Blood and Passion

"Who are you?" Luci demanded weakly as she struggled in the snare of tree bark that the druid had trapped us in, her blood slowly being sapped away.

"What do you want with us?" I asked, feeling the grip of the snaky tree root grow tighter as it sucked the strength out of me.

"Everything you have, travellers," came the voice once more, echoing through the forest, its source unseen. "As a minor toll for passing through my little forest here, and for hurting my trees."

"I don't have anything! Let me go!" Luci said.

"Oh? That's a pity. I'll just have to take your life instead."

"Don't you da - " Luci stopped herself mid-sentence, replacing her threat with a guttural scream and a crack - the tree roots were getting tighter around her body, turning her ribs to dust and squashing arteries into pulp, breaking her bone by bone, her yelps of agony getting quieter with each one, until eventually she fell silent, the struggle over.

The dark voice chuckled. "Your friend is dead. What will you give me in return for your life?"

"She's not dead, she can't die."

The chuckle became a cackle. "Really? Are you really that much of an idiot? Do you honestly think that the power of friendship or something will save her? Her soul's already being ferried to hell, you fool. Killing you will be a pleasure." The roots began to squeeze me far, far too hard - I heard a crack and howled in pain as I felt my ribs being crushed, puncturing one of my lungs.

"No," I said, gasping for air. "She can't die, she can't be dead!"

Another crack - another howl of pain - "Wow," The voice said, thoroughly unimpressed. "You really are a moron."

"She."

My femur broke.

"Is."

I felt a a root jab a hole in my stomach.

"Dead."

I felt impossible pain in my back, but I couldn't scream - my spinal cord had been severed, and my vision vanished as I struggled more -

Ah, well. I'm dead now, so I'll worry about that struggling later. Now it's time to regenerate a new body.

I felt what was left of my skin, flesh and bones become softer, even softer, until they homogenised into a jelly-like mass that collapsed into a sphere around the only organ that mattered, the one that gave me immortality - my heart, with gold and steel wiring that held my mind rather than my brain and which boosted the power of my shifters to heal almost any injury, unless, like right now, I was being crushed into dust. The mass around my heart became almost acidic, consuming any organic matter it touches to be re-purposed in creating a new body for me, including the roots and blood of those god awful trees that had been wrapped around my dead body and were conveniently close. Finally, once I had enough mass and resources to be rebuilt, the process would begin, cell by cell, building around my heart, until finally -

I opened my freshly made eyes, walked on the soil with bare, new feet, and saw before me the naked, half-dead body of a man, his eyes glassy, with bruises and burn marks all across his skin. He moved his gaze towards me, his voice raspy, but undeniably belonging to the druid. "You..." he wheezed. "Immortal..."

I sighed as I crouched down to him. "I warned you, she can't die. You should've listened. If I weren't regenerating, then I would've at least tried to stop Luci from murdering you, but you killed me, and now you're probably going to die. Where is she, anyway?"

"Took... my clothes..."

"Yeah, I can see that. Answer the question."

"No need, I'm right here," Luci's voice piped up behind me. "And I hope you'll let me finish the job."

I turned around to face her, but she averted her gaze for some reason. She was carrying a large brown sack wearing a green jacket over a white shirt and trousers - not her style, to be honest. "Normally, I would be against it, but honestly we need to put this guy out of his misery. Once we get that out of the way - "

I didn't even manage to finish my sentence before Luci pointed behind me and used lightning to turn the poor man into a pile of ash.

I sighed. "Anyways, we should get to the nearest town. Did you ask him for directions?"

"No, I doubt he'd tell us the truth, but I can probably get us high enough to scout out nearby towns with a tornado. Since I haven't used up much energy in this new body, I'm almost at full capacity."

"Wait, he was a robber wasn't he? Doesn't he have a stash of stolen goods we can sell?"

"Uh, yeah, I got them in this sack here, but I don't think selling them is our major priority right now."

I frowned. "What else would we do with them?"

She took out a rugged ball of clothes and shoes from the sack, her gaze still averted. "You're wearing these."

At that moment, I remembered that regeneration consumes everything.

Including clothing.

I was naked.

I quickly snatched the clothes out of her hands, muttered my thanks, and went behind a tree to put them on. I wasn't especially embarrassed, to be honest, but it was uncomfortable upon realisation, and I decided there and then to never talk about it again. But the clothes were too sizes too large for me, and one hundred percent looked awful - a wrinkly black shirt, a tattered excuse for a white jacket, green trousers of all things and sandals for shoes. It did not work in any way shape or form, but it probably was marginally better than walking around in the nude.

I walked back out to meet Luci. "Don't worry about it," she said. "I didn't see anything."

So much for never talking about that again. "Don't lie to me."

"Heh, you're good at seeing through me. Okay, that was a bit of a lie, but it's an insignificant thing."

