Chapter Text
Lunen slowly walked into the forest outside New Oreson. The night was warm and breezy but being alone sent a chill up their spine. They sat down under a tree at their and Diana’s usual meeting spot.
Diana walked through the shady forest, her footsteps echoing through the emptiness, her alert crimson gaze flicking to even the slightest of movements, a snap of a twig, a rustling leaf, even a rock she’d accidentally kicked had gotten her full attention, something most definitely seemed- off. She couldn’t place it. Like everything was out to get her. It wasn’t. Maybe something. But not everything. She sighed, drawing in a shaky breath as she trudged on, her hand on the hilt of a dagger on her hip, a slight frown on her face. She hadn’t completely realized where she was walking when BAM! Her head slammed straight into a tree. “Agh... Gods above. What in the?” She grumbled, looking up through slightly blurry vision. She shook her head. ”No time for that tonight. I gotta get walking.” She mumbled, standing up and dusting off her pants, as she walked by the tree that had most definitely gotten in her way. Not the other way around. She stared at it for a few seconds. “I’ll come back and chop it down later. Once this is over with.” She grumbled, looking up at the fading light from the sunset through the trees. She began humming a small tune to keep her brain from wanting to shred every. Little. Thing. The voices once screaming were now silent for a moment. It was peaceful. She looked forward this time making sure no tree got in her way. She picked up the pace noticing the familiar surroundings as the grove of berry bushes surrounded by willow trees came into view.
Lunen heard her shove bushes aside and quickly shifted into his full human form, they walked into a clearing so she could see him easily, he knew the consequences of scaring her. He was always happy to see Diana-although she might not be as happy to see him-, as she was his only connection to people outside of New Oreson, his hometown. Lunen flipped his pocket open and pulled out some mushrooms. Pulling off the bottom of one, he tossed it in Diana’s direction, hitting her on the side of the head. “You’re tense,” Lunen said loudly, “I can tell from here.”
Diana frowned, picking up the mushroom flicked at her head, beginning to roll it between her hands
“Is it that obvious?” She mumbled. “But yea. Walked into a tree here, lost Gordon, - one of my wolves -. And a certain blonde raccoon got loose in the house and started stealing my stuff. So- yea. Of course I’m tense, who wouldn’t?“ she sighed, annoyance clawing at her mind like a feral cat. “Anything else you want to know?”
“Nope, seems like a normal chaotic day to be honest,” Lunen paused, walking closer to her ”I can help look for Gordon if you’d like.” They said, smiling a bit.
“Alright. Back up,” she said, lightly shoving them.
“Ok! Ok! That bad, huh?” He said, stumbling a bit and stepping back. “If it makes you feel any better, I jammed my hand with a mallet making a sword.” Lunen coughed the word ‘again’ trying to make Diana smile at the very least.
Diana raised an eyebrow, a slight frown on her face “Ah yes. Smacking your hand with a mallet is the same as losing a pet. Nice.”
“Ah- no, but it's gonna hurt for a long time!” Lunen said, pretending to be hurt by her comment. He removed the glove on his right hand to reveal a mess of calluses, bruises, and scars dotted all over his hand. A large purple blob lined the outside of his hand between his pointer finger and thumb.”I don’t think I’ve ever actually shown you my hands before.” Lunen said quietly, staring at a scar that covered most of his knuckles.
“Mhm,” she mumbled, leaning against a tree, propping her arm against it, taking out a small dagger, spinning it between her fingers “does it matter much though? I mean, depending on the situation, yea. It can give you key info on a species. By the way- what are you? I can tell you're no mortal, you have different mannerisms as if some part of you is missing.” she said nonchalantly, looking up at them, her bright crimson gaze boring into them like a knife through warm butter. “I don’t believe you're mortal, and if you're not then what are you? I know I'm simply repeating a question but it's true. If you're hiding things like that, how well can I trust you?” she frowned vaguely.
Lunen flinched at her question, pulling his glove back on. “I-” he tried to avoid Diana’s gaze “I don’t know what you're talking about.” He said quickly. He sighed, realizing he can’t keep a damn secret. “Okay, I’ll tell, but you can’t say anything to anybody else.” He grabbed Diana’s shoulder, despite probably pissing her off “I mean it. Can I trust you?”
