Double Strung

2 - Wuka

Oleir wasn't exactly pleased with the scene laid out before him, but it wouldn't quite work to call him angry either. No, a better term would be 'mildly disgruntled'.

It wasn't as though he didn't have the right to be, especially since his best friend, whom he had explicitly told not to make any trouble, had in fact made an awful lot of it.

But Oleir was a patient and understanding man, and there were few things that could set him off - unfortunately, a ruined campsite and the very near corpse-like bodies of strangers littered about the place was one of them.

Through gritted teeth, he sighed and trembled somewhat, struggling to contain his anger.

Indeed, he was only 'mildly disgruntled'. He'd faced worse.

With a wave of his hand the bodies were dragged over to his side, no heed payed to their pained curses as their wounds were scraped across the floor. With practised ease he tied them all together, counting them as he did so.

Eleven.

There were eleven and 5/6 strangers almost clothed in injuries, ranging from 'this is making me loose a fair deal of blood' severe to 'I lost my arm, help' severe. As compassionate a person as he was, he didn't bother to try and find the single stray limb or even attempt to heal their fresh gashes.
There were more pressing issues at hand.

"Rautt? Rautt, I'm back!" he called out, his voice echoing throughout the vast expanse of grass and forestland. Now all he had to do was listen.

A precious few moments of silence took hold, before the ground began to shake with the thundering footsteps of what sounded like a war giant. Oleir scanned the general area of where the thudding seemed to come from: a small forest. A crash resounded, and out from the densely packed collection of trees came the very figure he'd called for.

Dressed from head to toe in layered black metal armour, Rautt did not look dissimilar to a hulking beast of shadows; claws, spines and teeth sticking out from all edges.

Of course, these were actually just slightly modified pieces of armour, made in such a way that only skilled individuals could come close to fatal areas to land physical blows. It also helped to serve as effective intimidation, although Rautt himself was actually a very sweet and gentle person.

"Ollie!" The huge man whimpered as he reached his side, falling to the ground with a metallic bang and hugging one of his legs tightly, "Ollie, I'm really sorry! There were these assholes--"

Okay, maybe omit the 'gentle' part.

"--and they just randomly jumped at me for no reason! Look, they even scratched my armour!" He whined, sounding but not looking like a victimised child. The scratch in question was undeniably superficial, not even halfway through the thick reflective gloss that coated the armour, only measuring half a centimetre in length. Oleir would have found it more believable if he'd instead said a tree branch left the mark.

He sighed once again, tired and frustrated with the situation he'd been brought into.

"Hey," with a slight nudge of his one free foot, he prompted the least injured captive to speak, "what happened?"

Before he could even open his mouth, the man with the missing arm interrupted, "That monster stole our food and ripped my arm off! I bet it ate that, too!"

Ah. Perhaps the situation wasn't so complex after all. Oleir picked up a stray sword and examined it; the blade was badly chipped and dripping with an assortment of different people's blood, the handle strap in tatters; it would serve its purpose decently enough.

Oleir severed the heads of all the captives, retrieved his rope and set their piled up corpses alight. Then he turned to his silenced companion to berate him, "What in Heuolos' name did you think you were doing!" suppressing his displeasure as much as he could, the words came out in a harsh whisper, "Why didn't you just wait for me? I wasn't going to be long, and I could've made you plenty enough food, so why?"

"I... um..." he stuttered, evidently not sure why he had done it either.

The foul stench coming off of the fire dissuaded him from pursuing the matter, and he groaned in dissatisfied agitation. Knocking on Rautt's helmet, he told him to pack up the campsite, planning to remove all evidence of their and the people's existences in that area entirely.

The job was quick and easy as they hadn't even had enough time to set up their resting site before Rautt had ambushed them, so all Oleir needed to do was clean up the remains of conflict, loot their good items and burn all the useless ones. In the extra time surrendered by Rautt's clumsy failings, he also made sure to erase all traces of fire.

"...are you still angry at me?" Rautt asked hesitantly as they marched along. For a while Oleir didn't answer, though it wasn't out of spite.

"I won't be." he stopped half way through his sentence, used to the routine by now.
"How do I stop you?"
He thought about it for a moment, deciding on what he wanted from their conversation, "I suppose your promise to try and hold back a little would work."
"Then I promise!" Rautt said, determination evident in his tone.
Oleir could only sigh once more, "...of course you do..."

The quiet was again broken some six hours later as a gurgle sounded out, "Hungry?"
Rautt simpered in response.

Oleir looked around to survey the area and decided that they were far enough from the crime scene to relax a little.

He fiddled with one of his belt pouches and brought out a shrivelled up brown fruit - it looked completely inedible. "You fine with wuka? It's all we've got." Rautt nodded eagerly, uncaring for what meal he was to receive.

Counting down from three, Oleir tossed the husk into the air, "Now!" and upon his shout, from a series of small holes in Rautt's mouth guard, a short burst of flame enshrouded it.

As gravity forced the likely charred remains of the core down, what was revealed was not ash, but a full fruit the size of a fully grown man's head. It glistened a meaty copper but had no smell, its weight being understandably substantially larger than it had been just a few short moments previous.

Oleir caught it with one hand, allowing it to lower with the sudden influx of weight so he didn't break his fingers.

Propping it under his left arm, he barely spared a glance at his eager companion before slicing through the leathery skin with his hunting knife. The scent of grilled meat exploded from its casing as he peeled it off, and he threw the unpeeled fruit to Rautt, eating the skin himself.

After all, no matter how disgusting it may look, all parts of it were edible and highly nutritious - it would be foolish for them to waste any part of it.