Archive of Our Own ^beta

Lifesteal is being raided.

It’s not like it’s crazy. It’s not like they didn’t expect it to happen at  some point. But fuck is it terrifying.

Rek’s feet thud against the dirt path, ignoring the yells of the knights behind him. The assassin group, unprepared to face the wrath of a King. Rek dodges through a group of trees. He wants to see if everyone is okay. He wants to sprint back, see if he could help fight off the army. But he knows that it’s pointless. Their tiny village is surely overwhelmed with soldiers by now.

“Rek!” a voice shouts, and suddenly Jumper is beside him.

He gestures forward, and she nods. So they run. They get as far away as possible. What else can they do?

Jumper and Rek run for something like five hours before they stop to take a break. And even then, they only stop because it’s necessary. Because Rek’s breath shudders in his chest, because Jumper is new to this way of doing things, and this has surely pushed her to the limit.

The two of them manage to clamber into a large ravine before collapsing against its walls. Rek inhales and exhales, inhales and exhales. 

“We can’t rest for long,” Jumper murmurs, giving voice to the unspoken agreement. Even as she sits, eyes shut, her bunny ears flicker around, listening closely to the surrounding forest.

“I know,” Rek says shakily. Then, “How much farther can you go?”

Jumper shrugs her shoulders.

“Not sure. I don't think I have the magic to shift fully anymore, but I can definitely hold it in hybrid form for a few more hours.”

Rek frowns slightly. For fae like Jumper, for shifters, the method of speedrunning entails holding the power of a full shift in a hybrid form for about one or two hours, enough to find and steak whatever is needed. Whereas a fae like Rek, Earthborn, or any elemental fae, would use the natural world to keep themself going.

“Six hours east and we’ll hit HBG,” Rek says after a moment. And it’s their only option. Rek knows it. Jumper knows it.

Yet neither of them run the long runs, and it’ll be a challenge to make it there.

“Fine,” Jumper says, “We’ll make it.”

We have too, goes unsaid. They won’t make it to the Kingdom Of Realm, won’t make it to Tubbo. It's in the south, much too far. And there are other places, sure, but those places require passing through the very kingdom that attacked them in the first place.

Suddenly Jumper pushes herself to her feet. “We should go,” she says, a note of urgency in her voice.

And if there’s one thing Rek has learned these past few years, it’s that what Jumper tells you to do something, you do it.

So he pushes himself up, and he runs. Pulls at the magic of the earth beneath his feet, occasionally reaching out with his senses, making sure that Jumper is still behind him.

When they’re about three hours in, they stop again. Not for a break, just to collect their bearings. And Rek is tired. Jumper is tired too, even more so than Rek. When they start running again, he reaches into the ground and pushes a bit of his magic towards her. He can’t spare much, but he can spare some. And right now, some is good enough.

So they run. And run and run and run and run.

And they almost make it. Almost.

They must be forty minutes or so out from HBG when Jumper’s legs finally give out. Rek stumbles to a stop, barely able to keep going himself, yet still having a bit of stamina, the kind that comes purely from experience.

Experience that Jumper doesn’t have.

“Sorry,” she whispers as Rek pulls her up.

“You’re fine,” he says, a bit out of breath, before quickly scanning their surroundings.

They’re in another forest, one that Rek recognises to be the forest on the east edge of HBG. HBG is a small town on the outside of the Kingdom of Ranked, home to a group of thieves who’ve perfected the artform of speedrunning. Friends of Rek’s. A couple friends of Jumper’s. Either way, they’re close and Rek bets that all they would have to do was go for just a little longer-

But Jumper leans on him heavily, breathing shallow and shuddery. She’s new to the methods of speedrunning, and this journey would have been a lot for even the most seasoned assassins.

Rek knows that if they try to run anymore, she’ll likely pass out. 

He casts his gaze up to the sky. It’s almost sundown- and there’s a prickle of hope, the idea that maybe they’ll run into an evening patrol.

“Jumper?” he asks.

“Yeah?” she responds, voice barely above a whisper.

“We’re gonna walk a bit,” Rek says, voice steady. 

“Ok,” comes the response.

They walk for a little, maybe only fifteen minutes, through the forest. Rek guides Jumper along, stumbling occasionally. Reks’s legs are still burning, yet it feels slightly better now that he’s no longer drawing on his magic to keep himself going.

“Rek?” Jumper says suddenly, voice weighed down with exhaustion, “People.”

Rek pauses, and reaches out with his magic. He can feel who she’s talking about. And it takes him a moment- but he can recognize the magic signatures after a moment. The fizzing electricity of an elemental, the quiet glow of a shifter-  it’s Fein and Silver. He exhales with relief, feeling some of the tension drain from his body.

