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“Is… is it much further?”
Gangrel stopped and looked over his shoulder. His hood made it hard to see much of anything, but it was necessary; the weather was calm, if overwhelmingly hot, but if the wind picked up they’d be whipped mercilessly by the sand. And the wind could pick up at a moment’s notice out here.
“Why? Starting to get all tuckered out, tactician?”
He didn’t mean to sound quite so—well, himself, if he was being frank. But the heat was dry and sickening. It would be enough to leave anyone in a bad temper—except for Robin, apparently.
“No, not really, I just—I didn’t think it would be this long a journey.”
Gangrel couldn’t resist rolling his eyes at that. He’d told Robin this trip wouldn’t be an easy one, which was why he hadn’t wanted to go on it in the first place, but he’d insisted.
“We couldn’t have flown in on wyverns?” Robin asked as he struggled to catch up. Gangrel waited for him, but he knew it wasn’t going to last long unless he decided to go at a snail’s pace.
“They won’t go this far into the desert. Something about the metals underground messing with their navigation. I never paid it much mind.” He didn’t want to add that he wasn’t particularly fond of the beasts. They tended to think he’d make a great lunch.
“I... I see.” Robin stopped and put his hands on his knees. Gangrel was obliged to stop and wait for him to catch his breath.
“We’ll never get there at this rate,” he said with a sigh, and he wasn’t looking forward to spending the night cowering between sand dunes, gathering as close to a fire as he thought he could handle without catching on fire in his sleep. They were miles away from the nearest settlement…
“Sorry, sorry.” Robin picked up his feet to catch up and gathered his cloak around him. “C’mon, Robin, you’ve done military marches for days on end, you can do this…”
Gangrel kindly ignored the fact that Robin was talking to himself. Love could do strange things, he supposed…
He put his hand over his eyes to look up to the sky, so he could take note of where the sky was. It was already the middle of the afternoon, which didn’t bode well for being able to get there before sundown… but it was possible, he supposed.
The wind picked up suddenly, whipping sand violently around them. Gangrel held his cloak around him tightly to make sure none of his skin was exposed and looked behind him to make sure Robin was doing the same. Robin was practically walking on his heels, pressed up against his back to further protect himself from the wind.
They crested a dune and in the distance, Gangrel spotted a dingy little hut. It was half buried in the sand on two sides and didn’t look to be in the greatest condition, but at the very least it was still standing, and that was impressive enough in a place like this. The wind had picked up too strong for Robin to be able to hear him, so he tugged on his sleeve to get his attention and pointed it out.
As fast as they could with the wind blowing through them, they made their way to the hut. Gangrel ushered Robin quickly inside and out of the elements. The inside of the house was sparsely furnished, but it was sand-free and protected from the elements. They could hear the wind whistling outside.
“I guess that solves the question of where to sleep tonight.” Robin chuckled, albeit nervously, like he wasn’t sure his joke was going to be appreciated. That made Gangrel laugh more than the actual joke, which fell quite flat.
“Well, we certainly won’t be going anywhere until the sandstorm subsides,” he said, pausing to listen to the storm. He was just glad this place didn’t have any windows, or else they would likely be smashed and the place would be full of sand… “I suppose it’s just a good thing we get to wait it out here rather than having to find a rock or a cave or something.”
“That must be why someone built this place,” Robin suggested as he took off his cloak. He was dishevelled and his hair was full of sand. Gangrel reached over and tousled it, shaking out as much of the sand as he could. Robin laughed. “Want some dinner?”
“Well… if you’re hungry, I suppose I could eat.” He smirked to show he was joking, and Robin grinned back as he reached into his bag. He pulled out a loaf of tough bread, broke it in half and handed him one of the pieces. Next, he passed out the dried meat—Gangrel didn’t ask the source, but he’d surely eaten worse in his time no matter what it was. (And he had a strong feeling it was bear meat…)
They sat and ate in silence for a while. Robin distributed some water, and when he realized their stores were running low, he used an ice magic tome, a pan, and the environmental heat to refill their water skins. Surprisingly enough, it was Gangrel who broke that silence.
