Since it's winter and snow is on the mind: A story where the glaives are on a mission deep in Niflheim, and Nyx, Crowe, and Libertus get separated from the others by a bad snowstorm. Someone gets hurt (your choice) and they have to bed down somewhere to wait out the storm.
Hello! I was incapable of keeping this short short, so here you have a little over 900 words of...this. Not exactly what you requested but almost. Written in like 1 hr this evening XD
“This is all your fault!”
Nyx rolled his eyes as he ducked under a thick, snow-covered tree branch. At least the trees and evergreen shrubs provided a little cover from the biting wind and snowfall. “Come on, Crowe, I don’t know what you think about me but I can hardly control the weather.”
“No, but you’re the one that needed to take a leak back there!” Crowe snapped from behind him. “I’m cold and I’m miserable so I’ll damn well blame you if I so please! We could be in the base camp by now, sitting by the fire but no, we’re stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere because you couldn’t hold it in!”
Nyx threw his arms up and turned to face Crowe. “Well I’m sorry I have bodily functions that need to be taken care of!”
“Guys, could you not?” Libertus huffed. “It’s getting dark, and I sure as hell don’t want to be around when the daemons come out.”
“What do you think we’re trying to do?” Nyx grumbled as he turned back around. A moment later a snowball hit his back. He froze, shoulders tense, but forced himself to take a deep breath. “Real mature, Crowe.”
“Of course it wasn’t, because who else would–” Nyx’s words were cut off by a scream — his own — as white-hot pain radiated through his leg. He fell down, barely managing to catch himself as he sunk into the snow. He gasped and let out strangled curses.
“Nyx!” his friends yelled in unison.
“What the fuck happened?” Crowe demanded. The irritation was gone from her voice, replaced by tense concern. There was a flash of orange, and Nyx assumed she was using fire to light their darkening surroundings better.
“What the hell? Where’s all that blood coming from?” Libertus swore.
Nyx didn’t really want to look, he knew just based on the pain that he had most likely broken something. Damn it. He still did. He tried to prop one of his arms on the ground, not an easy feat considering they were in knee-deep snow, and craned his neck to look towards his feet. “Astrals.”
The amount of blood on the snow was more than a little concerning. Nyx preferred to keep all of the red stuff inside of him if at all possible. The metal teeth that bit into his leg right above his ankle wasn’t reassuring either. He smacked one hand over his face and dropped his head into the snow, groaning as nausea hit him.
“Why the fuck would there be animal traps in the middle of fucking nowhere in the winter?” he muttered. Was this some sort of punishment for his recklessness? If so, Bahamut could go and fuck himself.
“Ey, Nyx!” Libertus called out to him, shaking his arm, “Don’t go passing out on us, Princess.”
“‘m not!” Nyx protested. He let out a stifled cry when he felt hands on his leg. “Don’t fucking–”
“We need to get it off,” Crowe hissed. “Unless, of course, you want to walk out of here with that thing on your leg.”
“Fine!” Nyx growled in frustration, staring up at the one single star he could see peeking through the trees. He yanked off one of his gloves. “Take the damn thing off so we can get moving.” He put the glove in his mouth and bit down on it, mumbling muffled curses.
He hated Niflheim. The entire country could burn down for all he cared. Stupid winter, stupid mission, stupid freaking snowstorm.
Then the pain hit him. He screamed. Everything went dark.
The next time he regained consciousness, they were no longer in the dark. He was surrounded by dim lights. The surface he was lying on was hard, far from the soft, powdery snow from earlier. Nyx groaned and turned his head. Libertus was sitting on a seat right next to him, snoring away. Nyx’s eyes narrowed, and he considered waking him up, but the surface below him jolted before he could even lift up his hand.
A strangled curse burst from his lips as pain flared in his leg. He craned his neck to see his leg wrapped in something white — gauze, presumably. He dropped his head back down with a thud.
“Oh, you’re awake!” Crowe exclaimed from somewhere.
Nyx blinked his eyes open yet again, annoyed by the blurriness of his vision. “Mmm, unfortunately. Where?”
“We found a snowcat. We’re on our way to base. At least hopefully. We had to pick from two directions at random, and I trusted Libertus on his choice. So, if we just get more lost, you can blame him.”
“Where’d you find a sno’cat?” Nyx asked. It was all he had managed to pick up from Crowe’s words, the rest having gone right over his sluggish head. He tried once again to blink the world into focus. Astrals, his leg was actually killing him. The steady rumble and movement of the vehicle was reassuring, and it felt warmer than it had been outside, but the bumps and uneven terrain weren’t gentle on his injured leg.
“We may or may not have raided a small base while you were out,” Crowe said nonchalantly.
Nyx tried to glare at her, but found it took too much energy. “You’re lying.”
“Maybe,” she responded with an annoying smirk. “Go back to sleep, you idiot, we’ll wake you up once we’re back at base.”
Nyx grumbled something unintelligent under his breath. Lucky for Crowe, he was way too tired to keep up the banter. He sighed and let his eyes fall shut. “Thanks.”
