Harry Potter and the Berserker

Chapter 25

Disclaimer- Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling and Berserk is owned by Kentaro Miura. I own nothing.

His journey resumed once again come the break of day. Bones cracked as his boots came stomping down on them. So many began to crack that anyone listening might have thought that a thunderstorm was brewing in the distance. At least he had been able to get a few good hours of sleep before having to continue on. A blue blur flew up to his good eye holding a stick.

"Hey," Puck began, "you look like you had a rough night, so I went and found some berries for you to eat." The elf presented Guts with the freshly picked fruit. He looked at them with skepticism.

"What are you trying to do, kill me?" Guts nearly spat.

Puck tilted his tiny head in confusion. "Huh? What's wrong with them? Are you allergic or something?"

Guts snatched the berry branch away from the small creature. He plucked a single berry and began to squeeze it between his thumb and forefinger to the point where a line of juice began to appear. "Take a sniff with that useless nose of yours. Tell me if you stiff think that's edible."

He tossed the berry to Puck, who caught it. "Well someone woke up on the wrong side of the-," he sniffed the juice and his bluish skin lost a bit of color. Puck looked up at Guts nervously. "Eh... yeah, I guess its best if you don't eat that; you know, it being poison and everything." He laughed nervously before discarding the rest of the branch. Guts didn't break pace, forcing the elf to beat his tiny wings faster to catch up. "So, where are we going today?"

"I am heading to the nearest town. You can fly off whenever you feel like it, which better be soon."

With an almost indignant shake of his head, Puck said, "Not that easy, mister. I'm useful for when you get into a tight situation, and you know it. You just don't want to admit it." Puck grinned cheekily at him. Guts blew in his face, causing the elf to become disorientated. His smile turned into a frown. "Can't you take a joke?"

Guts spent the next hour or so walking until the forest finally gave way back to a dirt-paved road. If he stuck to that, then he was bound to run into the nearest town or village. Carriage tracks were freshly pressed into the dirt road, and from the direction of the horses' hoof prints, left seemed the way to go.

"Hey, this road looks kind of familiar to me," Puck remarked as the two of them stuck to the side of the road, least a rider or carriage should come up suddenly from behind.

"Let me guess, this is where you were captured by those thugs I had to save you from?"

Puck put a finger to his chin. "No, that road was a lot nicer than this one. And it was a cloudy day too." He snapped his fingers. "Oh! Now I remember! The acting troupe I used to be a part of traveled this way once. They went to go put on a show for a town not too far from here."

"Terrific," Guts said sardonically.

Puck didn't seem to pick up on it and began to swell a little in pride as he recounted what must have been his glory days. "Oh, you should have seen us back then. We had this one guy right; he was super skilled with knives and all sorts of tricks."

"..." Guts didn't respond. Puck's description sounded a lot like someone he had known.

"That was a few years ago though," Puck continued following Guts' silence. "He moved on to bigger and better places, you know how it goes, right?"

"...Yeah, I know how that goes."

Puck seemed to catch onto the fact that Guts was becoming more distant, or at the very least more so than before and he dropped the subject, much to Guts' relief. They continued on in silence for the rest of the journey until the stone walls of the town came into view. They stood at least thirty feet high with sentries patrolling the battlements. Two stood guard by the lowered drawbridge and they chatted idly until they spotted Guts approaching. They readied their spears at his approach.