Diana’s facial expression probably said everything it needed to. “I’ve murdered hundreds of people, blew up a country, destroyed kingdoms, made my own empire for a bit-” she said, ticking off things on her fingers before grinning. “Yep! Yes. You can definitely trust me. Why the hell wouldn’t you? That’s an achievement in itself. Most people don’t trust me. So consider yourself lucky.” she said, putting the dagger back in the sheath on her hip, looking back at them. “I won’t tell a single fleck of dust if you don't want me to.” she smiled faintly, before frowning again. “Why are you so damn tall?”
There was an awkward pause. “Wait-what?” Lunen was caught off-guard by her question. “Umm… you’re about to find out?” Lunen said, taking a few steps back and taking in a deep breath. It wasn’t needed, he just couldn’t believe he was putting his entire city in danger. He was a part-time guard for god's sake! As they shifted into their humanoid form, they made sure to keep a close eye on Diana. If she moved for her dagger, he would reveal a weapon as well. He always kept it with him, even with Diana, Although he’s never had any remote reason to use it.
Diana frowned, her pupils suddenly shrinking into small pinpoints.
“Was in aller Welt? nein. Damit beschäftige ich mich nicht. (What in the world? Nope. I'm not dealing with this.)” she mumbled in a language that was definitely not English. Her gaze not leaving Lunen, she slowly reached for a small whistle in her bag, pulling it out, she blew into it, creating a high, shrill sound. Lunen frowned slightly, confused about what she had just done, as suddenly as the thought came. Hundreds. And they meant legit hundreds of massive silver-furred fluffy wolves appeared out of practically thin air. Standing behind Diana. She looked at Lunen for a split second. Guilt was apparent in her gaze. Before she muttered one single word, again in an unknown language.
“Halté.”
“What?” Lunen paused, staring into her eyes. He didn't want to have to hurt anyone, especially since Diana was the only person he’d ever met that wasn't his kind. “I don’t want to hurt you, please.” Lunen slowly reached for his weapon “But I WILL kill you or your wolves if you set them off”
Diana laughed, it wasn’t a laugh like you would expect, it was cold as if wrapped in thorns.
“You believe that you can kill me? Oh. I’d love to see you try . I could easily snap your neck if I wanted.”
“Not my point.” Lunen snapped back a little colder than intended. “You could probably kill me, but I don’t want to fight you.” Lunen tried to act calm, but it was becoming more difficult.
Diana hummed, the wolves behind her snapping and growling in response. She frowned, looking down
“Sarge, halté.” she grumbled, the massive silver wolf next to her sat down, its ears twitching. She looked back up at Lunen. “Well. you gonna keep standing there like a tree or do something?” she asked, pulling out another dagger and twisting it between her fingers. One of the wolves shuffled forward leaning towards Lunen with a strange interest, its ears perked forward. “Liz seems to have taken interest in you.” she said calmly, still messing with the dagger.
Lunen stared intently at Diana’s dagger, then turned their attention to the wolf. Still tense, he crouched down a bit, not coming closer to the animal in case it decided to lunge at them.
“Liz is friendly I promise, but then again I guess my trust means nothing currently,” she said quietly. “She’s probably the least likely to hurt you, and she's the most protected by the others. If they let you come near her, and she walked right up to you then there's some form of trust going on there.”
Lunen let out a small chuckle.”True,” He said quickly. If he was going to get away with a jab, might as well make it now. “Is she okay around cats?” Lunen asked, looking up at Diana quizzically for a second before turning his attention back to the wolf. He took a few more crouched steps toward the wolf, trying hard not to scare it or overstep boundaries. “H-hey, girl…” Lunen said quietly. He had hardly been around a dog, let alone one this big. Keeping pets in New Oreson wasn’t forbidden, just rare since He learned in History that they had been kept as pets in the past.
Diana thought for a moment “I don’t completely know how well she is around cats, I don’t own any. They wouldn’t survive much in the north.” she shrugged.
