There were some things in life that Jack just couldn’t tolerate. Malicious prejudice was one of them. Jack had caught wind of the bigoted nature of these people before that point, and seeing the old man react to the Pygmy in such a manner only served to confirm his suspicions. Sure, he was willing to give mostly everyone the benefit of the doubt, so to speak, but when he saw fear being the only thing restraining this old bastard from showing his true colours, something turned sour in the pit of Jack’s stomach.

Nevertheless, he managed to keep his rage contained long enough to smile kindly at the cute little creature, before turning to the old prick to relay the message;

“And a cut of meat for my friend here….” Jack paused, his eyes narrowed, the sound of his grinding teeth could be heard across the room. Had his stare been steel it would have cut the old man in two. “You better make damn sure it is the best piece of meat you have ever served in this shithole you call an establishment. Do I make myself clear?”

By the time Jack had finished speaking, his voice had turned into a grated, raspy tone like that of a demon. The bartender failed twice to swallow hard, but finally managed to before scuttling off to retrieve food from the open kitchen - or be it just a bench with a fire stove, a kettle, and hotplate - situated along the wall beyond the bar. The man’s knees were literally knocking together as he shuffled and fumbled in haste to prepare the food on wooden plates, and while so doing, Jack took that moment to glance at his feathered friend with a wink.

There was limited time for further reaction before the bartender returned with the meals. One dish of stewed meat and potatoes, as Jack had ordered, and another plate of what looked like finely roasted lamb ribs. That serving was bigger than Piper himself.

“On the house -” Was all the bartender said before Jack interrupted with a final word of warning:

“If I even hear so much as a whisper that you’ve mistreated any of my friends, ever again, I will use my fist to send your nose into your sorry excuse for a brain. And yeah… thanks for the food.”

The old man didn’t reply, just shaking in his boots as he backed away.

Jack took up both plates, one in hand, the second rested on his forearm, the mead in his other hand.

“Pick a table for us?” His tone to Piper was kind and smooth, so very far detached from the one he just used on the bartender.

---

“A gentle demonstration of my masters power.”

The intruder didn't move, though their shrouded aura began to pulsate as they spoke. The voice that emitted from them would have seemed very strange, as it didn't derive from them directly, instead it spoke from around the room, each word born of a different location and varying tones of gender and age. While the words were being spoken the knife in Cheryl’s hand would have become hot, red hot, too hot to handle by time the first sentence was fully delivered.

“I am an emissary with word from my master.” The many voices continued; “You will bring the outworlder. You will guide him to us. For this you will be well compensated with abundance of mana beyond your needs. It would be wise of you to accept my masters terms.”

As the creature pounced his way across the room to a table of his liking, Jack smiled with adoration like a man watching his new puppy familiarizing itself with the layout of its new home. He took a seat across the table from the Pygmy’s position, placed the meals down, and popped the cork of his mead to take a sip while Piper posed his curiosity.

“In my world,” He replied in a sober tone; “We have similar types. There is prejudice, cruelty, all the things that make life more unpleasant than it needs to be. We even had a world war where millions of people from one race were executed in the most inhumane manner, just because of one mans’ personal grudge.”

Jack paused to pop a piece of potato in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. Honestly, the food wasn’t all that bad. He then gave the Pygmy a thoughtful stare as he continued;

Not all of us are like that. Many of us have learned from our mistakes, we strive for a better world. To accept one another, respect each other’s beliefs and ways of life even if they don’t conform to our own. It can only serve to make life better for everyone, right? But don’t get me wrong, little fella, I’m not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

Jack had to laugh as his thoughts diverged to judge himself for a moment. He took another sip of mead and continued;

“My own work back home involves hurting people from time to time, but I try my hardest to only do it to those I feel deserve it. Yeah, that might make me hypocritical, but I’m good at what I do – And I’m trying, I’m really trying to be a better man. As for you, my new little friend” Jack smiled, though it may have looked to be a smile spawned of pain “You’ve given me no reason to believe you are worth anything less than equal respect. So hey, here we are….”

He reached out across the table - not with any sudden movement - to feign a caress down the side of the Pygmy’s cheek. Making contact might not have been appreciated, even despised by the creature, but the affection was portrayed in the motion. He withdrew his hand and topped his spoon with a mouthful of meat from his plate.

”My name’s Jack. What is yours?”

---

The intruder still didn’t move, utterly motionless, only the aura around it would pulsate when talking. Regardless of this inactivity, their presence seemed to portray a great amount of consideration, remaining quiet for quite a while even after Cheryl had spoken, as though they were decisively deliberating on everything she had said. Or… maybe they were waiting.

Whatever the case, close to a minute must have transpired before they replied in the same randomized voices from around the room:

“My master understands your plight. Your mother. Do not be alarmed. You will be granted time to address your personal matters. But the patience of my master will not stand as stone. You have been chosen. You will deliver the outworlder. It will be wise of you to accept the terms of my master. …We will return soon.”

Without allowing further response from Cheryl, the ground once again trembled as the intruder faded to nothing. In their stead, a leather pouch appeared on the floor. If Cheryl were to look inside she would find it filled with coins of gold and silver. The count would equal greater than the annual earnings of a well-paying job.

Sancho was standing in wait outside. Something had spooked him. Even in the moonlight his distraught condition would have been clear. An open abrasion was bleeding above his right eye. That same eye was heavily bloodshot, having had blood vessels burst. He was trembling, his skin gleaming with a film of thick sweat. His usual calm façade had been forsaken. Behind him, keeping their distance, were two lower ranking guards lacking any physical injuries of their own. But they were agitated, nervously surveying the area like soldiers awaiting the enemy on a battlefield. More than anywhere else, their attention went to the sky above where a large winged beast was circling, silhouetted against the cluster of the three moons.

When Cheryl emerged from the house, Sancho stepped up like a frightened child approaching his teacher after doing something terribly wrong. He didn’t give her a chance to react to his presence. Wiping a stream of blood from his brow with his forearm, his voice was shaken, but low, as not to let his men hear what he was saying.

“I didn’t know you were affiliate with….” He choked on the following word, too frightened to even utter the name in that moment. “…I’m sorry, Cheryl… I just didn’t know.” He cleared his throat, glanced back at his men, braved a shy glimpse at the circling beast above, and then continued to speak his piece; “You can take a couple of weeks to get your affairs in order. But you know I can’t allow you more time than that. I just can’t. Just uh… do me a favour and please keep your dogs off me and my men from now on. That’s all I ask. Enjoy your night.”

It was obvious that in his current condition, Sancho would have been willing to clear Cheryl’s name of all charges, but the decision wasn’t up to him anymore. Word of the two murders had already been sent by horse courier to the Royal City. A few weeks was all he could allow without the Queen herself having his own head on a platter. It was out of his hands. These were things that Cheryl would have already understood. She would have been aware of how the laws of the land worked.

In finishing what he had come to say, Sancho raised his hand as a gesture to stop her from replying, then swiftly turned away to head back to the Guard house with his men.

The winged beast followed Sancho’s direction, remaining directly above him, continuing to circle like an eagle stalking its prey.

---

“Good to meet you Pipe….” Jack’s words were stolen by an amused smile as he watched Piper attack his food like he hadn’t eaten in a year. It was downright amazing just how much the little critter managed to tuck away, like watching a cartoon of a small animal swallow copious amounts of food. Leaving him to continue feasting, Jack resumed eating as well. He was just about done when Piper projected again, yet still busy crunching his way through the bones that remained of his meal.

“Ah, yeah.” Jack replied, took a swallow of mead to wash the last of his food down. “Not to worry. I suppose I can limit myself to defending my friends.”

Jack dropped back the final mouthful of mead. The bottle touching down on the table as he reverted to the topic that had brought the two of them there in the first place.

“And about this watch, Pipe.” Jack already short-formed the name like he did with all his friends. “I’m just going to give it to ya. You obviously like it more than I do, and I doubt it will do me much good here.” Jack slid his plate and bottle to the center of the table and removed the watch, saying; “But I really need you to try and help me with my problem if you can.” He placed the watch neatly beside the empty plate for Piper to collect at his leisure.

“I lost my daughter. A year ago. She was ten years old. Far as I can tell she was stolen and taken to this world. One year to the day, today, I was taken away as well. Don’t know what brought me here, don’t know why…. All I know is that this just might be the same place she was taken to. I need to find her. She’s my baby, you understand?”

With that, Jack took his wallet form his pocket, opened up one of the flaps inside and withdrew a picture of Hannah. He held the photo loosely between his middle and index finger, extending his arm for Piper to take a close look. Of course, Jack didn't stop to think that people of this world wouldn't have known what a photograph was.

“Do you remember seeing her at all?” His voice lowered with refraining sorrow. “Maybe a year ago? Maybe last week. Any time at all? Anywhere…?”

The photo Piper would see is one of a girl roughly ten years of age. Shoulder length brown hair, fair skin, a broad, precious smile, blue eyes like her daddy, and wearing a soft pink summer dress.

“She wouldn’t have been wearing those clothes when she got here.” He added. “She would have been in a one piece swimsuit. Emerald green. Her favourite colour. Kinda hard to describe, though…. Like a stretchy skin-tight outfit without sleeves or leggings. Not something people in this world would have seen before. Hard to miss, you know….”

“It’s…. just a photo, a still image caught by science magic. Has no detection powers besides using it as a reference like I’m doi….”

Jack’s sentence dwindled to silence as disappointment squeezed his heart. There wasn’t much point in explaining any further. Piper hadn't seen Hannah. Not like Jack didn’t expect that, honestly, but what shy hope he did have just became that little bit shyer. Still, it wasn't Piper's fault, and he refrained from appearing upset while slipping the photo away and giving Piper a small nod to thank him.

“It’s okay. I’ll find her somehow.” He elaborated on the sentiment while honouring Pipers wishes by slipping the watch back on his wrist. “I’m glad you enjoyed the meal.”

Jack’s last sentence may or may not have been heard by Piper, since as he was speaking Piper's attention would have been interrupted by an outside influence, and this time it was not the sound of Cheryl’s whistle. It would be a feeling that perhaps Piper wasn’t accustomed to. An immense foreboding presence watching him from nearby, like a tower looming over him, yet far away at the same time. Distance unknown. This dark, eerie sensation was part of a telepathic link; a deep audio reverberating through Pipers mind and trembling his little body like a rag of wild horses passing by. Such tremendous force, indicative of a mighty beast drunk on poisonous quantities of power:

“Little one, be sure she brings the outworlder, lest your days be numbered like the scales upon my bloodied crest.”

The link to Pipers mind was severed as Cheryl, like the telepathic message had been a prelude to her arrival, entered through the door to declare her persisting disdain for Jack - Jack, who turned in his seat at the sound of her voice, though not at all surprised to see her there.

“There you are.” He said, face distorted with a crooked grin. “Was kinda wondering when you’d show up again. Rush off to make your daily quota of kills, did ya?” His foot pushed back a chair to welcome her to the table. “Take a seat, why don’t ya, share the tale of your latest victory in battle.”

Though Jack’s words were obviously those of jest, he had a sneaking suspicion Cheryl wasn’t about to come lightly, especially when right at that moment his phone alerted him of yet another incoming text.

He sighed, then mumbled to himself; “I should really check my messages.”

Jack knew full well he was the intruder here. It would have been rude to try and influence the discussion, or be it the debate, taking place between these two friends. But as Cheryl left the premises he also realized that he needed this pact. He was fortunate to have found someone in this place who actually accepted the fact that he was from some other era and place in the universe, and he was more than certain it was going to be damn hard to find anyone else around these part who would accept him with such good graces. Besides, he liked Piper, and he had a feeling he would grow to like Cheryl as well if she would remove the broomstick from her ass. That, right there, was the most immediate problem. Piper was right. It wasn’t just that, of course, removing the broomstick would be a lot easier had Cheryl not been preoccupied with her own rather large problems at the present. That alone was probably the main factor in her decision making.

Still, there was a lot more to this situation than the surface dialogue. Jack couldn’t pretend to know about the unseen intricacies of the things taking place around him, but he would have been braindead not to have noticed the change in Piper when Cheryl had first entered the room. In a way, Piper had behaved like a frightened, cornered cat, and Jack wasn’t inclined to think that his behaviour was a response to Cheryl’s presence. There was more to his new little friend than met they eye.

He had to think. He had to be clever. He had to think of a way that would help everyone involved, and he couldn’t do that without knowing as much as he could about this damnable situation. The time had come to check his messages.

“One second, my friend.” He spoke calmly to Piper with a raise of one finger as his other hand reached back to remove the cell phone from his pocket. With a quick few strokes and taps of his thumb he opened up the content. His eyes narrowed with peculiarity in the glowing light of the screen, mouth twisting like he were reading some disturbing excerpt from a horror novel. He read the messages over several times before the glow of the screen faded and he lifting his eyes back to Piper with besieging intensity. One might say he had just seen a ghost.

“Tell me, Pipe. What just happened to you? Don’t lie to me. I saw that you were scared. You can tell me. I’ll keep it to myself if you need me to. But I think it’s best that I know everything that’s going on before we take any further action.”

---

When the three moons of Beckon Season were high, the Queen attired herself in servant’s clothing - as not draw the guard’s attention - and descended to the Magus labyrinth beneath the castle. With three knocks, followed by a moment’s pause then another rap of her knuckles, she was granted entry to the living chambers of Magus Ashan, her personal mage.

From here in this dingy abode would Ashan rarely venture. This was his sanctuary, little more than a cave-like construct, the stone walls of which clustered with the various spectrum veins of ore, ore of mana, mana he had no use for. Indeed, it served as fine decoration. Ashan was seated in a solemn pose upon his self-ordained wooden throne at the far side of the room when the Queen entered. Shutting the door behind her, she removing the raiment from her head to confirm her identity. She was a young queen, neigh older than thirty, with sharp azurite eyes and striking appeal. Her milky-white skin and supple contours embellished by the flicker of candlelight. She stood, daring not venture farther as she awaited the news that drew her here this eve.

“Could you not refrain until morning, my Queen?” Ashan spoke, his words guarded by far away thoughts. Yet, respect for his queen raised him from his throne as he collected the chestnut fall of hair from his colourless eyes. His muscular torso was bare, his nakedness clothed only in a full-length skirt of Griffon leather that fell rigidly from waist to floor.

“I must know.” She exclaimed with all the virtue expected of royalty, yet her eyes regressed, caressing the form of his torso like a young princess tasting of forbidden fruits. “Tell me, has he arrived?”

Ashan was void of emotional portrayal, his response being nothing but a wave of is hand towards the table in the center of the room. There, responding to the command of his gesture, a clay bowl of herbs quivered and released a spectrum of hues that embodied all the colours of life, swirling and palpating to construct a feed like that of holographic image that displayed a view of the current interaction between Piper, Jack Cheryl.

The Queen tore her eyes from Ashan, now fixated on the muted interaction taking place in Blackgale Inn so many miles away. She watched as events unfolded, one hand to her breast in heartfelt observance until Cheryl departed the tavern, and at this point the image dissolved as the queen and Ashan returned attention to each other.

Her question had been answered.

Previously withheld by suspense, she now breathed with the sound of a gasp while provoked to take several steps closer to the royal mage.

“Is he everything I had hoped he would be?”

