Chapter Text
When Sviatloslav was about to take off his trader costume, him and Austin heard someone bang on the door.
-"Also Austin, help us clean up the bodies!" The person outiside the door shouted, it was Aishas voice again.
-"Uhm.. Fine!" Austin answered, before quickly telling Sviatoslav "Dont take that off yet, also if you can, pretend that youre still shaken up from the raid, okay?"
Sviatoslav nodded, and with that, Austin left the hut. He walked towards the direction where he could hear Aisha speak to another villager. When he could finally see her, she was talking to Neves, a librarian that also survived the raid. Austin stoped right after he saw him. Neves hates him with every ounce of himself, and was clearly already in a terrible mood, so seeing the, quoting, "local shithead", was just like pressing salt to a gaping wound. Austin walked towards them, a little hesitantly, and when Neves noticed him, his eyes sharpened and he crossed his arms, likely disappointed that Austin survived the raid. Austin sighed, hoping Neves wont speak to him, but Neves did just that.
-"Stop getting on my nerves already and walk faster, we dont have the whole day, idiot." Neves took a step closer, making Aisha also look behind and notice Austin.
-"Oh, youre here already. Surprisingly theres only like 4 corpses, which is actually surprising, you can handle dragging a dead body, right? I wanted to take Tohaku for this first but he puked all over himself when he saw some blood on the floor so i scrapped that idea." Aisha stated before putting her hands on her hips.
-"I guess?" Austin mumbled, avoiding even looking in Neves way.
He was feeling anxious, the thought of having to see people he knew dead, but that was all a part of village life. Villagers were peaceful creatures, one of the reasons that they keep their hands in their sleeves is to show that they will not raise their hand at you, showing that theyre harmless, and will never possibly fight back. Well, not physically, obviously. Most villagers are generally really nice, but they gossip too much. Some are even using insults, for example Neves. But Austin was very nice and kind as you may know, but he keeps his hands out of his sleeves, most of the time keeping them close to his chest, often fidgeting with them.
Austin was lost in his thoughts untill Aisha snapped her fingers in front of his face.
-"Pay attention!" She ordered, and Austin nodded his head -"What you will do is get the corpse in front of the well-" she pointed at a body of a jobless villager that was laying face down in front of the well, just like she said. -"And dump it in the river." she pointed again, now at a nearby river, flowing into the depths of the forest (where Austin also dumped the body of the wandering trader..)
-"River?!" Austin was caught off guard, but before he could complain, Neves cut him off.
-"Are you deaf or dumb? Yes, the river, dipshit. We dont have time to deal with burying them."
-"Stop being an asshole.." she sighed, and turned towards Austin once more _"You can go. Or is something not clear?" she tilted her head to the side slightly
Austin shook his head and and went to the well.
The body laying on the floor likely died by bleeding out. It had a total of 6 arrows stuck in it, 3 in the back, 1 in the left shoulder, 1 in the right leg and 1 at the back of the neck, that surely looked painful. Austin couldnt recognize who that was just by seeing the back of their head, plus there was a lot jobless villagers living in the village anyway. The blood was dried already, and the body stiff. Not to mention that its stench was pugent. Austin felt his stomach sink and almost gagged twice at the sight, but he had to do what he had to do. He finally got the courage to step a bit closer and grab the corpse by the sleeve, but he immediately let go and gagged again. After a moment of not even looking at the body, with a swift move he grabbed the corpse by its sleeve again and looked away again, trying to not vomit. With his second hand, he grabbed the second sleeve and started dragging it behind himself. He wanted to cry, vomit and run away, all at the same time. He started walking faster, just to finish the task quicker. When he was about 50ft (15m) away from the river, he didnt see neither Neves or Aisha, but he didnt even pay attention to that. When he finally got there, he pushed the body in. The river was quite deep, so the body was just barely above water, and it just floated away. Austin stood there for another moment, with his eyes closed, arms close to his chest and fists clentched so hard his knuckles were white, trying to forget the horrendous sight. He saw dead bodies multiple times, after player attacks, zombie sieges or raids, but he was never told to get rid of one.
After all was done, Aisha told him that hes free for now, so Austin comes back to his hut. As he walks in, he sees Sviatloslav napping on his bed, but not in the mood to do anything about it, he just sits at the egde of it and sighs quite loudly. Sviatloslav is a light sleeper, so just the feeling of the wool mattress dipping under Austins weight was enough to wake him up.
-"Grr..." he groans as he sits up, looking in Austins direction -"Finally youre here, when can i take this garbage off? Wearing clothing on top of clothing isnt fucking comfortable in the slightest.."
Austin doesnt answer, so Sviatloslav pokes him with his leg, but that doesnt do anything either.
-"... come on, a dead body cant traumatize you so quickly. Get yourself together and answer me, stop being dramatic." Sviatloslav tried to get a reaction out of Austin, but instead, he got nothing, so he poked him with his leg again. And again. And again. But when he tried to do that for the fifth time, Austin slapped his leg away.
-"oh? And here i thought you turned into a statue." Sviatloslav teased, bored and annoyed by the thick fabric of the robe he had on his already warm clothing. Austin didnt answer again, so Sviatloslav poked him again. This time, Austin pushed his leg away with visibly more force and stood up, very upset.
-"ITS ALL YOUR FAULT! YOURE THE REASON WHY PEOPLE I KNEW, PEOPLE I LOVED ARE DEAD!" Austin shouted and raised his hand at Sviatloslav, before dropping on his knees with his face in his hands.