Chapter 2: Azure

Owen’s words seemed to snap the woman out of her stupor. She shook her head slightly, and then turned away from him to inspect the fallen knight. She knelt over his body, and Owen heard her swear softly under her breath.

As the adrenaline in Owen’s body began to recede, the reality of what had just transpired sank in. There were four dead bodies on the ground. If only he’d arrived sooner…

“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing just how stupid his first interaction with the golden-haired woman really was.

She didn’t move from her kneeling position over her dead comrade.

“If I’d been quicker, then maybe--”

“There is no need to be sorry,” she said without looking up at him. “We all knew the risk when we set out.” She spat. “Still, to nearly have a team wipe…” She stood from her kneeling position and turned to face him. “Thank you for your intervention. I probably would have died had you not arrived.”

Her face was taut with stress, but she creaked out a small smile. Despite himself, Owen let loose a large grin in response.

That must have been the wrong reaction, because her smile turned into a frown. “I’m sorry, but what is that?” She pointed at the van.

“Oh, that?” said Owen. The monster had remained unmoving this whole time, so he guessed it was dead. “That’s my van. She’s a beauty, ain’t she?”

The woman’s brow furrowed. “A… van?” The word seemed strange on her tongue.

“Yeah, it’s a…” Owen stopped mid sentence. She didn’t know what a van was. There were folks dressed in armor and wielding magic. He’d just turned a strange dragon creature into roadkill.

He needed no further evidence that, indeed, he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Whatever had happened with the bank robbery, when he died, he must have come here. To… To a whole new world.

The finality of that realization weighed on him like a cinder block. He’d been transported to a place that was like out of a video game. There were stats, and magic, and danger. And people in danger.

He squatted in place, resting his elbows on his knees as he struggled to take all of this in. Even now, he found it laughably difficult. His thoughts went to his mother, and to his siblings, who he’d left behind. To Dale, who’d died right before his eyes.

They were all gone now. Or really, he was. He imagined the funeral. His mom would be there. Would she even be sober enough to know her own son had died? His brothers and sister would. He was all they had. And now he was gone.

“Hey, um, are you okay?” said the woman, approaching him.

“Just a minute,” said Owen, taking a deep breath. Take the craziness. Internalize it. Deal with it later. Deal with it later. Finishing his breath, he stood and nodded. “I’m Owen, by the way.”

She smacked her fist into her palm as a form of greeting. “I am Azure. Again, thank you for saving my life.”

Owen scratched his head a bit. “Yeah, uh, no trouble.” He glanced back at his wrecked van. Well, maybe it was a bit of trouble. “That thing’s dead, right?”

Azure barked a hoarse laugh. “Yeah, I don’t know what that ‘van’ is, but it hit the wyvern like a damn meteor. It’s dead. Like, super dead.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Owen sighed in relief. “I saw what its…” he trailed off. He’d been about to say that he’d seen what its tail could do, but realizing that he was about to talk about Azure’s dead comrade in way too light of fashion, he changed his wording to, “Well, it was a pretty gnarly beast.”

“It was just a Lesser Wyvern,” Azure spat. “It shouldn’t have been that much trouble. But it ambushed us and killed two of our men before we’d even realized it was there.”

“Oh,” said Owen. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Again, there’s no need to be sorry. There’s always a chance of this happening when you venture into the wilds.”

She sounded rather calm about the whole thing, actually. “Were… were you close to them?” said Owen.

Azure shook her head. “No. But I know at least some of them have families back home. Guess I’ll have to report this to the guild. Still,” she paused, circling the van to examine the dead wyvern, “we got our mark, so at least the farms will be a bit safer.”

That was a lot of information thrown at Owen in those last few lines. He tucked it all away for now in the back of his mind, and decided that it was time to inspect the damage on his poor van. He approached and stood beside Azure, still eyeing the dead wyvern warily. Its eyes were open, gazing blankly up into the sky. Its serpentine tongue hung limply out of its open maw.

Owen groaned. His hood had wrapped completely around the stone. He was lucky the engine hadn’t come up and crushed him through the dash. He wouldn’t be able to get a good look at the full extent of the damage until he pulled the vehicle away from the stone.

That in itself was going to a problem for obvious reasons. He was a hundred percent sure he’d shattered the front axle. Beyond that, the deformed metal frame had dug into the dirt, planting the van in place. Even if the gearbox was working and he could put the car in neutral, he wouldn’t be able to drag it through the dirt.

Which meant he needed a tow. He wasn’t even sure that was possible.

“So, what now?” he asked.

“Now,” said Azure, climbing up on the crumpled hood, careful not to cut her hands or knees, “we harvest what materials we can from this wyvern and head to town.”

“What about my van?”

Azure pulled a glass flask from a pouch at her side and popped out the cork with her teeth. She grabbed hold of the wyvern’s head and pressed the open flask against the base of the creature’s fangs, filling it with a violent green venom. When she was done, she restoppered the cork and hopped off the van’s hood.

“Not much she can do about it. I don’t know what a ‘van’ is, but it looks like you did a number on it.”

Of course, she was right. Even if Owen could pull the van off the stone, it wasn’t like he had a spare engine laying around. Or a spare axle. Or a spare body. Or the tools to replace any of those things, even if he had them.

