Llyr and the Pirates - Day 20
Day 20: Needing to swim/can’t swim
For @amonthofwhump‘s Water Whump May, where I write a part of this story every day according to the prompt. Hm, so I thought this would have conversation between Llyr. Then he was tired and wanted a nap. Ugh. Guess that can wait whatever dude just go be delirious because of pain and exhausion. Deep exasperated sighhh.
Tag list: @spiffythespook, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @insanitywishes, @whumpingonarainyday, @burtlederp
Content warnings: for the first time in a while, nothing noteworthy to mention here!
His leg was on fire and the rest of him was slowly freezing and there was nobody there to save him. He screamed and screamed into the forest until his voice went hoarse.
Ray and Hugh had been walking through the forest for a few minutes before they heard the screams.
“Are you sure he would have gone towards town? I’m just saying, that kid seems to really like the ocean,” Hugh sighed, trudging through mud, shiny new boots from Gawain’s crew already getting coated in grime.
“Listen, just because we found him drowning twice doesn’t mean he’d go there when running away from seafaring people. He’s smart. He’ll head inland towards a village,” Ray said. His feet were bare, but he was used to navigating difficult terrain without shoes, unlike Llyr when he’d passed through earlier. He had relatively less trouble than Hugh, too, who slipped and nearly fell at his words.
“Smart? He literally dove into the ocean, from our ship, during a storm. How fucking smart does that sound to you?”
“I would’ve done the same thing, had I been facing cruel torture,” he suggested lightly. If Hugh didn’t know Ray, he may have been inclined to think he was kidding.
Their walk fell silent then for a few minutes, no sounds to be heard except for those of pouring rain and squelching mud.
“Do you really think he’s gonna-”
“Hugh, please, we went over this already. I don’t want to think about it any more than you do.”
“Hm, that’s a low bar to set, Raymond,” he laughed, “because I’ve been thinking about just how angry he’s gonna be since we started walking.”
Ray couldn’t deny he’d been thinking about the same thing, but certainly more out of apprehension than excitement. Mere hours after he’d sacrificed himself for Llyr’s safety, here he was preparing to lure him back home with what must have been his most prized possession.
Ray readjusted the seal skin cloak around his shoulders, almost regretting having chosen to wear it. He just wanted to be able to protect some part of Llyr from Hugh, but it felt so wrong on his own body. It should have been around Llyr’s shoulders where it fit like it was made for him, and where it would keep that panic of losing it at bay.
They trudged on as the rain picked up, soaking them once again. It was then that they heard something in the distance.
It was a shrill noise that he couldn’t quite place, yet upset him somewhere deep down.
Ray heard it again, and it was louder that time. Emotional and desperate, a scream for help from far, far away.
“Did you-?” Hugh started, but he cut him off and grabbed his wrist as he changed directions towards the noise.
“This way,” he said. “Either make a trail or figure this out with the compass so we don’t get lost. Come on.” Ray sped his pace to a jog, feeling Hugh strain to keep up behind him as he fiddled with a compass, reading angles and making sure they knew how to get back once they’d found Llyr.
The run was much longer than he anticipated, the scream a constant in the distance as they splashed through puddles and underbrush, but only growing weaker as they drew closer to its source. By the time they drew within visible range, the screams had diminished to choked shouts and whimpers, calling out, “...help! I can’t die here I can’t, don’t leave me to die I’m gonna die I’m gonna die...”
They heard the words trail off just as they spotted him, a figure half buried in the mud, laying flat on his back.
“Llyr, Llyr! What happened?” Ray knelt down in the mud--his legs were already soaked anyway; there was no reason to be cautious now--and the boy blinked faintly up at him.
“Animal trap, it looks like,” Hugh tried and failed to hide a smile. “Serves him right.”
“Stop that,” Ray hissed, turning back to Llyr. “Talk to me, buddy. You’re gonna be okay, we’ll get you out of that and we’ll-” he swallowed reflexively, “we’ll take you back and help you get better.
He tried to say the words as gently as possible, but Llyr’s eyes widened all the same, expression dropping into fear as he tried to scramble backwards, only jostling his leg more. He cried at the pain as he tried to crawl away, and Ray heard Hugh mutter a curse behind him before crouching above Llyr’s shoulders, holding forcibly in place.
“Stop, stop no no!” he thrashed, and Ray shot Hugh a look of disdain.
“Well? I got him still,” he grinned, propping the boy up in his lap and holding him there with a bruising grip on his upper arms. “You do the honors.” Ray followed his gaze to the animal trap, the sharp metal teeth disappearing underneath skin and the puddle of blood mixing in with the mud below.
He glanced back at Llyr’s pained face cautiously before crawling down to his leg where the trap had latched on. It dug in deep, especially in the fleshier part of his leg, and Ray grimaced at the sight. He’d need to stand to get enough leverage to even dream of forcing this thing open.
Carefully, he stood and placed his bare foot on the bottom part of the trap, between two of the teeth and near the end. Taking the top jaw in hand, he grunted and pulled as hard as he could, straining against the surprising resilience. It really shouldn’t have been so surprising, considering these were meant to hold bears in place, but the thought really didn’t help Ray in the moment.
To make matters worse, every time he pulled, shaking arms shifting Llyr’s leg back and forth in the trap, the boy whimpered and whined with pain, seemingly too delirious with it to talk now.
“Hugh, is he alright? Is he even still conscious?”
“I dunno. Probably not, by the look of him.”
Despite what the captain and his ex-shipmate believed, Llyr was very much still awake, but far too exhausted to pay any more attention to them. Thoughts were running so slowly through his head as if they too were buried in mud.
He should have been panicking and worrying about them taking him back, but all he could think about was the grime nearly covering his entire body now. It felt like a cocoon, a cage, a vice on his entire being that wouldn’t let go. The rain wasn’t powerful enough to wash it away, and suddenly it was unbearable to be out of the ocean.
All at once, he was so exhausted from dealing with this human form. He longed for the comfort of the sea, of his skin forming around him just as it was always meant to be, but stupid, stupid him had left that behind for a foolish, horribly timed escape. Weakly, he squirmed under Hugh’s hold and he could have sworn the pressure of its stomach against his back rippled in a laugh as he muttered over and over about water, water, water…
The pain didn’t register in his brain when the trap finally came off of his leg, and neither did the sensation of open bleeding, but he did feel the vertigo as he was lifted from the ground and placed up on his feet.
It didn’t even register to him that they were trying to force him back with them until he took his first step.
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