[RP] Homecoming (MM6)

Either summer, or fall - everything was the same for Sweet Water. Since this blossoming land was devastated by invasion of the Kreegans, who immediately settled here, not a single animal has wandered there, and no smells of grass and flowers could be delivered by wind anymore - only the heat of Dragonsand Desert mixed up with an odor of burn and death.

Zoltan was suffering from insomnia. Since they left the Paradise Valley the sorcerer wasn't able to close his eyes for already several nights in a row. Pictures of lizards surrounding peacefully sleeping bodies thrived in his mind, and this place wasn't any more credible.

Finding a good place to sit, he snapped his fingers and, making the campfire burn brighter, sat down closer. Now, when everyone is calmed down and left him alone in peace, he can immerse himself in his gray thoughts.

"Damned lazybones. Always they brag about being able to shoot a Titan in the eye, and that their weapon crumbles the Hydra's scale, but what happens instead... What if surrounded by beasts? "Zoltan, tear them up with Sharpmetal!" Someone's got a close up date with a naughty Medusa? "Zoltan, dispel it!" One step left to a miserable death? "Zoltan, take us out of here!" What you would ever do without Zoltan, you pitiful."

The sorcerer was crunching knuckles, switching from one useless thing to another in his mind. How many years passed by after they abandoned Sweet Water and studied under the tutelage of Falagar in New Sorpigal?.. Now they are the four, once being a pile of random people, but later on - a coherent fighting body, here again in the home once lost. But why isn’t there any joy despite everything is going to end once and for all?

There were moments when Zoltan was close to breaking up. Roderick was constantly blaming him for uselessness especially after the paladin had to drag the unconscious body of the sorcerer along the ground far away from the danger. Well, he could cast him adrift if the mage was so hateful. And Serena has become completely unbearable. Zoltan started to think if all followers of the Light were destined to have an aura of plain stupidity preventing them from understanding any opinion different from theirs. Did something awful happen when he came to Free Haven with a bag of rattling bones and sold it out? Is there any difference with the ways the money is made? Well, and the material shouldn't go away useless. Or what about that case in Kriegspire...

Zoltan made a wry face while throwing some more wood to the campfire. A breathless night, silence and grim thoughts - one more night belongs to his mind. Kriegspire was one of the worst memories.

Everything starting with the cloak given to him by the generous Wilbur Humphrey. Ever since Zoltan received it, he was felt himself attracted to this item - trying it on for many times, admiring the bloody pierced sphere on a dark background reflecting in a mirror... Everyone could dream of a cult leader or battle advisor position, and no one knows, how high was the cost the aliens paid for the devotion of a Council Member.

The thoughts about betrayal ended when Serena, playing with telepathy again, decided to get into his head in the worst moment - near the Supreme Temple of Baa. The scandal was so terrible that Zoltan was close to be expelled ignominiously, but the party some fortunately just considered the sorcerer's abilities useful in the further struggle. Still, he will leave them when they will put an end to the Hive and the Reactor. Nothing except this goal was not uniting their fragile company...

- Can’t sleep? - Zoltan turned back hearing the voice just to see a dopey girl's face framed with fair tresses looking greenish in a faint skylight. It's Alexis.
- As you can see, - hemming, the sorcerer threw a small stone in the lake which had the same name as the ruined village. Water circles appeared on the surface of the lake, and only the crackling sparks of the campfire and slight smell of brimstone reminded him that Zoltan wasn’t sitting on a dark sky dome, but on a cracked dead ground instead.

The archer gal sat to the left, starting to looking to the same direction as Zoltan. Her blaster, usually residing near the pillow during sleep, was put near her ankles so Alexis could grab it fastly and wound an enemy. Perhaps she simply didn't trust the sorcerer's reaction, although he could see in dark much better than Alexis.

- How do you think, do these Ancients Melian was talking about really exist? All this - the lady nodded at a blaster - is  looks like an illusion, a mirage... Probably, magicians as powerful as Archibald, Ethric or Agar could be skillful enough to create something like this... and the Oracle itself.

- I don't think so - Zoltan murmured not even looking at Alexis. The Ancients were hardly drawing his interest, as well as Alexis herself. Despite her friendly attitude, she was entirely not in his taste.

The conversation ended barely getting started. The mage continued to dive in his own negative emotions, senselessly staring at the calm water. Alternately he would glance either on the dancing flames of a campfire, or an opaque blaster handle freaked with an unseen symbols, and on placers of cold lights, winkling from the sky.

Something warm touched the sorcerer's shoulder - bored Alexis turned her head there. Was she waiting for a hug? Who knows. As a gesture of politeness and because of a desire to warm up the frozen fingers with the living heat rather than real passion towards the archer girl, Zoltan softly clenched the hand of a not really beautiful lady in his hands, turning out pleasantly heated. Probably, she thought about something romantic, which dwells only in girls' heads, but the magician...

The magician looked on the stars and wished they would never fall again.

Written by me, translated by Orzie, edited by LongZi

Very nice. Is this part of a bigger story?

Thanks) It's just a drabble, i think no one agree on help me to translate anything bigger

If it's in Dutch I'll gladly help. But I've got this feeling it's in Russian

You're dead right

Still I can find time for this. Additional experience in translating may come in handy.