Ashan undressed the queen with his eyes, a shy-less audacity, while his thoughts performed the task of establishing an appropriate response to her true needs. He conformed, abiding his eyes to hers, and replied;

“Had it not been for ancient doctrine prophesying his coming, I would think of him as an imbecile. But there is little question, my Queen…” As though guided by the irony of disappointment, his eyes ventured for another undressing of his majesty, “He is the one, yes. The one that has been foretold.”

The Queen was now close enough. She extended one hand, allowing her fingertips to fondle the contours of Ashan’s chest.

“And does she know?”

“She does.” Ashan seized the wrist of his Queen, that they should take their lust no further this evening. “She has already made plans to acquire him for her own purpose. But she has grown more powerful these days…. I’m having difficulty keeping watch of her actions. We are all in danger.”

“No!” The Queen ripped her hand from his grasp. “She will not receive him – at first light you will send out a legion. You will prevent her from acquiring him! Terra as we know it depends on it. And be sure that other whore and her pipios are destroyed. We cannot have them abiding her. We must not delay!"

Piper blinked up at Jack as he pulled out a sort of...alien device. Its glow illuminated Jack's face slightly, but the side facing Piper held no light. As Jack tapped his finger on it repeatedly, Piper closed in again on the foreign object, his snout pausing a hair's width from it. This time, its scents were a little more familiar. Some type of metal. More of that strange chemical scent the..."photo" had given off. There was a faint scent of something else - it reminded him of lightning. So strange.

When Jack turned his attention back to him, Piper backed up a step, though only to resume the appropriate conversing distance. He looked away, considering.

‘Someone is after you,’ he finally sent. ‘I think...Cheryl is involved somehow. Yet you are here and she is not.’ His tail twitched and his wings shuffled nervously.

That overwhelming surge of power from that telepathic link...he was unfamiliar, yet familiar with it. He did not know of magic like that, but he did know of someone who’d displayed that same magic. The person sitting right in front of him.

‘This place is not safe,’ he continued. ‘Something...powerful. Unfamiliar. Is nearby. You must convince Cheryl and we must leave fast.’ He hadn’t missed the way Jack looked after staring at the strange metal rectangle. The question of what he’d seen itched at Piper’s mind but he held it back. If it was important, Jack would tell him. And if he didn’t, there were more pressing matters to tend to.

Like getting away from whatever power-drunk beast that prowled in the village.

---

The damn beast was still there. He'd done what it asked, and it was still there. The roof shivered, the distant beat of wings seeming to rattle the shabby wood. Sancho sat in his office, pressing a rag again his wound. It was hardly necessary at this point. The bleeding had stopped long ago. It still throbbed though, and Sancho cursed his luck, his grip tightening on the quill in his other hand.

He'd written the report as best as he could. It was good enough. He hoped. He prayed. There was nothing else he could do about the situation - it had all gone to meat as soon as he'd spotted the dragon descending from the night sky like the reaper of death himself. Even so, his client had a reputation for being erratic. If things didn't go his way...

Sancho shivered, dropping the quill to clamp a sweaty hand over his mouth. He didn't even want to begin to imagine what would happen if his client didn't take this well.

Movement shifted in the corner of his vision and he turned to glare at the cage in the corner.

'Awake, lizard? 'Bout flaming time you did your job.' He got up, grabbed a key from the edge of his table, and strode over to the small, metal cage. Disdain showed plainly on his features as he glared at the pipio cowering in it. Then he kicked the cage. The pipio scuttled to the back of the cage as the metal rattled and Sancho smirked in satisfaction. He knelt down, unlocking the cage.

'You know, that was really unnecessary.'

Sancho jerked at the new, unfamiliar voice and rose to his feet, twisting around as his hand reached for the sword at his hip. Standing in front of his desk was someone utterly plain. Draped in a commoner's cloak, a man with curly brown hair stared back at him, smiling pleasantly.

Now, Sancho was always happy to help a citizen. His night, however, had not been a very good one and between the damn beast hovering over his roof and the witch slaughtering people left and right, this particular surprise had him this close to losing his wits entirely.

'Who let you in here? Get out! I don't have time for-'

'Relax, will you?' The man raised his arm from the folds of his cloak, pulling back his sleeve in one swift movement. Black ink stood out against pale skin, a stark symbol resembling a circle with a C inside it. 'Trust me, that's all you want to do right now.'

Sancho paled. Could his night get any worse?

'Sancho. Come on, be reasonable,' laughed the man, dropping his arm back within his cloak. 'Swords don't need to be involved in this conversation.'

His hand was gripping his sword hilt, Sancho realised. Slowly, he let go.

'That's a good guard. Or is it Chief now? Man, kids grow so fast these days,' said the man, tutting.

'Who are you?' said Sancho again, ignoring the man's derisive comment. Picking a fight with him, if he really was an associate of his client, would not bode well for Sancho. At all. 'And how did you get in here without the lizard noticing you?'

'If I gave that away, everyone would be doing it, wouldn't they?' The man's gaze flicked down to the scroll on Sancho's desk. He reached out to take it. 'What do we have here?'

He'd only looked at it for mere seconds before his gaze returned to Sancho, staring at him above the scroll dangling from his hand.

'You really think he'll be okay with this?' He clucked his tongue. 'With your...well, I'm not sure if you can even call this a performance.' When Sancho tensed further and didn't respond, he let out another laugh. 'I'm kidding! He's an understanding man. You'll be fine.' Rolling up the scroll, he tucked it into his cloak.

'Is that all he sent you here for? To collect my report?' said Sancho.

'Yes and no.' The man strode towards him and Sancho flinched. It was unwarranted, however - the man stepped past him. Sancho watched as he knelt by the cage containing the pipio. The man opened the cage door, calm, and the pipio stepped forward obediently. A quick gesture with his fingers had the pipio crawling onto his arm. He stood up, turning to face Sancho as he idly stroked the pipio. Sancho tried his best to restrain himself, but he was certain his disgust showed anyway. Why anyone would bother being nice to those pygmies was anyone's guess. They were meant to be tools, nothing more.

'You asked me how I got in here without this little guy noticing?' He smiled, an utterly bland expression. Gazing down at the pipio with a fond expression, he continued, 'Word of advice, Sancho: in the sneaking business, you gotta relax. You're wound up tighter than a coiled snake.'

Sancho blinked at the sound of a snapping neck. The pipio lay still in the man's grip.

'See? Didn't even see it coming.' The man dropped the pipio, walking towards Sancho. The same bland smile had never left his face and Sancho flinched again when the man clapped a hand on his shoulder. 'See you soon, Sancho. You'd better not mess up again.'

The sentence was said in the same friendly breath, and yet Sancho felt a shiver of fear scurry up his spine. And so he was left standing there alone, a trembling hand to his neck, staring at the dead pipio on the floor.

The distant rumble of wings continued far above.

---

Even in the dead of night, the town didn't still. People moved in darkened alleys with only the light of a torch and peasants scuttled around looking for a quick meal. The torches at bar entrances remained lit and the distant sounds of raucuous laughter and occasional brawls carried through the night.

From up here, they all seemed so small. So insignificant.

'Lord Serrat?'

He did not look away from the window. 'Yes, serf?'

'There is a delivery for you.'

Serrat, dressed in a fine silk robe, turned away from the window and laid his eyes on the package in the serf's hands. It looked as ordinary as any other package - there was nothing of note about a hand-woven basket, after all. Serrat jerked his chin towards the mahogany desk at the end of the room, on his left.

'Place it there and leave.'

The serf did as was asked and she scuttled away. Serrat paid the insect no mind, his eyes set on the basket as he walked over behind the desk. Drawing it close with one hand, he tilted the basket upwards for inspection and upon spotting the familiar symbol printed at the bottom, he hummed in approval. With his other hand, he retrieved his knife from his belt with the other and sliced it through the lid. It was the only way to open it since the lid and the basket were woven together. He pried open the lid and upon seeing what was inside, he cracked a smile.

What a beautiful night.

---

As far as the boundaries of Nihilo and even the rest of Terra, dragons stirred from their slumber, paused from their hunts, and looked far into the distance, in one single direction. Discussion arose between packs, hushed whispers or loud clamouring between minds, demanding to know what they'd just felt. The lone wolves murmured to themselves in varying shades of bewilderment. Florets, in forests and alpines alike, circled their young, reassuring them of nothing wrong - yet wary of what may come. Leodons prowling around volcanoes roared to the sky, challenging what strange magic had come to face them. Magis probed their surroundings with their magic, wondering what could be the cause of it all.

Stranger still were the moons tonight. A time when all three moons were together at once, something that hadn't happened in almost a century. Lunar heralds feasted on their light, their illusionary three pairs of wings flaring out, and Moonstones drew on the influx of energy from the night sky. Celestials and aeon wyverns continued wandering on their way, unaffected, all-knowing, and completely indifferent. Far in the desert, antareans scampered across the sands, unbothered. For them, the event was perhaps unexpected, but not unfamiliar. With them, mageia xenowyrms shifted in unrest, wondering what deed the humans had used the alignment of worlds for.

Somewhere in the skies, far beyond the clouds and brushing against Terra's ozone layer, a dragon filled with magic of unimaginable magnitudes snorted to itself, cackling at the fates of the small humans below. Still so archaic, still so young in their growth, and already they were sticking their hands into powers they could not begin to fathom. Just like hatchlings - except hatchlings knew better. This turn of events, this change, would be so very interesting to watch.

In the depths of a certain forest, a certain gathering of a certain dragon species was taking place.

'It was close, Tier One.' The speaker was one amongst the gathered blue siyat dragons. They stood in a neat, orderly line, all varying shades of brown with blue underbellies, crowns, and wing- and tailtips. The four siyat dragons standing before them were similar, except for their green highlights instead of blue. 'Tier Three felt it.'

'We all felt it, Tier Two. We don't need Tier Three to have pinpointed the strange magic's origin,' snapped a Tier One. Twin spots of vibrant green marked the area underneath his crown.

'Filaq,' murmured the Tier One on his right. 'You know where it came from.'

'Yes? We all do, Ruquies,' he growled, 'Sonarlis. You know I hate repeating myself.'

'Are we really not going to address one other particularly prominent issue that this presents?'

'No. It is only a coincidence, nothing more.'

'Our scout saw her heading towards the village. You cannot avoid this issue.'

He turned towards her, pulling his lips back into a snarl - albeit a small one, as he did not want to attract the attention of the Tier Twos discussing the matter with the other Tier Ones.

'I will do what is best for the clan', he hissed, 'and that includes avoiding the issue. For now. Because if I do not, my mind will be consumed by nothing but the want of tearing her to pieces.'

Ruquies only blinked back at him. Her green scales was of an odd shade, almost blue, but Filaq knew better than to use that as a reason to underestimate her.

'And if she is entangled with this strange magic? What will you do?' she said.

His snarl disappeared and he looked away. His ears, however, remained flat.

'Then I will tear answers out of her, and then kill her.' He connected back to the channel where the Tier Twos and Ones were still discussing.

'We will send out scouts,' he called out, his voice slicing through the clamour as smooth as a running stream. The siyats paused, all turning to look at him. 'We will find, and observe these sources of strange magic. If they are safe enough to bring in for further observation, we will bring them in. And if my fellow kin remembers one Cheryl Lusby...'

The name sent every dragon within hearing radius into snarls, their wings flaring out in agitation, their claws snaking out of their sheaths. Filaq didn't smile, as dragons were not known for imitating humans' many facial expressions, but he did send out a rumble of approval.

'If you find her with one of the sources of strange magic, do not hesitate to bring her in for justice.'

In the resounding roars and trumpets, loud to display their passion but low enough that the sounds did not break past their clan boundaries, there was nothing but agreement with his proposition.

---

As Cheryl wandered past the marketplace, dark from unlit torches and cluttered with covered items, she glanced up at the night sky, raising an eyebrow at the three moons. The night had all gone to shit and she was practically dead on her feet, but despite everything, she couldn't deny it:

'What a beautiful night.'

---

Affection for Piper was being nurtured by the creatures expanding personality. He really was a cutie pie. But Jack sensed there was more to Piper than met the eye. Telepathic abilities were one thing – at the same time and despite Pipers size and feathery appeal – there was an underlying ominous stigma. At any moment he could imagine this critter suddenly transforming into a ferocious, wicked beast. Or, well, maybe it was just Jack’s paranoia of being in this strange world playing on his mind. Either way, it was more or less Jack’s lack of knowledge about Piper that had him hold his tongue about the messages on his phone, messages that, somehow indirectly, related to what Piper was telling him.

“You don’t say….” Jack spoke with listless sarcasm at Piper's first remark. Things were becoming very clear; meeting Piper and Cheryl was not a chance encounter. As the colour returned to Jack’s face, as he regained his composure and listened to the remainder of Pipers telepathic concerns, his mind flashed back to the incident not that long ago, when he’d acquired the special item for his employer and freed that teenage girl from the torture she had suffered.

“But why that specific memory….?” He uttered rhetorically as Pipers words came to a close. Jack had seen a lot in life, and a lot of death. He’d witnessed more than his fair share of the extremes that existed, allowing him to understand there was no coincidence in life, not random chance. Even seemingly random memories such as these provided their evanescent purpose. The only question was; what in all of God’s lost creation did that night have in common with what was taking place right now? The abducted teen? The item he had gone to that house to obtain? The dead villain, Bob? His ugly balls? Or maybe it was something more subtle, something he’d overlooked…. He searched the flashback before replying to Piper with yet another forced but substantially convincing smile:

“Alright. I’ll do what I can to convince her – and don’t worry, my little friend, I don’t know exactly what’s spooked you, but stick with me and I won’t let you get hurt. We good?”

After Pipers possible response to this, Jack stood, the seat sliding back across the floor by his sudden exertion. He gave a quick motion of his head, inviting Piper to his shoulder. “Take a ride or fly. Either way, let’s go.”

Jack slid his phone in his pocket, and whether Piper took to his shoulder or not, he headed out. Stepping into the night, he added flatly; “I’ve gotta do some thinking, but whatever happens, follow my lead and just play along, understood little buddy?” He lifted one finger to his lips, suggesting not to alert Cheryl of their approach.

Jack strode faster than his usual pace, a profound and never-before sense of instinct guiding his direction. Sheryl soon came into sight shortly past the nightly-abandoned market stalls of town. Jack was good at what he did, and one thing he did extremely well was sneak, a necessity in his line of work. Despite his hastened pace, he would manage to approach to within a few arm’s length of Cheryl before revealing his and Piper's presence with a sharp, deliberate scuff of his boot against the ground.

“I don’t want your help taming my magic.” He lifted his voice in a stern manner upon snatching Cheryl’s attention, “All I want is some damn courtesy, just like I’ve shown you. I know you didn’t need my help back there, that’s obvious now, but what, I don’t get any points for at least trying to save your life? What sort of bitch are you, anyway?”

Assuming Cheryl had stopped and turned to meet them, Jack would step up a little closer, a look of severe sincerity riding his face, and continued quickly before Cheryl had a chance to respond:

“I know you might not give two shits about anything else but your own damn problems, but I do. This isn’t my world – but a year ago I lost my daughter to this place, and now I’m here to find her. She’s lost. Alone. Scared as shit in this unknown land, and all I’m asking for is a little help finding her. I don’t know if you have any family left you actually care about, but maybe stop and think for a moment about what I’m going through. Yes?”

He paused to steady his breath.