They must be a hundred meters or so away. Quickly, Rek, using what is quite possibly the last of his magic, nudges them. A weak, "I'm here.”

And Rek feels them perk up suddenly, feels the sense of urgency that fills them. 

Rek himself knows the feeling, remembers a patrol he did with Couri once, when Poundy had nudged them, injured nearby.

“We’re good,” Rek whispers to Jumper, as he hears the cracking of sticks and branches from not too far away. She’s practically slumped against him at this point, and Rek himself is fighting to stay alert.

“Alright,” she says, just as Fein appears out of the trees to their left, Silver close behind him.

“Rek?” Silver asks, confused, before taking in the situation fully. 

Rek and Jumper, both covered in dirt and scrapes. Rek practically supporting all of Jumper’s weight while barely standing himself.

Fein, to his credit, processes faster, darting forward to take Jumper’s weight off Rek.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” Silver asks, eyes tracing Fein’s movements carefully.

“A lot,” Rek says with a small sigh, “ran for almost eleven hours. One break.”

Fein and Silver both blink at him.

“Couri’s not gonna be happy,” Fein says after a moment, a slight smirk crossing his face. Silver nods in agreement.

“In all seriousness, let's go to Couri’s place.” Fein carefully picks Jumper up, the girl so tired that she’s essentially unconscious. 

“If we go anywhere else I’m pretty sure he’ll kill us,” Silver says with a laugh, walking over to Rek, who leans on the other like a lifeline.

They start the short walk into town, and honestly, Rek is just glad to be home.

—--

It’s not a quiet evening in HBG. Then again, it’s rarely quiet within a fifty mile radius of MCSR. For once, Rek is glad that Couri lives near the edge of town, glad that he’s not going to have to cough out Lifesteal’s predicament to every person that they see.

Couri is, as Fein predicted, not happy. He’s home, luckily, when Fein knocks on the heavy wooden door. It swings open after a moment or two, and in the entrance stands Couriway, golden wings and all.

“Oh shit.”

And Rek laughs tiredly.

They enter, and after a couple steps end up in Couri’s living area. Fein gently sits Jumper on the sofa, and  the girl sleepily blinks her thanks. Rek sits down beside her.

Silver offers Rek a small smile, then starts to move towards the door. When Fein raises an eyebrow, he mutters something about Fulham, Doogile, and a tavern, then simply continues on his way out. 

Rek rubs at his eyes tiredly, wondering about the rest of Lifesteal. He knows that they’re all quite capable, and likely will have done similar to what he and Jumper did, running for the safest option.

“So,” a voice says.

Rek zones back in to see Couri standing before him, the shifter’s arms crossed.

“Eleven fucking hours? I know you know how dangerous that is.”

God does Rek know. Jumper’s shaky breaths have become steady and deep. She’s new to using her magic like this. Hell, Rek isn’t even all that experienced compared to Couri. And Rek’s really not sure how he’s getting out of this one, so he just offers up the truth.

“Lifesteal’s base got raided,” Rek says with a sigh. And every single bone in his body feels heavy, like they’re holding him down in his seat.

“By who?” Couri asks quietly.

“The north,” Rek responds.

“We had to run, lose the King’s men in the forests. They followed for longer than we anticipated, and by the time we got rid of them, we were closer to here than anywhere else,” Rek continues quietly.

“Closer being six goddamn hours,” Couri says in exasperation, eyes flicking over to Jumper. 

Rek shrugs his shoulders helplessly.

“I-” Couri exhales, loud and long. “Look, you should probably sleep. We can talk about stuff in the morning.”

Couri offers his hand, and Rek takes it, letting his friend pull him up. Fein is now sitting at the kitchen table, staring towards the fireplace. Rek leans on Couri, and allows him to pull him towards the guest room that both Rek and Jumper know so well.

Rek drops onto the pale blue covers and closes his eyes, exhaling quietly.

He’s asleep before Couri leaves the room.

—-

Jumper blinks, slumping back into something soft. Voices are talking, maybe even yelling, but it all comes through a muffled haze. It goes quiet after a few minutes, and Jumper is asleep…almost. Suddenly, there’s a gentle hand on her shoulder. It quickly moves around her back, and gently pulls her to her feet.

Jumper’s knees buckle, but the person catches her before she hits the ground. She blinks again, and suddenly she is in the person's arms, and they’re walking down some sort of hallway.

She reaches out with her magic weakly, nudging the other person’s. It's gold. Gold…. she knows gold….

“Hey Jumper,” they say quietly, nudging her back with their own magic.

“It's just Couri. You’re good. You’re okay.”

Gold….Couri….of course.

And then she’s being lowered onto something soft, and she allows herself to relax. They made it.

She’ll figure shit out tomorrow.