreness possibly be better? "Have I got that right?"

"What? No! I meant ride his back not his dick!"
Scanlan protested as he leapt over a large rock.

The gnome felt attacked.

"Somehow I find that unlikely." Vex remarked sending a pine cone sailing into Scanlan's head as she moved a branch out of her way.

Now he really was attacked.

And he wasn't the only one.

Rain pelted down upon the group. The dark clouds letting loose a stinging spray of cold droplets without any warning.

"Oh lovely-rain." Vex complained, "As if today couldn't get any more depressing...."

"Hey, does anyone else smell smoke?" Keyleth wondered nervously, as they traversed further into the forest. This wasn't the exact way they came but it was an easier trek down the mountainside after they conquered that steep hill.

"There was so much back there it's probably still wafting around our skulls." Scanlan remarked. "I wouldn't worry too much about any of it."

Worry...Zia was worried now. Again. Not about the smoke, but about the villagers. How would they react to her walking into their village telling them to leave their livelihoods? Would she have to do something drastic? Crystallize the lake so they couldn't fish or drink? The thought alone made her sick. No. None of her friends were going to make her do that.

They could convince them.

They would have an easier time doing it without her there.

Sure of that thought she clutched at her hand-the one that thanks to her ripped glove-had an exposed palm.

She shouldn't go in with them.

Ever so quietly she made to veer off from the group planning to meet the rest of Vox on the villages other side.

"Please, don't do that."

The voice was unbelievably soft, barely audible over the cascade of cold rain, tinged with an aching emotion that Zia couldn't quite place.

It was the tone more than the words that gave her pause.

"Don't go wandering off on your own after what we just went through. You don't have to. It's needless now. If you're concerned about the villagers reactions-we'll be told to leave anyways if they don't like what we have to say-it likely won't be much worse than that."