Two youths were sitting around a campfire. The silence between them hung in the air, yet none of them seemed intent on breaking it; their thoughts kept to themselves. It was the sort of silence that could only be born between the greatest of friends. Silence that induced comfort and peace instead of discomfort and stress, the kind of silence that allowed man the intricacies of their thoughts. The kind of silence that invited reflection rather than demanding conversation. Thus, to an outsider, it would be clear that it was not the absence of conversation that hung in the air; it was the weight of their thoughts.
Only the fire dared to speak, offering soft crackles and the gentle sizzle of cooking meat as a soundtrack to their stillness.
Both friends had short black hair and toned physiques. They sat across each other on freshly chopped logs, one of them simply staring at the pan over the campfire as the other looked off into the distance. The pan over the fire was unusually big with elaborate designs of gold, red and silver etched onto its surface. The scorching heat from it would've simply burned a normal creature down to its very atoms, but the two men didn't seem bothered, continuing to shift through their thoughts absentmindedly.
Occasionally, herbs and spices would appear out of thin air and immediately vanish into the scorching, merciless embrace of the pan. The appetising smell of perfectly seasoned and cooked meat reached their noses, but both seemed too immersed in their thoughts to appreciate the heavenly fragrance.
"You know…" The cooking man said, his voice relaxed, neither too quiet nor too loud.
The friend across him seemed to snap out of his reverie and look across, his eyes as dark as the void around them.
What did this idiot want to say?
A chuckle resounded around them as the pan shook once more; he knew what his friend was thinking. "What's with the look?" he protested with a smile forming on his face. "This might be it, you know, no family to come get us, no sudden comprehensions, no fortuitous encounters, no anything. We might truly, really die here."
"...and?"
Val rolled his eyes as he gave his pan a quick flick, causing the slices of meat and vegetables to perfectly turn over in one uniform motion as he let out a groan. "Yeah… what was I expecting from your ass anyways?" he seemed to ask himself as he shook his head. In the middle of another flick, he stopped, his left lip curling up as he spoke again.
"Ah… if only you'd been stronger back then. We wouldn't be in this situation, would we? You truly screwe—"
"Just shut the fuck up and cook the food man." T finally broke his silence with a low chuckle, effortlessly dismissing Val's best attempts at pissing him off perhaps for the last final time in this life. But his eyes stayed empty, unreadable.
"Hey, look, you better be grateful that you get to feast on a dish cooked by the greatest chef in all of time and existence. AND you're going into battle with some of my, the greatest blacksmith in existence, masterpieces. You're lucky. Actually, super lucky. Usually, only my wife gets this treatment, you know?" Val retorted as he continued to sizzle around the pan while casually jabbing at one of T's biggest 'misfortunes', his distinct lack of romance in his life.
"Oh, real lucky." T drawled sarcastically, humanity returning to his voice.
"AND you're lucky enough to see the void in all of its glory," Val added, snapping his fingers with dramatic flair.
At the snap, the surroundings shifted like curtains drawn from a theater stage, revealing the Void Plane in all its otherworldly majesty. Shifting from an absolute darkness without a speck of existence to a gorgeous world of blues. Though this was one of the most solitary edges of the Void, the lack of stars, planets and creatures hardly seemed to take away from the beauty of it all. The planet around them was teeming with wildlife that seemed to emit different hues of royal blue, the stunning particles of Void that would warp in and out of existence, making it seem like fireflies were gracing their presence wherever he looked.
"You truly are a lucky man, T," Val added with a cocky, almost smug grin as T took in the true sight of the void.
"Whatever you say man. We both know my river's better, even if you'll never admit it." T retorted.
"Just a river," Val cut in.
T cleared his throat as he ignored Val's comment, "And unlike someone lucky enough to be blessed with it all from birth, some of us had to work to death for it you know? Quite literally in my sense," he said as he stretched his arms out with a grin, showing off the ravaged scars and permanent marks that marred his body.
"Pish posh, you could've gotten rid of those marks anytime, and technically you were also born with as much as me," Val replied, wa"drving it off with his usual carefree confidence, flashing T a cocky smile that, if the legends were true, could make entire armies of women swoon. "We're both here, aren't we?" He lifted a brow, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "And I see you still have no retort for the wife thin—"
Suddenly, his words died on his tongue, the teasing smile sliding off his face like it was never there. His gaze snapped upwards, and his jaw clenched ever so slightly, the casual bravado transforming into something far more guarded.
"Looks like they came to us," T murmured as he stared at the sky. "What exactly did you to piss off them again?" T asked in wonder.
Val chuckled as he stood up with his pan in hand, he was truly reluctant not to eat.
"Doesn't matter now."
"Looks like we're not gonna get to eat," T added, becoming the support that allowed Val's reasoning to win over his hunger and store away his pan and dish. Not that it would have been the first time that bastard fought while eating.
T stood up as well, brushing the dust and ashes off his trench coat. The two friends stood at over 6 feet tall, with T being just a few centimeters shorter than Val. They both peered at the sky, Val shifting through the layers of Void whilst T simply focused on the distortions in spacetime.
Suddenly, seeing that they didn't have much time left, they both turned to each other with nervous yet excited grins etched onto their faces. Val raised his hand as he spoke, "One more time, brother?"
"One more time," T emphasised as a clap loud enough to shake the planet reverberated throughout space.