“True, makes sense.”Lunen, in reality, had no clue that a cat wouldn't survive in the cold. Lunen was hesitant but finally decided to shift into his cat form to be closer to the wolf.
Diana frowned, the dagger still clutched in her hand. She slowly lowered her arm, sliding the jeweled dagger back into its gilded sheath for a second time.
“It would've been helpful to know you could turn into a massive cat, ya know?’’ she sighed, looking between the two, her ear twitching for a moment as Liz barked something mild. “Liz says she can sense your anxiety. What’s wrong?”
“Just paranoid, I don’t go in this form much, especially in front of something that could rip my face off. Plus, I can have secrets, I kept this one for long enough.”
Diana snorted “she's too nice for that. The only ones who would have ripped your face off would be Sarge'' she gestured with her hand to the massive, scarred wolf next to her. “But he’d only do that if anyone he knew were in danger.” she said, scratching the wolf behind its ears. “The other one would be Gordon, but he's missing as y’know. And of course, you can have secrets, I’ve got at least 3 that the people -not including my family- closest to me don’t even know. ”
“True, I hope he's okay.” Lunen said, looking from Diana to Liz again. They took a few more steps towards the wolf, looking for any social cues she was angry about. “Plus, there’s one more form after this, but I can rarely use it since New Oreson's so small.”
“Is that so? What is it? And why would only a few have it?” She asked, a slightly confused expression on her face. She groaned, “once you answer that question I’m taking a nap. I’m too tired to deal with shit right now.” She mumbled, sliding down with her back against the tree, she wrapped her ragged cloak around her like a ratty blanket before closing her eyes, a few of the wolves gathered around her, Sarge flopping across her legs, the others shuffling into a fluffy pile surrounding each other and shielding themselves from the breezy autumn air, Liz looking back at Lunen with a slightly guilty expression as she trodded back to the pile, joining in the mass of fur and tails.
Lunen shifted into his humanoid form.”It's not rare to HAVE it, just to use it, since everything in New Oreson’s so close together.” They paused, staring at the mountain of wolves surrounding Diana. “ It's like this cat-centaur thing, I usually only use it for carrying cargo from the smith to be exported.” They said, sitting down and flattening some bushes out to make a leafy pillow. “The longer we sleep, the less time we have to find Gordon, y’know.” They said, laying down.
Diana’s only response was a muffled grumble from the middle of the pile, light snores could be heard. The evening turned from dusk to night in a matter of what felt like seconds. As night fell, a massive shape appeared from the edge of the clearing, its steps hard and loud, as it trotted from the edge over the pile, snorting, not in the shadows anymore it was something large.
Lunen noticed the shape and stood up quickly, making them a bit lightheaded. He magic-ed a small rock at the form, trying to pull its attention away from Diana and the wolves.
The shape snorted, pounding its foot against the ground similar to- wait- is that a horse? It was tall with flecks of light gray on a white base with black socks and a cream-colored mane, the light feathering around its hooves had picked up bits of grass. There was one massively noticeable thing about this horse though. Its eyes. They were a bright pale blue. And- well. The horse was wearing diamond armor.
Lunen was less tense, realizing the horse wasn’t as dangerous as he had thought. Instead, he walked over to the pile of wolves and attempted to reach his hand in to wake Diana.
“Heh?” she grumbled, rubbing her eyes “What’d you wake me up for you ratten.” she looked up, not noticing the horse “You gonna keep standing there or answer?”
Lunen frowned a bit, wading out of the wolf mountain and over to the horse. “This yours?” he asked, reaching out to let the horse smell him.
She looked up “Yep, that's mine. Hey Arrow. So- besides the horse, why'd you wake me up?” she asked, an annoyed edge to her tone, as she rubbed the horse’s snout. “Cause if nothing is wrong then I'm going back to sleep.”
“No reason, after that it's just to wake you up because I’m sO AnNoYiNg, right?” Lunen said, twirling one of his fingers in the air. “Cute horse, though.”
She huffed “That's true, still. Why’d you wake me up?”
