Pyrrhus

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Pyrrhus has always been serious. Survival, after all, is serious business, and his life has been largely devoid of anything worth smiling about. His mates are gone, his children - to his knowledge - are all gone, and he himself has been passed from clan to clan like so much baggage.

Pyrrhus is, in a word, tired.

But still, he fights, even if he has forgotten why, even if it seems like there will never be an end to the struggle, because at the end of the day, he is still here, and that is something no one has yet been able to take away from him. And to his surprise, his children were not all as gone as he’d feared - one daughter yet lives, his beautiful Ranka grew up to be a storyteller and sent him a letter which finally found its way to his clan after their move to Fire territory. It was a balm to his scarred and bitter heart to know that she had not only survived, but was thriving. A father could not ask for more.

He has his life, and it’s started to become one worth living. More and more, he finds he is not as reluctant to take the field as he once was. What was previously a chore has suddenly become a challenge, and one that he is more and more willing to rise up to face.

And he has his dignity, although the mischievous female he’s been partnered with is bound and determined to strip him of that if she can. Magnus is an alright fellow - they’ve bonded over similar circumstances - but Glitter sees nothing wrong with treating their job like a game, issuing silly bets like who can bring down the most blue creatures, or which one of them is going to be the first one to say a certain word that day.

Pyrrhus refuses to admit his heart is lighter for it. That her levity has lifted some of the gloom and doom that shrouded his very being and made room for... something else. It can’t last - nothing good ever does - but it is getting harder to maintain his stoicism in the face of her mirth and so Pyrrhus has donned a mask as a final attempt at shutting her out.

She can’t, after all, be serious.

... Can she?

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See Glitter for the first part of this story!

Pyrrhus didn’t even think. As cliched as it sounded, his body just moved on its own the second he saw the gaping maw of that horrid Frog open wide to belch its awful attack at Glitter. The pain that radiated through him once the spell hit was like nothing he’d ever felt in his long, painful life, but he suffered it gladly. Not out of some macho need to prove his strength, no, Pyrrhus would be the first to acknowledge Glitter’s ability to hold her own in battle, but he had seen how she’d frozen - perhaps a side effect of the Frog’s aura? - and knew if that attack had hit her she’d have died.

And that was unacceptable.

Distantly, he registered what sounded like Magnus lost in a berserker rage, and his heart twisted a little more at knowing he’d left his friend to carry the full weight of the battle on his weary shoulders even as it raced at Glitter’s gentle administrations of aid.

He was so tired. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to rest, just for a moment...

.

.

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To be continued


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