“You heard Piper, all I want is to be guided to these so called mages. Is that what you call them? Now I don’t know if that will help in finding Hannah, but it’s a start. Anywhere is a start right now. God knows your help has gotta be better than the rest of the bigoted fuck's I’ve seen around this shithole. And if you can possibly find it in your stone-cold heart to help me fulfil this task, I will devote everything I have to helping you in turn. You might think I’m a crazy fuck that you’re better off not dealing with, but I can tell you right now, you could do a lot worse than having me on your team. And just for the record….”

Jack glanced at Piper.

“...In case it wasn’t already obvious by what happened back at the bar, your little friend here is in danger too. Didn’t mean to put anyone in danger, but shit happens in life and for that I’m sorry. So if you care about his life at all….” Jack grit his teeth then extended his tongue with emotional intensity. “…I know I do… and I’ve only just met the little bugger. So if nothing else… if you can’t help us both out of genuine kindness – or just being the right thing to do – how about you do it for the sake of your little friend here?”

He finished with a small half-smile and settled his voice to a modest level;

“Sure would mean a lot….”

---

It happened again. Boris sat on the forest floor, legs outstretched with knees slightly bent while carefully surveying his new surroundings. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, that’s for sure. Over the last long while Boris would wake from his sleep to find himself in strange places. It had become a common thing, but this time it was just a little bit different – yes, a little bit different indeed.

Now, usually he would wake in the morning, but this wasn’t morning at all! He plucked a chunk of sand from his eyes and blinked a few times, enchanted by the three moons shining down through the trees above. But night wasn’t all that was different, his face was all wet on one side as well, and that wasn’t normal either! It wasn’t water, though, Boris knew the difference between water and other stuff. This was saliva, saliva had its very own texture, the same texture Boris could feel as he ran his fingers over his cheek and turned his eyes to see a wolf-like creature nearby.

Gosh

Maybe two arm lengths away, the grey and white marble-patterned animal was like nothing Boris had ever seen before, in that it had six legs.

One… two… three… four… and two after that makes six!

It also had a very fluffy face and floppy tongue hanging out to one side as it sat between two shrubs, its moonlit eyes of animal caution aimed at Boris.

Boris smiled, face distorted in a happy little-boy manner, saying: “Thank you for waking me up, Mr. Dog. Boris sure does appreciate it, a lot!”

The animal whined softly, lowering and angling her head with growing curiosity.

“And gosh.” Boris gave a look of immense approval. “You sure are cute, no doubt about that at all.” He lowered his look to regard the extra set of legs with a satire smirk. “And don’t you worry, Mr. Dog, not even a little – Nah-ah! Boris won’t tell anyone about your extra legs. Gosh….” Boris quickly imagined all the things he could do with an extra set of legs like that; “I sure do wish I had more legs. I bet you can run very, very fast with legs like yours.”

The animal remained seated while pulling herself a little closer with her front-most legs, buttocks dragging when Boris finally gathered himself from the ground to stand. He briefly dusted himself off and checked all his possessions were still on his person. They were, and he gave another expression of approval.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Dog. If you sure can talk at all, Boris really would appreciate it if you told him where he is.” Boris looked around again with a note of concern. “I sure hope people here are nice, just like Jack!” Boris looked down at Mr. Dog again, who was now standing on all six legs, snout gently probing Boris’ fingers. “Jack is a very, very, very special friend.” His strong sausage fingers caressed the animals’ snout. “But you can be my new friend. I don’t mind at all.”

Mr. Dog perked her ears, angling them forward at Boris’ words, licked his thumb, fingers, then turned to commence sniffing the ground where Boris had been lying just moments before.

“Heh, you sure are right about that,” Boris chuckled, “Boris sure could use a bath.” With that, Boris had an idea! His face lit up like a little boy who just received the best idea ever. He removed his backpack quickly, rummaging through the contents, tongue slightly protruding with concentration before finally producing his tin of hard candy. He shook the tin, then swiftly removed the lid and offered Mr. Dog two pieces. Mr. Dog lifted her head. Her nostrils flared as she assessed the sweet aroma in the palm of Boris’ hand.

With a hasty lap of her tongue, a single crunch, and another lick of her chops, the candy was devoured. Boris sure was happy with the result. After placing one candy in his own mouth, he made loud sucking noises as he returned the tin to the pack and the pack to his back.

“It’s time for me to go now, Mr. Dog.” He garbled, and pat the animals head with a heavy hand. “You can come if you want, Boris doesn’t mind at all..."

While Boris was still talking, Mr. Dog had already started moving away. She stopped momentarily to look back and beckon Boris with an expectant widening of her eyes and a small howl-like bark. She then looked in the directed she had started walking, then back at Boris before continuing on her way. Boris stopped sucking on his tasty treat, lips puckered in thought while strained his simple mind. It took several seconds for him to realise that Mr. Dog wanted him to follow.

Sucking on his tasty treat and with a spring in his step, Boris pursued his new friend.

---

Boris was led through the woods not far at all before discovering a dirt road, which at first made Boris’ adventurer’s spirit leap in his chest. But, sadly, that wasn’t all he found.

There was an overturned wagon, the horses were gone, its contents of boxes and other items broken and strewn all over the road. Among the mess were two dead bodies. One man, one woman. Boris might have been a dumb-dumb, but he recognized straight away what had happened. These people had been killed while being raided by the very bad outlaw types.

His newfound exhilaration sank to the pit of his tummy like heavy lead.

Boris couldn’t be sure how long ago it had happened, but the still-burning guiding torch at the front of the carriage was a sign that it hadn’t been too long.

While Mr. Dog sniffed out the area, Boris approached each of the dead bodies, poking suspiciously with two fingers at their necks to check for signs of life. There were none. With confirmation that they really were dead, his attention was taken by Mr. Dog, who gave a swift nudge to Boris’ elbow.

Boris shifted quickly in his squatted position to see the sandal in Mr. Dog’s mouth. Mr. Dog had a clue for sure! Boris bit his tongue, concentrating hard while he took the sandal and analysed it carefully. Then, his eyes lit up with childlike revelation as he realised some very important things! This sandal didn’t belong to the dead people, it belonged to someone else, someone who was no longer here! He knew this because the sandal was too small to fit the dead man and woman. It was a much smaller fit, and no one in the whole wide universe needed to be a smarty pants to figure that much out.

Boris clutched the sandal as he stood up straight, barrelled chest expanding with determination as he looked at the tree-line shouldering the road. It was obvious that these two dead people had not been travelling alone. There was someone else, someone smaller, someone who just wasn’t here anymore. That must have meant that the bandits had taken them. Boris had witnessed people stealing other people before, and leaving behind sandals was an easy thing to do.

Normally, it took some time for Boris to figure out the reason why he woke up in a new, strange place, but this time he had found the reason quickly. He now knew what he had to do – and that was partly due to the help of Mr. Dog!

“Mr. Dog!” He exclaimed, raising the sandal and using it to point in no particular direction, “It sure would help if you used that nose of yours. Boris really wants to know where the bad men went, that’s for sure!” He turned to lower the sandal for Mr. Dog to take another sniff of its scent, since it was a well-known fact that Dogs and other animals could smell things better than Boris could.

Mr. Dog had cowered for an instant, initially frightened by Boris’ excitable outburst, but she soon took another quick sniff of the sandal and promptly took off in a six-legged canter down the road. In tail of the strengthening scent, it wasn’t long before she deviated from the road and into the woods again. Boris had taken Revel Yell from its holster, preparing for combat as he tiptoed hastily in Mr. Dog’s wake.

---

Through the forest Mr. Dog led Boris to a ridged clearing. From there a camp of tents could be seen below. Boris Huddled like a child playing hide-and-seek, peering down from the fall, Mr. Dog by his side, both of them quietly taking notes of what they were seeing:

There were four - no, five tents! And a whole gang of ugly bandits living there as well! These must have been the bad men! No doubt about that at all! Six… seven.. ten – No, there were more than ten, but Boris couldn’t count past ten. There was a camp fire in the midst of the camp as well, where all the bad men were cooking an animal over the flames. Boris could see a young girl too, she had a sandal missing from one of her feet, and she was wrapped all up in rope and crying on the ground beside one of the tents.

Boris, with his finger and thumb, grabbed hold of Mr. Dog’s ear too whisper close:

“You sure do make a good partner, that’s for sure. I’m going down now, no doubt about that. We have to save that girl from those bad, bad men – because that is what true heroic adventurers do!”

Mr. Dog regarded Boris with an apprehensive furrow-browed look before whimpering soft enough not to alert the bandits of their position.

“You can stay here if you want.” Boris replied. “I wouldn’t blame you at all – No sir!” He released Mr. Dog’s ear, fastening his grip on Revel Yell. “Boris is going down now, Mr. Dog.”

---

Chaos erupted in the form of shattering bones, exploding skulls, the wet mashing of flesh, screams of human terror, and the victorious bellows of a Dragons’ battle cry violating the tepid moonlit night for miles around.

…But it was soon to come to an end.

As the short yet brutal slaughter gave way once again to the peace of night that had preceded it, Boris stood victor, unscathed though showered in the blood of his enemies. Returning Revel Yell to its hold, he tottered unbalanced, fatigued, and barely able to glimpse the girl he had come to save before passing out.

He fell to his face with a heavy thump and instantly started snoring.

---

Just a few minutes later, Boris woke again, still in the same place he had passed out. He lifted his face from the dirt to see a young girl seated beside him. She was dressed in a pretty blue dress, legs crossed. She was no longer bound in rope, but recent tears had made tracks through the dirt on her face. Despite her obvious pain, she was holding out a delicate purple flower for Boris to take.

Boris smiled so wide that his face appeared deformed as he sat, crossing his own legs, facing her in a mirrored pose. He carefully took the flower from her tiny fingers with one of his massive hands.

“Gosh….” He sniffed the flower. His smile reduced to something less freakish looking. “I sure do like purple, little Miss. Thank you very, very much. Boris will keep this forever.”

The girl bit her bottom lip and folded her hands in her lap. It could be seen that she wanted to smile back, but the horror of what had happened prevented it. Another tear rolled from her eye instead.

Boris felt sad now, reduced to a pouting face as he held the flower delicately in both hands like a sacred treasure. He had to look away for a moment, his eyes diverting to Mr. Dog. Apparently, Mr. Dog had released the girl from her binds. Nearby, she was snarling and chewing away at the rope that had been binding the girl… as though she were blaming the rope itself for what had happen.

“That sure is bad rope….” Boris grumbled confirmation. His eyes moved about furtively, assessing the blood-sullied ground of the camp, the mangled bodies, and of course the untouched meat still cooking over the flames of the fire. But his attention was quickly brought back to the girl when she finally spoke in the softest, sweetest voice Boris had ever heard.

“Did you save my mommy and daddy too?”

Boris’ mouth dropped open. He pressed the flower to his breaking heart. How could such a sweet, sweet voice cause so much pain…? He hung his head in shame.

“Boris is sorry, little Miss…. Your mommy and daddy were dead before Boris arrived…. I’m so very, very sorry…. They all gone now.”

Mr. Dog had stopped gnawing on the rope. She had turned to the girl when she asked about her parents. She then dropped slowly to a lying position, whimpering, head lowered to the ground as she too mourned.

As the girl began to sob, ripping Boris’ heart open even more, he clenched his eyes shut, wishing with all his might that the girls’ parents hadn’t died. He wanted nothing more in the whole wide world then to make them live again. Every last ounce of his person yearned for it. The terrible longing stung his flesh and caused his very bones to ache.

It was then that a gentle breeze disturbed the mourning night, rustling the leaves of the forest like the arrival of a ghostly entity. The breeze carried it with an aroma, like that of cinnamon, and sent an eerie shivers through Boris.

Somehow, Boris’ pain was numbed in that moment. He lifted his head to look at the girl who was staring back at him with wide eyes of speculation. She had felt it as well. So too had Mr. Dog; her whimpering silenced as she raised her own head and looked around at the invisible breeze with the upmost peculiarity.

“Did you….” The girl whispered, though her words drew silent as the effects of the breeze subdued her further.

Boris didn’t answer. He couldn’t. All three of them were still, absorbing the mysterious event in silent wonder. In a short while, the breeze settled, leaving the night in peaceful calm. The night and everything in it had become tranquillity.

Except for Boris’ tummy that started rumbling for food.

---

Boris, the girl, and Mr. Dog were noshing into the meat prepared by the bad men when the most amazing thing took place –

“Sashannah!!”

All three of them stopped eating at once, jumping in surprise at the sound of the name being called by the voice of a woman behind them. Boris leaped to his feet, dropping his meal to turn. Mr. Dog spat out her own mouthful of food and turned in equal surprise. And Sashannah - that was the girls’ name - pivoted quickly with a gasp as her marvelling eyes laid hold of her parents stepping down from ridge at the edge of camp.

Boris was very confused. His face screwed up, then formed a deranged smile. Mr. Dog tilted her head with a look of similar confusion. Sashannah, on the other hand, was already running to the arms of her parents, giving the apparent miracle no second thought. Her parents were alive and that was all that mattered.

Mr. Dog’s happiness soon overthrew her stunned state. She looked up at Boris with a small bark, slapped her tongue against his hand to kiss him, and then followed in Sashannah’s footsteps, leaping in bounding ecstatically towards her owners.

“Gosh…” Boris muttered weakly, as Mr. Dog, Sashannah and her parents joyously reunited as a family. “I sure was wrong. They aren’t dead at all.”

Not too far away, shrouded in the shadows, an entity watched on.

“She’s just a little kid….”

Jack grumbled under his breath at Cheryl’s comment about his daughter. He was feeling a little deflated by Cheryl’s lack of enthusiasm. Maybe she was a heartless bitch, but judging by her present overall demeanour, she was tired, and she wasn’t up for small-talk. Who is when they are tired, right? In the end, she had agreed to help him, so that certainly was a step in the right direction. He would just have to wait and see how things turned out when she’d gotten herself some rest. Not to say that Jack wasn’t identifying with her own losses at present, he was, being another reason why he held back on getting snarky with her.

There was no objection when Piper took to roosting on the shoulder of Cheryl. No comment was made. Yet in his departure, Jack felt a lingering sense of loss. He’d been enjoying the sensations that came with Piper perched on his own shoulder. It was nice, comforting somehow, reminded him of a rat he once had as a pet when he was just a kid. Unfortunately, Roger the Rat had been killed when Jack accidentally stepping on him one morning while clambering out of bed. His fault for not caging roger at night. Freedom had its fatal price.

Jack simply followed on as Cheryl made her way to the stables. Though he had no clue the stables were actually their most immediate destination - only an assumptions at this point - he flipped through a few different thoughts on how to actually acquire a horse for transport. None of those possibilities seemed feasible at this time of night.

“Jack….”

He was following outside of arms reach of Cheryl as he answered her question. His flat pronunciation of his name, however, dropped off at the end as though he were distracted by a curious thought. But it wasn’t a thought that had distracted him. It was in that moment he felt that energy inside him again. That same, strange energizing sensation surging through his flesh as it had done back in the tavern earlier. It caused his steps to falter slightly, just for a second, like a man who had had a little too much to drink. He quickly regained his footing as a cold sensation rushed through his head and his eyes caught sight of two people walking into town over the bridge. Some bald, muscular giant of a man, hand in hand with a little girl dressed in a yellow, man-size shirt –

Hannah!!

His daughters name screamed out in his brain, his mouth gaped open but his voice got lodged in his throat, and an eerie shiver caused him to shutter when he realised that Hannah and the man she was with were not as they had first appeared to be. They were both transparent. Ghostly. Moving in slow motion like a stalling replay of some old haunting film.

