I just want to be Worthy

Deals/The Icy Badger and the Toxic Jackal

          I stared off into the distance from my room in Greenhaven. Jinx rubbed against my leg and I absentmindedly brushed her with my hand. It was sunrise and I was still contemplating on going with Worthy or not. Ninanni had sent me a weird dream with him and Devin in it and it kept me up all night.
           "I'm not really sure what to do Jinx. I want to go help Worthy but that means I'll leave Greenhaven unprotected and maybe my sister unprotected in Amaya as well." I leaned against the balcony, Worthy's request for help still in my mind. I looked down and sighed in frustration.
            "Need some help with your question?" A smooth voice said. I looked up as the sky turned black and it began to rain. I turned around to see a man in my room. I grabbed my sword and pointed it at him. Jinx too moved beside me and growled at him, her hackles raised and teeth bared.
            "Who are you and what do you want?" I growled. The man just chuckled and walked closer to me, the shadows making a cloak around him and his cane banging on the floor.
          "Me? I don't want anything but what do you want, Diana?" He stopped in front of me and I saw his face. It was a old mans face, wrinkled from time and equipped with a sly smile. His clothing seemed to match the shadows around him and the cane he used to walk had the head of a skull. "You're at a crossroads aren't you?" He said walking around me. Lightning and thunder sounded in the distance, but I paid it no heed. I was interested in what he had to say.
            "How did you know my name? And what do you mean by crossroads?" I said curiously and put my sword into its scabbard. He smiled and snapped his fingers. Suddenly we were at the Docks, the pouring rain clashing against the sea, spraying foam everywhere. There sat a boy in a red cloak underneath the roof, looking for someone.
           "You want to protect your friends, yet you feel drawn to him. You want to help him but you run the risk of leaving the ones you love exposed to the Wrym's control." He said, pointing at Worthy, and pacing around me like a hungry wolf.
           A bolt of lightning crashed nearby leaving shadows on the wall. The man's shadow showed a brief figure of a hunched back goat man with wings around my shadow but I was too engrossed in what he was saying to pay it any attention.
          "I can take care of that for you. I can protect your friends while you go off with Worthy. I will keep them safe from danger, all you have to do is sign." He pulled out a piece of parchment, and I instantly recognized it as a contract. The writing was small and unreadable except for the x next to the dotted line where I was supposed to sign. He gave me a feathered quill and I held it in my hand, unsure of what to do.
           He made a good point. I did want to go with Worthy, but I still wanted to protect my friends and family. My head told me not to sign and so did my gut feeling. He leaned into my ear and spoke the question on my mind. "But what does your heart say?" His voice like poison. I breathed in and signed. Just as I finished, the paper cut me in the palm of my hand, a splotch of blood inking the page. The man took the contract and spoke.
           "This will do just fine." He turned to me and his eyes glowed golden and I woke up sweating in my own bed. A storm had rolled in, lighting crashing in the distance and thunder booming around Greenhaven. I breathed a sigh of relief and spoke under my breath.
            "It was just a dream." I got up, got changed and packed for another adventure. I grabbed my sword and held it in my hand. Jinx was still stretching after waking up and I grabbed a piece of meat and threw it to her.  I put my sword down and looked at it to see if it was sharpened. I saw blood on the handle. Curiously, I looked at my hand and my blood turned cold. In the palm of my hand, was a large paper cut.

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            It was raining. I hated the rain. Ever since I turned into a half man half panther, I despised it.
             I was waiting for Keeper at the docks. I had been waiting there all morning but she hadn't come. I laid down on one of the crates under the roof, my legs curled into my body and I closed my eyes to take a nap.
              "Has anyone ever told you that you sleep like a cat?" A voice said nearby. I opened one eye and there she was. Standing there with her hands on her hips, the rain soaking her jet black hair. I opened both eyes and smiled under the mask and retorted.
             "Yes as a matter of fact, they have. Alas I try not to let it get to me." I sat up. "So you ready to go?" I asked her, she nodded.
            "Yeah or else I wouldn't be here. Come on. We can use my ship." She said, walking off into the rain. I looked down at the watery floor and dipped my foot in. I stayed on the box. She came back and looked at me curiously.
           "Come on. What are you scared of?" She said. I looked at the water that was starting to flood the docks. She looked at me and back to the water in the ground.
            "You're afraid of the water? Seriously?" She asked incredulously, I nodded in response and still looked at the water. She rolled her eyes and did something I didn't expect. She picked me up bridal style and walked towards the boat. I yelped in surprise that she could even carry me. The hood of my cloak fell off and I could feel my hair getting soaked. She looked at me and rolled her eyes again.
            "You're such a child." She said as the rain continued to pour down. Her blue eyes stood out against the grey sky and her smile was something I remembered so clearly but forgot how it made me feel. Needless to say, there were butterflies in my stomach and I knew that under the mask I was as red as a tomato. I could've sworn my heart was skipping a beat and that it was beating a hundred times a second.
         We got to her ship The Eagle and she set me down. I slipped and fell on my back. She squatted down and looked at me from above. "I thought cats always landed on their feet." She teased. I blushed again, but sat up anyways.
She stood up and walked towards the mast. She stopped and came back to me, and ran her hands through my hair. I was unsure how to react, but then it was a pleasant feeling. She even scratched me behind my ears. I let out a low purr and she stopped petting me.
"You purred?" She said incredibly. I stopped and realized that fact. I coughed to cover up even my surprise at this fact.
"Yeah. I do that sometimes." I said. She raised her eyebrow and walked back to the mast to ready the ship. I glared at the stormy sky and covered my head with the hood and went to help her ready the ship.

