Chapter Text
It’s a typical summer’s day in Galahd, when the air is warm and humid and dew sparkles on the grass in the pale morning light.
Nyx is six years old and not yet concerned with anything beyond the small, remote village where he lives. The war hasn’t reached this far into the islands yet, only the slowly increasing number of demons at night causing a stir in the otherwise peaceful life of a child.
He is sitting outside in the mud with his baby sister, showing her with great determination how to make the best mud pies, with soft mud from the rain and grass and flowers for decoration.
He’s stacking the pies in a tower formation, carefully and precisely, when a movement draws his attention to the bottom of the garden. He looks over, tensing at the possibility of demons (but demons only come out at night, he reminds himself) and instead sees a boy peering at them over the fence. A boy he hasn’t seen before.
Nyx waves curiously, and the boy disappears, dropping down behind the old wooden planks to hide from sight.
Nyx frowns, handing the half-finished pie in his hand to Selena.
“Shout if you see something weird,” he says, nodding sincerely at her gurgled, nonsensical response.
He gets up, wiping the mud from his hands onto his shorts and wanders down to the trees lining the end of their garden, mud squelching between his toes on the sodden grass.
Stopping by a tree, he listens carefully, staring at the fence just a few feet away where he saw the face appear, until he hears a quiet sniff and a shuffle of feet. Slowly, the boy’s face peeks over the top of the fence again, blue eyes widening when he sees Nyx standing there, now brandishing a stick with the confidence of a battle-forged warrior.
There’s a scuffle of feet and the boy’s face disappears again as he stumbles back down with an ‘oof’.
Nyx hops to the fence and climbs onto the first slat, tossing his stick to the floor to peer over and grin at the boy now splayed on his back in the mud.
“What are you doing?” Nyx asks with a laugh. The boy stares up at him for a moment.
“I heard you playing and I just...” The boy stands up sheepishly and shrugs, pulling a twig from his hair, “I’m bored.”
“You wanna come play with us?” Nyx asks, leaning over further until the fence creaks. “Me and Selena are making mud pies,” he frowns, “She’s not very good at it though, but she’s a baby.”
“Yes!” The boy grins, bouncing on the balls of his feet excitedly, “Yeah ok.”
“Can you climb over?” Nyx asks, climbing up onto the second plank of the old wooden fence. “Like this?”
The boy nods with a determined pout and with some help from Nyx, hauls himself over into Nyx’s garden. They fall onto the floor together and get to their feet laughing.
“I’m Nyx, and I’m six,” Nyx says, sing-songing over the rhyme and holding out his muddy hand with a lopsided grin.
“I’m Libertus, I’m six and a half,” says the boy, shaking Nyx’s hand with exaggerated swings. “Nice to meet you, my pack lives over that way, that’s our farm,” he says, pointing vaguely behind him, “We just moved down from the mountains.”
“My pack lives here,” Nyx says, with a nod, pointing at the large converted barn house behind him. “Most of them are out though, I heard some demons broke the roof of the town hall last night and they’re fixing it, I’m looking after my sister for when they get back.”
Libertus nods, chewing his lip thoughtfully, brow creasing with a flicker of anxiety.
“Anyway, c’mon,” Nyx says cheerfully, grabbing Libertus’ hand in his own and tugging him towards the house.
They run back to Selena, who has demolished Nyx’s pile of perfect pies and covered herself in a layer of mud. Nyx sighs sadly and pulls some grass from her hair.
“Libertus this is Selena, she’s my sister. She’s not good at mud pies.”
Libertus waves at her and she claps her hands at him excitedly, spraying them both with mud.
“I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” he says sadly, flopping down to sit next to Selena.
Nyx joins him, doling out more mud from the pile of ex-pies, “Is your pack very small then?” he asks, dropping a clump of mud into Libertus’ waiting hand. “Mine’s huge but lots of them left to fight when The Wall moved. But that was before I was born so I don’t know them, I’ve just seen photos,” he shrugs.
Libertus gets comfy on the grass and starts rounding off a mud pie, enjoying the feeling of the soft silt on his hands. “My pack is big but it’s all grown-ups except me. Lots of them left a year ago though, with all my friends. My mum said they’d come back but they haven’t.”
He huffs sadly, pushing a hole into his mud pie to add some petals.
“Oh.” Nyx decorates his pie with a few strands of grass, and puts it down next to Libertus’. He turns to look at him with a smile. “Well, you can be my friend if you want.”
“Yeah?” Libertus asks brightly.
“Sure,” Nyx nods, admiring Libertus’ mud pie. “I don’t have many not-family friends.”
Libertus smiles shyly and looks to Selena thoughtfully as she picks an earthworm from the wet grass and, to Nyx’s dismay, shoves it straight into her mouth.
“Selena!” Nyx yelps, gently removing the wiggling worm from her vice-like grip and throwing it back to the grass out of reach, “No worms!”
Libertus laughs, “You know,” he says, splatting his hands together over a new clump of mud, “my dad says that if you go out to the mountains where the river starts is in a storm there’s lightning worms in the ground that jump out and eat you.”
