Chapter 17

I groaned as I felt my body aching something furious. Slowly my eyes opened. The first thing my blurry eyes fell upon is an ass covered in leather. I blinked slowly as my eyes fell onto my hands that were bound and swaying freely. I tried to push myself upwards but I was suddenly shook by the moving object I'm riding upon, making me lose the little strength I had and fall back limply. Of course being me, I struggled harder, even going so far as to elbow my capturer's back and shaking my legs enough so I can be put down.

SMACK!

"FUCKING ASSHOLE!" I howled in pain smacking my capturer repeatedly in the back, "YOU DON'T GET TO SMACK ME IN THE ASS YOU PERVERT!" only to earn another smack but with more force. Before I can shout at him some more, different cries sounded out before a herd of his fellow grounders emerged skipping and hollering as they ran closer.

I was suddenly thrown to the ground as my capturer turned around smoothly and swiftly unsheathing his sword from his hip in one move. He took down the first two easily and moved on to fight the others as they soon surrounded him.

I wasn't stupid enough to sit and watch with mouth open, so before the second grounder could hit the ground I was on my feet and ready to run. But I seemed to be cursed, because luck is never on my side. Another grounder jumped in my way, twirling an axe in his hand. I backed up slightly as he faked a few slashes, laughing as he toyed with me. My back soon hit a tree behind me and the grounder didn't waste time before he rushed towards me with the axe raised above his head. I ducked sideways just as he brought it down making it get stuck on the tree bark. A knife flew by me and struck the grounder in the back of the head making him fall, taking the axe down with him.

Immediately, I rushed towards him and started rubbing the robes bounding me against the sharp edge of the axe blade.

Suddenly, the familiar sound of a blow horn sounded, announcing the arrival of the acid fog.

"Shit!" I hissed as I stroked faster against the blade, soon the ropes broke freeing my hands. Immediately, I grabbed the axe and turned around to start sprinting away. On my way I saw bodies scattered all over and the grounder that had held me captured was leaning on one knee, seemingly dizzy with a dagger imbedded in his abdomen, and not showing signs of reacting much to the dire situation at hand.

I ran a few steps before, pausing and rushing back, cursing myself the whole way. I grabbed the grounder's arm and hosted it around my shoulders. His whole body tested up, as if ready to start swinging at me, but he changed his mind when he caught a glimpse of the approaching fog, before obliging to me as I forced him onto his feet and we both started sprinting away as fast as we can.

We were by the cave entrance when the grounder's feet decided to fail him and he stumbled, bringing me down with him.

"Oh, no. Get your ass up! I ain't dragging your fat ass all the way in!" I threatened, but it was all just bullshit because I was already bent and dragging him inside and it was just in time. As soon as we got in everything outside was taken over by yellow fog.

By the next hour I had a nice, warm fire going and I was bent over the unconscious grounder preparing to tend to his wound. I grabbed a hold of the blade handle and was about to rip it off fast like a Band-Aid but another hand grabbed onto my wrist tightly. I looked down at the grounder. He was glaring at me and tightened his hold on me even more.

I growled, punching his thigh with my other hand. He glared even harder, "If you want to bleed to death, asshole, fine by me. But you best get your fucking hand off of me, before I bite it off," a few moments went by where we stared at one another with narrowed eyes, stubbornness clearly reflecting behind our harsh glare, before he slowly released my wrist.

"Thanks, asshole," I grumbled sarcastically, before slowly removing the dagger. Screw taking it off fast like a Band-Aid, I wanted him to feel every painful second of it. The jerk nearly broke my hand. Unfortunately, he didn't show any reaction what so ever, other than making his eyes glare even harsher than before.

"Well, the easy part is out, now onto the hard part," I tossed away the bloody dagger, before bending over the fire and grabbing my own knife that was resting in the flames. The tip glowed orange. "Gotta warn you, buddy, this will hurt like a bitch," he glared at the knife before his narrowed eyes met mine and nodded.

I huffed, "Don't crush my hand this time. I rather enjoy it attached to my body all nice and solid."