Wow. "That's... harsh."

She laughed. "No! No, that's not what I meant, god no, I mean - I'm not really into guys that way, so it doesn't matter."

"Ah." That's a relief. "Thank goodness, I won't need to lock my room at night when I'm in the same building as you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't seem like the kind of person who asks for consent."

She looked insulted. "I don't know what you're insinuating, but whatever it is, I'm probably not that depraved, so shut up, we're going now." She hefted the sack of the druid's stolen goods.

"Yeah, okay."

The winds started moving around us once again, and before I knew it, the tornado was back and we were up in the air. I looked around us in every direction, trying to see if there was a nearby town we could set down at, when I saw what looked like a small village in the distance - a surefire indicator of civilisation.

"THERE!" I shouted over the howling winds, pointing towards it.

Luci wasted no time in getting us there, and once we had arrived with our feet on the solid ground of the market street, I was immediately hit by a wave of depression.

It might be because of my city background, but when I think "market", I think countless men, women and children clamouring over each other to get the best bargains possible, tearing each other down at stalls and acting like savage live sardines packed in a tin can. This was not that. This was three men, two of which were running fruit stalls that were on opposite sides of the street (one sold zucchini and the other sold rhubarb, of all things), another man clearly being homeless and sleeping at the foot of the rhubarb stall. No customers to speak of. It just made me... sad, somehow. I looked over at Luci, and she looked uncomfortable in the area, like she was gatecrashing a funeral for free food. She awkwardly walked to the zucchini stall.

"Excuse me, sir," she said politely. "Do you mind pointing us to the nearest pawn shop?"

The zucchini guy grunted as he pointed at an unlabelled building behind him, and Luci said her thanks as we scurried in to get away from whatever the hell that was as fast as possible.

Inside was a sparse pawn shop, with a little jewellery in glass displays and curios on shelves, but not much else apart from it. I reckoned we were giving them major business. We walked to the counter and Luci greeted the snoring, middle-aged shopkeeper.

"Hello, sir. Mind if we sell this stuff?" She unloaded the bag onto the counter.

The man woke up with a snort. "Hm-? Oh - " His eyes widened in disbelief at the treasures before him: iron, copper, bronze, silver, gold trinkets, timepieces, toys, and crafts of all sorts, ivory figurines and aluminium spoons, all in good quality and of the highest craftsmanship. "You're selling all of this."

Luci grinned. "Yup."

"Where the bloody hell do you even get a stash like this? It's almost like - " Suddenly, he stopped, taking one of the trinkets with trembling fingers - a bronze pocket watch. He brushed his fingers over the engraving on the lid, of a boar charging forth with a griffin on either side. "It is!" He exclaimed in a shaky voice. "This is the stash of the druid thief in the forest! You... you..."

"I take it he's a known criminal?"

"Known criminal? He's decimated our economy! Every caravan that comes here from the north gets destroyed by him, he even killed the great merchant king! We've only had those zucchini and rhubarb nutcases from the south trade with us ever since. But this engraving is his mark... this is proof that - please tell me - "

Luci smiled kindly at the man. "The druid won't bother you again."

He came out from behind the counter, smiling and laughing as he shook our hands and gave us uncomfortable hugs. "Thank you, oh thank you! Please, let me reward you for your hard work - "

"Oh, no," I stopped him before Luci could try anything. "The money from pawning away these is more than enough."

"Nonsense! My brother owns the inn, we'll reward you with our finest rooms, good clothes and a sumptuous feast with the entire village invited! We must celebrate!"

And before I knew it, we were in a big old, rickety inn bar with around thirty others, with music and dancing celebrating our defeat of the terrible druid. Luci seemed to be enjoying herself, talking to a lot of the women and drinking far too much, and somehow they seemed to enjoy her company as well - she could apparently be very charismatic when she wanted to be and hid her true colours of mood-swinging morally questionable psychopaths well. I wasn't enjoying myself as much, but I never really liked celebrations like that anyway. The drink and food was good, at least, and the music was nice. Once the spirit of the night had finally died down, I went upstairs to the room that we had been given -

"Actually," Luci said, blocking my way into the room. "Do you mind if you take next door? I'd prefer the privacy."

I frowned. "What are you - "

I heard a giggle behind me. I turned around to see a young, pretty lady, blushing as she waved behind me, and turned back to Luci, who was warmly grinning and waving back, blushing as well. It did not take long for me to put two and two together. I groaned.

"Right, whatever," I said, opening the room next door.

"Thank you!" Luci replied in an almost mocking tone as she walked into the room with the girl.

I muttered a curse under my breath as I crashed onto my room's bed, shutting the door behind me. I didn't even bother changing. I had literally died today, and frankly, I thought I was entitled to at least a little bit of sloppiness. I drifted off to sleep, and as I did so, hoped to god that I'd never have such a hectic day again.