Blood follows me everywhere
If they could just find a place to stop and rest, Itachi would very much appreciate it.
However, there aren't very many places around them that he would trust when it comes to sitting down, unsure about what's alive and what isn't. So, he muddles along anyway, cursing his rotten luck but unwilling to risk sitting or leaning against something that might try to eat him.
(He isn't sure how much longer he'll be able to get along without his medication, and is starting to wonder whether the tadpole would be able to keep him upright if he can't find a substitute.)
“Are you quite alright?” Halsin asks, resting the back of his hand against Itachi’s forehead. “You don’t look well.”
Itachi shrugs, offering up a weak attempt at a smile in the man’s direction that's more like a grimace.
“I’ll live,” he reassures him. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
(Why does even that feel like a stretch?)
“I think you’ll find worrying is in my nature,” Halsin laughs.
“That makes two of us, then...”
Itachi feels his face warm up when he gets a reassuring pat on the back- the same sort of gesture his father would give him when he was nervous about the million things that worried him as a child.
“We can’t really afford to keep wasting time,” Orochimaru growls, brushing bioluminescent fungal spores off his cloak. “Let’s move a bit faster, shall we?”
Halsin gives him a puzzled look, then shakes his head in bemusement.
"We are not far from the beach the myconids spoke of," he reassures Orochimaru. "We will get there."
“...Does anyone hear something?” Gale asks, glancing around in suspicion and coming to a sudden stop at the bottom of a small rocky outcropping.
Orochimaru looks up, frowning.
“Hm? I don’t hear anything," Astarion remarks, pointed ears twitching a bit as if he's making sure.
"I do," Itachi says, stopping dead in his tracks. "It sounds like a person."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean someone's talking. I think."
"Are you sure?" Halsin asks. "It feels quiet to me."
"A bit too quiet," Astarion murmurs. "Nothing more suspicious than that..."
Something finally breaks through the quiet, though- a soft, but unmistakable giggle.
"What...?"
There's a flash and a loud bang as the ground mere inches from them lights on fire, scattering them in all directions.
"Bloody hells-"
The humanoid figure that emerges isn't very notable in stature, but he is notable for the wide-eyed, manic look in his eyes.
“My love!” the crazed drow shouts, throwing everything he can get his hands on. “My joy!”
“What the hells has gotten into this lunatic?!” Astarion shouts, ducking flying rocks and shards of shattered glass.
“Oi!” Gale shouts. “We aren’t trying to hurt anybody’s love- or anything else, so just-“
The man doesn’t even seem to hear him.
“His mind is gone...”
Itachi sighs, eyes turning scarlet as he surveys the situation. "He doesn't even seem like he knows where he is."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I don't feel good about killing a madman."
"It's either that or he kills us first, so take your pick."
Astarion rolls his eyes as he says it, pulling a dagger off his belt and crouching down as his eyes scan his surroundings.
The hairs on the back of Orochimaru's neck stand on end, getting the sneaking suspicion that something else is watching them.
There's a rustling from a short way away, then a horrid shrieking sound. a blur of something frightening leaps overhead, the dim light of bioluminescent fungi glinting off its wickedly sharp claws.
When it hits the ground, the shock wave sends Itachi toppling backward, crashing into Gale and throwing both of them onto the ground.
"Are you alright?!" Gale asks, scrambling to get the both of them to their feet as the monstrosity swipes its sharp hooks at them.
Itachi manages to get his nerves together for long enough to form the hand seals for a fireball, casting it without allowing himself to think too much about the thing attacking them.
It shrieks in the worst way as it's incinerated, thrashing about as it drops to the rocky ground before the flames overwhelm it.
The mad drow curses up a storm in his native tongue, but before he can do anything more to harm them, Orochimaru grabs him and slits his throat, dropping him limply to the ground.
"That was slick," Astarion praises, looking honestly impressed at the quickness of it.
"Oh, that was child's play," Orochimaru insists, though he does so with a flippant oh-stop-it-you wave of his hand. "I killed my first person when I was maybe four or five years old, you get good at it."
Halsin cringes when he hears that, a painfully melancholy expression deepening the worry-lines on his face.
"So young?"
"You either learn to kill, or you get killed," Orochimaru answers, bluntly, while spinning a knife around between his fingers. "I turned out to be quite the prodigy at killing, actually."
Halsin doesn't inquire further, though there's a sadness in the heavy crease of his brow.
In the silence following the massacre, everyone takes a moment to catch their breath and get their bearings.
"...What in the hell were those things?" Itachi manages to squeak out.
"Hook horrors," Gale answers, putting his hands on his knees and gasping for air. "Nasty little buggers."
"You act like we've never had anything nasty where we're from," Orochimaru laughs.
