He’d never been a leader. He’d never been the decision-maker. It was the first time in his life that he’d ever been in a situation where that role had fallen to him and, if he was honest, Thomas was terrified.
At least he could mask that feeling well. Grunting, chest heaving, Tom twisted the knife into the gnoll’s neck and waited for the sounds of its breathing to end before pulling himself back up into a stand. Leadership wasn’t the only first experience he’d had since waking up on the nautiloid. He’d been thrown right into his first experience of killing as well without any real choice in the matter if he’d wanted to live and while he’d had plenty of fights, plenty of incidents, a history of theft through his childhood on the streets and angry tussles through acting as a bodyguard on plenty of occasion, none of them had ended quite so badly even when one of his sorcerous outbursts had occurred. Blood and injury, yes, plenty of that, but not outright death. Now it was… constant. Couldn’t be avoided if he wanted to survive, if he wanted his friends to survive, but fuck.
“Good fight, Soldier.” Karlach rested her axe-shaft on her shoulder; licks of fire still rolled across her skin. “Got a bit rough there, though, and can see you’ve taken a beating. Watch that left side of yours, yeah?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
He offered her a friendly nod, shoving all those building emotions into the metaphorical box in his heart he kept for the occasion. It had never been made for containing something like this, and was probably straining against its lid at this point.
“Think it’s best we camp,” Thomas said, briefly looking down at his bloody knife. “You’re right, I’m too beat up for another fucking fight at this point and I’m sure Gale’s on the cusp of forcefully requesting his ‘beauty sleep,’ so let’s save ourself from his inevitable wrath and get back.”
That was pleasantly easy decision to make at least, compared to some of the other, rougher ones he’d had to handle lately. Didn’t even have to worry about his temper flaring up, either, and so he allowed the sarcastic humour to seep into his tone as he glanced over at their wizard, who responded in kind with a dramatic, sweeping bow.
“As munificent as ever, my Lord.” Gale’s tone was warm and playful, his gaze soft, as their eyes met. “I shall ensure you get a particularly ample portion of stew tonight.”
Another couple of firsts to add to the list; nobody had ever bowed to him before, and certainly nobody had addressed him as ‘my Lord,’ not even in jest. At least they weren’t the type of ‘firsts’ to contribute to the hefty sense of overwhelmed, eh? Well, probably not. Gale had pretty eyes and a charming smile and Thomas already rather enjoyed hearing him talk, no matter how long and detailed some of the explanations could be, which probably spelled danger of its own kind. Tom smiled in response, enjoying a brief moment of genuine levity.
The checking around before leaving part after, though, meant that the gentler feeling was quickly quashed as he found himself drawn back to the sight of his knife. The blood had accumulated at the tip; a drop splashed on earth that was already quite sodden. Really should clean it off, shouldn’t he? Something heaved in Tom’s chest, bringing with it a building sense of nausea. A shivering pain of a strange kind spread through his body. He exhaled sharply, not really realising how unsteady he felt until someone was supporting him from behind.
“Thomas?” Gale asked. “You don’t look at all well…”
“I’m fine.”
“If you are certain.” His companion looked thoroughly unconvinced, but didn’t push it. “I daresay it’s not myself who needs his beauty sleep most. Shall we?”
There was no room for a faint, none at all. If he’d been designated a leader then he couldn’t bloody allow moments like this, could he? Tom shook his head and forced the calm back into his features, ignoring the way his drum of a heart was ramping up the tempo too quickly. There were going to be a lot more ‘firsts’ on this nightmare of a journey, and if they were going to all get out of it alive, Thomas refused to allow himself anything but calm.