The apparition lasted for less than a couple of seconds before fading into the night. They were gone. The sensation of powerful energy surging through Jack’s body quickly left him as though his flesh had sprung a large leak somewhere. He gasped a deep breath. Mouth slapped shut. Feet now shuffling in Cheryl’s footsteps like a dazed automaton following its master.

What the fuck just happened….

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the stables by the bridge. The stables themselves were much like any other stable one might expect, each open stall division of the stables housing a different animal. The horses – if that’s what you want to call them – were not exactly what a man from Earth might anticipate. They were like mutants; horses subjected to all sorts of radiation exposure alterations. Each one was slightly different. A few had managed to grow a set of bull-like horns. All of them though, despite their slight differences, looked as though they’d been injected with steroids form the time they were born.

Jack drew to a stop, face still pale and mind still distraught from the vision he had seen, and therefore couldn’t have really cared less about the freak-like horses he was looking at. He just stood there for a moment, swaying like a man recently risen from his own grave. Eventually he found some words to speak in a low, mortified tone, but wasn’t even aware he was talking:

“I just saw my tootsie pants….”

Then, just as his somewhat peculiar choice of words dwindled out, he couldn’t help but hear a horrifying sound far off in the distance to the South, clearly loud enough for Cheryl to have heard as well. It pierced the night like that of grating metal, reminiscent of some enraged metallic beast rising from the depths of hell.

The foreboding shriek sent yet another shiver through Jack, just like the one he had felt when viewing the apparition of his daughter moments beforehand. His morbid, pale expression only deepened with trepidation as he looked to Cheryl for answers. Any answer, any words, anything at all to explain just what the hell was going on around here.

---

Bringing to a stop the thunder of hasty hooves, three horsemen were blocked by an old woman in a dark robe as she appeared on the road before them.

The three men remained mounted on their muscular steeds, briefing each other with looks of caution before the foremost horseman spoke up.

“Step aside, old hag!” He gloved the hilt of the sword at his belt. “We are royal couriers with message for the Queen. Interfering with our service is punishable by death! You know that.”

“Don’t make me laugh….” The old woman smirked, brushing a fall of grey straggled hair from her face as she lifted her blue eyes to the man. “You have no power over me.”

As she finished speaking, other faint words could be heard. The voices of many conspiring voices, like a cantor of whispered incantations filling the subtle breeze throughout the area.

At that, the horsemen became agitated, uneasy. Even their horses became unsettled. The head horseman drew his sword, pointing it at the old woman with a look of intense fear stretching his face. He in that moment realised who she was.

‘Stand down, Woman of the Mark! We have no quarrel with you! Allow us to perform out business, please. This does not concern you!”

Meanwhile, the other two horseman were growing with concern, one of them suggesting that they turn back in order to preserve their own lives.

“That is where you are wrong.” The woman replied, lifting her arms in a cross-like fashion as if to embrace the world. “Today your business is mine. You have tread upon my ground. You will not interfere with my own. Your Queen cannot not be aware of the messages you send. The fate of Cheryl Lusby is contained beneath my hand.”

“Wait! Please, no!” The head horseman pleaded, but it was all too late for bargaining. His voice choked, words deadened as the three horses froze, transfixed in a moment of time. All three couriers were dumbstruck. Their faces paled with fear. Helplessness. The old woman stretched open her mouth, arms remaining outstretched as the sound like that of grating metal emanated from her mouth to pierce the solemn night.

All stricken by her power, the ground began to convulse. The trees began to quiver. The air itself became like an ocean of invisible shards of glass that caused the three men’s’ skin to bleed while their bodies inflated like balloons. Expanding, flesh stretching, eyeballs popping until in one final moment - as the grating voice of the woman reached its pivotal moment - all three men exploded, their existence reduced to a bloody mist, carried away in the gentle séance of the now fading whispers.

The horses remained, them and a hard leather casing containing the parchment sent by Sancho to the Queen concerning the crimes of Cheryl Lusby. The casing hit the ground and rolled to a stop before the old woman approached. She stood before it, grimacing upon it, and with a blink of her eyes it burst into flames.

“Ut nihil uri.”

---

Boris was happy the little miss’s family reunited but, just like normal, he was also very confused. Her parents had been dead, that was for sure and no doubt about that, but now they were alive again. That just didn’t seem right at all. And even more than that, Mr. Dog, little miss, and her now very alive parents seemed to think it was his fault they were alive. That, well, seemed even less right.

Sure, Boris had done some things in his life that had surprised him a lot, like making himself appear in a comfortable bed when he was tired, or making a cookie to appear when he was really, really hungry. Sometimes, and only sometimes, his wishes just came true like that. But gosh, wishing someone wasn’t dead anymore wasn’t like finding a comfortable bed or making cookies, was it? When people died, that is where they stayed… in dead land.

After the happy reunion, Boris and the family spent the night by the fire of the bandits’ camp. But Boris couldn’t sleep well at all, this whole not-dead-anymore thing kept his eyes wide open for hours, just staring up at the drifting three moons in the sky, thinking about the times he’d done amazing things, and wondering if it was even possible that another one of his wishes had made those people live again.

Gosh, that’s such a silly thought.

Eventually though, Boris did fall asleep without coming up with a really, really, really sure answer.

In the morning, bright and early, Boris helped the family get their horse and carriage back on the road and the little miss’s daddy gave Boris three gold coins for his help. Boris didn’t ask for it, but he sure was grateful. After that they parted ways, the family went one way and Boris, for reasons he didn’t understand, departed in the opposite direction.

He must have been walking an hour or two when a pretty stone bridge to a town came into view. Still a ways down the road from that bridge, he stopped to try and read the word chiselled out on a wooden sign at the side of the road. Probably the name of the town, but Boris couldn’t read it. That didn’t stop him trying though, he tried to read a lot of things and usually failed. This was not exception. Following several attempts he finally gave up, fetched his note book and pencil from his pack, and then concentrated really hard to copy every stroke of the words to his notebook as best he could. It was then, just as he finished drawing the word in his book that he heard the sound of whimpering coming from not too far away.

Flipping his book closed and tucking it under his left arm, he turned towards the bushes where the whimpering seemed to be coming from. If Boris wasn’t mistaken, it sounded a lot like another little person was in trouble and feeling sad. But what he really hoped is that maybe it was another Mr. Dog. He liked Doggies very much.

As he drew closer, the whimpering grew quiet, but he continued nonetheless, stepping over shrubs until another little girl came into view. It wasn’t another Mr. Dog at all, but Boris felt no sense of disappointment for what he had actually discovered.

The girl, no older than ten or twelve, was huddled in a ball, arms wrapped about her tucked legs. She was dressed in a very strange and skimpy green outfit. It was possibly underwear, and it fit rather tightly about her body with straps over the shoulders. It had no leggings. The girl had brown, shoulder-length hair and bulging blue eyes of terror, mouth agape when she laid eyes upon the massive man.

Despite her obvious fear, Boris moved closer and squatted down in front of her, a broad smile expanding his infant-like demeanour in an attempt to comfort the child, yet it only served to make her more frightened.

Her face went white with trepidation.

“Boris won’t hurt you at all.” He told her, bringing his goofy smile right up close to her terror. “My name is Boris. B. O. R. I. S. That spells Boris!” His smile became broader as he looked over her person and shook his head in wonder. “Gosh, little miss, a little miss like you should have more clothing than what you are wearing, that’s for sure.”

He reached out slowly, and the girl was too scared to even flinch as he used his finger and thumb to pluck at the stretchy fabric of the strap on her shoulder.

“I sure haven’t seen clothing like this before. But gosh, I sure do wish I had clothing like that. It sure is puuuuulley.” He chuckled in a silly manner. “Boris is a very big man. Clothing like yours would fit no matter what!”

He released the strap, and it gently slapped against her skin, but still she didn’t move, just eyeballing Boris with petrified eyes.

“Don’t you worry at all, little miss,” He assured her with a heavy nod. “Boris understands. I’m going away now. Boris is going to find you something more ladylike to wear. Just you stay right here! I’ll be back very soon.”

Boris strode away with a bounce in his step and came to the road again, where it just so happened that a male traveller, much smaller than Boris and perhaps in his mid-twenties, was passing by on his way out of the town. The man had the usual apprehensive response people had to Boris when the giant man stood out in front him –

“Excuse me, Mr. Man, but Boris wants your clothes.”

The man eyeballed Boris as if he were confronted by an escaped lunatic. “I- I I’m sorry, I need my clothes. They are my – “

Boris grabbed him by neck, face red with sudden rage as he lifted the man from the ground like a feather with his right hand. The man’s legs flailed and his fists beat at Boris’ massive arms in a futile attempt to escape.

“Boris want’s your top garment, OR ELSE!”

The man’s body became limp, dangling by the neck in Boris’ hand, his face turning a shade of blue from oxygen deprivation as he wheezed the words;

“Take my clothes… Take whatever you want, just please… please… just don’t kill me.”

“That sure is kind of you.” Boris smiled, and released the man who crumbled to the road and instantly started removing his shirt. He also offered Boris money, but Boris refused. “Nah-ah!” He gave the man a reassuring nod as he took his yellow shirt. “Boris only wants your shirt. You can keep your money, that’s for sure!”

In a state of dismay, the man didn’t dare test fate. He ran back to town, the direction from which he had come.

Shortly after, Boris returned to the little miss still hiding in the brush and placed the yellow shirt on the ground in front of her.

“You just put that on right now, little miss!” He insisted in his Boris-knows-best kind of tone. His mind slightly distracted, he then opened his notebook to the appropriate page and showed the girl the drawing he had made of the sign out on the road. “And if you don’t mind at all, little miss,” He added with a sanguine grin; “Could you please tell Boris what these letters say?”

Though still in fear, the girl managed to reach out and snatch the shirt from the ground and quickly put it on. It was a large enough fit to serve as a dress that covered her figure to the knees. As she buttoned up, her still wide eyes turned to carefully analyse the image. As the last of the Buttons were fastened, she lifted her eyes to meet Boris’ hopeful stare and spoke in a barely audible tone;

“Welcome to Sonarlis.”

Boris was chuffed, smiling from ear to ear like a child that just received his favourite treat as he returned the book to his backpack. “You sure are a smart little miss!” He told her. “And don’t you worry at all! Boris is going to help you find your parents!” He leaned in close again with a childish, conspiring side-eyed look; “Boris will stay with you until you find your parents. No doubt about that at all. Even if I have to bring them back from the dead.”

It was then that the girl’s expression changed to that of a curious revelation. She had realised that Boris was of a simple mind. In that instant her posture slumped as if a weight had been lifted, and she regarded the giant man with childlike empathy.

Boris felt good. His smile became slightly warped with that of estranged satisfaction. He then then turned away and headed back to the road expecting the little miss to follow. She did.

On the road to the bridge, as they made their way towards town, the girl slipped her tiny hand into his giant grasp. Boris was thrilled, beaming down at the child with his simple request;

“Boris sure would like to know your name, little miss.”

Expressing her timid yet optimistic trust in this hulk of a man, she smiled up at him and replied with the sweetest name Boris had ever heard….

“Hannah.”

Hannah sure did have a tiny hand. This made Boris smile, in a goofy kind of way, repeatedly glancing down at her walking by his side as they crossed the bridge into Sonarlis.

To Boris’ dismay, though, his sweet admiration of the little girl soon turned to concern when they approached the end of the bridge. She had seen something. Her pace slowed. The secure look on her face from being under Boris’ care was suddenly gone, replaced by a paling of her skin and a scary widening of her eyes in direction of the nearby stables.

Boris couldn’t blame her at all for being frightened. Gosh, those horses in the stable looked like something to be scared of for sure.

“You don’t have to worry at all, Miss Hannah.” Boris assured with a gentle shake of her hand gloved in his. “Boris won’t let those horses hurt you - Nah-ah. No way in the world!”

His words didn’t help. Hannah’s face scrunched, shaking her head as though she were approaching an ominous fate. Her feet came to a stop on the cobblestone road just off the bridge, and keeping her hand in his, Boris stopped alongside her. He was about to reassure her of her safety when –

“Dad!” Her voice exited like a whispered scream. Her hand gripped in suspense to one of Boris’ fingers. Her other hand raised to point towards the stables, but then dropped listlessly to her side before fully extending. At the same time, Boris felt a curious sensation move through him. The sensation seemed to be entering him from the grip Hannah had on his finger. It was some sort of tingly energy that made Boris shiver, and for a moment, just for a moment, he could feel her tense anxieties.

Boris was very confused. He looked to where Hannah had wanted to point, but there was no man at the stables. Nobody at all, actually. Just really scary looking horses. Surely none of those animals were her daddy, that couldn’t be right. He did his best to comfort her, providing a wide smile as he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

“Gosh, Miss Hannah, you need to relax.” He took a second glance at the stables just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. “I don’t see any dads there, nah-ah. I don’t see anyone except scary horses.” He poked his tongue through his lips a little for some extra careful thought, and asked; “Do you ride horses with your daddy? Heh. Maybe if you aren’t too scared, Miss Hannah and Boris can go on a horse ride together.”

“No!” Hannah tugged hard on his finger as if trying to rope some intelligence out of him. “I saw him. He was with a lady and a cat.” Her narrowing stare became intense as she peered up at the muscular tower of a man. “…But now he’s not there.” Her voice faded to a ghostly whisper while the energy Boris felt from her dissipated. Her grip on his finger loosened. The blood appeared to drain from her face. She wanted to say more, but her jaw just jutted in silence. She was clearly too distraught to properly explain what had happened. Still, the tear that now welled in her eye provided the shimmering hope that maybe this giant man beside her would be smart enough to understand.

He didn’t. He just stared dumbly at her. Vacant. Several quiet moments passed.

“I sure am hungry.” He finally spoke. Smiled in his usual childlike manner. “You and me, Miss Hannah, we should go eat some delicious food. After that we can find your daddy. Don’t you worry at all. Not even a bit.”

Engulfing her hand in his once more, he gave her a firm yet gentle tug to get her walking again. She went along without resisting, forsaken and lost in the quiet turbulence of her thoughts.

---

As the two of them walked farther into town, they were stopped by a guard that had just stepped out of Blackgale Inn. The guard was dressed in red armour and in the company of no other guards. He had halted Boris and Hannah with a swift raise of one hand. He gave a curios look to the girl, the man’s shirt she was wearing, then turned a suspicious eye to Boris while his other hand fastened to the hilt of the sword sheathed at his side.

“I am Mardin, Chief Guard of Sonarlis!” He said, glancing back at the door of the Inn, then eyeballing the tip of Revel Yell protruding out from behind Boris’ back. “There is a very frightened man inside who claims to have been robbed of his shirt. We have no tolerance for thieves in Sonarlis. What business do you two have here?” Awaiting a response, he curling up one large nostril, gave a sharp sniff, and then flicked his thick fall of well-groomed snow white hair with a cavalier toss of his head.

Boris didn’t give an immediate response to Mardin, instead looking down at Hannah with a cockeyed expression. It may have been the guards’ confrontational presence that caused a change in the girl, although Boris didn’t really know how or why this was the case, all he knew is that he was feeling that strange energy seeping into his body from Hannah’s hand again. Her previously haunted countenance was quickly becoming one of intense rigor as colour returned to her face. He could sense her emotions. Volatile frustration and rage towards the guard. So raw, basic… and scary. Boris didn’t really know what to do about this. He’d never really shared a little girls feelings before, and so he decided that maybe just replying to the guard was the best thing he could do in that moment.