"Nothing like that!" Itachi insists, still bloodless in the face and struggling to compose himself.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. I doubt it'll be the worst creature we see in this world."
Itachi looks not the least bit comforted by this.
"I wish we could come across something more pleasant, at least," he grumbles.
"Well, what did you expect? Some fluffy kittens in this realm of death, perhaps?"
"I wouldn't mind something fluffy at this point."
Itachi's tone is clipped and curt, the closest his monotone ever gets to sounding truly annoyed.
Orochimaru gleefully ignores that, merely smiling as he fishes around in the dead drow's pockets for anything that might be of use.
"Not everything in this realm is some terrifying beast," Halsin reassures the boy. "Although, even the terrifying ones are not nearly so frightening if you take the time to get to know them."
"I would still take a tressym over a hook horror any day," Gale adds, dusting off his robes with one hand while fishing around in his pack with the other.
"What's a tressym?"
"Hm? Quite adorable creatures, actually. If you have cats where you're from, you're already mostly familiar with what one looks like."
"We do have those."
"Excellent- they're one of those, but with a quite fetching set of wings and a proclivity for the arcane."
"I see..."
Out of the blue, a small sound interrupts them. A small hoot, to be specific.
"What the devil-"
Whipping their heads around, they're confronted with a quite familiar feathered face.
It's the owlbear cub from before- the one whose mother they unfortunately had to kill.
"What the devil-"
"...Did you follow us all the way down here?" Itachi asks.
The cub lets out a long, mournful hoot, ruffling his feathers and creeping toward Itachi with wide, frightened eyes.
"Poor creature," Halsin murmurs, kneeling down and trying to beckon the terrified cub closer. "Where is your mother?"
The owlbear makes a series of trilling sounds that Halsin somehow seems to understand.
Itachi tilts his head, squinting and wishing he understood whatever conversation the man seems to be having.
Halsin picks up on his curiosity, and gestures for him to kneel as well, which Itachi does with a bit of difficulty.
"Copy me," he says, performing a short series of hand gestures.
Itachi copies them as best he can, cursing his poor vision all the while.
"Good, now repeat: amicus animalis ."
Itachi's tongue trips over the unfamiliar words, but he manages to get them out nonetheless.
A burst of green light surrounds him for the briefest moment before dissipating.
Though he doesn't feel any different from before, when the cub opens its beak again, he jumps out of his skin when words come out.
"Mother gone," he whimpers, bowing his feathered head. "Hungry..."
On instinct, Itachi grabs his pack and fishes around inside it while the cub watches intently.
After a bit of rummaging, he fishes out a small package of dried meat and tears it open, grabbing a strip of it and holding it out toward the small animal.
The owlbear sniffs at it warily, eyes darting between Itachi and the meat in his hand.
"...Food smell good. Want bite..."
"Go ahead" Itachi urges him. "Take it."
The cub takes another few steps closer, then snatches the foot and scarfs it down in an instant.
"More?" he dares to ask.
Itachi happily obliges, offering another piece from the package.
This time, the cub accepts it far more eagerly, letting out small sounds of approval as he eats.
"You are not food!" he declares, shoving his head against the palm of Itachi's hand. "You are friend!"
A warm, happy feeling makes the corners of Itachi's lips curl upward for a second, admiring the way the creature ruffles its feathers and does a few small hops up and down.
"Poor thing. How did you find us down here?"
"Smart!" the cub declares. "Clever, fast, sneaky! I follow, I sniff, I find!"
The declaration is so adorable that Itachi can't keep himself from smiling.
"Would you like to come with us?"
The cub perks up, chirping and fluffing his feathers up.
"Would like," he says. "New home! New friends-"
"Well isn't he just a delightful little pet," Astarion laughs, crouching down to get a better look at him. "I wonder how he managed to get all the way down here without getting himself killed."
The owlbear cub creeps toward him, sniffing at his hand when he holds it out toward him. The animal pulls a face, then tilts its head from one side to the other in confusion.
"Smell funny!" he declares, though Astarion can't understand him. "Like dead things!"
Itachi snorts, suppressing a laugh behind his hand.
His knees groan in protest as he stands up, beckoning for the creature to follow.
The cub does so, walking a few steps behind Scratch. The pair of them stop to sniff everything they come across,
"It nice here," he muses. "Cave smelled like rotten meat. Goblin camp smelled like goblins. Here smell nice, like moss and mushroom."
"It is quite nice," Scratch agrees. "And these people are very nice. Like Gomwick."
"Who's Gomwick?" Itachi asks.
"My old master...old friend," Scratch says. "I'll always miss him. But-"
He perks up, tail wagging.
"I'm glad to have met you!"