Nyx laughs, “that’s dumb, I’ve never seen a worm big enough to eat a person. Maybe a demon worm.”
“Well it’s true. Have you been to the river in a storm?” Libertus scoffs, adding his finished pie to the pile for Selena to destroy.
“Well... No,” Nyx admits, prying Libertus’ pie from Selena’s hand as she giggles and tries to shove that in her mouth instead, “My pack won’t let us go outside in a storm in case the thunder steals us away.”
“That’s dumb, how’s thunder gunna steal you?” Libertus laughs. Nyx scowls and hits him on the arm playfully with a wet slap.
“You’re dumb!” Nyx laughs, then, “We should go,” he says determinedly.
“Go...?” Libertus asks warily.
“Next time there’s a storm. And find some lightning worms. If we find some then I’ll believe you.”
“Uh, we shouldn’t go out by ourselves,” Libertus grimaces, “What about the demons?”
“Yeah but we can go in the day time so it’s safe right? Demons don’t come out in the day.” Nyx sits back on his hands and fixes Libertus with a smirk, “You’re not scared are you?”
“No! I just… I don’t know the way,” Libertus says, unconvincingly.
“That’s fine,” Nyx retorts, eyes bright with mischief, “I do!”
***
The next storm arrives a week later, the first promise of thunder rumbling across the sky in the early afternoon. Nyx and Libertus sneak out of their houses to meet in the forest behind Nyx’s garden as planned, armed with some pointy sticks (to scare away monsters), some snacks and enough excitable energy between them to power all of Eos.
They set off into the forest towards the mountains looming in the distance, determined and bubbling with anticipation. Thunder echoes above them as the rain gets heavier, pouring through the trees and drenching them both in a matter of seconds as they run and jump through the puddles.
Barely fifteen minutes into their adventure however, Nyx realises… he doesn’t know the way. The mountains aren’t getting any closer, and through the dark clouds he can’t even see the tops of them anymore.
The rain continues to hammer through the treetops, soaking them to the bone as forks of lightning clash above, dropping leaves and splitting tree branches down to the forest floor.
“Um,” Nyx mumbles, lip trembling as he spins on the spot, looking for anything familiar. Every direction suddenly looks the same, the pathways flooded and merging into one seamless bog-like expanse sloshing around their feet.
Libertus stands next to him, hugging himself and shivering, eyes wide and darting to any glimpse of movement. Nyx sniffs, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand as panic jitters through him.
“I…” he whines, glancing at Libertus’ through tear soaked lashes.
A bolt of lightning shatters a tree ahead of them, splitting the trunk down the center and sending both boys screaming and running in the opposite direction. Libertus grabs Nyx’s hand and yanks him to the side suddenly, skidding down into an old tree trunk that’s hollowed at the base.
They squeeze in together, huddled and shaking - partly from the cold and party from adrenaline - as the downpour continues outside their little haven, endless and hopeless.
“Sorry,” Nyx whispers between sniffs.
“It’l be fine,” Libertus replies, nodding with a false confidence as a surge of protectiveness washes through him, “Our packs will come and find us.”
“We shouldn’t have snuck out,” Nyx mumbles, “My mum’s gunna kill me if she finds out.”
Libertus wiggles his arm between them to grab Nyx’s hand in his own again. Nyx sniffles and rests his chin on his knees, hugging them to his chest with his other hand. He looks sideways at Libertus.
“Will your pack be angry?”
“Probably,” Libertus says forlornly, “If they find out.”
“Maybe if we get back we can keep it a secret then,” Nyx says softly.
Libertus nods, watching the slow rhythmic drip of water off the end of a branch.
The storm eases mercifully quickly. Warm sunlight beams through the treetops like a blessing from the gods, crystal drops of water drip softly from the canopy above them and the forest fills with a light mist as the water begins to evaporate.
Nyx eases out of their shelter first, glancing around tepidly. Libertus follows, grabbing his bag and squinting off into the distance.
“Isn’t that your house?” he asks, pointing a short distance away to a wooden fence peeking between trees, lit perfectly in a golden ray of sunshine.
“Yeah,” Nyx snorts, wringing out the front of his t-shirt and flapping the material to unstick it from his skin. Libertus bursts out laughing, doubling over at how silly the whole thing seems now.
Nyx look back towards the woods thoughtfully, before smiling sheepishly, “We should probably go home.”
“Yeah,” Libertus grins, pushing Nyx towards the fence.
“This was a pretty lame adventure, huh?” Nyx laughs, tripping over debris as he picks his way across the flooded forest floor.
“It was alright, we still snuck out and almost got hit by lightning,” Libertus considers, stopping when they reach the fence and watching Nyx hoist himself up and sit on the top, “I’ve never snuck out before.”
“Me either. It was pretty scary.” Nyx chews his lip thoughtfully, “When we’re grown up enough, we should go on proper adventures together,” he says, teeth chattering between every word.
“Yeah!” Libertus nods, hitching his bag onto his shoulder, “We can make our own pack and go like, to the mainland and everything.”
Nyx grins, pointing at his cheek, “We can get pack marks together! And be friends forever.”
“Best friends.”