“My name is Boris,” He replied with a mischievous smirk. “And this is Miss. Hannah. She needed new clothes so Boris took them. I sure do hope that man is okay.” Boris paused, sucking in one corner of his mouth to remember the other question Mardin had asked.

Mardin pompously scowled, though lightly, a tad perplexed by Boris’ simpleton admittance. He strengthened the grip on the hilt of his sword.

Recalling the other question, Boris forced an expression of seriousness, saying; “We have important business here, Mr. Mardin, we are looking for Miss. Hannah’s da –“

“Boris is my uncle!” Hannah interrupted in a sharp, rasped voice, her grated tempo rising with each word. A short gust of wind swept by, leaving in its wake the forming of a whirlwind picking up the dust from the cobblestone road nearby. The column of spiralling dust intensified in stages, growing with the elevating strength of each ensuing word – “I needed clothes! The man would not give me his shirt!!”

Mardin took a step back as now the girls intensifying voice was becoming bitter. His white hair flopped down over his forehead. His scowling perplexity changed to that of wide-eyed fear at the phenomenon taking place.

Though the whirlwind wasn’t seen from Boris’ line of sight, he was no less stunned at Hannah’s outburst. This wasn’t the girl he had met a little while ago. His eyes bulged like a mullet, mouth tight shut. Her hand started to heat in his grip, but he didn’t let her go.

“We want to eat!” She continued. Her eyes flashed a glow of neon green. “We are hungry!!”

Mardin’s mouth dropped open. He took another step back, too scared to draw his sword while the coiling whirlwind expanded to several meters in height. A crack popped open in the cobblestone in front of him. Boris remained confounded, overwhelmed by the turmoil of emotions and increasing hunger that he seemed to be sharing with the girl. Revel Yell, the Dragonbone on Boris’ back, began to shine with a turquoise aura.

“I do not want to hurt you!” Her near screaming, gravelled voice now sounded like grating metal as the crack in front of Mardin extended several centimetres and the whirling mass of dust behind her began to howl. “Move out of our way, NOW!”

The earth jumped at Hannah’s last word, causing Mardin and Boris to bounce slightly from the ground, but as their feet touched down the whirlwind collapsed. The airborne dust swept away in another fleeting gust of wind, and the vibrant, turquoise aura of Revel Yell vanished like someone had flipped the off switch. In an instant all was calm as the severity of Hannah’s glare subsided to a sinister, brooding heaviness that shaded her complexion and sinking eyes with tones of ashen grey.

Mardin looked sick. The grip on the hilt of his sword became flaccid. His eyes were turned and watching down the road to where the dust had faded in the distance. Boris was a little light headed, swaying slightly as the emotions from Hannah fled his system and the heated touch of her hand faded. Like Mardin, he still couldn’t find words to express. He just stared bug-eyed at the guard while Hannah parted her lips to release a final statement in a forlorn and rasped, whispered tone.

“Please go away…”

His hand finally falling away from the hilt of his sword, Mardin turned his disparaged mien to Boris in an attempt at respite to re-establish a posture of authority. With a deep breath, he inflated his chest with a roll-back of his shoulders, eyes almost bleeding with concentration in his effort not to look at the girl.

“We have no problem here.” Mardin’s voice was compromised by subtle trembling, lips shivering like he’d developed a chill. “You can purchase clothing at the general store…. Enjoy your stay.” He poised in a suspended moment of deep contemplation, maybe considering more to say, but in the end he just turned and walked away.

“Well okay then, Mr. Mardin.” Was all Boris finally had to say. He waited till the guard was a small distance down the road before looking with peculiar, childlike fascination down at Hannah. She raised her eyes to meet his.

“I don’t feel good.” She told him softly. Having now completely reverted to her former, vulnerable self, she gripped the front of her shirt and pressing her small fist against her belly.

TW: A poorly-written fight scene.
EDIT: Drastic edit to the second section due to continuity mistake.


Jack. One syllable. It was its simpleness that stood out to Cheryl, more than its unusual nature. Names like that weren't common in Nihilo - it was possible that he was using an alias.

'You will bring the outworlder.'

Or not. Either that kind of name was common from whatever shithole place he'd crawled out of or his actual name was weirder and he was attempting to use a version that people could actually pronounce. Come to think of it, if Jack really was from another world, didn't that make him an alien? It wasn't far-fetched, considering what she knew about the antarean dragons. Still... the concept was strange to think about it.

'Forget it. I can worry about it in the morning.'

Naturally, the universe decided to spit in her face as soon as the thought came. A wave of magic-no, not magic, magic didn't feel like this, what was this power-crashed through her and she stiffened, halting her steps. She barely managed to suppress her shudder, if only because of her muscles locking up, instinct telling her to get the flame away from whatever the hell-behind her-

Death.

Without an inch of hesitation, she twisted around on her heel, unsheathed her knife, and stopped its tip a centimetre before it could pierce Jack's throat.

'You listen carefully,' she growled. Piper, shifting a little at the movement, only wrapped his tail around her neck, chuffing softly in his sleep. 'I don't give a flying flame what the deal is with your strange magic, but if you don't get it under control and you hurt one of us, I'm taking off your flaming head. So get it under control.' Then, because she felt like it, 'Dipmeat.'

Whether Jack responded or not, Cheryl paid him no more mind. She turned back towards the stable, shoving her knife back into its sheath. She didn't stomp - that wasted energy and she was far too tired for that. Her steps were brisk, considerably speedier than they had been before her outburst. Anger, frustration; these were better fuel for energy than any amount of jump juice could be.

As she approached a particular stall, however, her frustration melted away somewhat. Guinea hissed, a sound that sounded like a cross between a spit and something coming out of her throat - her means of a friendly greeting.

Guinea was a horse of... remarkable build. Her skin - indeed, her body featured no coat - was a dusty grey in the moonlight's pale light and the only hair she had stuck up in haphazard, clumped tufts of mane that stretched halfway down her neck and drooped sadly along the tip of her tail. A horn curved up from her forehead, rings of tiny little spikes peeking out along the way, and met a pointy end. A set of two smaller horns jutted out on each of her cheeks, though they pointed to the front instead of the sides, a slight outward bend to them. Her cloven hooves featured a similar bend. Her eyes seemed sunken, almost pupils in their entirety. However, a closer look would show that she indeed had sclera; the sunken appearance was an affect of dim lighting. Her most prominent feature was her mouth. Her teeth reached forward, incisors serving as her lips whenever she closed her mouth.

Overall, the immediate image she might give a person at a passing glance was a drowned rat in the form of a horse.

Cheryl closed in, within perfect distance of having her head bitten off by those incisors.

'How you doing, Guinea?' she said, patting Guinea idly along her neck. Guinea opened her mouth, strands of saliva stretching wide between her teeth with some drops dribbling over, and let out another hissing gargle. Cheryl looked up at the sound of a distant inhuman shriek, her gaze sparing the distance a second before settling on Jack's face. Upon spotting his expression, she smirked.

'Welcome to Nihilo, stranger,' she said. 'Just another Tosus night for us murderers.' She checked the saddle, her sparse belongings - never could be too sure, considering her reputation. 'You ridden a horse before, Jack?'

---

By the side of the grimy road leading to Sonarlis, a child appeared. There was no dramatic flash of magic or mystical sounds. She simply appeared, stumbling a couple steps forward as if touching down from a jump and having the inertia of it pushing her forward. Her legs folded and she sat on her knees with a thump, her stricken gaze pinned to the dirt.

'Hhh, hhh.'

Judging from appearance alone, the girl seemed to be around 11 or 12 years of age. Dark, unruly locks spilled around her shoulders, their length reaching the middle of her back. She wore a loose orange t-shirt with sleeves ending in the middle of her upper arms. Beneath those sleeves, another set of grey sleeves creeped out, hugging her arms as they disappeared into the space beneath her blood red gloves. Brown shorts and a pair of scuffed sneakers completed the look.

Her name was Erised.

'Hhh.'

Her gloved hands were tight fists on her lap. Her teeth clenched so hard, they creaked.

'You coward.'

She lifted her fist and slammed it down into the dirt - an impulsive action. Ignoring the pain, she growled, closed her eyes, then huffed a sigh. It was so easy, acting on anger, but so tiring. Still, most other negative, less aggressive, emotions were pests she could hardly be bothered to deal with. Anger was familiar, comfortable. Invulnerable, in a way.

Forget it. She was here now, wherever "here" was. All she knew was that she'd stepped into a dimension that wasn't the one she'd just run away from.

'Can I even call that running? I didn't step into the place.' She got up, dusting off her pants. 'Whatever. Far as I'm concerned, there's no reason I can't stay here a bit. Can't be that different from all the rest. So long as they got the good stuff, I'm down.'

The sun inched its way up the pale sky, a few puffy clouds idly drifting by. Morning. The temperature wasn't too bad: not too warm, not too chilly. She stretched, wriggling her toes and rolling her wrists. Her core vessel's forms were always similar, but it never really felt the same in each different dimension she stepped into.

'Let's see...' she said aloud, peering at the nearest sign - a huge board held up by two posts, letters scratched into it. 'Sonarlis, huh?' She looked past the sign and towards the village that lay beyond the river's bridge. It seemed to be in the middle of waking up for the day. People were milling around, doing boring people things, and wearing... tunics. Erised wrinkled her nose. What, were they in the Dark Ages or something?

A glance around showed her that the road she was standing by lead off into the forest - this seemed to be the closest she'd get to civilisation. She squinted into the distance behind the village, shielding her eyes as she looked upwards at the mountain looming over it. If things got too boring, she could always climb it or something. Movement at the edge of her vision caught her attention and she shifted her gaze to the left of the mountain.

'...Huh.' A pale pink circle slowly, but surely, making its way across the sky. A moon, most likely. At the rate it was going, the moon would drop right over the horizon and disappear before the day was out.

'Godspeed, little guy,' she said, shooting off a two-fingered salute to the pink blob.

Grinning, she set off. As she crossed the bridge and wandered into the village, leaving the sound of burbling water behind her, she didn't miss the eyes of the villagers darting towards her as she waltzed in. Instead of meeting their gazes, she raised her arms, crossed them behind her head, and continued walking, flippancy in every step. The marketplace ahead of her was a clustered bundle of stalls crammed together, people sleepily setting up shop. Some were already waiting at their stalls, presumably for customers.

'Ey, sulchir. Sulchir!'

Erised paused, turning her head to look over at what seemed to be the village stables, her arms still behind her head. Some guy, with a tunic like all the rest, standing by the closest stall was staring at her, frowning. Her gaze met his, then immediately skipped over to the beast whose bridle the man was holding. It was a horse - she could recognise its equine form easily enough - but the haggard, grey strands of its mane drooped down almost to its hooves. It seemed to be built more for power than for speed, its bulky form featuring a smooth black coat. Its eyes were pools of murky, empty bluish-white fog - no sclera in them.

They were pretty to look at, Erised thought.

'Sulchir! Su ta oudier?'

'Huh, what?' said Erised, shifting her attention back to the tunic guy.

'Quia forisu partibus non circum ambulant mico... tilla?!' he sputtered, waving his hands up and down like he was having a seizure.

'Whoa, hey, slow down, buddy, I can't understand anything you just said,' said Erised. She leaned back, still not fully facing him. 'I'm guessing you can't understand me either, can you?'

Tunic guy's face reddened to that of a ripe tomato and his flailing only increased further, much to her amusement. 'Postul su vosa retam et vade in domumus, iu venis!'

'You know, the only word I caught was "in",' said Erised. At this point, she'd gathered what he'd wanted; his Desire was screaming much louder than he was. Her attire must be taboo in this place because wow, that was way too much desperation for a change of clothes.

The guy looked as if he was about to explode in the next moment and Erised tilted her head, lips quirked in a cocky grin.

When the explosion came, however, it was not from him. A surge of power caught her off-guard and she stumbled a step sideways, arms stubbornly staying in place behind her head. The tunic man tumbled right onto his butt, only letting go of the horse's bridle when it had been pulled to its limit and snapped away from his grip. The creature jerked its head away from the man, a deep growl that did not sound like a horse emanating from its throat.

Erised raised her eyebrows, glancing over to where the power surge had come from. It wasn't hard to spot the raging whirlwind towering over the squat buildings and the gazebos of the marketplace, though she couldn't see its base from where she stood. She whistled, eyeing the bits of produce and small barrels caught in the snags of the whirlwind. The gazebos themselves struggled to stay on the ground.

'Bet you your horse we got a main protagonist here!' she called to the tunic guy over the whistling wind. He didn't reply, shaking on the ground, his eyes glued to the direction of the whirlwind.

'Got myself a free horse,' muttered Erised, grinning away as she approached the edge of the marketplace. The pressure of the power surge pushed against her, but she pushed back just as hard. It was only raw power, after all. Uncontrolled, unrefined power - could be as deadly as an atomic bomb or a water balloon, depending on the user.

Then, just as she turned the corner, the power surge stopped. This also meant the whirlwind fell apart, collapsing into itself and sending out one final blast of wind sweeping over the market. The nearest row of gazebos gave up, their supports snapping and the tarps fluttering to the ground, draping over people too shocked to move. The crates, barrels, and produce previously spinning in the sky finally bent to the whims of gravity, aggressively decorating the cobblestone street with smashed up wood and battered produce. Erised sidestepped a barrel, then reached out her hand to snatch what looked like a tomato from the air.

'Watch your head,' she called out to a woman, who seemed too shaken to think about looking up, and gave an empathetic wince as a rectangular fruit, the size of a watermelon, promptly crashed on her head. That was a concussion, for sure.

She turned her attention to the source of all the commotion. A little girl - kind of looked like her nonexistent age - a beefy dude, and some guard. 'I bet it's the kid who did all that. Why is it always the kids with all the crazy powers?' She bit into the tomato in her palm, then spat it back out on the cobblestone street. Strong, sour taste. Definitely not a tomato.

'Su! Sulchir!'

She looked up, tossing the not-tomato aside. The guard was approaching her now. The kid and beefy dude stayed where they were, discussing among themselves.

''Sup, royal guard?' Rocking on her heels, hands folded behind her back, Erised eyed him, her usual smirk plastered on her face. Decked out in red armour and a tight grip on his sword hilt, he seemed like the type of self-righteous pieface Erised liked to punch.

'Visetr norno in propriis sutamic farsiea pesalir suae velit,' he sniffed, looking down his nose at her. 'Ite in domumus. Murtae.'

There was no room for argument in his tone. Erised maintained her gaze, still rocking back and forth on her heels. Still smirking away.

At her lack of response, the guard's eyes flashed and his face contorted into an ugly mass of wrinkles - rage. In one swift movement, he drew out his sword and had its tip pointed at her throat.

'Norno harent tempus kad agat inposesler brats sirilis su,' hissed the guard, 'Indisgrus es te suyet et conspectu omnium, vos-'

'Nope.' Erised grabbed hold of the sword's tip, ignoring the sharp pain when it bit through her glove and into her skin. She yanked the sword out of the guard's grip, loosened with surprise, and her other hand grabbed hold of its hilt. The guard glanced at his empty hand, then back at her, wide-eyed. He had only time to flinch when the tip of his own sword came to rest lightly against his throat.

Erised cocked her head, flexing her free hand. Despite the cut, no blood flowed from it. Already, the slit in the glove was knitting back together and, presumably, the cut beneath it as well.

'Still can't understand you, pal.'

“WHAT IS THE FLAMING MEANING OF THIS!?”