“Why do you want to go all the way out to this godsforsaken place, anyway?” he asked through a mouthful of dry bread, spitting crumbs everywhere.
Robin was silent for a few long moments. At first Gangrel thought he hadn’t heard him, what with all the wind noises coming from outside, but after chewing through another bite of tough dried meat, Robin cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I… want to see where I was born,” he answered, sounding embarrassed by the admission. “I know my mother is probably dead, and if she’s not, I have no idea where to find her… but ever since Validar mentioned her, I’ve been wanting to know more about where I came from.”
Gangrel sniffed. He’d suspected as much when Robin asked him if he knew anything about the Grimleal in Plegia, or any kind of compound where they might be found, but suspecting and knowing were two different matters. Perversely, he was… pleased that Robin was comfortable with telling him, even though he was clearly uncomfortable with the matter.
“You know, they might not be friendly when we get there,” he reminded him. “If there’s even anyone left. If they haven’t just moved on of their own accord, Validar probably brought them with him when he claimed—stole—the throne.”
“That’s alright. I still want to see it.” Robin smiled at him, and Gangrel smiled back. Funny that Robin could make him do that so readily…
The tactician pulled out a small lantern and a tinderbox, quickly lighting the lantern. A book quickly followed. Robin flipped to a page that he’d marked off with a strip of silk.
“…want me to read to you?” he asked, holding up the book for Gangrel’s inspection. It wasn’t anything he recognized, or which sounded particularly interesting, but—they were stuck waiting out the hours in a building with a raging sandstorm just outside the door.
“It certainly doesn’t sound like the worst way to spend our time…”
Robin chuckled and scooted closer so they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Gangrel leaned against him, slouching so he could rest his head on Robin’s shoulder as he started to read.
He wasn’t even paying attention to what he was reading—he just liked to hear Robin’s voice.
Robin stood on the plateau overlooking the village and held his breath.
It was obvious that no one had lived there for quite some time. Many of the windows on the houses were smashed—probably by debris, being this far out, but he couldn’t discount bandits. Sand had piled up around all the buildings. What looked like farm plots had been overrun by that same sand, indicating that the desert had spread in the time since the village had been inhabited.
“There’s a staircase down over here,” Gangrel said, startling him out of his solemn reverie. “In case you want to actually look around instead of just standing there gawking at it.”
“R-right…” In all honesty, Robin felt like he was rooted to the spot, unable to move. Imagine, coming such a long way only to not even have the courage to go down there…
Gangrel made the choice for him when he walked away and headed to the staircase. Not wanting to be left behind, Robin followed, but couldn’t take his eyes off of the village.
The stairs they descended were carved right out of the red stone of the cliff. Robin couldn’t even imagine how long it took to carve them, and he had to wonder if someone else lived there before the Grimleal cult, or if they had really been there that long—the stairs looked positively ancient. They carried them right down to the village, which had settled in the embrace of a three-walled cliff. He could see what looked like guard posts built into or on the cliffsides. He would have been very architecturally impressed if he hadn’t felt like the bottom of his stomach was about to fall out…
“Home sweet home, is it…?” he heard Gangrel mutter as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Robin wasn’t even sure where to start. He didn’t even know if this really was the place he was born, though the isolation and fact that it was a known Grimleal hideout made it likely. But it just seemed like any other village; nothing screamed ‘concubine barracks’ or ‘future god birthing room’.
He picked a house at random and wandered inside. None of the doors were locked, and inside the furniture was still there, though everything was covered in a layer of sand thanks to the broken windows. It… looked like a completely normal house. The cupboards and bookshelves had been emptied out, but otherwise it looked untouched.
He wandered into what must have been the master bedroom, once upon a time. The sheets and clothes had been taken when the villagers had left, but…
By the bed frame and hay-stuffed mattress, which had clearly started to mold, was a baby’s crib. Robin walked over to the crib and traced his fingers along the edges. His fingers came away covered in dust.
