In retrospect, it could have been worse. Staring down the gullet of an enormous, rabid, bloodied rabbit was not the worst thing Serefin had ever faced. Malachiasz in his peak Vulture psychosis was close. The terror brought on by Velyos inside of him also ranked high. Serefin had been his own horror of war with the Kalyazi people, though his rumors were entirely exaggerated. A battle was not so strange, it was perhaps the opposing forces that made it terrible.
Why were they even out here again? Oh yes, right. Bravery, and showmanship, and the fierce competitiveness of taking down the largest, most vicious beast for the safety of people. Bunnies were ultimately low on his guesstimations of monsters worthy of battle, but Vallo seemed to make a liar out of him when he was trying so hard not to be.
Perhaps it was luck that he had convinced (or conned) Diego into joining him. Or did he join Diego? Semantics. If it went poorly, which current situation seemed to say yes, he could blame his knife-wielding friend on his brush with death by an overgrown woodland rodent. If Serefin decided to help Diego, it could probably go better. His fingers were brushing against the pages of his codex, the substandard one he had composed in his Morningside apartment. Temptation to assist was there, but there was something hilarious about Diego taking the lead.
And even more amusing was Serefin continuing to play the weak prince who couldn't seem to throw a punch (he had gotten better though, marginally.) His talents, as he had told Diego, lay elsewhere.
He also had never been the first person into a skirmish. He nudged Diego out to face the monstrous matriarchal bunny—or what looked like the bountied rabbit, all hunched over a bush, back to them, eating something, who was Serefin to judge?—with a series of looks and head gestures. And one aggressive elbow to the side.
"Not be ironic," Serefin said, from the dubious safety behind a thistle bush. "But you should go for its eyes."
“Shut up,” Diego muttered, with a vicious glare at Serefin who, completely, absolutely, unfortunately, joined him thanks a fuck lot. How it happened, he wasn’t even entirely sure, except he was out to hunt some goddamn giant mutant bunny and next to him was Serefin, who Diego was still convinced was going to break his entire hand even if he had gotten marginally better at punching. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.”
No one told Diego that the giant ass rabbit was, in fact, taller than a lot of the trees in the area. Excuse him for thinking that a giant ass rabbit would be, oh, not that large.
He kicked Serefin’s boot, because he made him feel better and because it was sticking out a bit, and then whipped out two of the knives that were attached to his wrist guard--no--five, three from a shoulder strap, no, eight knives, he thought, at the last minute, pulling out one from a band around his calf. Because it was a giant rabbit, so who gave a shit? ...On the other hand, it was a giant ass rabbit. With teeth that were probably the size of Diego’s arm. Great. Fuck weird shit, he’d much rather have been kicking in douchebag teeth. “Hey, genius, not the time to get in a little light reading, huh?”
Serefin, whose attention was flitting between his book and the giant animal that seemed closer than the last time, glanced over to Diego when he kicked his boot. He frowned, and tucked it back. Not because Diego said so but because Serefit didn't want him kicking him anymore. Especially when he decided to be flushed with knives suddenly.
"Oh, this is going to go terribly. I brought my reading along—" It wasn't reading, he knew what was written in between the pages because he had to do it himself, but Diego didn't need to know that. "—because I thought this was going to be boring. But please, continue. You were heading on to stab something. Do you have enough sharp pointy things to... wait." Serefin reached out to Diego's hand, which was more daggers than actual fingers at this point, to shush him. Diego hadn't been talking but Serefin didn't want to take chances.
The ambient noise around them grew quiet. The rustle of the leaves stilled. The rabbit—where was it? There was no way between one glance than the other it could just disappear. Serefin cleared his throat.
"A problem," Serefin noted, in a voice that seemed to say it was Diego's fault. Then the thing roared, literally roared, from behind Diego, much much closer to their original spot than before.
That was not the bunny. That was not even remotely close to rabbit-like. It was furry, maybe. Fluffy possibly, but upon closer, uninvited inspection, it was a cross between a bear and perhaps a lion with the horns of a goat and the fangs of a snake. The back of the animal had been very deceiving.
Serefin blinked. Slow, deliberate. "Your turn."
Ten knives. Ten knives were for sure the way to go, Diego thought, which was impressive not because of the number of knives or the way he held them (which looked boss ass, thanks a lot) but because he actually thought about something before leaping head first into harm’s way.
See, progress, everyone.
“Y’know, if that eye could shoot lasers and you’ve just been lying about it this entire time, that would be just really fucking swell,” Diego said, with another glare because it made him feel better and because rare were the moments when he wasn’t glaring, or in some sort of spectrum of glaring. But, fine, Serefin was not right because he didn’t want to admit that to himself but it was a kick in the ass so Diego cracked his neck from side to side ready to bolt out like some knife wielding vigilante that he thought he was. Except at the last minute, he flicked a throwing knife down at the ground right next to Serefin’s boot that he had earlier kicked. “Sharp end out, huh?” he quipped.
