Blood Queen Reborn

Gasping for air, eyes wide open, Peter hacked up water. Grabbing at shirt, heaving for air, his eyes and lungs stang. The sky was so bright, and warm, his skin cold, still drenched from the river.

"Are you okay!?" A familiar short girl with short purple hair cried next to him.

Peter was trying to get a sense of his surroundings, wiping the hair out of his eyes. It finally registered that the girl next to him was Cia. She had a deep look of worry as just a moment ago, she was doing chest compressions to save him, and he realized what she had done.

Cia hugged him tightly, "I thought you were— The river, it— Oh it doesn’t matter, you’re alive!"

Peter nearly choked from her iron squeeze, and slapped her back to get her to stop. She let go, and wiped away some tears, or water from her eyes as she was just as drenched as he was. Droplets fell from her hair.

"Let me breathe— Oh my god, we nearly died—" Peter panted, taking in deep breaths.

The two sat there together, still disoriented from everything.

While Peter was taking the time to breathe, Cia began explaining everything that happened while he was unconscious.

When they initially fell into the river, Cia had managed to keep herself upright enough to remain fully conscious. Growing up, she was surrounded by water, and was no stranger to swimming. Of course, just because you were an athlete level swimmer didn’t mean that you could overpower white rushing water. Not without specific types of abilities, but she didn’t have such a thing.

The only reason she survived was due to pure luck.

While she was still struggling to keep her head above water, she tried reaching out to Peter, and saw he had done the same to her, but before she knew it, his head crashed deep below the surface.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the two fell down a massive waterfall, meaning that even if they did survive the fall, they wouldn’t be able to return to their class.

Everything slowly came back to him, and he frantically looked around only to realize that there wasn’t a single human in sight. All he could make of their location was that they were at the shore of a lake surrounded by thick, muddy jungle.

The last part of Cia’s story was her desperate attempts to fish his unconscious body out of the water, and how she dragged him onto shore to perform CPR.

She couldn’t drag him that far, as even now the water still lapped at them.

"I’d say ’you’re welcome’ but I don’t think it needed saying," Cia said, then glanced down to his leg.

Peter’s eyes followed hers, and the sharp pain of his misshapen leg finally hit him. The jagged rocks tore away the cloth around the injury, and it revealed a nasty looking gash, and he didn’t want to see any more.

"I thought you would’ve realized it sooner," Cia remarked, then gestured to her own injured foot, "Really unfortunate that we’re matching. How are we supposed to get help when we can’t even walk?"

She deeply sighed, and looked away, "I mean... We’re basically sitting ducks, waiting until a beast comes around and attacks us, or we slowly starve, not that we can die of dehydration— We’re surrounded by water!"

As Cia kept saying more and more words, Peter was able to tell that despite her usual confident demeanor, her voice grew shakier, and tighter like she was holding back tears.

Spreading her arms out wide to gesture to their environment, she kept going, "—Because of all the places to die, when there’s a dalki war on the horizon, why WOULDN’T it be at the end of a lake!? It’s the stupidest— dumbest death that only MORONS like us would—"

They stared at each other, not saying a word, and Cia choked back a sob. She had to turn away to get herself to not cry.

Peter pressed his palms against the ground, and shaped the mud into an L. By hardening it, then wrapping it around his broken leg, he was able to create a makeshift splint.

That wouldn’t be enough to get himself to stand comfortably, so he fashioned himself a walking stick. Moving around hurt, but compared to the torture he endured under Earl’s thumb, this was nothing.

Hearing shuffling behind her, Cia turned around to see a darkened silhouette, the sun shining behind him. For a second, she thought he might’ve been an angel.

Peter’s hand reached out to her, "Come on, it’s not safe to stay in one place, we have to move."

She stared at him, suddenly finding herself caught in his appearance. Her heart skipped a beat, it almost felt heroic.

Taking his hand, she was lifted up to her feet, and Peter crouched to form a splint on her foot.

"It isn’t much, but hopefully this will make sure we don’t further injure ourselves," Peter commented, then looked up to her, "Are you okay?"

Cia nodded, the words strangely caught in her throat.

"Good," Peter stood upright, and reached into his pocket.

Thankfully, they still had some of those tealfruits. They took turns applying it on their injuries, but it would only help their scrapes and cuts, nothing for broken bones.

"Makes you wish we had a healing ability user, huh?" Peter lightheartedly said.

"Or knitbone," Cia replied, "We can’t always rely on abilities."

"What’s knitbone?"

"Some plant back on earth," Cia waved her hand dismissively, "It helps with broken bones."

Forming a small pillar below himself, he looked around for any potential leads.

"If you’re looking for the bee, I doubt it would’ve been fast enough to catch us," Cia pointed out, "Remember the river was really fast!"

"No, I’m thinking of something else, you see that over there? The tree," Peter pointed in the distance, "If we climb it, we might be able to find another class, or a shelter."

"... And get a sense of our surroundings," Cia perked up, "I like that plan."

"At least, if we can’t get help in time..." Peter swallowed, "Then maybe the beasts wont be able to reach us."

The two got to work traveling into the jungle, making sure to be careful with their steps especially now that they were injured. As they moved, Cia purposely trailed behind to look inside of her boot without raising suspicion.

It was waterlogged, and a bit squished, but the crimson veritas was intact enough as to still be usable.

’I can use it now, and figure out once and for all what happened to Layla, but at the same time, he’s the only one of us that has an offensive ability. That dizzying side effect is a risk.’

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