WARNING: SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC! VIOLENCE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
The four men, the oversized dog, and the small girl left the encampment, weapons the only handheld belongings they carried on their person.
Vanessa crept through the forest, and the others followed suit.
She signaled for them to stop, and they peeked up from behind the brush, spotting a large male boar. It seemed to be pawing around, looking for food.
Vanessa made another hand signal for the group to surround the boar.
As soon as she could see that the others were in position, she shot an arrow at the boar, startling it and herding it in Ikuno's direction.
The original plan was to have Ikuno shoot an arrow at it to direct it toward Waren, but Ikuno shot it accidentally. The shot killed the boar instantly.
"How much did you sharpen your arrows!?" Vanessa shouted, jumping up from her position.
Ikuno got up nervously. "I didn't sharpen them..."
"He's just naturally super strong, especially when shooting arrows. He's broken several bows before he could control his strength," Shayne spoke up, pride evident in his voice.
Ikuno blushed and covered his face with his hands. "I didn't mean to break that many bows!" he cried.
Vanessa shrugged, hefting the boar onto her back after doing a quick prayer to the boar's spirit.
"It's just a positive in my opinion," Vanessa said. "Less energy wasted for each person during hunting."
As they made their way back with their prize, Hiroshi's eyes narrowed. He stopped.
"What is it, Hiroshi?" Shayne asked.
The adult male sniffed the air. "Shayne, Sook, do you smell that?"
Narrowing his eyes, Shayne sniffed the air lightly, along with Sook, enhancing their sense of smell in order to figure out what Hiroshi had smelled.
Immediately, the burning stench of ash and flames entered their nostrils. The two snorted, their delicate noses stinging from the experience. *
"It's coming from the direction of the village!" Sook cried, worry etched in his canine features.
Without giving context to the other three members of the group, the two men and large dog raced back to the camp-like village, their companions hot on their heels. They didn't know exactly what was going on, but they knew it wasn't good.
Before long, even the other three knew what was wrong.
The tents were all in flames, and shouting and screaming could be heard over the crackling and collapsing of the tents' wooden beams, along with the clashing of swords, snarls, yowls, and hisses.
Vanessa immediately sprinted to her village, the others right on her heels.
Vanessa's eyes widened as she witnessed the carnage. People in colorful, feather-based outfits with colorful mud plastered on their faces were weilding swords of different varieties and swinging them at every villager they came upon. Blood was seeping along the dirt pathways of the settlement, both from the villagers and the attackers. It seemed as if no one was dead yet, fortunately. Even the children of the village were fighting back, with sticks, stones, kitchen knives, anything they could get their hands on. There was even a kid carrying the tusk of a boar, who threw himself into the fray and stabbed at the enemy with his unusual, unrefined weapon.
To say the Yuni people were losing would be a lie. Despite how the situation looked, they were fending off the feathered attackers that seemed to clearly be the Colal people, based off their attire.
But what could the attackers possibly want? Why would they attack the village out of the blue? Shayne wondered.
Suddenly, he heard Vanessa gasp.
"KISA!!!" she shrieked, running off into the fray, fighting through the hot, bloody, violent bodies around her.
Shayne looked to Sook, who nodded in understanding, bounding after his friend after enlarging himself to step over the crowds of people. His running steps made artificial earthquakes until he shrunk back down, which Shayne assumed was because Sook caught up to Vanessa.
Shayne, Hiroshi, Waren, and Ikuno pulled out their weapons and, in sync, launched themselves into the fray as well.
Meanwhile, Sook was worried about Kisa. Vanessa must've seen her friend, and she must've been in trouble.
The two turned a corner, and to Sook and Vanessa's great horror, Kisa was held by the neck by another feathered man. Powerless and unable to stop it before it happened, the man stabbed Kisa through the heart.
Vanessa screamed, Sook growled. Kisa gurgled a little, twitching, until she finally slumped, unmoving.
The man let go of her, and she crumpled to the ground like fabric.
Vanessa stared for a good ten seconds, the man staring right back.
Vanessa then let out a bloodcurdling screech, and even the Colal man couldn't help but flinch upon hearing the sound.
With that man's slight hesitation came his undoing. Vanessa charged forward, drawing her sword. The man tried to block her attack, but was too slow. She stabbed him right through the heart, as he had for her friend. Then she pulled her sword out, and stabbed him again in the lungs. Then pulled the sword out. Stabbed again. Pull, stab, pull, stab, meticulously even though the man was already dead. Sook nuzzled Vanessa's shoulder in attempts to calm her.
"Vanessa, stop," he pleaded. "He'd dead already. Stabbing him more won't bring Kisa back..."
She pulled her sword out of the man one last time, letting his blood drip off the blade.
Then, she stumbled over to her friend's body and crumbled down in front of it, sobbing.
"Kisaaaa," she wailed, tears running down her face like rivers carving paths through a continent.
Suddenly, she felt a hand gently caressing her hair.
She looked up, startled to see Kisa's eyes open, looking at her with care and kindness.
"I'm here, Vanessa, I'm here," she said.
Sook watched as Kisa leaned up and Vanessa leaned down, their lips meeting each other in the middle, as the sounds of battle carried on through the background.
Author's Note:
Happy New Year everyone! :D
I love what I did here. :3 I actually planned this ever since I thought up Kisa's character (after thinking of making her a character). Hope you all like that little bit of lesbian representation there. :3
The story goes on! Why are the Colal attacking the Yuni? How is Kisa able to keep surviving even though she gets fatal injuries and "dies"? Will there ever be an answer to these questions? Will there be fast enough updates to answer these questions? Let me know what you guys think the answers are to these questions. :3
I'm still taking polls on if there will be smut or not. Please consider it. If I get no more comments for voting on this, it will be an automatic smut, since someone already decided they wanted smut, but were the only ones who voted. Please let me know asap. Please actually read these author's notes. ;-; Enjoy the story! Thanks for putting up with my lateness. ^^'
-Vanguard12😋
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The King's Men
AdventureA useless king is replaced by his older brother and is sent away to find some use in himself, along with his most loyal servant and his most loyal soldier. Wanting to prove his brother right, that he CAN be useful if he tried, he faces many hardship...