Then, because his life was fucking weird, he did actually bolt out like some kind of knife wielding vigilante who had very little regard for strategy except for sheer force (oh wait, that’s what he was) and whipped three knives at the giant mutant fucking...giant fucking mutant animal hide. Hide, not fur. Followed up by him just trying to leap straight on the thing, knives laced between his knuckles.
The contempt that Serefin gave that knife thrown beside his boot was palpable. It grew steadily into annoyance. He ripped the thing out of the ground, muttering sharp end out in the worst impression of Diego's grumbly voice—which was wasted because Diego had already run out, knives blazing at the giant beast. Serefin did duck back down behind the bush, allowing for Diego to poke and prod the strengths and weaknesses of this atrocity. Serefin wasn't going to waste precious pages or blood for magic that wouldn't even work.
Besides, this seemed more Diego's turf, all stabbing and yelling and looking quite insane. You're insane, Velyos supplied with his own sort of disdain. The old-god hummed for blood and violence, revenge surged through Serefin, not his own but something ancient and long-held. Serefin closed his eye to the fight, not giving any more entertainment to someone who was hijacking his brain.
Except he heard a human noise and an inhuman one, and it felt ridiculous to play pretend to what was happening in front of him. Was he really that much of a coward? How long could he lie to himself? Knife in hand, Serefin decided to assist Diego in the fastest way possible: throwing the sharp end toward the eye.
It bounced fruitlessly, handle-first against the flank of the enormous lion-bear-thing. Distracted by a new opponent from the underbrush, the thing turned toward Serefin. Oops.
Diego hit the ground with a hard thud, rolling to his feet. Well this was going well, he thought, angrily (as Diego thought about most things) while four of his daggers were stuck somewhere in the fucking two story creature. He still had a handful of daggers, literally, but switched over a few to the other hand for balance. Look, Diego was never going to openly admit that his throwing knives weren’t always the most effective of weapons, but he was wishing he had brought something with a little more firepower. A grenade. He could throw a grenade, next time, he was arming himself to the teeth with knives and grenades and his fists.
Okay maybe that was a little dramatic, whatever.
His eye caught the motion of a knife bouncing uselessly into the grass. “Shit, fuck, shitting fuck, fucking shit,” Diego said, under his breath. Serefin, that little shit, had tagged along and now he was fucking unarmed and, well, Diego Hargreeves might not have ever hesitated in an emergency but that didn’t mean he always thought in an emergency. Or, ever thought, really. Quick like a knife cutting through the air, Diego threw himself at Serefin, to knock him out of the way and out of the picture. Only for Diego to go flying through the air again when teeth sunk into his leg and whipped him into a tree like some discarded chew toy.
Serefin had not expected Diego to save him or be injured in the process of saving him. He flinched at the sound of Diego's body hitting the tree, bark shattering upon impact. There was a long slow moment where the battle shifted to a perfect tableau—Diego, crumpled against the trunk; the bear-lion-whatever minster breathing heavily, its aggressor defeated; and Serefin, watching what to do next. Engaged? Save Diego's life in return? Run? Every part of his body warred with the other about the smartest, loyalest, or stupidest idea would be.
The decision was taken out of his hands as the horned beast turned and vanished into the woods. Serefin counted unsteadily to ten, assured it wasn't going to make a flying leap back at the two of them, vulnerable in this clearing, before scrambling out to meet Diego's prone body. Serefin was not gentle when he rolled him onto his back to get a better look at the wound on his leg and the damage done to his side.
"You are a complete idiot with more of a death wish than I do," Serefin said, practically scolding Diego. But his hands were on him, patting him down trying to find another—"Knife. Where is another knife? I know you have one on you, I know you did not use all of them against that thing because you are predictable."
He spoke the last word as if he had discovered a secret, or in this case, another hidden blade. Serefin held it with one hand, while the other grabbed for his hanging tome, and began to frantically flip through its pages. He had not memorized their locations yet.
Diego’s manner of dealing with pain and injuries had always been to power straight through it. While in the Academy, Grace and Pogo had been their medical providers and had always done exactly what needed to be done in order to give care to whatever injuries came about from either fighting crime or their training. And with Diego’s skillset mixed with his desire to prove himself there had always been a lot. So of course, even though he felt something crack and yep, that was definitely a lot of blood that came away on his hand, Diego was shoving Serefin away. “What are you even doing, stop that, you’re going to fucking cut off your own damn hand and then what the fuck are we supposed to do.”
Groaning, Diego attempted to push himself up, falling back in the dirt and yet still trying, because he was an absolute moron. “It’s fine,” he insisted, huffing out a breath that came with a flow of creative swears in every possible combination. “Look, watch, I’m going to do a--” There was a short pause and Diego stared, like he was expecting some sort of great reaction. “Backflip, motherfucker.”
Needless to say, he did not.
Diego was talking an awful lot for someone who was currently injured and not doing any immediate emergency care to himself. Serefin was starting to understand how this incessant amount of yammering on could be the intangible equivalent of pressing a hot brand to one's face. Was he like this? Is this what everyone else thought when he would not shut up?
