Everlong

The Acolytes

Ed watched as the Yuan-Ti cultists came barging in, the smaller ones that had tried to hit him with a poison dart hanging back as two big snake-headed guards opened Ed's cell with a wave of their scaly hands.

"Hey guys don't you know three's a crowd?" Ed joked as they charged at him. Ed swung a upper cut to one guard, while the other tried to grab away his other arm. Ed threw his leg and kicked the second guard in his kneecap, or at least what was left of one as he noticed the other leg was a twisting limb of snake like bodies.

Olly watched in horror, her body still waking up from paralysis as Ed wrestled with the guards, the Cleric fighting them with a smirk until it twisted into a grimace, the guards pressing him firmly down into the dirty sand floor. 

"Ed!" she yelped as she tried to throw herself forward, her fists clinging to the bars like a lifeline as she pulled herself up "Let him go you bastards!"

She watched with wide eyes as they smashed Ed further into the ground before hissing at one another, communicating in a language that was so alien to Olly she felt like hissing at them out of spite. 

"Don't worry angel" Ed spat blood as they began lifting him to be dragged away "I won't let them bully me, you just get up and running!"

"Ed!" Olly yelled after him, watching his legs dangle and disappear around the corner, her friend now in the hands of the snake cultists to do who knows what. 

"Oll?" she heard a groan from behind her.

Olly swung herself around and remembered she wasn't the only one in her cell and quickly scooted over to where Nole was lying still on the prison floor.

"Nole it's okay" she shushed him as she hovered over his lanky frame, his face smeared in dirt and grime from being in captivity for so long. He looked even thinner than usual while his bright blue hair seemed plastered to his scalp. 

"What's going on? Am I dreaming still?" Nole said more to himself than to her.

"I'm here" Olly said grabbing his hand and squeezing it "I'm real. Momma sent me after you when you disappeared."

"Momma knows?" Nole groaned now opening his eyes "I'm in big trouble, aren't I?"

"The biggest" Olly smiled "But first we gotta get you and me and Ed out of here."

"Who's Ed?" Nole said sitting up, obviously taking the poison a lot better than she was. 

"A friend" Olly said trying her best to stand on her two feet, her legs still limp like a newborn lamb.

"What happened to Peren?" Nole said quick as ever.

"I left Peren" Olly said with a hard conviction in her voice "He wouldn't follow me when Momma told me the news. I couldn't just let you be, I couldn't feel you either, so I knew you were in trouble. I just didn't know it was this much." 

"I'm sorry Allana" Nole said hanging his head "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I just thought..."

"You thought you were ready" Olly sighed "And I guess it's partly my fault. I shouldn't have left with Peren before your training was complete."

"I know why you left" Nole said sadly "I just wanted to go with you."

"You were so young" Olly said coming over to him now, her feet able to keep balance as she helped her brother up from the ground "Peren didn't want a teenage boy tagging along with him. Now looking back, I should have told that elf to fuck off."

"You mean that?" Nole said looking up at her with identical glowing white eyes.

"You are my brother" she said seriously "We were cut from the same cloth. Denying you is like denying I have an arm or a leg. I would have torn the world apart to get to you. This is my fault, I shouldn't have left you like Atticus left us, but now I'm not going anywhere. You can bet your last unicorn on that."