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"No, no, no more fish. You've already had more than enough," Impulse gently chided, earning himself a snap of his wyvern's jaws next to his wrist. "Hey! No! None of that, Dop!"
His faithful mount just glared at him with yellow eyes— his name had been given to him by Skizz years ago, and he's since refused to respond to anything else. Fortunately, he chose to nudge Impulse in the side with his jaws shut instead of attempting to bite again. Impulse ran a hand over the warm, dark violet scales over his snout, pulling a rumbling purr from the dragon's body.
He knew Dop would never actually bite him.
"Get some rest, okay?" Impulse murmured. "We've gotta move out early tomorrow."
Dop snorted, blowing a cloud of foul-scented breath over Impulse's face. He stomped away, spinning twice over the hay and flopping down with a dramatic huff. He finished his theatrics by shoving his snout underneath a folded wing, stilling until his flank rose and fell in a soft, slow rhythm.
Impulse chuckled, shifting his legs underneath him, but the sound turned into a stifled groan. Struggling to his feet with the full weight of his armour forcing itself back to the forefront of his thoughts, he winced at the shockwave of pain rearing its ugly head in his left shoulder from earlier that day. A remnant from a skirmish with a sizable enemy patrol, nothing out of the ordinary, but an archer had nearly landed a shot on him. Had he not jerked himself and Dop out of the way, he would've been in far worse shape than just a jarred shoulder.
Still didn't mean it didn't hurt.
He rolled his shoulder as he walked, course dirt crunching under his boots and the distant murmurs of soldiers on the night watch. A rare moment of quiet within the camp, just another stop within the years-long war. No clangs of weapons from the training ground or raucous shouts from the mess hall, the hooves of the horses silent in their temporary stables next to the wyverns. Fluttering swarms of moths gathered around the lanterns hung from wooden posts driven into the dirt along the path.
A sharp wave of pain lanced through his shoulder when he rolled it a little too abruptly, emerging as a gasp in the night. He stopped. Digging his fingers beneath his armour instead, he hissed through his teeth at the agonized protests of the joint where his fingertips pressed into the inflamed tissue, the weight of his armour doing him no favours.
Yet he still didn't return to his tent. Nor did he remove his armour, not with the ever present danger of archers or bandits lurking in the darkened woods beyond the reach of the lanterns.
Impulse absentmindedly circled the camp, waving to the soldiers on the night watch with his uninjured arm. Around the ring of tents dimmed from the inside, their occupants long asleep while the dying campfire cast orange flickers over the canvas. The command tent, silent and empty, each map carefully rolled up and stored away after being pored over for hours. Plotting their course for the next day. Supply runs. Arranging scouting parties, including the one Impulse was supposed to be a part of at dawn's light.
Just another day in wartime. Scouting. Training. Planning. Marching. Fighting. Always fighting.
The fighting never ended.
Hence why he ought to be sleeping. Instead, he wandered with only his thoughts for company, towards one of the only tents still glowing from within. The infirmary. The injuries from their earlier skirmish had been few and far between, but still enough to drain the magic reserves of Skizz and the rest of their healers. Enough for Impulse to keep his mouth firmly shut about his aching shoulder. He'd be fine. It was better for the healers to save their energy for someone actually in danger.
He'd be fine.
And he definitely needed to let Skizz sleep. Instead of tracking him down while burdened by memories of a time where they were just best friends learning combat and battle strategy instead of generals in an army, each commanding their own battalions. And still best friends of course, that hadn't changed. Only the world around them had done so. Now Impulse tracked Skizz from above on his wyvern by bright flashes of white magic instead of by laughter ringing through the dining hall.
Skizz needed to sleep. Impulse could sort through his thoughts and his lingering pain on his own while he walked.
Yet he couldn't explain how exactly he ended up back at his tent with a radiating sear in his shoulder eating into his thoughts. Nor was there a logical explanation for the glow from within, with his lantern missing from the hook outside.
Impulse's uninjured hand darted for the throwing axe at his waist. He bit his lip to suppress a wince when he reached for the tent flap, eyes sharp and watching for any dart of movement. But none came.
Instead, he rolled his eyes and let his hand drift away from his waist at the figure sprawled over his cot. Still dressed in the padded shirt and pants he wore under his own set of armour, with the protective plates nowhere in sight, Skizz had his eyes closed, his chest softly rising and falling in a light sleep.
"Wrong tent, buddy," Impulse said, prodding Skizz's leg with his foot and stifling a laugh at the startled snort he let out.
Skizz jerked his head up from his pillow, unfocused blue eyes blinking open. "Wha- hey! Jerk! I'm awake! I wasn't sleeping!" he mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face as his other hand pushed him up into a seated position. "Ugh- what took you so long?"
"What are you doing here?" Impulse asked instead, turning his back to loosen the straps of his gauntlets. He let the black metal fall to the thick blanket laid out on the dirt for this very purpose, again swallowing a wince as he worked on the straps of his chestplate.
"Waiting for you," Skizz murmured. "Haven't seen you since the end of the skirmish."
Impulse shrugged, and regretted the movement immediately. He swallowed. "You were busy. Didn't want to bother you." He forced the words through his tightened jaw.
