Maybe The Dead
Warning: Contains talk of abuse, and heavily implied sexual assault/rape
wasn’t quite as good at fighting but what moves he did use were clearly borrowed from Baya. He was her apprentice, and for whatever reason, they were hiding it from the rest of the guild. She could still see Claws snarling at Tora Zollun from her first raid, still hear the guild outrage at him. What was the point in hiding his skills? Was it his choice or Baya’s? All it was doing was making his guild resent him. If they just knew… and frankly if they bothered paying attention they should have known. Now that Blueten knew who Tora Zollun was, it was so obvious that he was Baya’s apprentice, it was ridiculous that no one else noticed.
It was more ridiculous that no one noticed the abuse. Tora Zollun never had a “rite of passage” because he was clearly still in it. There were days he actually would vanish – she knew when she found nothing at her doorstep, when Baya would appear with her usual gathering of members and Tora Zollun wasn’t just behind her. Then he’d show up out of the blue, looking like he’d been beaten or starved or both. Often no one noticed him sneak into the room looking like death, but sometimes someone would catch him and panic.
Baya was always quick to dismiss it.
“Poor boy didn’t sleep well, eh?”
“Oh he’s just been training. Like’s t’be a bit extreme is all.”
“Don’t coddle him. S’gotta learn somehow. Let ‘im toughen up.”
He never said anything in response. In fact he never spoke to anyone at all. Just Baya. Blueten even tried approaching him once herself, asked him how he was. He only stared at her with that same imperfect copy of Baya’s smile. She could see the fear in his eyes. He didn’t respond – just walked away.
At first his disappearances only happened once in awhile, but as time passed they got more and more frequent.
Then he vanished in the middle of a raid.
They were sneaking into one of the Lion Guard Havens guarding the trade routes, the type of raid Blueten liked least. Someone accidentally caused a whole set of supply crates to tumble -she didn’t see who. When they looked to Baya for instruction, she was gone. The whole place went into alarm and the guild had to flee. By the time they made it back to headquarters, they realized Baya and Tora Zollun were both missing.
They showed up hours later to an anxious guild, Baya throwing the door open with a flourish. She was exhilarated and eager to tell them all the tale of their daring escape. Tora Zollun meanwhile, was shaking, planted at the doorway with his eyes set on the floorboards. He looked like he’d been crying. The two of them were unharmed but covered in dirt and muck from the swamp.
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