Despite his angered tempo, King Eor’s somewhat feminine sounding voice - normally a displeasure to hear - was at this moment a relief for Barnaby. But not just for him but likely for the woman with him in the concubines bed chamber as well. The king had been assaulting her for several hours already and her screams for mercy had long since dwindled out. Perhaps she was dead already. Wouldn’t have been the first time the king had continued having his way with the remaining corps.

In the corridor outside the chamber, Barnaby paused, his hooded head lowered as he said a silent prayer for God to have mercy on the woman inside. His quite delay to answer the king, however, only served to incense the royal scum further.

“DO YOU SEEK A TORTUROUS DEATH?! YOU WILL ANSWER YOUR KING THIS INSTANT!!” He yelled with so much strain that it sounding like he was about to stroke. “JUST ENTER ALREADY!!”

Never actually willing to meet with the King directly, Barnaby was as ready as he would ever be to enter the room, but neither did he cherish the thought of what he might witness once the door was open. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, said another quiet prayer, opened his eye, pressed down on the door handle, and then the door creaked open slowly as though propelled by Barnaby’s exhaling breath.

King Eor had not been decent enough to yet detach himself from the woman bent over the table in the center of the room. He was clean shaven, though a pudgy man, proof of his indulgent life. His sweaty face grimaced as he lowered his tone to a devious level at Barnaby.

“What is it, old man?”

Barnaby, chairman and Elder of the Royal Counsel and dressed in a grey priest-like robe that seemed to meld with the darkness of the corridor, did not step into the room. The view was clear enough. From the shade of his hood he did not, as usual, make eye contact with the king, but the woman… or be she just a girl… couldn’t have been a day over twenty. Her outstretched hands were nailed to the tabletop, feet nailed to the timber floor, her fair body breached with bruises and lacerations inflicted by her king. She was limp, cheek flush to the table and her glazed eyes, though dwindling of life, locked upon Barnaby’s compassionate gaze.

“It is your wife.” Barnaby announced the reason for his intrusion in a stale voice that matched his old and weathered face, yet he did not remove gaze from the girl that he knew by name. “Your wife, sire, she requests your company in the royal chamber.”

Eor’s grin forsook him at the mentioning of his wife. His jaw began to move, reminiscent of a cow chewing its cud while he stewed over Barnaby’s words. Finally, he withdrew and stepped away from the girl who failed to make so much as a murmur of relief. After wrapping himself in his purple velvet night robe, the king tied a knot in his long blond mane and draped its tail over his shoulder.

“So it is, my own wretched wife who disturbs me this night.” He said, starting to stroke the fall of his hair as if it were a comforting pet on his shoulder. “But can you not see I am busy? Is there not a man in my castle, nay this entire land, with balls enough to defy her whims?”

Barnaby now released his gaze from the girl, if only to bow his head in pretend shame. “Forgive me, sire, I know my presence is unwelcome. But I am, alas, merely a messenger. But I do believe…” He paused, “your wife does have something of important news.”

Eor appeared sickened at Barnaby’s words, top lip curling as his stroking fingers came to a crooked rest upon his flow of hair. “If it were not for my seed inside her….” He muttered with disdain, but conceded, “Very well…” and walked to the threshold where Barnaby stepped aside to allow him exit. “I will take my respite.” He glanced back at the girl, then regarded Barnaby with an amused grin. “Be sure she doesn’t move and… Flame her in my absence if you wish, old man.”

“Yes, sire.”

Barnaby kept his head down, his words being no more than standard response as the king departed. Once the king was out of sight, he entered the room. Closed the door. Moving to the center of the room he lightly perched himself on the table beside the girl, and then slowly extended one hand, placing it gently upon the locks of her black hair.

“It won’t be long now, child.” His voice was low timbre of comfort. “Your suffering will soon be over.”

“Please kill me, Barnaby….” She spoke, though be it a barely audible utter of weakened breath.

He couldn’t have been any more filled with compassion than he already was, now removing a blood tainted tear from the side of her nose with caring stroke of his thumb. “None of his concubines last the night. You know this already, Reft. You will enter God’s awaiting arms before morning comes. You will be free of your misery soon enough.”

“No -” Reft jerked in pain as the impulse to reach out to Barnaby caused stress on the nail that had her pinned to the table. “Don’t make me wait. Please… kill me now. I cannot suffer him for another moment. I will not….”

“Is it right that we both should die?” He replied, lowering his voice another somber octave. They both knew that if he kill her himself, he too would be put to death.

She wheezed. Shut her eyes for a moment. “…How do you do it, Barnaby? How do you stay in this place?”

Barnaby groaned in his spirit. Until recently it was fear that prevented him from leaving, for he knew that if he ran the king would have likely kill his son out of spite. Still, of late the circumstances of his son, Isarac, had taken an unfortunate turn. He’d been infected with the Bilic flue that had claimed the lives of so many in Nihilo of late, and Barnaby was doubtful that Isarac would ever recover. Death, it would seem, stood upon many doorsteps in his life.

“Do you want to live, my child?” Barnaby pressed his hand on Reft’s head as if bestowing a blessing. “If you were given to life of freedom, could you still stand to enjoy it after all that you have endured?”

Reft’s eyed widened ever so slightly, a notion of hope clearing the cloud of their glaze.

“It is true.” He told her. “It was merely for the sake of my son that I remain. Yet such fears shall not be warranted much longer.”

“Barnaby.” Her voice had raised to a reluctant whisper. “Will you be the one to save me? …Or do you only seek to taunt me?”

One of the old man’s teeth were heard to crack as he clenched his jaw in an effort to restrain his anguish. “I wish no more suffering upon you.” His fingers curled, sinking deep into the thickness of her hair. “Assure me that you can be happy in life… and I will deliver you from this death.”

“Yes.” Her breath became shaken in her effort to contain her anticipation, desperately trying not to move against the nails that held her. I plead you save us both. Take me with you and I will learn to live again. …Let the dead bury their dead.”

---

King Eor now stood in the threshold of the royal bed chamber, still stroking the tail of his hair, eyes remaining heavy and matching the lowered drawl of his voice.

“What do you want? Can you not see I am busy with my whores, Mel?”

Meloni, his wife - a petite girl in her mid-teens and of milky-fair complexion and straight, chestnut hair that reached the pink, bell puff-skirt cleft of her royal dress - remained with her back to him, standing by the window, staring out at the pastel moon-dyed hues of the Royal City. At the sound of his wretched disclosure, she sighed quietly with a small deflation of her chest, squinting with distaste that matched his own - while her right hand… as though to defy the grief of carrying his child… delicately caressed the mound of her pregnant form.

“I see very little of what you do…” The timbre of her voice wrought ominous depth to the candlelight-cast shadows of the royal chamber. The flames of the candles themselves then flickered as if irritated in the quietening of her pause. “and I would like to keep it that way.”

The king’s soul seemed to visibly sink at her defiance, shrinking his fatted cheeks to a withdrawn countenance.

“If it were not for my fuck tart inside you….” He gritted acerbically; “But make no mistake, you flaming wench, our child will, hence your demise, grow without the nurturing of its filthy mothers tit. Now tell me, if you please, why has your filthy existence summoned me tonight?”

“Are you so stupid…” She asked; “that you would forget your own devious plans so easy? Is it possible that your gallows-row concubines have finally managed to suck the intelligence right out from your penis?”

While his fingers continued to fondle the lifeline of his hair, his other hand was clenched at his side with white-knuckled restraint of his rage.

She turned from the window to face him in one swift and graceful movement, her face distorted to portray her impudence, but her hand now flat upon her belly as if to shield the foetus from being exposed to his presence. “It has been done.” Her impudence flattened. “The one you requested on the Eve of Beckon. She has arrived.” She raised one brow with a smile of sarcastic affection. “Looks like that devious plan of yours worked after all.”

The King swelled, as though his soul had been restored. One hand gripped to his ponytail as if it were the wand of God, while the white-knuckles fist of his other hand pressed in against his thigh.

“Where is she?”

Rolling her eyes contemptuously, Meloni turned back towards the window. “In the woods outside of Sonarlis.”

“Then what are you waiting for, woman? Do I have to spell out every word of my endeavours to you, as if you were a child?”

“Self-flattery doesn’t become you.” She snuffed sharply. “There is nothing I need from you. I just felt it best that you should know now, spares me the prolonged agony required of having to speaking with you later. But don’t be put out, my sire, I have already given the order for the Gallants to retrieve her. If all goes well, the girl will be in our care within the coming day. So go now, return to your whores. Stop stinking up my chambers.”

Despite her finalising disrespect, King Eor grinned with satisfaction. His fingers once again began to stroke his hair, but he need not say more, preferred to not say more, as he turned and left the room.

---

The kings satisfaction for the news his wife had given was not supported when returning to his Concubine’s bed chamber. Barnaby was gone, and so was the gallows-row concubine. Their absence was clearly explained by the rope dangling out the window.

“FLAME THAT OLD BASTARD!!”

---

Boris looked behind him, now observing with a docile expression the commotion taking place in the market. He’d seen a lot of destruction in his life, so watching these people scamper about in the wake of the whirlwind didn’t really phase him at all. Just another day, really. Which is probably why he hadn’t paid any mind to the noisy destruction of the market at the time it was happening either. Still, seeing the people frantically trying to re-establish order did make him wonder why the Guard had told them to go the general store for clothing when there was a great big market right across the way.

Gosh

“You know, Miss. Hannah?” He nodded assuredly down at the girl while she too was busy noticing the chaos that recently ensued. Though she was much more taken aback that Boris by the activity, it did help to alleviate her distraught symptoms of whatever the hell it was that had just taken place with her and, despite being too captivated by the commotion to react Boris’ question, she did actually hear what he was saying. “I don’t know why Mr. Mardin said to buy clothes at the store when there is a market sitting right there.” He smiled, continuing to nod assuredly at the top of her head. “Boris thinks clothes are even much more better to buy at a market. We should do that before buying food. Clothes are very important.”

She shot her look up at him, quickly smiling agreeably, if not nervously. “Yup!” She said, strengthening her grip on his hand, “But please don’t let me go.”

Boris wasn’t entirely stupid. He knew when people were scared, but only really cared about that if he liked them at all. “Of course, Boris won’t leave you, Little Miss Hannah. Boris gets scared sometimes too. Especially when I’m really tired and can’t find a soft bed to sleep in. Sleeping is scary too.” He presented a vaguely disturbed smile. “Sometimes Boris wakes up in strange places.”

Hannah was returning a bemused look of sympathy to Boris when the sound of Guard Mardin’s raising voice was heard, stealing not only her own attention, but that of many townsfolk who stopped what they were doing to goggle at the new disturbance taking place. Boris, more prompted by Hannah’s quick turn of attention than the thing that had actually taken it, looked up at the ensuing event as well. Again, though, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen people argue, so his docile expression didn’t really falter until he saw something that specifically struck a nerve in him.

“I don't have time to deal with an insolent brat like you! You are disgracing yourself in front of everyone, you -”

Mr. Mardin had pulled his sword on a child and in that instant Boris had broken his promise to Hannah - releasing her hand, he started running towards Guard Mardin. His rage was focussed on Mardin so intensely that he didn’t notice the shadow that suddenly blocked the sun, and he didn’t notice - or maybe he just didn’t care - that the little girl Mardin had threatened had already snatched the sword from his hands. He bolted across the marketplace while retrieving Revel Yell from its hold on his back, his reddening face grimacing with fury as several townsfolk dived from his path. He was only a few more pounding steps away from Guard Mardin, Revel Yell raised above his head to strike him down, when the shadow that had blocked the sun quickly darkened. People suddenly started to scream. Then something large and cold seized Boris by his arms.

In an instant Boris had left the ground, carried up swiftly into the air in the clutches of a Dragon as it spiralled towards the sky and roared like thunder to announce the commencing battle. With timing that displayed their tight collaboration, four more dragons appeared from the North, South, East and West, descending upon the town like Kamikaze warplanes.

---

Within in blurred few seconds, Boris found himself high above Sonarlis, both arms seized separately in the tight clasps of the beast’s talons, but he had fortunately managed to keep hold of Revel Yell in his right hand. He had only just come to grips with his predicament when the Dragon that carried him curled and twisted its neck to glare under its belly at the brute of a man.

“The child is not yours to claim.” The dragon’s deeply trilled voice released with sparks and smoke chuffing from its nostrils. “She is property of the King now. And you will be taken to the royal gallows this day.”

The fleeting moment of confusion hadn’t reduced Boris’s countenance at all, his rage had merely shifted focus from guard Mardin to the dragon. In fact, the words of the dragon, no doubt in reference to Hannah, had actually managed to incense his aggression even further, provoking the power of Revel Yell. He replied to the dragon with a jumble of incoherent words while the weapon fed from his emotions, pulsating with a gleaming cyan aura as Boris yank it and his right arm free of the dragons grip. Then, using the momentum of freeing his arm, combined with the weighty leverage of his legs, he swung himself upward to deliver a swift blow to the beasts’ underbelly. Unprepared and utterly caught off guard by a human with the strength to pull free from its grip, the very surprised dragon had no time to devise a way to protect itself. Revel Yell released a beastly cry that filled the heavens when it slammed painfully hard against the dragons scaly abdomen, the impact causing its body to shudder as it raised its head to bellow at the sky and, as a matter of instinctual response, it let go of Boris’s left arm.

---

Mardin was having a bad morning. In the span of just a few minutes two strange young girls, one with the power the command the elements, the other dressed like a deranged woman of the night, had managed to get the better of him. As the cold steel of his own sword nipped at his throat, all he could do was express his bewildered antipathy with a twisted expression, and considered that maybe he should have stayed in bed that morning. Then, as if things couldn’t have got any worse, a new stir of commotion broke out behind him. Stepping away from the point of blade, he turned quickly to see Boris charging towards him, face red with rage, weapon raised above his head, a terrifying image only made more ominous by a dark shadow that at that very moment was cast over the marketplace.

Memories of quite a pathetic life flashed before Mardin’s eyes. In an infinitesimal moment he had accepted his grizzly fate, only to feel an odd sense of disappointment when two massive talons dropped down to snatch Boris away in a nick of time.

““DRAGONS!””

The word born of mortal terror came forth from numerous townsfolk simultaneously, as the battle cry of the dragon that had taken Boris roared out across the sky. The marketplace quickly turned mad with frenzied panic as four more dragons were, in the following instant, seen descending upon the town.

Mardin had turned back to the girl with his sword. In a state of paling fear he considered demanding it back, but in the end decided it was probably better to just run away.

“Keep the flaming sword, you stupid child!” He yelled as he turned to flee in direction of the guard’s station, knocking down a passing peasant woman in the process.

---

It all happened so fast. One second Boris was holding her hand and telling her he wouldn’t leave, and the next thing she knew he was running away before being snatched up by a winged monster. Of course, Hannah had played enough video games, seen enough movies, and read enough books to know that these monsters had to be dragons, said knowledge being enough to only increase her fear. Terror had managed to silence her, a would-be scream lodged in the throat of her gaping mouth as her only other impulse was to run in the same direction Boris had headed before being whisked away, but she had taken no more than a few steps before being stopped in her tracks by a swooping dragon that laid down a wall of fire across the ground of the marketplace in front of her. Screams of people being burnt alive could be heard from within the fire that quickly swallowed several of the market stalls, while other terrified townsfolk became even more frantic, crying for help, scattering in all directions, knocking each other down in their desperate attempts to save themselves.

