[STORY] Step 2 - The Big Journey (Tobias)

Finally, finally, FINALLY I got around to making the illustration for this step 88w88 I've had the written story done for MONTHS now, but I was holding off drawing as I wasn't sure what I'd do; make a full illustration, a comic, animation? I didn't know. In the end I settled for the former... and I'm kinda glad, really!! It's been FOREVER since I made a full illustration with shading and everything, so it was nice to find that my skills hadn't rusted at all <3 I'm hoping I won't need to mark it as mature content as u can pretty easily see the vague red blood splotch in the preview, decide for yourself if you want to view~

Soup, where's the context? Why is ur boi hurtin'? Well, folks, you see......

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He lay back in the mud, staring forward with awe and fear in a tight mingle, as he watched the burly animal lumber away and back into the undergrowth, dragging his mangled yet food-filled bag away with it. He hadn’t thought, hadn’t believed something so small could take such a chunk out of him, drag him to his feet, not when he’d first seen it from afar, but… here he was.

The first time he tried to get up, his legs were too weak, so he fell. It took him a few more goes before he could feel the bones inside him again, and as he rose shakily he looked down at his arm.

In the moment, he’d been so stunned that he hadn’t realised how truly badly it hurt. Blood streamed from it like a burst bottle and immediately he knew he’d have to do something about it, but he didn’t know what. Rummaging through the undergrowth, he tried all manors of leaves and branches, even his own ragged clothes, but in his anxious incompetence he couldn’t get anything to stop the bleeding, and he was starting to become lightheaded.

Nothing would work, nothing at all, and from this thought he began to think of all the other things that were wrong, too: He’d been lost in the woods for more than a week now, with clothes only just thick enough to stop him freezing to death, he was still drenched from the rainfall the day before and worst of all, he was starving, and his one source of food had just been dragged away alongside… his bag. That was it, his bag. The strap had nearly fallen off by that point, torn against all the branches and bushes he’d passed as it was too long, far too long, and that’s how the idea formed – the bag strap would work as a bandage.

But he’d have to get it back.

For a second he panicked – he couldn’t encounter the wolverine again, not if he wanted to survive another night, not when it would take another slash at him. But he only needed the strap, and it had nearly fallen off by that point, and in a confidence that he didn’t truly believe in, he set off after the wolverine with only the weak hope that the strap might’ve fallen off after the scuffle.

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Unfortunately for him, it had not. From the bushes he watched the Wolverine drag chunk after chunk of meat and herb from his bag, ripping and gobbling each piece in seconds, and Tobias nearly wanted to cry. He’d gotten that food himself, it had taken him days to construct that trap and days more for it to actually work, and now he was watching his rations go down the drain… And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He looked back at his arm, and then again to the bag. He had to get it, and he was on a time limit, but the wolverine would not let it go. Carefully, quietly, he slid to the ground behind the bush and pushed his hands against his face, fingers carefully out of the way despite the lack of claws. How did he let it get to this? For the first time he thought he was actually getting somewhere, actually going to live long enough to make it back to Beania in one piece, but he should have known it would come to this. Of course it would come to this. Because he was a coward. A weak, pathetic coward who was too afraid to enter even Fabian’s house and now he was lost and cold and scared and had no food and was bleeding at a dangerously fast rate. He couldn’t understand how all the other Sprouts had been afraid of him before, it made no sense.

But there was a reason, there were always reasons, reasons for everything. The sprouts were scared of Tobias because of his claws, because he didn’t know how to keep them in check and stop himself from scratching others even by mistake. They were afraid of that, and so they picked on him to re-establish their own dominance. But that didn’t matter out here, did it? There were no sprouts to scratch and scare, and Tobias was afraid himself… but something clicked in that realisation.

He was almost like the wolverine, really – he didn’t look or feel dangerous at all, and yet if anyone came near him he’d hurt them even if he didn’t mean to. He could do these things. He could be scary. He looked back at the wolverine and thought, well, how on earth could I scare something like that?

He pulled his two poorly-made flint knives out, the tools he’d had to replace his claws with for the past week, and thought that maybe if he made himself enough of a threat, the wolverine would take the hint and leave.

But the thought terrified him. He’d already approached once, and he’d been clawed. He couldn’t be on the ground with it.

So? Climb, idiot! He looked up and around until he’d found the tree which had the most low branches on it, and made that his target.

It wasn’t long before he’d pulled himself up, though the noise had disturbed the wolverine and it now paced around the bag with its teeth baring, searching for the intruder. Tobias hoped that wolverines couldn’t climb…

That’s when the first knife fell. Tobias almost lunged for it, seeing it slip out of its sheath and it struck the ground nearby the wolverine. In seconds, the animal struck grooves into its hilt with no restraint, hissing savagely, and Tobias realised that he’d have to start, he’d have to do something, if he didn’t want to lose any more valuable tools.

So, unsure of what he was doing, he leant around the side of the branch and snarled back at the wolverine, which looked back up at him and immediately lunged for the tree trunk, clawing at its base and beginning to climb up. That was bad, that was a bad idea! Panicking, he stared straight down the trunk and saw the beast running up towards him in a straight line, and his hand grabbed the remaining knife instinctively. He pulled it up, stared down the trunk at the wolverine, a straight shot, and he threw the dagger down.

It struck the wolverine straight on, deep into the chest, with enough force that the animal screeched and it fell back down the trunk onto its front, forcing the knife in deeper. After a few seconds of writhing and then twitching, the animal went still, limp.

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His bag strap, though tattered, seemingly worked a charm, and with some hard tugs he tied it tight enough to stop the bleeding. With just enough chunks of food still left in his ravaged bag, he ate them without concern for the dirt clung to them, and started to feel a bit better, physically at least.

But when it came to facing what he’d done, he still felt as shaky and weak as he had when he’d first been attacked. The animal’s body lay, splayed out on its back after he’d dragged it over, teeth still baring. He’d since pulled the knife from its chest, but now he had a whole other problem to deal with.

He looked at the animal, feeling a terrible guilt for killing it as that is not what he’d intended to do, not at all… and yet there was nothing that could be done about it. It had injured him, terrified him, and yet it had taught him a lesson. He had to be brave, he had to do whatever it took to stay alive and sometimes that meant being bigger than he really was.

He stroked its rugged pelt and apologised, feeling the strength and warmth in its coat… and realised that he probably did have a use for the poor thing, after all. Soon he knew he would step through that portal again, carrying a new bag, made with his clawless human hands so as not to ruin it, and it would mark the biggest change in his life to this point. He was the Wolverine Bagbean.

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X07 (for art)
X13 (for writing - 1384 words)

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Art/Story/Tobias (character) belongs to me.
Bagbeans species belongs to griffsnuff - Bagbeans
Made with Paint Tool SAI.
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