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dragonner0 · 4 months ago

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Leshy - an Understanding

He hadn't quite had the time to think about it, but now he realized. He was near-enough invulnerable to any conventional means of war with his cataphract armor, his footsteps thundered in his wake, he could cut through most light armor with the Champion sword at his hip, and now, he could finally see again. He felt amazing, but there was a part of him that whispered something he couldn't quite discern.

Leshy felt like a god again, and yet something was missing. But what?

He was contemplating that question when he was approached by Emanuel. "May I sit here?" He asked, gesturing to the seat Leshy's legs covered.

Leshy hummed, then grunted and shifted so that he was sitting upright. "Seat's open," he said.

Emanuel didn't like him. He knew that. They tolerated each other, if only because there were only eleven or so people in their settlement, but the fire-loving yellow cat would much rather sit with someone other than Leshy, if the other couch cushions weren't bein replaced after a mold problem. He'd never said why. To be fair, one could easily infer.

Emanuel opened his book, the title reading simply "the Kindly Panda" at the top of a simple cover. There were several bookmarks in it, Emanuel's being a fiery orange-yellow at about the halfway mark.

"Is it good?" Leshy asked absentmindedly. His own bookmark was sitting in one of the tomes on the bookshelf, but he really wasn't a big reader. The tomes were weird, anyways.

Emanuel didn't answer for a second, but eventually said, "it's the best we've got. Which isn't much."

Leshy merely hummed, tapping his foot lightly. The two of them were silent for a long time, then a lifter rolled up next to Emanuel and set a small note in his lap. The worm apparently didn't get to see what the note said, but he was pretty sure he saw a list and some coordinates.

Whatever it was, Emanuel sighed in annoyance and put his bookmark back in the book. "The one time I get to rest," he said, patting the small mechanoid as he stood. "Oh no, we can't just make some vegetarian meals for a while, no. We need to get meat and keep hunting and never stop, not even when we're exhausted, because we're out of steel and we're-"

"Would you like a companion?"

Emanuel stopped in the middle of his spiel. "I- you're offering to accompany me?" He asked, staring bewildered at the worm.

Leshy shrugged. "I don't have much else to do."

Emanuel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, of course you don't. Why would you. You're our friendly neighborhood cataphract, of course."

"I have a champion sword," Leshy offered, patting the grip at his waist. "Plus, a fresh extra pair of eyes has to count for something, doesn't it?"

Emanuel stared for a few seconds, then sighed. "Let me get my gun first. Then you can go mess around in the snow with your blasted sword."

>---

As it turns out, giving a man a sword that can cut through nearly anything without substantial armor is a great way to keep them from shutting up. This was sis fifth - or perhaps it was sixth - time asking Emanuel if he could just run in and use his sword.

"For the last time, no," the yellow cat said, exhausted already. "Your big, heated sword will probably burn up all the good meat. I, on the other hand, intend to be precise with my shots."

"Yes, because your exploding gyrojets will be so much better at preserving your game's condition," Leshy teased, grinning beneath his helmet.

"I have accuracy and well-laid traps on my side," Emanuel said in return, focusing back in on the sights of his LMG. "Gyrojets are instant and deadly, unlike your sword, and I can know exactly how it will affect the victim." As he said that, he let loose a couple rounds, three of which sent wood chips and soil scattered along the snow, and the fourth went straight into it's target - a stallion - exploding in its chest.

"My, such good preservation of meat," Leshy mocked when the sound of small explosions stopped echoing between the mountains. "We could definitely salvage... a couple legs from that. So long as Heket remembers her centuries of practice butchering, at least."

Emanuel growled, but stood to collect his kill anyways. "I was trying to scare it further into the trees," he said, slinging his weapon around his back. "Every time I want to hit something I barely hit my mark, but the moment I'm not shooting to kill... lamb damn it."

"I would've done better with a sword," Leshy mused.

That was Emanuel's snapping point. "Oh, well I'm sorry big guy, but I don't know if you noticed, but I'm the one hunting and you are the one who decided to stick along, so could you please either-" He stopped for a moment. "Actually, why am I offering you to stay? Go back to the temple, worm. And stay there."

"Eh, the temple's noisy," Leshy said simply. "I prefer it out here."

"I did not offer you to go back I told you," Emanuel hissed. "Go do- whatever. I don't care."

Leshy, of course, couldn't quite do whatever. Since Andrea, Damios, Yocum, and Rozzie were all out doing something-or-other in the Mule, they didn't have any new work being qued up, and the hydroponics farming was all that survived for winter. All that needed harvesting was the cotton, for which they happened to have an Agrihand. The last thing that Leshy wanted to do with his new sight was operate some drill or carve stone chunks in the quarry, especially since they also had a Tunneler named "Mr. Krabs" specifically for that.

He, of course, summed all that up as "I'd rather stay."

