The worst is yet to come

There was no keeping him in Mead anymore- not when he had been kicked out of his new favorite tavern with the orders to clear his head and not come back until that was a success. It was a fair order, he could admit. He was hardly being productive, drinking all day and passing out in a corner seat, just to do it all over again the next day. Truth was, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He had been so focused- so focused on Apollyn, Lasair, criminal charges that were still nothing more than a black hole in his memory (and he was starting to believe them, much to his own fear), and pulling off his own death…

Basileios hadn’t planned for an end. There wasn’t even supposed to be an end. The answers certainly didn't lie with Sebastien, either.

He’d let his guard down as he moved through the jungle, his disguise still present, but magic completely quietened as to conserve his energy. It all came back with it; the pain in his knee as he now had to walk without his cane, the throb behind his eyes from the inescapable hangover, and, the one that he could argue was the worst: the knife twisted in his gut from the heartbreak that he didn’t know how to remedy. At least, not in a healthy way. Not in a healing way.

His hand pressed into the side of a tree as he paused, his breathing slightly labored by nothing short of exhaustion. He was built for velvet carpets and plush seats, occasional fighting and swordplay… not long treks through the damn jungle. Especially not in the state he was in.

Sebastien only had mere moments to breathe before an earth-quaking thud shook the trees overhead. Birds scattered with their screeches of protest, startling him from where he leaned against the wide trunk. More thuds followed, slow and methodical, like a beat to a song or the distant rumble of thunder or… footsteps.

He looked up as a shadow passed, large enough to come from a cloud, but the clouds couldn’t even be seen through the thick canopy overhead-

-instead, a monster passed. Colossal in size, oozing, dripping in rotting flesh. Sebastien only had a moment to process it before another beast shot out from the trees in a trail of smoke and cinders. He stumbled back at the pair, his magic licking discreetly at his fingertips beneath his gloves to temporarily wipe away his pain as he heaved himself around another tree.

His gaze moved from the monster to the dragon, and though he looked where they were headed (Namarast- good riddance), he did not process it as his gaze snapped back to the dragon with painful recognition.

Just his fucking luck.