“Just the horse.” Lunen said quickly. “Buuuuuuut, since you're up, did you get good sleep? It’s nighttime, so we should probably get going, mobs n stuff being as they are. If your house is too far though, you can come to stay the night at my place.” Lunen turned from the horse to Diana lazily.
Diana frowned, a vaguely suspicious expression on her face, before thinking for a moment “well- one yeah my house is far as hell and where do you even live for that matter?”
“New Oreson, it's not far from here. Couple’a miles, maybe?”
“The mining town? I didn’t know you lived there.”
“Yup, born ‘n raised. Are you coming or not? I can hear zombies already.”
“Alright, alright I'm coming.” she grumbled, shoving Sarge off her legs as she stood up. “And if anything messes with us I can kill it real quick.”
Lunen frowned a bit. “Really? That's a bit… gory. Nothing’s gonna even talk to us if we’re lucky, we have this whole policy of everyone getting let into New Oreson has sworn not to tell anyone that we exist, or we kill them and everyone they know.” Lunen shrugged a bit, pushing more bushes aside. “Might wanna get a move on. Are you taking your army with you?”
She snorted “I’d love to see them try to kill me but yeah. I'm taking the army with me.” looking up at them “Are we walking or what? Cause I've got a horse here that needs some exercise.” she pointed to the horse with her thumb “want a ride?”
“I’m good, I’ve one more form, remember?” Lunen added with a chuckle, backing up a few steps and shifting into his catuar form.
Diana shrugged “alright then, let's get going.” she said, hoisting herself into the saddle “run or walk?”
“I’ll keep your pace,” Lunen said with a smirk, knowing he might be able to top the horse's speed.
“Alright then.” she said, lightly kicking the horse into a trot. Beginning through the forest.
Lunen started at a slow pace as well, not falling behind the horse but staying behind it.
Diana whistled suddenly, the wolves picking up on the sound bounding over and shoving each other lightly
“Ack-” Lunen sputtered as a random wolf pushed against his legs. “Why the heck do you have so many of these things anyways? Oh and take a right here-”
“Companionship mainly, and-” she froze for a second “ -other reasons…” she grumbled “also they're just strong in general”
Lunen gasped loudly “I thought I was your companion!” He said with a layer of sarcasm, knowing it’d be rude to pry into the ‘other reasons. Lunen half-pushed his way through the crowd of wolves to jog next to Diana. “We’re close” Carrying on in front of her, Lunen pushed through the trees to a giant mountain with a big gap that went down. They had seen the entrance to New Oreson many times but were happy to finally be there with Diana.
Diana looked over, raising an eyebrow “When I say companionship I mean something other than people.”
“That's the thing, I’m not a people!”
“You're a semi-human being.”
“Touche,”
“So- besides that. What about the mildly massive cave? Just not gonna say anything about that?”
“Is there something to talk about?” Lunen said nonchalantly, walking towards the cave with a flag hung over it and looking back to Diana “Well, are you gonna stand there like a tree?” He mocked her, putting their hands on their hips.
She frowned “are you asking to get bombarded by 50+ wolves right now? cause -”
Lunen cleared his throat and gave a worried laugh. “I’m not much of a dog person myself…” He poked his head in the cave before pulling it out. “No one's out, we can go in.” He smiled a bit, waiting for Diana to finally see where he’d grown up.
Diana hummed lightly, “alright then. Let's go in wait- are there rules against massive amounts of animals?” She looked behind her at the possibly aggressive wolves before turning back to Lunen.
“Uh… I honestly don’t know, not many people keep pets here. Not enough to have a policy, at least” They stared at the wolf pack “I think if they don’t hurt anything or disrupt anything, no one asks questions…. I hope” He mumbled the last part. “But!” He perked up “It's getting late, the night shift guards will be out any minute so we should get going.”
She nodded “alright, let's get going then Mr. Know it All.”
“I mean, I have lived here my whole life and know all the guard shifts better than the back of my hand,” he said sarcastically, trotting into the cave entrance.
She rolled her eyes, ducking her head to not hit the entrance to the cave. Before letting out a slight gasp at the scene before her “why didn't you tell me you lived in such a pretty place?”
“ ‘Cuz I hate the dark?-”
“What does that have to do with not explaining where you live?”