You let out a shaky breath as you try not to panic. The sight of those poor, most likely, innocent people hanging there made you feel sick. You feel a hand grab yours and look down to see that Eridan had a grip on your non injured hand and squeezing it.

"We have to leave, now." He spoke firmly, still looking over at the gallows.

You nod, still feeling ill in the stomach after such a sigh. Eridan begins walking, tugging you along with him. You follow obediently, squeezing Eridan's hand in return. You walk beside Eridan; you could feel Rose's claws slightly dig into your neck. Usually you would scold her, but the reason for her doing so was fair enough.

"You there!" a voice shouts, making you jump and squeeze Eridan's hand even tighter.

A group of men stand in front of you and Eridan, blocking your path. You gulp and press yourself closer to Eridan. You look up Eridan, who looked as terrified as you probably did.

"I see you have a staff there." A voice behind you speaks up.

You look behind you to see an old wiry man standing in front of another group of people.

"And if we do?" Eridan says, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Well, we don't appreciate any sort of magic here," he says, "You've already seen what happened to the last magic users that passed through this here village."

"We didn't know," Eridan says, "we were on our way to the Blood Kingdom and happened to pass through."

There's a bit of a silence in the street.

"Get them." The old man says and the men charge at us, weapons in hand.

You shriek as you let go of Eridan and quickly pull out your staff. One of the men swings a sword at you. You hold up your staff and block the attack. Just as you had pushed the man back you look at Eridan from the corner of your eye. He had pulled a dagger out and was barely managing to avoid being hit.

'What the hell are we going to do!' you think as you continue to fight.

You glance around you, looking for an exit of any kind. But it seemed useless. You could feel tears welling up in the corner of your eyes. Rose was still clinging around your neck tightly. Your head reeled as you tried to think of any spell that wouldn't kill the villagers, but incapacitate them. Your eyes light up when something comes to you.

"Hyae!" you yell, swinging your staff.

At first you weren't sure that it had worked, as nothing came from the staff. But you sigh in relief when some of the attacking villagers collapse, making some others trip over their unconscious bodies.

As soon as the opportunity shows itself you grab Eridan's arm and yank him in the direction of the gap. You skilfully leap over the villagers as you make your escape.

Eridan lets out a yell of pain, you really wanted to stop, but you couldn't. You push past the other villagers, who don't stop you, most likely out of fear. You manage to run into the forest, where you slowed down slightly. But you were still too scared to actually just walk so you kept to a jog.

You had now noticed that Eridan was walking weirdly. You look behind you to see that a few tears had made their way down his cheeks. Your eyes trail down to his leg; you could see what looked to be a rip in his pants, which was covered in fresh blood.

You curse under your breath as you stop in your tracks. Eridan accidentally bumps into you, making you nearly trip. You turn to Eridan and gesture for him to sit down on a tree stump. He sits down with a hiss of pain. You take your bag off; Rose jumps off as you do so. You open the bag and begin to look for anything that could help with the wound.

Eventually you manage to find some bandages. You sit the bandages down and pull up the bottom of the Eridan's pants to reveal a stab wound.

"One of the people who had tripped managed to get me with a dagger." Eridan explains.

"Sorry, but I guess I just wanted to escape." You say sheepishly.

"Well, it's better than being hung." Eridan shrugs in reply.

You nod nervously before checking the wound again.

"Well, it's stopped bleeding," you say reassuringly, "but I have nothing to clean..."

You cut yourself off when you remember the cloth Eridan gave you. You pull it out an dsit it on the palm of your hand.

"Arcanin," you say, "clean Eridan's wound."

As soon as you finish to command, the cloth gets to work. As it does so you pick the roll of bandage back up. The cloth returns to you and you put it back in your pocket, you then begin to wrap his leg up.

"Sorry." You mumble as Eridan hisses in pain once again.

Once you finish wrapping up the wound you put the remaining bandaging away and swing your bag back on.

"Sorry to do this to you, but we should get going," you tell Eridan, "We need to make it to the Blood Kingdom before nightfall."

"Alright, let's get going." Eridan grunts as he stands up.

You, Eridan and Rose began walking once again; you had stumbled across a slightly worn path through the once again dense forest. Your feet were burning, but you ignored the pain as you kept going. You go to look at Eridan, who usually walks beside you. When you don't see his figure beside you, you stop in your tracks. You look behind you to see that Eridan was walking slower thanks to his injury.

Once he catches up to you again, you loop your arm around his torso, helping him take some of the weight off of his injured leg. You could tell he was going to protest, but you give him a look that says 'don't even try' and he looks forward again, wrapping his arm over your shoulders.

"Oh my goodness," you smile, looking at the open field, "we've finally made it to the Blood Kingdom!"