I didn’t get my rest.
I need my rest to keep pushing on in this never-ending hike.
I must come too close to falling, to stepping on the wrong thing, because Samick’s hand abandons my wrist and before I can even panic, he’s looping his arm around my middle.
The ground is swiped out from under me.
I thud down with a grunt.
Just like he carried me into camp that first time, I’m dangling over his shoulder.
It isn’t comfortable.
Not with his chain armour digging into my ribs and gut.
But then, Samick pushes into a run.
The pummelling of bootfalls comes thundering all around me, and the rain hits—pelting down on us.
I jostle on his shoulder.
Every breath I attempt is jutted out of me.
But I just hold on.
A cross of weapons is slashed across his back—and I grip the straps for balance.
Not like I will fall anyway, not with his hand planted firm on the meat of my thigh, locking me in place.
The drumming song of the warriors running hits the ground as loud as the rain itself, until I can’t tell the sounds apart.
That hail must be close, seconds or minutes away. And we’re out in the open—we’re in a fucking field. An old farm, with troughs left in the overgrowth.
I don’t know where the nearest shelter is—but it’s far enough that the whole fucking unit is racing for it.
I add this to my list of dark fae weaknesses.
Neck shots. Mud. And hail.
Probably won’t come in handy, but it locks away in my mind.
Guess it’s not so different to us.
Humans.
Neck shots, mud, hail.
Any one of those could harm us.
But I once thought these creatures so formidable that they couldn’t be taken down.
Dare clawed through stormy waters beneath a thick sheet of ice. Samick bent a fucking gun with his bare hands. I’ve seen fae battered with bullets and once, around Santa Monica, an actual grenade.
And still, they kept moving, fighting, killing.
I don’t find pleasure in their weaknesses.
I find humanness.
