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It was Twilight’s job to find Four, because of course it was. Multiple members of their party had various forms of perfectly usable tracking and dowsing equipment and abilities, but at the end of the day, it was always easiest to send out the wolf.
Not that Twilight minded. It gave him a chance to stretch his legs, a chance to go on all fours when so much of their adventure was spent on twos. And he liked being useful anyway, especially on an evening like this, where everyone seemed to be busy either treating the wounded or setting up camp, an extra-difficult task with their chef out of commission.
And useful he was; he doubted Sky’s dousing or Wild’s Slate could have managed too well when Four himself was nowhere to be found— not exactly, anyways. His scent disappeared partway through the woods, only to reappear a little ways away, now split into four similar but unmistakably distinct scents. Three of those scents came to a stop in a clearing, where—
“Wolfie!” A bright voice called out, a voice that both was and was not Four’s, before Twilight was enveloped in a red-robed hug.
Green, lying on the ground a little way away, laughed, though it sounded a bit more hollow than usual, while Vio, from his spot leaning against a tree, sighed.
“Get off him, Red,” Vio said. “You know he’s not a dog.”
“Aw, no, he doesn’t mind, right?”
Twilight let out a small growl but kept his tail wagging anyway. No, he wasn’t a dog, but also no, he didn’t mind, not when it’d been so long since he’d seen Four’s colors outside a fight. Green, too, came over to give Twilight a pat on the head— and at that point, Twilight let the shadows fall over him and put him back on two feet.
“Hey, guys. Been a while, huh,” he said, now positively towering over the others. He pulled Red in a hug, patted Green on the back, and sent a nod over to Vio. It really was nice to see them. They were Four, of course, so in a certain way he saw him every day, but there was something different about seeing them split up like this; not better or worse, but different in a very nice way indeed. “I’m happy to see ya’ll, of course, but what’s the occasion?”
“Why’d Four split?” Green asked, and when Twilight nodded, he sighed. “Just… it’s easier to deal with… stuff like this. Big emotions.”
“More bodies to disperse it,” Vio added, “and more brains to think through it.”
Twilight could understand that— or, not that exactly, but he certainly understood the effectiveness of working through things in another form. “So then, Blue…?”
All three of them pointed in the same direction, a path of slashed trees and trampled plants that led deeper into the woods. It was an impressive trail of carnage, and looked to be caused by sword and hammer alike.
“So, what,” Twilight frowned, “did he get all the anger?”
Vio rolled his eyes. “That’s not how it works; we all get all the anger. Blue just deals with it differently than we do.”
“Yeah,” Red nods. “Green sleeps, Vio sulks, I start fires, and Blue destroys stuff.”
“Okay, so then— wait, you what?” Red looked sheepishly behind him at a veritable pile of ash, and Twilight quickly decided not to ever get on Four’s bad side. “…right, well, I’m goin’ to find Blue, make sure he’s alright.”
“Good luck,” the three voices called out to him as he ventured through the path of destruction.
Sword. Hammer. Sword. Hammer.
By the time Blue remembered to breathe, the bark of the tree in front of him was nearly entirely stripped. He was probably going to feel bad about that later when he was Four again, but for now, he was Blue, and he didn’t have room to feel bad for a tree; he just needed to get this clawing rage out of his body by any means necessary, and that meant wailing on a tree.
A voice, gentle and rough at once, broke Blue out of his rhythm.
“Long time no see, Blue,” Twilight said.
“What do you want?”
“Well, I was going to make sure you were okay, but now I see I should’ve been more worried about the trees.”
“I’m fine,” Blue said as he set another deep gouge into the tree in front of him.
Twilight scoffed. “Clearly.”
Suddenly, just as he was about to swing at the tree again, Twilight was holding the head of Blue’s hammer, holding him back.
Blue grunted and tried to pull the hammer back, but Twilight was strong and, crucially, twice Blue’s height. “Let go!”
“Come on, now,” Twilight said, calm as ever. “That tree ain’t do nothing to you.”
Blue grit his teeth and, without warning, dropped the hammer and went for his sword instead. He lunged at Twilight with a shout, but the rancher deflected it by drawing his own sword.
Twilight grinned and continued to block Blue’s attacks. “If you wanted to spar, you could’a asked.”
“I don’t want to spar!” Blue shouted, but he kept on attacking anyway, his sword arm growing tired from sloppy technique.
“Then what do you want?”
Blue growled and, seeing an opening in Twilight’s form, pushed through to hold the point of his sword up to Twilight’s neck, stopping just before the blade would draw blood. Twilight drew a sharp breath.
With a sigh, Blue dropped his sword, and with both of his weapons on the ground, he collapsed, the headache that’d been plaguing Four since going the portal catching back up to him. His head pounded against his skull in a hellish rhythm.
“Woah, now,” Twilight said, gently, placing a gentle hand on Blue’s back, as if Blue hadn’t threatened his literal life just seconds ago. “There you go. Take a breath, kid.”
“Not a kid.”
“Right, course, ’scuse me.”
Blue sniffed and punched a fist against the ground. “I want these stupid headaches to stop,” he said, weakly. “I want nobody to get hurt because of my stupid, stupid problem.”
“Wild’s gonna be fine, Blue. Everyone’s taking care of him.”
Blue shook his head, the memory flashing through his mind: Four going through the portal and landing directly into a fight, trying to defend against waves of monsters through a migraine but not being able to hold on, Wild coming to Four’s rescue. Wild getting attacked from behind, not seeing the blow coming because he’d been too busy checking on Four.
“I want to be stronger,” Blue said, in the end.
Twilight stood and held out a hand for Blue to stand, too. “I might be able to help with that. Y’ever tried wrestling?” Twilight asked with a grin.
Despite himself, Blue laughed. As fun as it sounded to throw people around, he wouldn’t be caught dead in the outfit that Twilight wore on the rare occasion that he wrestled in front of the others, but…
Well. Blue wouldn’t be caught dead in that outfit, but Four might.