((CW: Mild emetophobia warning, nothing graphic, and brief suicidal ideation/lack of desire to live))

Noor had run. She'd watched as the old woman had been eaten alive and she'd turned tail and fled. Where she was going she did not know. Just away, she ducked down dark passages, too dark to see the veins of glass and frankly too panicked to care even if she could.

At some point the pain in her flank started to throb, and finally Noor stopped. The tunnel eerily silent, except for her panting. And then her retching.

She'd only just started to get some food in herself over the last 24 hours and now it was rushing all back up. Noor coughed, heaved and her mind flashed to the image of the blue woman disappearing, viscera the only thing left and Noor threw up again. It didn't stop until her stomach was empty, and even then a few more attempts were made, her gut contracting painfully.

Finally as it stopped Noor stumbled slightly away, trying to wipe her face on her leg or something but the pain in her flank, her now painfully empty stomach and the fading adrenaline sent her collapsing onto her side instead. Silent sobs tore through her still much too frail body and she couldn't stop them. Noor cried because while she was no stranger to death, she hadn't ever seen one happen in front of her. Noor cried because she was a coward who'd abandoned the rest of the group, left them to fight for their own lives while she'd chosen herself. Noor cried because some part of her was certain she'd signed their death warrants. Noor cried because she was sure she was next. The only thing that felt even remotely okay was that at least once the worm came for her she'd finally be out of Fable's hair, and yet... A deep pit of pain at the thought the woman she had once, no still did, love being better off without her... It was a selfish pain, one she didn't deserve to feel and yet it pulled the biggest sob of all. She wasn't able to keep that one quiet, no doubt pulling the attention of anything nearby that could be looking for her. Noor assumed the worm would soon be upon her but she wasn't sure she cared anymore. Let it eat her too, at least then the pain would stop. In the meantime the crying continued.

"Speech"

Art by Hagon

She stumbled through the tunnels, dazed and off kilter. Nothing about what had occurred was normal and the series of events preceding it - finding an old lover friend in a strange place, reunited again under uncertain circumstances - now seemed like a faraway fairytale. Fable distantly felt grateful for having survived the encounter, but even so, she was left with the same question she'd been perusing before all of this had happened: what next? What now, what now? Was it enough to just live to survive another day? Everything felt cold and faraway. She floated outside of her body, watching with consternation as her unexpectedly frail body see-sawed across the pathway. Occasionally she'd run into the side of the cave wall and walk like that for a while, shoulder to the wall, painfully scraping along. It felt better that way.

Ahead she heard the wet sounds of someone vomiting. The noise was unmistakable and had haunted her for different reasons for some time - once the royal family had eaten their fill at the feast, the first signs of the poisoning had been profuse vomiting followed by the mass hysteria and bloodshed that ensued after. Fable shuddered, but the sensation of repulsion somehow pulled her back to herself. Grounded her. Her own stomach roiled at the thought. Fable stepped forward, digging her claws into the ground with each paw, trying to really feel the dirt beneath her. Everything still felt like a dream that she was simply passing through, but the soil was real.

When she rounded the bend, adrenaline roared in her ears. Noor. She had lived. Fable stood still for a moment, jaw slack, blood rushing to her head. It roared in her ears until she felt like she'd pass out. In a good story, she would rush to Noor's side and sob, checking every inch of her over for wounds and promising they would make it out of here together - but this was simply their story, and life was never quite as beautiful as fiction. It was ugly. It hurt. It rended things limb from limb right in front of you. Fable stumbled blindly forward, blinking rapidly to try and focus past the blood in her ears and strange sensation that was still floating somewhere outside of herself, drawn to Noor like a moth to an open fire. Finally, she stood before her, shaking. Her voice was all rough sawed off edges, her throat mangled from all the screaming she'd done. "I told the others that I was with... to tell you I was looking for you. If I didn't get out."
"Speech"

The sound of something sliding its way towards her just worked to assure Noor that the worm was still on her trail. It had probably eaten the other two she'd abandoned and now it was looking for desert. She struggled to get her breathing under control, basically failing completely. Noor knew well enough that survival instinct was the strongest force in her body, much to her shame and consternation.

So despite the despair she felt, how much she felt she could accept her approaching death when the sound seemed stop she could help but feel relief, maybe she had somehow truely escaped. And then sudden movement and Noor jolted, a fearful yelp struggling to escape her throat. She was trying to jump to her paws, head craning to find the threat.

Neither really happened, while she first managed to get her paws under her, the gash in her flank screamed in protest and her right hindeleg crumpled, and not helped by her already weakened state, she slammed her left shoulder into the nearest wall. And of course the figure approaching her wasn't the worm at all.

