Not All Who Wander Are Lost

The minister finished leading the last rites and stood at the front of the platform, reaching down to hold his daughter's hand. She cast a concerned glance to the man in the noose.
“Any last words?” Sheriff Ryker drummed his fingers on the head of the lever.
“I done told you,” Edward's English, though heavily accented, was relatively good, “I don't remember killin' nobody. This is you last chance to believe that.”
The Sheriff shrugged and grasped the lever. At that point an arrow sailed through the rope tied to the tree, accompanied by a short riff from a banjolele behind the platform.
Shoving the instrument over his shoulder on its strap, the Golden Bard rushed the platform with a knife drawn and cut the rope binding Edward's hands.
“Montegro, you rat bastard! Stop them!” Ryker reached for his gun and found, to his surprise, that the minister's daughter had pulled away, wheeled around, and hit him in the face with her walking stick. The crack of his nose resounded, red blood spraying out and staining his badge.
The Black Gunman was running with the Golden Bard towards the assembled crowd, stopping momentarily to grab the minister's daughter by the shoulder to pull her out of the way of a strike from the Sheriff. Black clouds of smoke began billowing from the midst of the crowd, effectively covering their passage through to the back as a carriage drew up, driven by a woman in trousers and carrying dozens of odds and ends. The three piled into the back of the carriage accompanied from the smoke by a young gentleman in a red jacket.
“HYAH!” Cried the woman at the helm, the horses responding by breaking into a run away from the averted execution.
The minister looked after the carriage wistfully, Sheriff Ryker grabbing him forcefully by elbow, “You! Your damn cripple daughter did this to me! She was with them! What do you know?” He spat through dripping blood.
“I know the lord don't take kindly to innocent men dyin', and I know my daughter ain't livin' in no town you're runnin', Ryker.” Calmly, Father Valeries strode back towards the town.

*

“Wheeeew!” Montegro called in triumph out of the back of the carriage as it pulled to a halt, his gold-threaded veil whipping in the wind.
“I can't believe we pulled that off.” Penine disembarked after him, and walked up to the campfire that Ara'ahna had made awaiting their arrival.
Edward helped the girl down, then turned to the group, “Thank you all. I woulda been dead if it weren't for you, and I don't even know your names.”
The girl curtsied as best she could with a walking stick, “Resmilda Valeries, at'yir service.”
The young man took Edward by the hand and shook enthusiastically, “Mal Penine, alchemist extraordinaire, happy to help.”
The archer by the campfire nodded, “Stalking Lizard Ara'ahna.”
Emerging from around the corner of the carriage, the driver clapped him on the shoulder, “Call me Gla Thea, Black Gunman.”
“I don't really like that name so much...” Edward bit his lip.
“Then what you want us to call you?” The Golden Bard sat down and plucked at his banjolele.
“Edward Kuro. No. Eddie. Call me Eddie.” He smiled.

*

“And I swear the audience were just looking as the fire was spreading through the tent, thinking it was part of the circus,” Mal was stood over the campfire, everyone watching him.
“Wait.” Stalking Lizard stood up and drew his bow, nocking an arrow at lightning speed. He peered into the darkness, “Who goes?” After a moment, he dipped the arrowhead into the fire, then returned his aim, “Step into the light, or I will light the way.”
The figure that emerged from the shadows was as short as a child, but had a long grey beard. As well, he was missing an arm, and had a bearing about him that suggested someone important owed him something.
“Oh my.” Resmilda exclaimed as the archer quenched the fire from his arrow.
The dwarf looked around the campfire, from face to face. A fierce-looking woman with the trappings of countless professions and hobbies. A tribal archer with black and yellow dyes in his skin. A young man, dark of hair, baring bandoliers of chemicals and smelling slightly of sulfur. A short man in ostentatious golden dress with a banjolele. A plain, practically mousey young woman wearing a holy symbol and clutching a wooden stick. And in the centre a young man, scars on his kind face, with the unmistakable bearing of a warrior.
“Haha.” Said the dwarf blackly, before letting out a sound that could have been frustration. Promptly, he fell flat on his face.

*

*

*

He was waiting. He couldn't stop it coming, but he could put it off, and he wasn't going to go looking for the bastards. They'd come. He took a sip of strange purple liquid and stared around the bar. On cue, he clocked one of them, in an immaculately kept kelly green jumpsuit, the gold wrench decals on the back and the breast pocket gleaming. And indeed, following him was a gynoid, her feminine appearance very sparing. She was a practically built combat robot, for the most part. That's how it sometimes went, lately; the robot would be with the bard from the start. He'd seen every permutation possible by now.
He ran the cybernetic hand through his beard. He'd picked up the prosthetic years ago. He had no way of counting how many, he didn't stay in any one world long enough, but it had to be years. Maybe decades.
The bomber was next, this one a military young boy with a jetpack and a grenade launcher. He'd gone a bit mental and tried to kill bombers a few times, but it never worked. He didn't really feel the urge any more. The cleric and the archer arrived together, not far from the forms he'd first seen them in. Hailing from other planets seemed to distort the bodies of their races, but they were recognisable. They always looked like a rat and a lizard, when the world let them.
The swordsman was the last to appear. This one looked so serious. He didn't suit it, really, but that was just one dwarf's opinion.
They met, just like they always did, and Ovar watched. He watched them talk about saving the world. Sometimes it was from a Nosk, sometimes a Red Star or a Blood Queen. Sometimes more than one. The bard and the swordsman always got on. The robot never quite fit in at first. The cleric always made promises. Some way or another, they always got named some variation on sodding Star Cleavers.
Ovar sighed. At first he couldn't feel much about his fate, but he didn't like it. Wandering from world to world, watching them, different versions of them, meet up, become friends, save the day. He hated it after a while, seeing the same eyes, the same smiles, hearing the same voices. There were variations, of course, but they were the same underneath.
At some point, though, he'd accepted it. There was no way out of his wanderings. He couldn't die, and he couldn't ever stop moving for long. He had to follow them until there was a new them to follow. He even had an appreciation for some of the finer points of their archetypes. He could have written a fair few books on the Star Cleavers. Any of them.
He didn't know if he'd ever like his lot in life, but there was one thing he did know, and that Malachi had made him know right when he started wandering;
He'd live.