Chapter Text
Dragato was decidedly not having a good day.
Not that any day had been good since their final defeat. It was a wonder they had survived - well, a few of them. 53 to be exact, all of them more or less injured, with 3 still in critical condition. Out of several thousand.
The astral attempted to flick a strand of hair from his face, only for his tired, uncoordinated arm to bump into a stack of papers on their desk. He didn't even bother to react, just watched, still as a statue, as the papers scattered over the floor with a rustle.
That's it. He was gonna freak out. Could he please freak out now?
No, unfortunately. He was the only one still sane and organized enough to keep the little group of survivors from just running off over the hills. Or maybe off the planet.
Falspar and Meta had gone MIA ever since the battle, just like thousands of others, and Nonsurat hardly did anything these days but train until he collapsed onto the dusty ground of the small moon they were hiding on. And Arthur...
Dragato winced, the image of his brother's bloody, mangled body falling out of the mouth of that cursed dragon's freshly decapitated head nightmarishly vibrant in his mind. The battle had already shifted un eNeMeE's favour, and seeing their leader fall was the last straw. It had broken their troop's morale to a point where Nighmare's monsters had to do little more than just pick them off one by one. Luckily Arthur was alive, but barely so. Comatose for two weeks now. And they were running out of medical supplies so fast... If he didn't wake up soon he'd...
"No. Don't even go there." Dragato whispered into the empty room, his pressed voice hardly reassuring his mind. Stars above, he was talking to himself again. So much for sanity.
They had so many problems beside the void that Arthur had left in leadership and morale - a lack of food for one, since this moon they had haphazardly crashed on was mostly barren. There were no spaceships in good enough working condition to use for scavenging nearby planets, or allow let them to relocate. Their tiny supply of medical supplies kept thinning out - a lot of the people who had sustained severe injuries had passed during the last week because of this. Outside of their little base was a literal graveyard, which didn't help anyone's mood. At this point they weren't even an army anymore, more like a ragtag group of scared animals hiding from a predator.
Stars, how he wished Falspar was here. As annoying as he could be, the guy was able to single handedly raise people's spirits through sheer presence alone. Just three weeks ago Dragato never would've admitted this, but he really, really missed his friend.
The astral's glum thoughts were cut off by a knock on his door.
He paused, not sure if he even wanted to know what was going on now. But he had to, didn't he? He was the only one holding up some semblance of order in this mess.
Another knock. "What?" He barked, defeated. He'd have a meltdown some other day, maybe. If his schedule allowed it.
The door opened, Velvet poking his head inside the dimly lit room. The head medic scrunched his bearded face a bit - the air in the room was terribly stale. Ignoring the medic's scolding look, Dragato jumped to his feet, papers scrunching under his soles. Panic welled up in him. "What is it? Did something happen to-" "Your brother is fine, Sir Dragato." Velvet interrupted him gently, causing the other to freeze, before slowly lowering himself back onto his chair.
"I just wanted to see if Sir Nonsurat was with you. He missed his checkup today. I don't care how busy he thinks I am-" "You sleep for like, three whole hours a day." Dragato grumbled, but the doctor completely ignored the jab. "-he better not be training again. I told him to rest for a few days."
Dragato leaned back against the desk, stifling a groan. He knew that Nonsurat wasn't doing well, just like the rest of them. The man hardly spoke nowadays, only did whatever Dragato told him to do with utmost diligence, and then spent the rest of the day outside, quite literally splitting rocks, weather be damned.
To his surprise, Velvet was still patiently standing in the doorway when he straightened back up. "What? I didn't see him. I didn't leave the room today, and you know that because you smelled it when you walked in here." Dragato snapped in annoyance. "Well maybe you could look for him then, Sir. A walk would do you good," Velvet shrugged, dismissive of the astral's obvious ire, which was admittedly quite the feat. With a hint of amusement, the Como added, "I'd fetch him myself, but you know how busy I am." Dragato attempted to open his mouth to unleash some seething words of protest, but the medic was swiftly closing the door before he could get out more than a short growl.
The astral sat in stumped silence for a second, before slamming his gloved hands over his face, letting out a muffled scream into the fabric.
The worst part about the head medic's rather rude commanding of the troops wasn't that he didn't care about status, but that he was annoyingly correct in his advice every single time. That spider was impossible to argue with.
Fine. A walk? Whatever. Let the people starve, see how Velvet would like that. Sure. He didn't really feel like picking up those papers anyways.
Dragato's back ached when he got up from the chair, lavender wings twitching under his cape as they adjusted to the change in posture. One of these days he'd just change his ability to "chair", after all he was halfway done fusing with this one. Who needed shadow magic anyways, and everyone liked a chair to sit on, right??
...stars, he was so tired. If Velvet could hear the nonsense of his inner monologue he'd be chained to a bed in med bay by now.
As the astral stepped out of the door, he was hit by a breath of cold air that felt decidedly fresher than whatever was going on inside his office. He'd have to air out the room later. That's one more for the mental memo list.
The sound of his boots clicking against the rocky floor echoed eerily down the hallways, joining the murmured whispers of other people's ricocheting voices and the natural creaking noises from the rock itself.
Dragato hated this moon.
It was dusty, windy, depressing, and he could've sworn that the damn rock was sometimes breathing through the tunnel system that they had dug into the mountain as a makeshift base. Of course that was probably just his tired, overworked mind imagining things, but that didn't make him hate the noises any less.
A group of soldiers crossed his path, saluting dutifully, but their tired eyes and slumped shoulders betrayed the crisp movement. Dragato nodded back at them absently as they scurried off into another hallway, talking to each other quietly, in an attempt to not make the echo carry their conversation through the entire base. Unfortunately all the echoing whispers did was make the tunnels sound haunted.
One more reason to loathe this place.
When Dragato reached the intersection that led towards the medic's area, he had half a mind to check up on Arthur and the other soldiers there, his stance wavering ever so slightly. Shaking off the thought, he turned on his heels and briskly walked further uphill towards the entrance of the tunnel system. If everything went wrong he'd have to drag Nonsurat there anyways.
He slipped through the small gap in the heavy wooden entrance gates, which they always kept open during daylight hours, passing the guards who stood watch outside. Immediately, his hair was ruffled by a dusty breeze, the sandy air drying out his mouth. Had he even drank anything today? He couldn't quite remember. Add another mental note for that one.
Tugging his cape over his wings in an attempt to prevent the feathers from getting covered in the dust, he marched over to the area of flattened rock that they used for training. A few soldiers were sparring with each other, the noise of metal hitting metal getting carried away by the wind.
Nonsurat's looming figure was blissfully absent from the group.
Dragato paused for a moment. Come to think of it, he hadn't heard any of the typical rumbling noises of rocks being ground to pebbles that usually came with Nonsu's training. Usually that noise would reverberate through the tunnel system, a steady background thrum that could go on for hours on end if nobody stepped in. But he couldn't recall hearing it at all today.
Dragato's gaze shot over the the pathway behind the training field.
Ah. He had a hunch as to where Nonsurat went.
Sighing quietly, he steered towards the path that led to the makeshift graveyard.