Itachi gives Scratch a pat on the head, fighting down a smile.
"We're glad to have you here."
Scratch walks with an extra spring in his step after that, sniffing the air as they search for the duergar they're supposed to be taking care of.
"What is a duergar, anyway?"
"Deep dwarves," Gale answers. "Something like drow- former surface dwellers who decided to make a name for themselves down here."
"How is it possible that so much is living so far underground?"
"The weave is powerful down here. The life was able to adapt to the lack of light in hundreds of different ways."
"Interesting. How did they end up down here, though?"
"A lot of reasons, some of which are too far back for anyone to have a record. It's a shame, I'm sure it's fascinating..."
Gale trails off, his mind wandering to thoughts of long-lost knowledge and lore forgotten to the ages.
Itachi can't suppress the fuzzy feeling in his chest listening to him talk, wide-eyed as he pours out all the information he has.
It reminds him of the last time he and Kisame were at the seaside, listening to the man go on for what felt like hours, describing all the fish and sea birds and strange plants they came across, telling him what they did in their ecosystem and what they were useful for.
Maybe Kisame thought he wasn't really paying attention when he started rambling, but in truth, he enjoyed every word.
(It feels a bit odd, comparing someone like Gale to someone like Kisame- but really, they aren't all that different. At least, not in the ways that matter.)
"Down this way, I think," Orochimaru says, sounding nearly annoyed enough to snap. "There's a fire, so there's bound to be people."
Itachi gets a bit dizzy from standing up too fast, but manages to stay mostly upright.
Glut follows behind them like a fungal shadow, silently observing them with that unending, unnerving stare even as they climb long stretches of thickened mycelium vines downward for what feels like miles.
"If you are not from this realm, where do you herald from?" Halsin asks, trying to make friendly conversation even though Orochimaru would rather chew his own tongue out than speak to him right now.
"Nowhere you would know," he answers, his tone unusually curt.
"There are quite a few places I do not know," Halsin replies, still smiling, and still with that same annoyingly jovial tone. "Perhaps you could enlighten me?"
Stop smiling at me.
Orochimaru grits his teeth and tries to focus on keeping his footing so he doesn't plummet into the abyss.
"I tend to wander, so I don't particularly have a place I call home."
"Ah, a fellow restless spirit. I understand."
"I really don't think you do. And please don't touch me."
Orochimaru swats Halsin's hand off him, picking up his pace to try to get some distance between them.
Itachi lets his face betray a moment of confusion before he starts to speak.
"We both come from the same village," he explains. "A place called Konoha...at least, that's where we got our start."
"Ah, so you knew each other already?"
"...You could say something like that, yes."
Luckily, Itachi's propensity toward a flat affect keeps Halsin from suspecting something is wrong.
"You're such a cryptic little thing," Astarion laments, hoisting himself into the branches of the enormous tree they're climbing down to get a better view of the landscape ahead. "Are you ever going to tell us what happened between you and your family that landed you in this mess?"
For just a second, Itachi shoots Orochimaru the ugliest glare he can manage before he manages to compose himself.
(He has to know he's the one who told. But at the moment there's not much he can do about it.)
"That isn't really any of your concern, is it?"
"Oh, can't you stop being such a joyless wretch for a moment and indulge my curiosity?"
"Your curiosity doesn't mean much to me."
It would probably be for the best if Astarion let it go there. So, of course, he doesn't do that.
"You're such a tease- what's the point in being this dark brooding mysterious figure if you're not going to say anything about how you got that way?"
"There's no point to anything. This is just how I am."
Astarion rolls his eyes so hard it's a miracle they don't fall right out of his head.
"Is everyone so prickly where you're from?"
"Only toward nosy busybodies who don't know when to shut their mouths."
Itachi stubbornly refuses to say anything more after that, wrapping his cloak tighter around himself and staring off into nothing.
(Why does it suddenly feel so cold...?)
"That beach is just up ahead," Gale says, smiling as he speeds up to get back on solid ground as quickly as possible. "Everyone be on guard, I'm sure we can't count on these duergar to be the friendly sort."
Nobody says a word as they finally descend onto the seemingly deserted beach, taking note of the rotted ropes and wooden planks that are barely holding together, trying not to think too hard about the skeletons and rotting corpses strewn about the pristine white sand.
True to their suspicions, humanoid figures emerge from the shadows- stout, sturdy ones with weapons in hand.
"We've got ourselves a rotflower, boys," one of them declares. "Musta gotten into these poor sods' heads."
Before any of them can try to speak, they're surrounded on all sides by shambling, decomposed corpses and groan as they shuffle toward them.
"..Bollocks," Gale murmurs under his breath, as they all draw closer to each other.