Captain Crozier

There’d been some amount of luck involved in not running into all the supernatural beasts roaming the forest. Certainly Crozier was skilled enough to find a halfway-decent hiding place when otherworldly noises were heard through the pines or bouncing off of the high, rocky cliffs, and Ram was hyper-aware enough for the both of them when there was a potential threat on the horizon, but the fact of the matter was it was fortune alone that kept things like the bone and ice creatures or undead wolves or rabid caribou, or whatever nonsense had popped up from the angry earth that week, from chasing them down on their daily trips out to forage and fish. As it was their luck could only hold for so long, and neither clever hiding place nor selfless heroics could stop the charging of the phantom bear.

Crozier flies a good distance back at the initial strike, and the monstrous creature immediately sets to tearing and slashing and gnawing on him, the feeble attempt to protect himself by curling up onto his side doing absolutely nothing to prevent the bear from continuing. Crozier doesn’t make a sound through it all, though he can feel his body being torn into pieces and vital organs being rearranged, and he manages to stay perfectly still as the bear gives one final, judgmental sniff to his body before stalking off, the whole assault over as quickly as it had begun. There was no time for Rama to jump in and set the damned thing on fire before the bear had decided on its own accord that it was finished with him, just as there was barely any time to react as they were both chased down from the outcropping above them.

It takes a few seconds before Crozier even realizes that the bear’s moved on - or disappeared, or turned into a fog and blew away, or whatever the hell was going on with the thing - but he still doesn’t move an inch. Partially because he’s quite sure that he can’t, he might actually be disemboweled, and partially because the attack was so sudden and uncalled for that he’s having trouble processing that he just might be dying.

He should look down at his injuries. He should find Rama and make sure that he hadn’t been caught up in the onslaught too. He should get them both out of here before it comes back, but he finds that all he can manage is a slight lifting off his head, and a very quiet calm washes over him like a gentle wave.