Noor's throat felt like it was tightening up. No no no no! It just kept happening. Fable was already in more danger just by virtue of Noor having stumbled upon the continent. Now she was in the war path of a giant worm.

The words Fable croaked out barely even registered, just a blind panic filling her. "Run!" It was the only word she could think to say. She winced and tried to find the space in her chest to do anything, anything at all to get Fable away... The smear of red the elderly woman had left flashing in her mind, and she retched again. "Monster worm." She rasped once her stomach stopped heaving again, unaware that while not everyone had survived their own encounter one of the casualties had been the worm itself; leaving just two survivors.

"Speech"

Art by Hagon

She felt a distant flicker of guilt at Noor's reaction. Still so apart from her own body, Fable found herself frustrated - she should care more. She should comfort her. But she'd been carved out from the inside, nothing left to give. Truly, she just wanted to sleep. A long, deep, restful sleep. Maybe she could sleep forever. Fable made a small, sad noise when Noor hit the wall and cried out from wrenching the wound in her side, but that was the most she could muster. Her eyes were already too sore from crying. There wasn't any moisture left in her body to spare.

Although she was shell shocked, physically she was in better condition than Noor. As empty as she felt, maybe this was also better than the terrible, blind fear that had sunk its fangs into Noor's neck. Fable didn't blame her for her reaction: they had all been reduced to a miserable pile of frantic impulses the moment that the worm had attacked. "No running," she rasped. "Dead. It's dead." She couldn't possibly conceive that there had been more than the one worm her group had fought. The idea of multiple beneath the Earth had fled to the outer reaches of possible in her mind. All she assumed was that Noor had seen the one they'd fought before the cave collapsed and had been injured in the fray.

"We'll walk out of here together. Lean on me," she said, her words halting and unsteady. Fable leaned down to gently nudge Noor's cheek, trying to stand tall and steady for her. She needed to breathe fresh air before she could even consider debriefing on what had occurred.
"Speech"

Noor's mind was racing, trying desperately to make sense of what had happened and what Fable was saying. It was hard to really think about anything but her fear and the pain. No running. Confusion and despair. Did Fable not know? Or did she just not care? The latter terrified her. Dead. The word seemed to echo both around them and inside Noor's head, bouncing around insider her skull painfully.

Dead.
The bodies of her whole family, the only family she'd ever had staring sightlessly up at her, accusatory. She hadn't meant for it to be all of them. But then what comfort was it to know she'd meant for it to be her father and brother at least? Little, because the dead received no comfort, especially not from their murderers.

Dead.
The gentle older woman who'd helped stop Noor from falling, had potentially saved her own life. There one minute, gone the next. Digesting somewhere in that monster's stomach. Noor had watched it happen, hadn't done anything to stop anyone else from meeting the same fate.

Dead.
Fable had been sentenced for it. Noor had grieved. Had felt the loss of the woman like a hole had been punched straight through her ribs.

Dead.
Even when news of Fable's escape had reached her some part of Noor never believed the woman was alive. What else was out there? Only death. She only hoped that if it came for Fable she'd at least face it on her own terms and not theirs.

Dead. The ground caving out from under them. Dead. The panic at realizing they'd been separated. Dead. The monster stalking the shadows, snatching up wolves. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Noor was spiralling. Her breathing become shallow and rapid as her eyes rolled in a panic, searching desperately for the thing that was coming for them. It was only when Fable's nose gently pressed against her cheek that Noor finally seemed to come to reality. She blinked. Fable's croaked words having been taken in but not processed yet in her mind. They were getting out of there... Together? She stared for a moment longer, her breathe still coming too quickly but her heart felt like it was hammering just slightly less now. Slowly, gaze planted firmly on Fable, Noor started to rise on shaky legs. She leaned into the bigger woman. Only a short time ago she may have avoided putting any weight at all on Fable, trying to respect the wall that was erected between them but now she didn't have the physical strength to hold herself upright on her own.

It would be slow, halting progress. Neither woman was doing particularly well but somehow... With that familiar warmth and scent so close Noor believed they would make it out. Somehow... They would be alright. "I thought I lost you." They weren't the right words to say. "That you were gone and I'd never see you again. If I lived that long." Noor's voice was stronger than Fable's, even raw as her throat was from the retching and yet, in that moment, it felt so fragile. She was talking about the cave in, the worm... She was talking about the assassination, the trial... It was the wrong thing to say, and yet she didn't have the strength to not say it anymore. She didn't need a response, simply needed to say it. Had to express that at least in some way... She had been glad to see Fable again. Even if she shouldn't have. 

"Speech"

Art by Hagon