The infernal heat from the fire caused Hannah to shield her face with the palm of one hand as she staggered several steps back and turned her eyes up to see her friend Boris falling from the sky, while the dragon that had taken him was now twisting and gyrating in what seemed to be a pain induced descent towards the mountainside. It was then, seeing her only security in this frightening world plummeting to his death, that Hannah felt that peculiar inner energy re-exerting itself –

Her bloodcurdling, grated voice expelled with the explosion of her power, sending out a shockwave from her person, knocking down stalls, throwing people to the ground, and extinguishing the flames that the dragon had laid just moments before.

During a very short, eerily silent wake of her exertion, Hannah had crumbled to the ground, face in her hands and bursting into tears, covering her view of Boris’s decent. She wasn’t in any condition to care about one of the five dragons that had landed in a clearing behind her, the heavy thud of its arrival was not enough to turn her attention to it, or to the hooded, black-robed man who immediately dismounted the saddle on the dragon’s neck. He seemed to move at inhuman speed as he darted up behind her and slung a leather-strap noose around her body. With a sharp tightening of the knot her folded arms were pinned to her sides, kicking and screaming as he slung her over his shoulder and rushed back to remount the dragon.

In those same moments proceeding Hannah’s outburst, the dragon Boris had injured crashed into the cliff face of the mountain. The other three dragons, briefly started by Hannah’s display, re-commenced their terror on the town. Chief Mardin, after briefly being knocked down by the explosion, didn’t bother to look back as he moved as fast as he could towards the guard station. The other townsfolk, also paused by the outburst, quickly went about picking themselves off the ground and returning to their desperate scrambling. Then of course there was Boris, finally crashing to the ground just a few meters from Erised's location, the fall of his massive body hardly broken by the last standing market stall.

“OOF!” Was all that he could say, before quickly scrambled to his feet and throwing off the cloth of the tent that had covered him on impact. Looking first to Erised with a face still red with rage and Revel Yell still glowing in his grip, it took all of one more second to shift his attention to the other side of the ruined market, where Hannah was being carried away by the cloaked man towards the dragon.

---

Jack, or be him now ‘Dipmeat’, was barely phased by Cheryl’s crass threat. It was the second time since he arrived in this equivocal world that someone had put a blade to his throat, but this time he was already too beaten by all the goings on to feel any more out of sorts. In fact, he had barely even noticed the actions.

The energy within him continued to dwindle like smoke venting from a well-charred room, and by time the final steps to their destination were made, Jack was feeling a little more coherent. That of course didn’t stop the loathing he felt at laying eyes upon that sorry excuse for a horse Cheryl had approached, a feeling that was strangely levelled by the dwindling memory of his daughters recent apparition, not even to mention the sound of the devil screeching in the distance. There was a thought, however brief, that rung through his head like some ill joke as he watched Cheryl and the hell-horse become sweetly reacquainted:

A horse with looks to suit its owner’s personality. Terrific.

He was just starting to believe he was in error for forcing the issue of teaming up with Cheryl, when the now quietened night was yet again abruptly broken by the sound of his ringtone, blaring at full volume from his back pocket.

It was enough to make Jack jump and spin in a circle as if caught in enemy crossfire before he realised what was happening, while the horses in the stable became instantly unsettled. Snatching the phone from his pants he fumbled in his haste. The phone dropping and scuttling across the gritty ground but, unfortunately undamaged, continuing to belt out the song while Jack scampered after it as though he were chasing an escaped chick from the henhouse. Eventually he managed to catch it, yet only to prolong the uncomfortably long and undignified display with several urgent swipes of his finger across the screen to connect the call.

The music had finally died out in echoes of resounding beats and lyrics across the night, while the sound of a crying infant, woken by the noise, could be heard from a nearby residence. But Jack was paused, glaring at the glowing screen of the open call as if trying to see the face of whoever was on the other side.

Unknown number.

“Like that’s a surprise.” Jack said, forgetting for the moment that his voice could likely be heard by the caller. Surprisingly calm now, as though the panicked incident hadn’t even happened, he shifted his eyes towards Cheryl’s horse, took a moment to compose his thoughts, then lowered his look to the ground while lifting the phone to his ear.

“Sonarlis City Morgue. You kill them, we’ll chill them.” His said, with the perfected automated enunciation's of a telemarketer. “My name is Jack, how may I help you today?”

There was initial quiet on the other end, and having been successful in his intent to throw the caller off, Jack felt mildly pleased, if not strangely reassured by the several seconds of silence.

“Jack.” The caller spoke in a low and doomful, yet slightly puzzled intone.

“You got that much right.” Jack maintained his demeanour. “Whom may I ask is calling?”

There was another short delay before the caller spoke again. “Jack of the outworld…. Father of the resilience. You will answer my questions and you will listen to me. Are you with the witch, her, and her pipio?”

“Wait-wait, just a minute!” Jack broke from his pleasant, telemarketing inflections. “Are you the fucker that’s been trying to text me all night?”

“Are you with the witch?”

“I’ll answer your question when you answer mine.” Jack insisted. “Tell me who you are. How about that for a start, Bud?”

“Jack.” The caller seemed slightly annoyed, raising the severity of their grim tone in order to enforce their dominance. “If you desire seeing your daughter again, you will cooperate with me.” The voice paused while all expression ran from Jack’s face. “Is the witch and her pipio with you?”

Jack was silent for a minute. The caller had managed to piss him off with the words about his daughter. But his face remained deadpan, turning his sober start to Cheryl and Piper for a fleeting moment.

“Yes.”

“And can she hear me?”

“No.”

“That is good, Jack. Now you will listen carefully to what I have to say.” The caller paused. “You will kill the witch and her pipio. You will not be seen. Then you will go to the Royal City. You will travel there alone. You will do this. You will succeed. Or you will never again lay eyes upon your daughter.”

It was then that Jack had a thought. He pulled the phone from his ear and held it out in front of him, a small sliver of his anger now expressed with the narrowing of one eye as he tapped at the screen to activate the speaker for Cheryl to hear.

“I’m sorry.” Jack spoke a little louder, a subtle inflection of his anger heard in his tone. “I didn’t quite hear what you said. Bad connection or something. Could you repeat the message?”

There was quiet on the other end for a moment, as Jack raised his finger to his lips at Cheryl. Hopefully fingers to the lips was intended to hush someone in this world like it was back on Earth, but Jack wouldn’t have been surprised had Cheryl suddenly started dancing the jig in that moment.

“Jack…” The caller spoke again, only this time their low grim tone clearly loud enough for Cheryl to hear. “You will kill the witch and her pipio, then you will travel alone to the Royal City. You will do this, or never lay eyes upon your daughter again.”

Jack was taking no chances on Cheryl’s reaction, quickly replying with a, “Yep, heard ya loud and clear that time, bud. How about I give it some thought and get back to ya?” and then ending the call he turned off the phone and tucked it back in his pocket, casually as having just finished a call with someone who had the wrong number.

“Alright. How about we get the fuck out of here?” He said, clapping his hands together and glancing up the road in direction of the Blacksmiths house. “I’m suddenly feel’n like I might need a weapon before we go. You can wait for me here or I can catch up to ya.”

Stranger really couldn't go five minutes without kicking up some sort of fuss, could he? With an expression of resignation - for yes, she had accepted her fate, stuck with the weird alien worth what was probably a not so ridiculous amount if he really was an alien - she looked on as, instead of answering her question, Jack began blaring music from his butt. Once again, it wasn't anything she was familiar with. The alien language was one thing, but the beats and rhythm of the music were different as well. Catchy, even.

Unfortunately, the horses thought otherwise - Guinea included. The recktall horse snorted, snapping her incisors as she stamped the ground. Cheryl whapped her on the neck.

'Quit your tantrum,' she said, 'It's just music.'

'Chree-ee-ee,' said Guinea. She sounded like she was choking on her own tongue. Considering how the horse had settled down somewhat, Cheryl took that to mean that she'd pulled herself together.

In the meantime, Jack had finally collected his...musical fart item and turned the music off. 'About time, Stranger.'

'Can't you-' she started.

'Sonarlis City Morgue. You kill them, we’ll chill them,' said Jack, talking over her words. Was he talking to his item? It seemed like it. It also seemed like he'd be doing his damn best to toss logic into the depths of nonexistence the whole time he was here.

She studied him as he talked to the item. Perhaps it was a communication device? It would make more sense. From what she could glean from his side of the conversation, he had no clue, like he did with most everything, on who he was talking to. Shocker.

Oh? Whoever was on the other side of the conversation must have said something upsetting, because Jack didn't look happy just then. He held out the item towards her, finger on his lips. She stayed quiet as a voice rang out from the item, stating a request she was far too familiar with. She listened as Jack said his response. And when Jack finally turned to her, she had nothing but a weary expression on her.

There were a lot of things she could say. Distrust - he could just as easily kill her when she had her back turned. Confusion - he could have accepted the request and do away with her while she was unaware. Frustration - why the hell did this idiot insist on being so belligerent?

She scoffed.

'Yeah, you catching up to me's as likely as a manamone dropping dead by our feet.' She fished out a gold coin from the pouch of Jack's Ridiculous Bounty and tossed it at him. 'Try to resist your swindling urges, will you? Doing that to a man in a room full of weapons isn't exactly the best idea.' She leaned against the stall's low wall, crossing her arms. 'Take longer than five minutes and I'm leaving. Falling asleep on a ride isn't the greatest way to die.'

---

Dimensions were places where events took place. Sometimes, too many events took place at the same time. It got to the point when even Erised, lover of chaos, developed a system to process things in her head. A three-point system.

Point number one. Something was in the sky.

Point number two. She hadn't missed the bald, beefy dude from earlier coming their way, though why he was pissed off she couldn't care less.

Point number three. The guard in front of her looked about one second away from pissing his pants.

That was all she got before everything went to hell in a handbasket. The wind, only just calming down, kicked right back into its previous scrambling state, only a lot stronger. This wasn't the uncontrolled output of a whirlwind. This was driven force, wind pushed aside in place of something else. She shielded her eyes with her free arm - a fruitless action since she still had to blink the dirt out of her eyes. A roar pierced through the sky and the village; the thunderous sound rang in her ears and as she peered up at the sky, a grin crept onto her face.

'Not a boring place at all.'

A yell from the fleeing guard had her glancing over at him, before dismissing him entirely. She adjusted her grip on the sword she now apparently owned. Not a bad find, though she was more used to her knives. No doubt her form had swordmasters rolling in their graves. Her admiration of the weapon was cut short as more dragons showed up.

'Hup!' Fire burst out along the market stalls and Erised held her breath as she hopped to one side. The pungent stench of smoke and cooked flesh filled the air, as did the screams of the desperate, hurt, and afraid. In moments, the quiet village centre had transformed into a flustercluck of flames and terror. Despite not being a part of it all, there was a rush in her veins and a thrill in her chest; Erised let out a delighted laugh. She wanted, wanted, wanted nothing more than to jump in and sink her hands into the bloodbath. To chase after the people running around like headless chickens, to slaughter them one-by-one, watch the blood drain, hear them scream, laugh at their agony-

She punched herself.

'Relapse much?' she muttered, rubbing her sore cheek. 'Been a while since I felt that way.' Too much concentrated desire in one area here - for a dimension, it wasn't any more than was usual, but for her, it was all too easy to lose herself in the middle of it. Especially with all the uncertainty that definitely was not churning in her now.

'Then again, is it really losing myself if it's just me in the first place?'

Her contemplative line of thought was cut short by, not more dragons, but a shockwave that sent her flying onto her back. Her head cracked against the unforgiving cobblestones. Stars burst against her vision.

'Ow.' It had to have been the kid. No other kid she knew here could scream and send things flying like that. 'Stupid kids.' Could the universe start granting powers to more emotionally stable people? She sucked in some desire, enough to stop her head from throbbing, and rolled onto her side, leaning on an elbow. The market seemed quiet now, relatively speaking. The girl...was being kidnapped, of course.

'Wait, the dragons are working for the humans? Lame!' she called out, getting to her feet. As if reminded of their current situation, everyone leapt back into action - the people ran, the dragons wreaked havoc, and a guy fell out of the sky. Sword tip shoved against the ground, Erised leaned on its hilt, watching as the bald, beefy dude clambered out of the tarp. Their gazes met for a brief moment, then his attention snapped to the girl being kidnapped.

Erised straightened. She looked at the kid being taken away in the distance, looked at the bald, beefy dude, looked at the kid, then finally settled on the bald, beefy dude.

'Dammit!' she said, 'You're the protagonist, aren't you? I really wanted that horse.'

A spray of fire shot overhead. The market was well on its way to being a bonfire. The stifling presence of smoke, blood, and charred meat hung heavy in the air. Sweat prickled on Erised's skin but its slight coolness gave no reprieve from the surrounding heat. The dragons were relentless; people were still running past. Even in their haste, they gave her a wide berth. Funny how societal propriety still stood stark in their minds even in the midst of disaster.

There were many ways she could continue on from here. Join the dragons in their havoc. Help the villagers. Chase after the girl. Erised hummed to herself, swaying back and forth. For all the desire around her, she had none right now. Not for herself, at least. This type of situation wasn't new. Did it even matter what she chose to do? After what Teresa had showed her...

Was there a point?

Her lips curled back into a snarl. Anger, a familiar friend, crawled up her chest.

'I'm having none of this. I'm not the damn robot.' Even after everything, nothing had changed. She was the same. She was the same, dammit!

She straightened up, yanking the sword off the ground and turning back to the beefy, bald dude with a considering look. Then, as another stream of fire burst close to where they were, she looked up.

'I'm getting a ride,' she said. Then she leapt. Flight - an easy thing to replicate once she got her head wrapped around the concept. Generating a gravity-defying organ, manipulating graviton particles to allow her mass to be in places it shouldn't - it was all scientific mumbo-jumbo to her but copying it from diagrams and sheets worked well enough on most Earths. This was no different. She soared through the sky, grace and dignity in her every movement as she headed for one of the dragons. Like a petal caught in the buffets of a strong wind, she ducked and dodged and twisted through the air like a seasoned natural.

That had been the plan. In truth, she'd only made it as far as the first step, only with none of the grace and dignity. She skyrocketed straight up into the sky and plummeted through the clouds, a wriggling ball of hair and uncontrolled limbs. There was no time to scream, not with the rush of wind and inertia and heat shoving against her face. Did she still have her sword? Yes, she did and she probably should try not to stab herself while flailing like this. Impaled by her own weapon of her own doing was an embarrassing first death in any dimension.

That was the problem with doing things on a whim: she just kept forgetting the important details. Like the fact that this was clearly not an Earth, that this was probably some other planet with lighter gravity, and that her ears were popping with incredible pain from the pressure.

'You absolute pie-eating moron.'

---

The presence of the traitor had not been missed. It would have been hard to, what with him crashing into their home like that. The khusa dragons closed in, crowding in around where the traitor lay on the narrow ledge. There weren't many places to approach the traitor, considering where he was positioned, but this was their home and the khusas' reputation for climbing ability was not for show. They were on either side of him on his ledge. Most were gathered on the edge of the cliff face high above, ready to pounce.

Fluffed-out cream feathers, black wings, red eyes; the khusas hadn't had the upper hand in the colour scheme lucky draw. Pairs of yellow horns protruded along the side of their heads and tufts of black fluff hung under their chins. The quadrupedal animals' long tails were raised up high - a display of aggression.

