ORIGIN

Breathe. Click. Breathe. Click. Breathe. Draaaag. The pattern continued, endless, as the tiny figure crawled over the dusty, rocky ground, stones biting into his flesh. Booker stopped, let out a shout as the movement torqued his bad leg, panting, ears pinned back... and continued on. His paws dug into the soil, slowly making his way out of Louie's den, the hovel that smelled so much like the fox that it made him gag. The scribe had no idea how to feel about the leader of the Merrymen; everything was so muddled.

It would've been easier to hate him, passionately, to want to destroy his very being, if Booker couldn't see the constant slow burn of conflict behind his captor's eyes. It seemed the fox didn't have any better of an understanding of the situation, and so the numbat had waited, patiently, for the king to slip out once more, gallivanting off into the caves. Then, he'd taken his chance.

The disease had progressed quickly, completely paralyzing Booker's back legs, and they both dragged behind him uselessly, eyelid drooping shut - another symptom of whatever Louie had infected him with. Even now, he could feel it creeping up to his front limbs, and he pushed on faster, finally stopping just outside the threshold of the fox's den, breathing in the comparatively sweet air of Monoceros. One breath, two, and he stopped, resting, raising a paw to prod at his working eye, exhausted. Bara... hang in there, o-okay? I 'aven't... given up, an' you can't either.

Just a glance at the bond within his mind made the numbat wince. Where once there had been a bright chain of white, intertwined with hues of pink, now lay a withered, deadened tether, the black and green tendrils beginning to try to reach across to the dragon's side, as if looking to infect him by proxy. Shaking himself back into the waking world, Booker lay, breathing, and thought.

He was just about completely out of luck. The bird, Azazel, had spoken of his own clan, of a war, but the scribe knew better than to think they would help him. No, he was a pawn, had known that from the start - all he needed to do was find a way to give Baratheon a chance to break free. If it cost Booker the bond, it would be worth it. The deadened emptiness from his brother's mind frightened him, and he could feel the tantalizing flames of memory licking at his heels, beckoning him back into the fog.

Coughing, he tried to focus on the anger, the pain, every negative, to stay awake. First, Magdalena. The dog he trusted - had trusted? - to help him as a child, to believe him as a juvenile, to forgive him as a murderer, a sinner. The worst of it was that he'd thought she had. Had he missed something, misconstrued some key moment that had shifted everything he'd thought to be real? Had she lost whatever care she had for him, along the way?

Had she ever cared about him?

The anger boiled over into rage, and Booker squeezed his eye shut, shaking his head at the thought. No, no, that couldn't be right, she wouldn't do that, not to him and not to Bara, even with all they'd done, it just wasn't possible. The fire, the lava, stayed, and the scribe felt a shiver of fear race down his spine. What was happening? This wasn't just emotional, this was physical, a bubbling burning creeping through his veins, like a poison. Tears pooled in the tiny Gembound's working eye, terror catching in his throat, the pain heading straight for his front legs - was this the paralysis, finally setting in? Staring down at his paws, Booker's breath caught, and he let out a tiny, terrified squeak.

Fire! God, no, not again! It started with sparks flashing from his fur, and then the scent of burning flesh hit his nose as the flames flared, engulfing the creature's paws in moments. Screeching, Booker desperately clapped his paws on the ground, together, on anything to get rid of the flames, but they continued, etching new patterns up to his wrists. Hissing in pain, the scribe fled inwards, trying to find a way to stop it - and there, that had to be it, a hot ball of rage, of betrayal, or self-hatred that fed the fire. A deep breath, another, and slowly, ever so slowly, the fire receded, back into its tightly contained shell, poisoning the scribe's mind-space with tendrils of smoke.

Booker's breath came in shallow gasps, full of smoke, as the last of the flames burnt out, leaving behind charred fur and knuckle-deep burns. Flexing his paws experimentally, the numbat hissed at the stretch and pull of damaged skin, absently grooming the worst of the wounds. Senses dulled by the disease and the pain, he almost didn't hear the stag approach at all, only snapping to attention when the dull thump of a hoof heating the rock nearby echoed through the air. Booker stared up, up, up at the beast, eye widening in fear, reflexively clenching his paws closer to his body. He was defenseless like this, that the scribe knew, but he'd be damned if another of Louie's cronies would get the drop on him.

Still, it seemed those fears were unwanted. The numbat tilted his head, almost sure he'd misheard - was this huge stag, tines pointed and sharp, obviously big enough to kill him outright - actually offering to help? Booker kept the blank gaze for one moment, two, before he offered the older Gembound a tired, wavering smile, ears pitching forward to better catch the man's voice. "H-help would be... lovely," the scribe rasped out, voice weak from disuse and fever. "There's a... groupa Gems... their l-leader, he's a fox. Caught me off-guard, in Eridanus," Booker explained, brow furrowing at the memory. The attack had been frenzied, and he still had no idea what had set Louie off. "In-fect-ed me with somethin'. They h-have my brother."

A pause as a cough rattled through his lungs, and Booker turned his head away, not wanting to inflict his disease on anyone else. "D-dunno how long we've been 'ere. A week, maybe? 's not safe for you ta be here," he added hastily, as if just realizing the statement to be true, turning back to the stag with an earnest tap of his paws. "Y-you gotta go, b-before they attack you, too."

Booker stared up at the stag, speechless. Azazel's arrival had been a surprise, but when no immediate help had come, the numbat had assumed - perhaps rightly - that he was, as he thought, simply a pawn in this particularly game. But this beast, just as dangerous as the rest, offered immediate salvation. The scribe thought, absently grooming at his charred paws, trying to see the loophole.

Everything had a price. He'd paid for his happiness with Baratheon with Khloros and Delphine's lives. He'd paid for his continued life with, most likely, Diot's. In general, anything that positively affected Booker took someone else's life. Brow furrowing, the tiny Gembound looked away, stuck. "I-I... I want to go with ya, but... I'm not..." An aborted sigh escaped his lips, and Booker shook his head, frustrated tears beginning to make their arrival known.

"Where I go, death follows. I can't... inflict that on anyone else, not without them knowin'. If you can deal with that, then I'd be grateful for 'elp. If not, you should go, before you get killed too." The words were bitter, but true - or, at least, what he thought was the truth.

At the stag's obvious confidence, Booker huffed out a laugh, turning back to the man with a tiny, amused grin. "I've no doubt you'd fight 'em. Just don't know if you'd win. There's a b-bunch... of 'em." A dry cough, and the scribe continued, panting. "My brother... I dunno where they put 'im. He's big. Real big... white fur, with wings and pink horns. 'e's fluffy," he added with a dazed, sickly giggle. "Hard ta miss. Promise."