No. No, of course not.
His brow lifted, as his attention drifted toward Diego's attempted backflip. Serefin sighed, heavy and exhausted, before he flipped more pages. Not this one, not this one, not this one—aha! Serefin tore the page unceremoniously from the half-assed binding, ignoring Diego's warnings about cutting himself with the blade. That was precisely the point. But he was not as idiotic to do it across his palm. Ruin the nerve endings in his hand? Absurd. Serefin knew exactly, from experience, how to cause himself to bleed.
"I am going to need you to shut your mouth before I call that monster back over here to finish you," Serefin warned, before he pulled back his sleeve, already scattered with dozens of poorly healed scars from previous blood-letting. Magic had to pay a price somehow, something Serefin was born and raised into. It was a second-nature tithe. Diego should have been appreciative; Serefin would pester him about it later.
A new line of blood seeped from the cut he caused on the back of his forearm. Serefin let it run down his arm, into his hand, curling the parchment into a tight fist. His spell, now wasted with the blood use, now imbued him with a short-lived ability to heal. Convenient really. As Serefin placed his spelled hands to Diego's most serious injury and then the leg wound, he said, "This may sting, a tiny bit. You might want to bite down on something other than your tongue."
“Shut up, it’s fine,” Diego insisted, yet again, because he would need to be knocked unconscious before he stopped saying so, and even then he probably would have found a way to scrawl in the dirt ‘it’s fine, asshole.’ Or not, whatever. “I’m just going to stick some dirt in it, whatever, don’t fucking, hey, hey hey!” His eyes widened when Serefin took the knife to his own skin, whatever Diego had been expecting it definitely wasn’t that.
Actually, he was more expecting Serefin to rip off the eyepatch and say ‘surprise, it really is a laser’ and cauterize Diego’s wounds. That may have been the blood loss talking, but it was pretty badass to think about. Not that he would have ever said it out loud. He actually did push himself up to a somewhat seated position, trying to slap away Serefin’s now bloodied hand. “Don’t fucking do that, are you out of your goddamn mind?”
Listen, Diego was not going to bite down on anything, thanks a lot, especially since the only things around them were foliage and sticks, so instead he snarled and prepared himself for a lot of cursing. More than he had been just doing. But instead of what he assumed was coming, the sting was more like putting peroxide on a wound to clean it out, the hurt was a flash in the pan and then gone. He could feel his skin knitting back together, which was so damn weird.
“Jesus Christ, you little shit.”
"Who?" Serefin asked, all feigned innocence and smartass grins. He never expected his healing to come into play, not exactly. Only that he often found himself arguing with Velyos during this magic usage—the old god liked it, he didn't like it, he was annoyed that Serefin was wasting his time with people who didn't matter, and then Serefin would not-so-kindly point out that there was nothing he could do about their quest that had been prematurely cut off.
This was no different. With his hands still on Diego, he appeared to remember too late that the Velyos might do something terrible the longer Serefin stayed in contact and he ripped his hands away. The wound, a slick patch of new skin. On good authority, Serefin could guess the fracture probably was noticeably lessened if not fully repaired.
He quickly covered the knick on his arm, to halt from more of his blood from slipping free. The ruined spell page was gone, the parchment disintegrating into nothingness.. Serefin nonchalantly blew the bits away.
"You can thank me any time, you know. Though I do prefer immediately, you may knock your head and forget and that would be miserable to leave your appreciation for my talents unrecognized." Serefin didn't want to ask if Diego was okay, he knew he was. Serefin didn't want to hug Diego either, his relief was not quite there yet. But he had done something that wasn't as simple as a tracking spell he had previously done. There was more to Serefin that he let on. The mystery appealed to him, or maybe it was the lack of responsibility that came with being known.
Now Diego knew.
"Try not to do that again, I could have handled—" There was beeping coming from Diego's shoulder. Serefin frowned. "Your—" He pointed, not recalling the word. "Voice linking thing. For the defense. Answer it."
Diego pulled a face, although whether it was from Serefin’s words or from the twist he made of mended bones and new skin. He could never be accused of being a good communicator, typically, Diego stayed miles away from anything resembling emotions. Time was getting him to realize that maybe, just maybe, this was a stupid way of being, but Diego would always do better with actions. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, it was that Diego pushed Serefin out of the way of danger and Serefin healed Diego. Diego understood that.
“Whatever, don’t be an idiot,” he said, punching Serefin in the shoulder. “Probably going to do it again, so you’ll have lots of opportunities to have your talents recognized.”
Normally, Diego preferred to ignore the ‘voice linking thing’ or the ‘talky box’ unless it pertained to his siblings or the .2 percent of the population Diego didn’t automatically snarl at and tell to fuck off, but as they were out trying to hunt down a giant rabbit, he figured it would do some good to actually listen to it. And if it wasn’t, well, he’d just smash the thing and call it a day.