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" I scouted ahead. An infected animal is blocking the path into the caves. You'll need to free it for us to proceed." I said walking towards Diana. The Eagle had arrived in Eura without a hitch and the rest of the trip into the underground had no enemies. Though I suggested we stay clear of Trunswick, no matter how much she said she wanted to see Devin. Uh me. God this whole new name confuses me.
"Ok. It's just like the usual. Free the monster, move on." She said. She nodded and grabbed her sword. We started walking towards the infected animal.
"Is that how you always think during a mission?" I asked her. If her mind was set up like that, what was she thinking when she was fighting me.
"Yeah pretty much, except for that one time..." She said and started staring off into the darkness. Her hand goes to the gold chain around her neck. I looked at it and it was locket I gave her a long time ago when we first met. She shakes her head as if to snap out of it.
"Anyways time for business as usual." She runs off into the cavern with me following just behind.
It didn't take long to find the infected animal, a swollen oversized badger with the spiral in its forehead. It used some kind of ice magic to throw snowballs and icy spikes at us.
Diana dodged each projectile with ease and still managed to get a few hits into it. I helped a little when she needed it but she took care of the badger easily. She watched it run back to the surface and walked back to me.
"Incredible... what the Greencloaks say about you is true. That power to free animals is amazing." I said, praising her. Which was true, her abilities and fighting style were phenomenal especially when her and Jinx worked side by side.
"Yeah sure. Shall we move on?" She shrugged and offered her arm to me. Nostalgia hit and my mind flashed back to when we first met back in Trunswick on the Telluns pride. It seemed so long ago with so many things changing between us. After a brief pause I accepted it and smiled underneath the mask.

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                  "There's another monstrous animal ahead. Please help it. Something is making it act this way." I said. We had run into another one of the infected animals. It seemed that the closer we got to Talon's trail, the more animals blocked our path.
                 "Same old Same old. Let the endless cycle begin." She said and ran off into the tunnel. I followed a little father behind her. 
                  Once again, she fought the infected animal with ease. It seemed more like she was dancing than fighting. Her skill with the blade was almost unmatched to any of the Redcloaks I knew. Her spirit animal fought alongside her and the two defeated the toxic jackal with no problem. After the battle, Diana walked to where I was leaning against the wall of some ruins.
                "Well fought Keeper. I'm glad you decided to join me." I said. I'm glad that she did join me, not just because of Talon, but because I wanted to reconnect with her even as Worthy.
             "Good for you. I however have a question for you. How come you have that mask and can I see who you are? You know just to see who I'm trusting and who's my teammate in this place." She said. My brain stopped in its tracks and said one word: No
"My mask?" I asked. She nodded. "I'm..." I hesitated. "Sorry, but I can't take it off." I stated, unsure.
"Why not?" She gets closer to where she's practically leaning on me and speaks in a bit of a flirtatious voice. "Don't you trust me?" My brain's at a standstill. I can barely stutter out a response.
                   "It's not that I don't trust you. I wear the mask for a reason." My response is quick and clumsy. She looks at me and crosses her arms.
         "And what exactly would that reason be?" She looks at me, eye to eye. I stare right back at her, even though I'm a little taller than her. It's like she's looking into my soul and can see all my faults. Her eyes a mirror and I can see my own guilt. I turn away before I can drown in them.
              "That's all I can say for now." I walk off, with Diana following close behind. I pray to the Great Beasts that those blue eyes didn't see who I really was.