Maybe it meant nothing… you’d expect people to have children regardless of their affiliations, after all. But maybe it meant something. It could even be his crib…
“They could have used an interior decorator with some sense of style, hm?”
Gangrel’s sudden approach from behind made him jump. He was sure his heart even stopped for a moment! He stumbled and tripped on his own feet, landing on his backside.
“G-gangrel! Don’t sneak up on me like that—!” He was too startled to be embarrassed by the way his voice suddenly pitched up several octaves. That didn’t mean Gangrel wasn’t amused by it, though; he didn’t even try to hide his grin and his snicker, just leaned his hand into his open palm and stared at him prone on the floor.
“I walked right in, actually. You were the one distracted by staring at a crib,” he said with a shrug. “Probably should keep an eye on that. Never know when an assassin could creep up behind you and shove a knife in your back…”
Instead of a knife, Gangrel offered him a hand to lift him back onto his feet. It was all apparently more… overwhelming… than Robin thought, because he ended up having to lean against Gangrel to avoid ending up right back on the floor.
Gangrel sighed and gave him a few feeble pats on the back. “There there. I’m sure this is all very… something for you.”
Robin giggled. That giggling turned into full-on laughter, until he was laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face as he leaned against Gangrel and buried his face in his shoulder. He felt Gangrel tense under him and give him a few more of those little pats on the back.
“There… there? You hadn’t gone mad, have you? If we’re both mad we’re going to have an awful time getting back out of this desert.”
Several thoughts flitted through Robin’s mind—that Gangrel wasn’t mad no matter what people called him, that his contribution to getting into the desert was more hindrance than help and Gangrel wouldn’t have a problem getting back out whether he was sane or not, that he wasn’t certain he hadn’t gone mad when he’d been forced to kill himself—and “himself”—to save the world from, well, himself.
None of those seemed appropriate to say. So Robin simply giggled some more, sniffled, and shook his head. “I’m fine. Just a little emotional, I guess. This place, I don’t know, it just has a lot—going on, for how empty it is. You can make fun of me if you want.”
“Somehow, it doesn’t work quite as well when you’re telling me to do it.” The hand that had been patting him on the back moved to pat him on the head, which felt more natural. “Do you actually want to look at anything else besides a dusty old crib? Or did we come all this way just for that?”
“Y-yeah. Let’s look around a little more…” Maybe he could find some more definitive answers—maybe he would find proof that this was where he was born.
Maybe he wouldn’t find anything. But it was worth it to look.
“Are you going to be angry if we come all the way out here and don’t find anything?” he asked. Gangrel snorted.
“It’s not like I have anywhere better to be,” he replied. “Or anywhere else to go. Might as well go hiking around in the desert with you.”
Once upon a time, Robin might have asked if he had any intentions of returning to Plegia. He had thrown around the idea of Robin coming to Plegia with him to be his tactician, but he’d never committed himself to returning. Robin couldn’t blame him. After all Gangrel had did before his seeming ‘death’, he could very well be strung up just for setting foot anywhere populated… and there was always a chance the Plegians would consider him to be the rightful heir to Plegia, which was the last thing Robin wanted. He wasn’t made to be a king…
“This place would make a good outpost, if the desert wasn’t such a pain in the arse,” Gangrel murmured, seemingly to himself. “Good fortifications… the Grimleal certainly weren’t dull.”
Gangrel, though—he may have earned the title of Mad King, but he had the instincts of a king—or at the very least the instincts of someone concerned with his country.
“It’ll make a nicer place to sleep than a hut in the middle of nowhere during a sandstorm,” Robin added, and Gangrel laughed.
“I did enjoy you cuddling up to me because the sound of the wind startled you awake,” he said. Robin flushed pink. “Not getting sunburnt, are you? Heat stroke?” Gangrel teased, and Robin just turned even pinker.
“…shut up. Not the smartest idea to tease the guy who’s carrying the water,” he reminded him, and Gangrel laughed.
“I think I’ve earned it. You’ve dragged me to this sand-swept Hell hole, after all.”
“..yeah. I guess you have.”