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It was times like these that reminded Flowers how much they hated the rain.
More specifically, how much they hated being out in the rain. He pulled his wings— wing, singular, he had to remember— around him tighter as he was soundly pelted by water. The smaller wings covering his ears dripped water onto his shoulders. His poncho, made with thick fabric with the intention of being used somewhere a little less wet and a little more dry-cold, weighed his shoulders down as it was soaked through. Flowers hunched in on himself, shivering.
He squinted into the distance. The thick fog that had fallen around this valley made it difficult to see more than a few blocks ahead, but if they looked closely, they thought they could see light; the next village, they assumed. When they got there, they could hopefully scrounge up enough to get a room for a day, assuming the meagre coins hidden underneath their clothing were enough to do so in the first place.
Flowers gazed up at the grey clouds overhead, and his already slow steps eased to a snail’s pace. The sky seemed darker than before, thunder rumbling in the distance.
If they got there, they amended.
An arrow whizzed past his head. Flowers whipped around, wing instinctively pressing flat against his back, half-broken shield raised to his face, nearly cutting his hand with splinters. Unease— terror?— sat heavy in his stomach. Briefly, he thought about going up and batting the thing with his wing, but he didn’t particularly trust his depth perception in the best of times and this was not, by any means, the best of times.
Another arrow landed just in front of them, snagging on a bit of tall grass. They stepped back, then practically threw themself to the side at the cold touch of a zombie’s clawed fingers on their arm. They fumbled their sword and struck to the side where they thought they could see their assailant. The sword swiped too far left once, but the second swing hit, thick, black blood spilling onto the rusted blade. Shit, they were out of practice— or maybe it was the rain weighing them down. Flowers couldn’t quite be sure.
There was no time to think about that, though— another skeleton seemed to emerge from the fog and kept up the relentless barrage that the first had started. Flowers gritted his teeth as he dodged the zombie and proceeded to crash into the rocks (almost like the stone floor and walls and ceiling of the—) on the side of the valley. They sucked in a breath between their teeth as they scraped their shoulder, but forwent the opportunity to regain their balance, instead stumbling off the wall and slashing across what they guessed was the zombie’s chest. This time, it collapsed to the ground, soon disintegrating into dust with only a few pieces of greenish-brown flesh lying on the waterlogged floor. Flowers breathed a sigh of relief, turned to face one of the skeletons, lifted up his shield—
And was shot in the back.
It was not a good shot; of course it wasn’t, not with the archer being a roughly shaped structure of fleshless bones wielding a bow made of rough sticks and spider silk. Proximity was the only reason why the arrow was able to dig half a centimetre into the right side of Flowers’ back, before clattering to the dirt at their feet.
Still, they gasped, staggering forward a few paces, wings— no, wing, the other one was— flaring out and hitting his initial target down to a pile of crumpled bones in a subconscious act of terrified intimidation before dropping down, and stars they were usually so careful how did then let this happen again? Warm blood spilling down their spine stained their light blue poncho, colour running down the fabric around the point where the covering was punctured. Lightning lit up the sky above, but Flowers wasn’t paying attention.
Another arrow flew past his cheek. Panic flared in sync with the burning pain pain pain in his back and he raised his shield clumsily, head twisting to face the mob so fast he felt his neck crack, and he swore he could just about see the horrifyingly faces of the guards in that awful prison plastered onto its skull but he blinked and it was only pale white eye sockets that stared soullessly into his own. He pushed the unease to the back of his mind and shakily jabbed at the final skeleton, forcing it away before it disintegrated into a pile of dust.
They wanted to feel relieved, but agitation still pricked at their gut. They glanced left, then further right to cover for their lost vision, and almost relaxed when they didn’t see anything, but something sizzled in the air coming down the mountain. Flowers’ eyes widened and they threw their cracked shield over their head and ducked a second before their vision was filled with white and it was over.
Flowers lowered his shield cautiously, almost stepping forward and falling into the metres-deep cavity in the dirt, already pooling with water. Aftershocks of light pulsed around his vision even as he blinked, and the loud boom the explosion made still rung in his ears. The wings covering his ears raised to cover his eyes as he tried to steady his breathing, inhales shallow as to avoid aggravating the new wound on his back— oh right.
That.
Flowers didn’t have to actually look to realise that the wound was not just a simple scrape. Experimentally, they shifted their wing upward. They immediately hissed at the warm, burning pain blooming up to their shoulders, painfully familiar in ways he was not going to start thinking about, no thank you. The rain had eased up a little, thankfully, though the sky was still dark with night and the cold rainwater that had made its way under their poncho certainly didn’t help matters.
The fading adrenaline didn’t help much either. The shot wouldn’t have hurt that much normally; he’d probably been hit tens of times over his… former career, and by much better shots. In that sluggish clarity that remained, though, he realised that not all of the pain he felt was from the puncture point. Cautiously, biting back a wince, Flowers reached his arm to the top of their back. Sure enough, the deep scar that ran down to his waist parallel to his remaining wing had also started to bleed. Though the pain was nowhere near as severe as the scare from earlier would have him believe, the unexpectedly sharp pain and the trickle of blood down his spine was terrifying memory-inducing he could taste coppery blood in his mouth it was like he’d never left please someone help uncomfortably familiar, to say the least.
They breathed. Their heart rate had intensified in the past few seconds without him noticing. Flowers broke themself out of their thoughts and tried to focus on anything that wasn't pain and pain and pain and that fucking knife slicing between broken feathers and flesh and any of their injuries, healed or not.
The rain had lightened a little since they were last paying attention, thankfully, and the faint outlines of huts lining the width of the valley were now a bit more clear, light from the windows emitting a soft glow around the edges. The nearest building seemed to be barely half an hour’s walk away on a dry day. Unfortunately, this was a rainy night, and though visibility was better, Flowers still couldn’t trust that the distance they were seeing was accurate; their hand, weighed down by their soggy poncho, came up to reach their ruined right eye at the thought.
They took a step forward. The muscles on their back where their right wing once was tensed, sending a jolt of pain through their shoulders (not again please), and they were suddenly aware of how long it had been since they’d last eaten (hunger roiling in their stomach pressing the back of their throat). Flowers bit their tongue.
This was going to be a long walk.