OOC: This thread takes place at the end of the Acanthan Arc, when the vanguard is arriving home.
"Dude, I so can't wait to get back to my own bed, man, for sers. Or your bed, or a bed, or something not, like, hard and rocky and carnivorous." Kiel had bounced on his toes despite his exhaustion at the thought of being able to sleep properly for once, because, like, even though he'd got some shut-eye on Zeph's sick bed on the skyboat, it hadn't been enough, you know?
"Yeah..." Zeph had avoided his eyes. "About that." But then they'd been distracted - and so much had happened that Kiel wasn't even sure what exactly had distracted them that particular time - so Kiel didn't have chance to figure out or, like, quiz him or something. And now he knew why.
“Dude. Like. Dude.” There was a crack in the earth that broke the line of the worn-in track leading into the city. Like, it wasn't bad enough at the road itself to stop the caravans passing, which was cool because Kiel didn't even want to think what would have happened if the southern villages got cut off or something. But the crack widened dangerously as it swung around the building that had been his workplace for, like, the last two, three years. Zeph's home. His store, his livelihood. The crack widened so bad half the building was gone. “Like. Dude. This so wasn't the homecoming I wanted, okay?”
He'd had plans to, like, check on the store to make sure all the stuff wasn't stolen while Zeph was racing to his rescue, then sleep for a week, then drag the dude to his own home so they could shower properly (because that thing Zeph called a bathroom was tiny and awkward and didn't always have hot water) and then sleep in his big actual bed instead of that stupid cot for another week before they even tried to pretend they were normal, regular, like, citizens or whatever.
“Dude. Like, I'm so sorry, man.” He touched a hand tentatively to Zeph's shoulder, not sure of his reception, 'cause, like, wouldn't the guy be mad that his home had been destroyed while he was chasing after some annoying kid who kept getting into trouble like it was, like, like it was his job or something? “Except I'm totally not because, like, if you'd been here when this happened, and, like, what the heck even happened anyway, because, like, last I checked there are no volcanoes around here, man, and I don't think Alexshire has quakes, okay? But if you'd been here, then you might have been crushed or gobbled up by the dirt, and do you think a Dryad could have done this? Like, maybe somebody pissed her off or something? Like, did you insult another Nymph, man? You seriously gotta quit glaring at people, they take it the wrong way!” He flapped his hands, flailed in the general direction of the destruction, and wailed. “Like, but, who the heck is gonna fix my sword now if your furnace is, like, a mile underground, man?!”