Roots | Cycles Book 1 | ONC 2024

XII : Lost

Thunder booms through the Forest.

Torrential rain pours from the skies, pelting everything in sight, the Forest floor running off in mud and the trees and brush bending to the weight of the downpour.

Shanirin cannot believe this. He'd just about made it to morning, wanted to get his bearings like he'd planned, when this storm broke out from the crimson sunrisen skies. He'd been so close to hopefully making some solid progress.

Instead now he must shelter beneath a sloped incline, shuddering from the sudden drop in temperature as the storm rages, only partially dry and concealed. He can barely see through the thick stream of water hailing down.

All the Soulbiter tracks, barely useful though they may have been, will be lost now. And he's had to break from his path to find shelter, veering off course. He isn't sure he trusts himself to find his way back after, and he cannot progress through the thick mud and heavy wet brush, so now he's probably lost. He would get sick out there too, and with no medicine, likely succumb.

Dammit. Dammit!

And then something grim would definitely become of Umi. If it hasn't already. Shanirin closes his eyes as he sits curled up in his damp little shelter, his knees hugged to his chest while he rocks back and forth. Oh his poor Umi. Shanirin viscerally revolts from the fact he doesn't know what is happening to his husband right now.

How long has this storm being going on for? An hour? More? He cannot see the sky clearly enough to make any sort of judgments on the passage of time.

The little curled up ball of his being pulses with despair at the awful turn things have taken just as he'd somewhat pulled himself together. This time he cannot stop the tears, too overwhelmed to even try.

He cries, his voice lost to the howling wind and roaring rain. Why is everything falling apart? Oh Heart, he will never get anywhere at this rate. By the time he finds Umi he will most likely be a corpse. Like Sairin had said.

Lightning strikes the skies, he feels it strike his heart. How can he possibly overcome all this?

Shanirin's crying grows more violent as all these thoughts swarm and roil around his mind like a disturbed wasp hive, until his form is finally lurching with full sobs, his chest burning so fiercely he feels the fire crawl into his throat, consume his voice in a flaming flurry of agony that bursts past his teeth—he screams. No one can hear him over the storm. He can't take this anymore.

"Please!" he wails into the weather, into the Forest, into thin air, shaking and gasping between sobs, "Please g-give me something!" he begs, voice broken and stuttering, uncurling from his position to shuffle onto his knees and bow down to the cold, damp earth, pressing his forehead to it as he sobs more, overcome by the stress and panic. This tide is determined to drown him and he's far too helpless to keep it at bay, "Please h-help me save m-my little one, o D-Divine Land," he stutters out prayers, shaking with new sobs and whimpers that rend his meek voice, "please l-let me see h-him once more b-before I die," he pleads, skin feeling feverish.

Thunder bursts through the sky again, loud and mighty.

Shanirin prays louder, the only thing he's got left, "T-Take me if you must, make me i-into whatever you w-want, I will g-give you everything I a-am f-for his life," his hands splay out into the soft earth, feeling it out as he stays bowed, prostrated before all he believes in, the only thing that can save him now.

A freezing wind rattles through his bones but it does not sway him, "P-Please, S-Sacred O-One, help m-me," he whimpers out the last of his prayers, his voice so spent it gives out on him.