"And you wouldn't think I'd notice you hiding that injury?"
Impulse's fingers stilled.
The cot creaked. Skizz's footsteps padded over the dirt.
"It's- not- too bad-" Impulse forced out. "You should save your energy. If we're running into patrols already there's probably going to be more skirmishes when we march tomorrow. And we're getting close to the fortress-"
"Shut up, dude," Skizz interrupted. "You're not gonna be able to fly properly like this. Do you want some help with your armour?"
Impulse sighed. "…Yeah. If you could get the right pauldron off, that would be great, thanks. I can handle the rest."
The warmth of Skizz's fingers pressed a scalding heat through his shirt, deftly loosening the straps before pulling the armour free and dropping it to the blanket. He stepped back while Impulse took care of the rest, able to keep his left shoulder still until his chestplate and left pauldron fell free.
"Left side, right?" Skizz asked.
"Left side. Not right," Impulse shot back, the corner of his mouth lifting up.
"Right. Left, got it. Not right."
"Right. I said left. Not right. Left."
Skizz barked a laugh. "You're the absolute worst. Hold still."
Skizz's hand still burned through his shirt, but the heat was chased away by the familiar tingling chill of healing magic. It seeped through his shirt and his skin, pooled around the burning muscles in the joint and dousing the fire, gently encouraging tears to mend and nudging everything back into place.
The chill still remained even as Skizz pulled his hand away.
"Better?" he asked, his voice soft.
"Yeah," Impulse admitted, carefully rolling his shoulder. A little stiff, as was typical with healing magic, but nothing that wouldn't be gone by morning. "Thanks."
"Of course! Like I'd leave you to suffer."
"You let me suffer when I fell out of the tree during that class trip five years ago."
Skizz scoffed. "Because that was stupid and you deserved it."
"Those were some seriously good apples though, you can't deny that," Impulse grinned.
"Have I told you that you suck?"
"Nah, you've never said that."
"Well, you suck." Skizz crossed his arms, the hint of the smile playing over his face falling. "And you were thinking about the past again, weren't you? That's why you weren't here."
Impulse bit his lip. Of course Skizz knew exactly what he was thinking. He didn't protest as Skizz looped an arm around his shoulders, steering him back to his cot. It gave an ominous crackle under both their weights where they sat on the edge, but held regardless.
"Just been enjoying the quiet," Impulse conceded. Not like there would be much of a point in hiding it. "We don't really get a lot of it nowadays."
Skizz nodded, dropping his arm, but still sitting close enough for their legs to brush.
"It's just-" Impulse sighed, leaning forward to work at the straps of his greaves as he talked. "I know we were at the academy to learn battle strategy and combat skills and all that, but I still hate how we've ended up using those skills. This war has just gone on and on, and I know we're making progress now, but now long before they rally and push us back again? Then we're right back at square one with damaged weapons and more tired than when we started."
"Well, that's why we have so many strategy meetings," Skizz murmured. "To know how to push through and win."
"I know, it's just- well, I thought we'd be mercenaries by now or something. Like we planned. But no, we're fighting in a war with our own battalions instead of just following merchant convoys around and scaring off bandits. Just life didn't go the way I thought it would." Impulse tossed one greave across the tent and got to work on the other.
Skizz shifted his arm, running his hand up and down over Impulse's back with a light touch. "Who's to say that still won't happen?"
"But what if it doesn't, Skizz? At any time in this war, one of us could-" He couldn't finish the sentence, the words lodging in his throat.
He got a light kick to his shin for that. "Hey, no. No thinking like that. So here's a question for you. What if we both make it out of this war alive? Then what?"
Impulse didn't respond as his other greave fell free of his leg, falling to the dirt with a thud. He left it there.
"This war won't last forever, buddy. It'll end one day, and then we can chase our dreams. One day there will actually be real, lasting peace. I know it!"
"I hope you're right about that," Impulse murmured. He leaned further into Skizz. "It feels so far away. And I just- well. I guess I miss when things were simpler. When it was just assignments and training instead of all this life or death and fighting against our former friends."
"I know, buddy, I know," Skizz responded. "I miss it too. But all we can do is live in the now, and only in the now. We'll keep each other alive until that brighter future we've been fighting for comes along."
Impulse hummed, letting his eyes slide shut with a comfortable warmth buzzing over his skin. It pooled over his thoughts, leaving him heady and while the weight of exhaustion finally wound itself through his limbs. Skizz, his grounding anchor next to him as he always was. He was always there, whether by his side at camp, or within eyeshot on the battlefield, easily keeping pace with his horse. Always there with his healing magic for any injury.
"You know I'll always watch your back, right?" Impulse mumbled.
"I know," Skizz whispered back. "And I've always got yours. Until the end."
"Until the end," Impulse repeated to himself, letting the warmth surround him, focusing on Skizz's fingertips trailing up and down his spine. His thoughts slowed, turning to honey and pooling together as they pulled him under, into a hope for the future, and a promise for the now.
Impulse found himself laying flat on his cot when he woke in the early morning, with a woollen blanket tucked around his shoulders and only hazy memories of gentle hands helping him down. A warmth he knew had returned to his own tent next door, always a constant even within the safety of the camp.