Emanuel simply hissed, before turning sharply and trudging through the snow to claim her kill. Leshy followed, finding it much easier given his attire weighed several times as much as he did. "Go find the rest of the stallions, and don't talk to me," he growled, kneeling just outside the puddle of blood and burned gore that sank into the snow.

Leshy frowned, but listened to the cat nonetheless. Annoying people was fun, especially getting people to start a fight with him, but for some reason, it felt... different with Emanuel. Sure, it felt different with his siblings and the Lamb, but he understood why. Everyone else usually just ignored it for the most part, which was fair, and he gave them all space.

So why does Emanuel feel different?

Rather than focusing on the odd feeling, which meant tucking it away into a far corner of his mind, and instead stopped to listen for the sounds of hooves on the snow. They would be muffled by the snow, but after more than a millennium of blindness, he had learned to pick up on far softer sounds.

There was a bird somewhere, singing its rather serene song. His branch-like antlers twitched as a gust of wind rattled a few leafless trees, and somewhere he heard a loose branch fall.

He heard something running. Something big - a muffalo or a bear, if he had to guess. Maybe it was chasing Emanuel's game.

...

It was getting closer. Not to him, but to the still-in-the-open Emanuel. He whirled around on the spot and saw that Emanuel had perked up, his ears swiveling as he listened to probably the same thing as Leshy.

Then he jumped up and yelled "Shit!" as he scrambled to get out his gun, only for a maddened megasloth to headbutt him to the ground before he could get his first shots off.

Leshy, being quick to respond, charged at the large mammal, his hand going to the hilt of his sword and swinging it at the attacker, the not-yet-solidified living metal leaving a deep gash on its arm. Rather than focus on him, however, it bit into Emanuel's ankle and thrashed, somehow not quite managing to rip the foot off. As its head swung toward Leshy, the worm quickly brought down his now-solid sword on its neck, cutting through the spinal cord. As the body collapsed, lifeless, he passed the blade to his off hand and wedged his foot between the creatures jaws, using his and his free hand to pull them open.

Emanuel's foot... had seen better days. Leshy was sure that, even with Glitterworld medicine, he'd need a prosthetic. He'd live, despite his swearing.

But there were two megasloths in the area. Leshy was violently reminded of that when a two-ton beast tackled him, sending them both rolling into a deep ditch, his sword lost in the process.

With little else to do, Leshy punched at the creature, but Scaria wouldn't let the animal stop, even as his bionic arm broke its rib.

He thought for a moment that he'd be killed there, once it managed to dig its claws in his devilstrand fabric. Pain sprang up in the side of his head as one of his antlers was snapped. He thought he saw something moving at the top of the ditch, before a large paw blocked his sight.

Then he heard gunshots, and he was showered in deep red. The megasloth went still, noticeably lighter than it had been originally. After a moment, he heard Emanuel call down, "Leshy? Fuck, I didn't hit you did I?"

Slowly, Leshy heaved the animal corpse off of himself and got into a sitting position, looking up at the yellow cat. Then he began to laugh as the adrenaline in his system did its work.

"Stop laughing!" Emanuel called down. "I need - fuck, I need help! I-I'm sorry for earlier but- fucking Lamb, my leg!"

Leshy found it quite hard to stop laughing, despite the circumstances.

>---

...

Watching Emanuel was boring.

The cat did nothing but read, really. Sometimes he said something, sometimes not. Leshy tried to get him to play a game, no budge. So then he tried getting some spare Smokeleaf(even though Kallamar would probably be very angry to learn his brother got his patient high), just for a reaction, but still almost nothing.

And yet he kept coming back. He didn't know why, it wasn't like Kallamar would have any other patients, but Leshy was almost always with Emanuel.

The only word he got came lust before his injured leg was going to be replaced by the bionic one Lambert got off a caravan.

"Thank you," he said. "For saving me. I just wanted to say that before I went under."

Leshy nodded. "Your welcome," he responded. "I guess you owe me one."

"We're even, at best," Emanuel said before he took his anesthetic. A few seconds of silence passed before Emanuel asked, "what exactly does it feel like... having a bionic limb?"

Leshy thought for a long moment, rolling his mechanical arm and feeling the servos twitch and flex. "It's like... having a part of you that isn't a part of you, I guess. It's... not exactly something I can describe."

Emanuel hummed. "Well, I guess we'll see."

Leshy nodded again, then stood. "I should go. The healroot needs harvesting," he said, despite it already being hours after he perhaps should have gone to harvest it.

There that same feeling was. He still couldn't quite figure out what it was, but Emanuel had something to do with it. Curious. He'd have to ask Shamura about it sometime.

#I've been brainrotted again. Yipee #cult of the lamb #cotl #I'mma call this the Rim God AU #Rimworld #Not quite as much Rimworld but it's there #leshycat #sorta #cotl leshy #cotl yellow cat #tw gore #Because I like explodies #cw: gore #No context #I am no coward #Rim God AU #cw violence #cw implied drug use #Writing

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