#gimme feedback if you want or... don't if you don't wanna idk bye

[bragganhyl]

WIP of a whatever

kinda felt the urge to scribble something bee gee three related, we'll see if this becomes a thing or not

‘Alright, lad, like we practised.’

A boy looked up at his father, his spindly limbs trembled under his stern and yet concerned gaze. Dark brown eyes peered into his own with an intensity that could’ve burned his soul to cinders were he to fail this test.

‘My name is Bertalan, I am the son of a tanner.’

Smell of fur, smell of leather, it’s all the same in the end. A lie does not have to be the opposite of truth, when it can be a cloak woven out of it. A cloak that smells like cured leather.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Rivington, we had a workshop there until recently.’

‘Remember the accent, lad.’ The man’s voice rang with a gentle warning. The boy nodded, he’ll have to practise to keep his tongue rolling the right way. But it shouldn’t be too hard, it’s not that different from how Baldurians talk. His father straightened his back as he continued.

‘What happened?’

‘Pa couldn’t keep running it, after Ma got sick.’

‘How did she get sick?’

‘Her lungs couldn’t handle the fumes.’

Focus on the coughing, focus on the wheezing, forget all else about the curse, he guided himself, and his own voice rang deeper in his mind. Older. More resolute.

‘What of your father?’

‘He taught me what he knew then he retired,’ he looked his father straight in the eye. The words slipped from him effortlessly now. His father raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

‘Then how come you’re a hunter?’

Bertalan shrugged. ‘Have to get the skins somewhere,’ he chuckled. ‘At least, that’s how it all started, now I just hunt.’

‘What do you hunt?’

‘All manner of beasts. The stranger the better.’

‘Ever hunted a mind flayer before?’

That… that’s not the question. He’s supposed to ask about…

Bertalan stopped his line of thought before it could fully form in him. He saw this dream thousands of times, from the day his father first asked these series of questions. The answers were etched into his soul, including the ones he was about the recite next.

Trust no one, trust only in nature.

Pain shot through him, from head to toe, from a spot behind his eye along every fibre of his being. He gasped, but the only air around him was stale and reeked of something unnatural. He struggled to look, a hand came to the side of his face, trying shield his aching eye. He glimpsed glass or at least something transparent ahead of him. As he struck it, his movements felt sluggish and feeble.

Luckily for him, the strange, casket-like pod opened at the contact. Or maybe it just opened on its own. Bertalan certainly didn’t feel like he forced the thing open. He blinked once. Then again. And again. He recalled an open field, high grass, sunlight warming the back of his neck, Corvus calling out for danger. He assumed it was his quarry but… it was just a touch. Then the dream came and now… a room, constructed by something fleshy yet mechanical. The ranger’s eyes widened as the realization slowly sunk in: he was on a nautiloid.