Robbin

13. Cave

Terra had almost nodded off to sleep before Hunt came to a halt. Her head came up abruptly from where it had been resting on his shoulder and he let her feet down. The trees rustled behind them. A large swath of dirt and rock littered the clearing. The tops of stone towers intruded upon the black sky. Ivy and moss caressed the sharp rectangular edges. Uninhabited open windows absorbed the shadows of the night.

Terra scrunched her eyes closed hard and then opened them again, feeling as if she had popped into another dream.

They weren't alone, as the breeze to their right indicated.

He had been standing as a silhouette against one of the towers, and upon their entering, had already come to their side with the lightning speed which seemed to mark all the people in Carynthia.

Terra felt a strong sense of deja vu for the second time overwhelm her like a cloak of suffocating smoke.

When he came beside them he stood stationary for a few seconds as they all stared at each other. Most of the staring involved Terra and the new arrival, however.

He was tall, almost as tall as Hunt. He had lean muscle, dark black hair, green human eyes, fair skin and dark clothes. He looked about nineteen.

The new arrival was the first one to speak. "Are you both alright?" His eyes were wide and the rest of his expression void except for a small hint of confused surprise on his lips.

"Yeah, Robbin. We're fine," Hunt answered.

He was alive. He was more than alive. She scanned his face and visible skin for any small hint of the dire wounds which had dragged him into the fever she had last seen him drugged under. The most her observant eyes could find was a small pink scar where the deep stitched cut had resided over his left brow—healed over. It wasn't even open anymore. She realized her mouth was hanging open slightly.

He stared back at her, too, barely even acknowledging Hunt.

Hunt's voice suddenly roared like a grizzly, "she just... appeared! Out of nowhere! In dormension territory! Lucky she wasn't killed! I mean—" Hunt was now beginning to ramble in his apparent anger.

Terra was stung by his assessments, taken aback at the outburst which had apparently been kept under a tight hold until their arrival.

Robbin turned from Terra to finally acknowledge Hunt's hulking angry form and abnormal cat eyes. "Dormension territory...?"

"Yes!" Hunt erupted, turning suddenly to Terra as if to lead the interrogation he had evidently been suppressing until now. "Why then? Why now? Why did you come now?!" He exclaimed.

Terra swallowed, throat dry. She didn't even have time to feel relieved that Robbin, the stranger, was alive. "I wasn't trying to! It just took me here! I don't know why!" she bursted, feeling his uproar deserved a decent retort. She sensed the cold silver cling to the skin around her neck.

Robbin seemed troubled by this answer and rubbed his chin,

"Crap," Hunt breathed, "the twerp was right."

Robbin grimaced.

Terra got up the courage to ask. "Who—who was right?"

"Creep was right. You have no control of it at all, do you? Well, that makes things more difficult."

Terra thought she liked the uncannily calm Hunt better than the irritated one.

"Calm down, Hunt," Robbin suggested.

 He just threw his hands up in frustration and paced to his own space in the clearing.

"It could have been worse." Robbin followed him and Terra was left out of the loop as Hunt murmured to Robbin in a fast paced hum that she couldn't understand.