“How far is town from here?” asked Owen.

“It’s a six hour hike,” said Azure. She approached the fallen knight and knelt over him, fiddling with his gear. “Just take the road you came off of. By the way, you look strong. You wouldn’t mind carrying this guy’s plate for me, would you?”

Plate? Owen wasn’t sure he understood, until he saw her loosening the straps on the dead man’s armor. Oh, she means his armor plate.

“Should we be desecrating the dead so soon?” he said.

“We have to bring back something to show what killed him. We have to do the same for everyone who died,” said Azure, finally managing to unfasten the man’s breastplate and pull it from him. She stood and handed it to Owen. “You seem lost.” She pursed her lips, looking him up and down, her ice-blue eyes scanning his features. “And I can’t say I’ve ever seen an outfit like yours.”

Owen took the armor, staring at it blankly. It was soaked in the dead man’s blood, with a great gouge carved across it, almost splitting the metal in half. The scent of iron made bile rise up in his throat.

“I guess you could say I’m new to the area,” he said. He felt a bit like a child with the armor in his hands, unsure where or how to hold it. “I’m just getting my bearings. Um, how should I be holding this?”

Azure shrugged, turning away from him and kneeling over yet another of her fallen comrades. She stripped his tunic from his chest, which was also soaked with blood. Owen did his best to not look closely at his corpse.

As Azure placed the cloth into Owen’s arms, laying it on top of the plate, Owen found himself saying, “Can’t we wash these or something? I don’t know if I can handle all this blood.”

“There’s a running stream about a hundred paces that way,” said Azure, pointing behind the boulder and van. “I’ll bring you the rest of the gear once I’ve finished stripping it, and you can wash it off if you so desire.”

Owen turned without responding and plodded off in the direction of water. With each step, the articles in his hands felt heavier and heavier, though not from their weight. By the time he found the stream, he felt like he was going to collapse. He sank to his knees in the muddy bank, letting the armor and tunic fall to stream’s bed with a splash.

His whole frame shook as he stared at the blood staining his hands. This was too much, too fast. Way too much.

Owen plunged his hands into the cold stream water, scrubbing them together vigorously. The blood came off easily enough, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it still clung to the pores of his skin like a disease.

“Come on, Owen. Keep it together,” he muttered under his breath. Every inch of him screamed that this was wrong. He hadn’t been there when his dad had died. And he’d been too caught up with adrenaline when Dale had died for it to really sink in. But bearing the blood of literal strangers on his flesh felt insidious.

A rustle in the grass behind him made him jump. He whipped his head around to see Azure kneel calmly in the mud just downstream from him, placing in the stream two more tunics. Blood spread like a cloud in the crystalline water as she picked up a rock and used it to scrub the cloth.

For a moment, there was silence, but for the chirping of birds. Then, Azure broke that silence, saying, “You get used to the blood eventually.”

Owen swallowed but nodded. Finally, he reached into the water to pull up the broken plate armor with one hand. Most of the blood on it had already been washed away by the stream. With his other hand, he used the other dead man’s tunic as a washcloth to wipe away the rest of the blood. Then, following Azure’s example, he picked up a stone from the streambed and used it to rub the residual blood out of the cloth.

“I apologize if I seem callous about this whole affair,” said Azure. “You become desensitized to these things after a while.”

“No, I understand,” said Owen quickly. Then, thinking on it, he added, “I’m afraid I’m a bit out of my element here.”

“I could tell.”

“Probably more than anyone else you’ve interacted with.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Despite himself, Owen grinned.

Once Owen was satisfied with the state of cleanliness for the armor and cloth, they returned to the clearing. Azure had piled the bodies of the fallen onto what looked like a makeshift pyre of old bamboo leaves and stalks.

“We have to burn the bodies,” explained Azure, kneeling near the pyre. “If we don’t, they’ll attract monsters… or worse.”

“Worse than that horrifying Wyvern monster?” said Owen, swallowing.

“Far worse.” Azure took a deep breath and clasped her hands in a form of prayer, closing her eyes. “My fallen comrades. May you find peace in the next life. May Isthu’s light shine always upon you.”

With her prayer completed, she stood back several paces from the pyre and stretched out her hand. It glowed with a soft crimson light, and with that light, she began to draw a symbol in the air.

It was… beautiful. A simple pictograph of fire, but outlined with circles and other symbols that Owen could not discern, but it all formed a complex pattern that, when finished, Azure pressed with the flat of her palm. The symbols disappeared, and the pyre caught aflame.

Owen jumped back, surprised at the fire’s sudden appearance. He knew he should have expected it, but it was still so incredible to witness what could only be called magic. “That is amazing,” he breathed.

Azure gave him a look that he couldn’t read. “Do you have any prayers you wish to offer for the fallen?”

Shaking his head, Owen said, “Sorry, but I’ve never been the praying type.” To be honest, he didn’t even know what he would be praying to in this world anyway.

“In that case, we should be off,” said Azure, marching up the hill toward the road. “It’s only a Lightmoon tonight, but we want to be within the city gates before nightfall.”

“Right,” said Owen, hoofing it to catch up. As he reached the road once more, he glanced back at his van, abandoned at the far end of the clearing. Quietly, he whispered, “I’ll come back for you soon.”