I, hesitantly, brought down the blade to the gaping hole where the dagger was and held it down for a minute. I cringed at the hissing sound and the smell of burnt fresh. The grounder only held his breath but otherwise, he didn't show much reaction.

My eyes connected with his blue ones which continued staring at me throughout the process, eyes narrowed but less harsh than before. Thankfully it didn't take too long for me to finish and for his wound to close.

Hours went by as we waited for the fog to pass. None of us acknowledged the other, both of us dividing our attention between each other and the fire between us.

My whole body was aching from jumping off of a cliff and for sitting too long. I shifted my body to try to ease the tension only to end up hissing in pain as spasms of pain shot through my thigh. I looked at it only to notice a long and deep gash which was slowly gushing blood.

"Well shit! When did that happen?" I muffled the sound of pain as I prodded the wound, only to suddenly jump as large hands suddenly slapped my own hands away before swiftly ripping the pants in one go. I let out a sound of indignation, but the grounder proceeded to ignore me as he continued inspecting my wound. He prodded around it roughly, and it was now my turn to slap his hand away. "That hurts, you barbarian asshole!" he sent me an annoyed look, mumbling something that sounded like an insult in his language. "Hey fuck you too. Hands off, perv!" I pushed away his hands and proceeded to lean protectively over my thigh the best way I could.

He rolled his eyes, "yu laik won goufa."

I narrowed my eyes at him, "yeah, well 'yu lak wan goof' back at you too, asshole," he chuckled. I bristled, feeling my temperature and temper both rising to high levels, "u wanna laugh? Well Vaffanculo!"

"Shof op en ho op mouvn," he said gruffly as he pushed me none too gently on my back. Black spots hit my vision, but I shook my head and leaned back up with my hand pulled back and proceeded to give him a mighty punch. He didn't even flinch. He just continued staring at me with a deadpan face. I growled before throwing a double punch his way. He caught one hand but the other one got him in the cheek, making him turn the opposite way. I proceeded to swing my free hand his way but he also got the other one too without even looking. I tried to force my hands back from his tight grip, but it was no use. He slowly turned to face me, his tongue slowly darting out and licked the tiny blood that came from the little scratch my punch left on his lip. In one move, I suddenly found myself lying on my back with the grounder on top of me putting all of his weight onto holding me down. In one hand, he kept a strong grip on both of my wrists, while the other held tightly to my face, squishing my mouth closed with his palm.

"Em pleni" he hissed in anger, but I ignored him and continued with my struggle, "Enough!" he then proceeded to growl in English which shocked me so much that I immediately stopped moving. We both stayed staring at one another for some time, one shocked pair of brown eyes stared into angered blue eyes. Slowly, he eased off of me, letting go of my mouth and hands. Keeping our eyes connected, he slowly reached into the fire and grabbed a hold of his blade. It took me a second to process his motive before I sprang into action, but I was too late. He had already brought down the blade and I let out a loud scream of pain before everything turned dark.

Translation:

Trigedasleng:

Yu laik won goufa: you are like a child

shof op en ho op mouvn: shut up and stop moving

Em pleni: Enough

Italian:

Vaffanculo: Fuck you

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the long wait. But thank you all so very much for being patient with me and for loving the story so far. I'm so happy that it is receiving this much love. I honestly didn't think it would receive this much positivity. Thank you all so very much.

The grounder language, aka the Trigedasleng, used in this chapter and hopefully in the rest of the story is exactly the one used in the show. Or at least that's the website I used said. I did my best to study the fictional language and it was pretty fun and I hope you have enjoyed it and are willing to see more of it in the future.

Additionally, I am working on making a video for the story. Not sure if it's gonna be a tribute to 'Reaper' and Roan, or simply an intro to the story. It's still a work in progress and will make an announcement as soon as the project is done. It shall be posted on my YouTube channel: Heboosh as soon as it done.

Thank you all again for reading and taking the time to review and sharing your thoughts with me. I hope you have all loved the new chapter.

Be safe and stay healthy

XOXO ~ hodhod2011danger