Chapter Text
You were five sweeps old when you first met your favorite teammate.
“Watch out!” You had called out, pushing the taller boy out of the way. Your clouder at the time had done a collaboration with a bunch of others, transforming the FLARP session into a huge communal one in one of the emptier woods near your hive. Some of the players were fighting each other, some of them were fighting the creatures. But the boy you just pushed had almost been on the bad end of a stray arrow, it clipped your horn, but you didn’t really feel it.
The two of you landed on the ground hard, you winced as you heard his horn bang against a rock. How did he get around with such large horns?
You took a deep breath and risked opening your eyes, no blood except for a small cut on the boy’s cheek, steadily dripping bronze onto the leaves below. With a little grin, you rolled off of him and knelt on the grass, the large boulder shielding you both for a moment.
“Here, this’ll help.” You passed him a small vial and he smiled nervously, taking a quick swig, the bleeding slowly stopped.
“Uh, thanks.. I’m Tavros.. W-who are you?”
Your grin grew a little wider, tail wagging slightly. “I’m Aradia! How long have you been FLARPing?”
Tavros shrugged, peeking over the boulder and quickly ducking down as another arrow flew. Obviously he was being targeted. “O-only half a sweep, I’m still a noob.”
You hummed, eyes drifting around the clearing. You had a pretty good idea who the person targeting Tavros was, a random tealblood who LOVED giving you trouble whenever your clouder and his clouder collabed. You told her not to include them, but she never listened.
“Hey Tavros- what class are you?”
He hesitated, looking a little confused before answering. “Um- boy skylark…”
Now that you looked, you could see the daggerlance tucked into his belt. You nodded and shifted your stance just a little. “I’ve got an idea to deal with that guy that keeps aiming at you. I’m gonna guess you’re pretty fast with the way you dodged arrows earlier, so if you can just draw his fire I can get that stupid bow off him.” You gaze flitted to the whip on your own belt, you got really good with it from FLARPing.
“Are you sure it’ll work?” Tavros asked, wringing his hands, ear twitching.
You nodded excitedly, “I’ve fought him before, he’s pretty noob-y too. Just a huge pain.”
Reluctantly, Tavros agreed and the plan was in motion, he darted out from one side of the boulder and you from the other, the tealblood’s arrows immediately fired towards Tavros, giving you time to run within range and lash your whip out, snagging the leather around his flimsy bow.
He looked shocked and glared at you, you stuck your tongue out for good measure before yanking your arm back, pulling the bow out of his hands and leaving an opening for some random player to knock him out (you have zero idea who that was, honestly. People just really didn’t like the guy).
Thrilled that it worked, you raced over to Tavros and raised your hand for a high-five, he returned it with more confidence than you’d seen from him all session.
“T-that was really cool, Aradia!”
You smiled bashfully, rolling your whip back up. “Practice, my dear skylark, lots of practice.”
The session was cut short by sunrise, but you and Tavros managed to exchange trollian handles before then, and chatted all day instead of sleeping.
Near midday, your palmhusk started slipping from your grip, so you decided to call it for now, bidding Tavros goodbye and promising to talk to him tomorrow.
You had a feeling that Team Charge was just the start of something amazing…