One stood out against from the line of khusas gathered on the lip of the cliff - not in appearance, but from his stance. The entire upper half of his body hung down the cliff, black claws embedded into the rough stone. Valen bared his fangs, a disdainful snarl escaping him.

'He's dead.'

If asked, every single khusa present would deny that they heaved a sigh of relief. As tough as the khusas were, they weren't entirely sure they'd face up to an arist.

'Dabi, tell the florets that the threat's been taken care of.' Valen sent this to the one on his right, though on a smaller channel, one that the immediately surrounding khusas could tune into. Dabi hissed softly, an expression of agreement, and turned away, marching off. His build was smaller than the average khusa but his every movement warned off underestimating him in battle.

Valen turned back to the rest of his expectant clan, backing up over the cliff's lip to stand before it.

'Everyone, clear off,' he sent on their mass channel, 'The Guards will dispose of this scum.'

'Valen, the village!' The message was sent on a private channel and Valen glanced towards the khusa on his other side. This one had a cape of black draping around the nape of his neck, fanning out around the shoulders, and drooping as a line down the front of each of his forepaws. Secor.

Valen looked towards the spot of what was flames and faint screaming at the foot of the mountain, just fast enough to catch sight of the human shooting straight up into the sky. His tail shot upwards, tense, and he released a breathy growl.

It couldn't be possible. Flight at that speed and altitude required a mastery of air magic that humans couldn't possibly have gained yet. He was aware that some were learning magic but there had been none who had made notable progress just yet. Their community may live in the mountains, preferring to stay uninvolved in the mess their land was in, but they weren't secluded. He would have known.

'Secor, go, stay low, and observe. Tell me what the situation is. Find out who that human is and what it can do, if you can,' he said. 'Do not get involved.'

Secor responded with a soft hiss, already turning away to scamper off.

'With heart, Valen,' he sent, though he didn't look back.

'With heart, Secor.' Valen glanced back at the burning village. His eyes narrowed.

A human proficient in magic? Guardian help them all.

Jack caught the coin with a swift downward snatch of one hand, though his now queer look was stuck on Cheryl.

There is something really wrong with you

Her response wasn’t altogether what he should have expected from anyone aside a few bad people he’d met in life. She didn’t seem to care at all that someone wanted her dead, but that wasn’t the only thing irking him at this point. How did she not show the slightest trace of appreciation that he shared the death request with her openly, even at the possible cost of seeing his daughter? Sure the whole thing seemed suspiciously moot, but still. So much for winning over even the slightest amount of respect. Then again, she did just hand over a gold coin to the man who had been asked to kill her. So that was progress. Okay, maybe not, not necessarily. Not with this girl. She was just plain weird.

Unable or unwilling to discuss matters further, he gave a nod to thank her for the coin and turned away. ‘Weirdo’ He muttered loud enough for her to hear, and started up the road past the empty stalls of the marketplace.

Woman needs to lighten up. When was the last time she had a good –

‘Fuck!’ He bit his lip – train of thought broken when he stumped his toe on a raised cobblestone brick, causing him to stumble a few feet.

A professional thief, and a damn good one. That’s Jack. He’d raked in more cash than he could count by way of his uncanny ability to keep cool and avoid mistakes. He had always been the suave and collective guy, the man’s man, and he had a reputation to match, at least, that’s the way things were back in his own world – but this place, this world, wherever the hell he was, was getting the better of him. His frustration was mounting. Never in all his life had he managed to act like such a complete imbecile so frequently. He suddenly got the notion this place had cursed him to be a fumbling idiot – that is, aside from all the other shit it was throwing at him. Or maybe it was Cheryl, some people just manage to bring out the worst in others, and hey, she was some sort of witch, and by the way things were going he wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one to have hexed him. He could feel her watching him walk up the street. Well, she might not have been watching, but it sure as hell felt like she was. He wasn’t about to look back to confirm.

---

Strange. Travius had been expecting him. The hefty blacksmith stood in the doorway of his home, a grim frown expressing both his lack of surprise and disdain for the late-night caller.

‘You’ve come for your weapon?’ He snuffed, shaking his head as if appalled by something, and reached behind the door to produce a sheathed sword. It wasn’t a big piece, little shorter than most swords Jack had seen in his life but, admittedly, his experience in medieval weaponry was rather limited. Before Jack could say a word, Travius had shoved the sword up against his chest to take it. ‘Now go.’

Jack clutched to the sword with one hand, looked down at it, up at Travius confused, and then regarded the gold coin in the palm of his other hand; ‘You don’t want –‘

‘There is no charge!’ Travius snapped. The flame of the porch sconce flickered madly as if incensed by the man’s blunt mood. ‘The Old Hag was here. Told me to give this to you when you arrived. You just missed her, actually…’ He crooked his jaw to one side, ‘…why she couldn’t have just given it to you herself….’ He sighed as though a great weight was supressing his ill feelings towards what was apparently an old hag? ‘No, just go, please. If only you and your kind would leave my family in peace. I want nothing of this, you hear?’

With the door slammed shut, Jack stood very confused on the porch, eyes peering to the side to watch the reducing flames of the sconce. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any stranger. Now he was thinking he hadn’t even scraped the surface of the oddities to come. He turned slowly in thought then descended the three stairs to where he stood on the road and took a few moments to assess the sword. Sliding the weapon a few inched free of its finely stitched leather sheath, the blade gleamed like milky steel in the descending glow of the three moons. What sort of steel was this? Certainly wasn’t iron. Wasn’t silver or platinum either. It looked soft like liquid metal, yet definitely hard to the touch – and light… Like a feather. In his experience, at least in most cases, the heavier the item the more value it held, like gold for example, but something was telling Jack in this instance that all he knew about value meant nothing anymore.

While exposing a few inches of its blade in the moonlight – unable to help but admire the faint iridescent spectrums reflecting in waves off its surface – his peripheral vision caught sight of someone nearby. His head snapped up, eyes widening on an old woman haunting the shadows on the opposite side of the road. She was dressed in a dark robe, hair straggled, her bright and piercing blue eyes immediately sending shivers up his spine.

‘Who are y…’ Jack’s voice breathed like that of a fading ghost call while everything around him began to change. The town itself began to transform, yet not quite. The buildings that were there remained as they were, yet another image was superimposed upon and around them. It was as if he were viewing the same town from another place in time, or possible an alternate reality – some sort of parallel existence? He stood there stricken by an invisible force, and the old woman remained in her position too, just glaring at him with those piercing eyes as the imagery of another town like Sonarlis came alive. All he could do was watch as the event took place around him –

It was daylight. Morning. But there was nothing pleasant to see. The world seemed to have turned to hell and demons, or be them dragons, were raining havoc upon the small mountainside town of Sonarlis. Across the way, the recently bustling marketplace had been torn apart, a great deal of it going up in flames – and so were some civilians; flesh melting from their bones as they frantically attempted to douse themselves, while other people, or most others, were scrambling and screaming in terrified attempts to find safety.

On the far side of the market, Jack could see the large man that was with Hannah in the previous apparition. He was a large brute of a man, now standing near a different young girl with a sword. These two being the only ones not fleeing in terror like the rest of the townsfolk. But the brute, holding some type large glowing bone in hands, was visibly filled with rage. Face red with intensity, he was looking across the market at Hannah.

Jack’s heart leapt in his chest at the sight of his daughter. Her arms were bound. She was kicking and struggling to escape a man dressed in a dark cloak and hood who was carrying her over his shoulder to where he proceeded to mount a massive Dragon that had landed.

The brute took off running towards Hannah, those tree trunk legs moving at unbelievable speed, while the girl he left behind suddenly shot upward, rocketing like a bullet into the sky like superman’s offspring.

Mounted on the base of the dragons neck, the cloaked man was struggling to lay Hannah over his lap. This struggle was causing a delay that could have provide the brute time to get to them, but the brute didn’t need a delay. He had hardly taken a few pounding steps in their direction when he teleported, and in that split second before vanishing from one spot and arriving next to the grounded dragon, he seemed to appear in two places at once. Now sliding to a halt next to the dragon, the brute swung his weapon down on the dragons head before it could even consider a defence. The dragons head exploded in a gruesome burst of scales, blood, teeth and brain matter, accompanied by a beastly cry that emanated from the brutes weapon.

The body of the dragon slumped lifeless as the brute turned his furious attention to the cloaked man who was still mounted on the neck of the carcass and still struggling to subdue Hannah, until he realised what had happened by the spray of dragon’s blood that covered his person. Raising Hannah as a human shield against the brutes pending assault, the cloaked man dismounted and started running towards the bridge out of town.

Quickly the brute gave chase, only now he too was being pursued by another dragon swooping down from above with the intent to attack the brute from behind – though it never got the chance. Just a moment before wrapping its open mouth around the brute, yet another dragon appeared. This new arrival looked different to the other hostile dragons. It was smaller, younger - its features told Jack it was of a different breed - and its scales were the pale green colour of the bushes that it suddenly emerged from beside the stables –

This younger dragon shot out from hiding like a cannon and rammed the hostile dragon with a powerful body slam that sent it off course; tumbling through the air and across the ground and into flames of the marketplace. From the flames it hastily shot upwards while the word ‘ARIST’ boomed like thunder from its mouth.

The incredible speed of the young dragons sudden attack had caused Jack to jump in surprise, but in the following moment he saw that the brute had caught up to his target, swinging his weapon at the cloaked man’s legs. Even amid the sounds of all the chaos taking place, the sickening sound of his knees being shattered could be heard. He went down bellowing in agony. Hannah was flung from his arms and rolled into a stall of a nearby horse tied up in the stables. The horse was frightened by all the commotion, narrowly missing Hannah’s head with its stomping hooves before the brute stooped in and swept her up into the grip of one arm. Although Hannah’s arms were still bound, she gripped her legs tight around the brutes waist while the brute himself, now wielding his mighty bone in the grip of one hand, strode up to the cloaked man writhing in pain on the ground and popped his head, just like he had the dragons.

All of these events took a mere few seconds to unfold. It all happened so fast, and now - apparently alarmed by the word “Arist”, or be it the young dragon that had appeared so conveniently - the few remaining hostile dragons quickly turned from aggressive to panicked behaviour. They no longer seemed willing to continue their attack. They called out in some strange language to each other, but they didn’t flee either. The three of them quickly regrouped above the town, circling like curious but apprehensive scavengers, while the young Arist dragon perched itself upon the headless dragon carcass like a content kitten, the colour of its scales turned from pale green to various shades of clay, and it raised its mellow stare to the predators in the sky… or maybe it was looking at something else up there.

It was then, while the townsfolk continued to run about in terror, while the hostile dragons began circling in the sky, while the brute started to free Hannah from her binds, and while Jack tried with all his might to call out to his daughter, but failed, the transparent play-through of the alternate reality faded away.

Jack was back again, standing on the cobblestone road in the night and turning his awed and troubled expression towards the old woman who, right at that moment, spoke before vanishing, as if she too had been an apparition.

‘Take my sword, it will serve you well. Let the soured bitch Cheryl lead you. Come to me.

It is all about the journey.’

---

Jack had been gone for less than five minutes so Cheryl would have likely still been waiting. He didn’t actually know if Cheryl had also observed the vision he had witnessed, and he didn’t really seem to care. Jack’s demeanour was noticeably different now. His sheathed sword was strapped to his back, he was void of expression, he was walking with a strut like a man with confidence and purpose, and he didn’t say a word or even look at Cheryl until he arrived beside her horse, ready to go.

‘Yeah, I’ve ridden before,’ He tells her, ‘so let’s get this show on the road.’

It was getting a little hard to breathe. Thin air, high altitude, her speed which hadn’t decreased in any way, her idiocy – there was a wonderful variety of reasons to choose from.

With a mental, exasperated sigh, Erised got rid of the gravity-defying organ. The leftover desire from the change channelled through her form, hollowing her bones. The changes were subtle, almost unnoticeable, but Erised felt it all. Lighter, streamlined. Her form seemed to fit the skies somehow. Against her back, two skeletal fingers poked through her shirt and in a manner that was gruesome and not quite painless, burst out in a rush. The rest took place in a split second: meat rolled out over bone, then crimson red feathers fluffed out, spreading until they ended in jet black tips. Her shirt was agreeable to the change, shifting to adjust to the extra limbs.

While all this took place, her body had slowed to a stop in its ascent. Gravity reclaimed its hold on her and, with a slight tug, she was falling. Slowly, and then quicker as speed gave her a nudge and the planet’s surface jogged towards her. Jogging, not rising steadily, because its pitifully weak gravity was the cause of Erised’s blunder in the first place. If it wasn’t for the wind stealing her breath away, she would’ve given a haughty sniff.

The dragons were circling idly above the village. A brief reprieve from raining hell on the humans? No, their desires still sang of bloodlust. They weren’t tired. They were waiting for their chance to strike again. Somewhere along their thirst for blood, something else pulsed strong in their hearts.

Serve the king.
Orders.
Orders.

How boring. Erised fell headfirst, wings folded, form straight as an arrow. With both hands on the hilt, she pointed her sword straight down and braced for impact. Not a moment too soon – the sword plunged into the neck of one of the unsuspecting circling dragons.

‘Fuck!’

That’s what she’d had in mind, anyway. In reality, the sword snapped in two, splintering at the tip, and she smashed into the dragon’s neck. Pain shot up her arms as she bounced off unyielding scales and slipped right off the dragon's neck, into open air. She watched as the dragon above her opened its maw, resigned.

‘Fucking figures the sword's a loser too.'

Ice – ice? – shot towards her and she ducked out of the way with a quick flap of her wings. The attack, never stopping, followed her and with a click of her tongue, she looped up and over the dragon. What a bother. Sparing a side glance, she flicked her fingers. The attack stopped, a garbled choke escaped the dragon and then red burst out of it, piercing through its chest and back. If anyone bothered to look closely, they would see that the red matter resembled the sword she'd previously attempted to use.

'Really? I thought dragons were supposed to be strong,' said Erised. The red matter vanished unceremoniously. Desire had no use lingering in the physical plane.

DIE HUMAN.

The two other dragons hadn't bothered watching their comrade fall; they charged at her with enraged roars and she stayed where she was, hovering. She lifted a hand and flicked her fingers. Like before, desire burst out of their bodies, though this time it pierced through their chests and backs as simple spikes. They fell. She watched, disinterested, then redirected her gaze to her palms. Her flippant demeanour from earlier was all but gone.

'Still got it,' she murmured.

It was so easy. Destroying. Killing. She flexed her hands. Taking over this world, setting hell on these people, all of it would be so, so easy. She hardly needed to lift a finger to kill everyone in an instant. The hilarious part was that it wouldn't even matter - she could find another world just like this and do it all again. Here, she knew no one, didn't even know the local language. None of them mattered. They shouldn't.

She grit her teeth.

'Guess you'll be here a while, huh?'

Before she could tell the memory to piss off - and really, a mini-flashback, how delightfully cliché - a distant whinny caught her attention. She glanced back down to the mess below. Fire still blazed in the little town. The marketplace was basically a free bonfire at this point, thanks to all the ancient ass, flammable structure. Where the hell had she landed herself in? The place was outdated.

Provided nothing had interrupted their descent, the ice dragon would have crashed in the forest on the edge of the village and the other two smack-dab in the middle of the town, atop the marketplace where they smothered the flames somewhat. Not too far from where the ice dragon had crashed, a thick trail of ice had broken through the forest's canopy, probably from the ice dragon's earlier attack. However, all this Erised skimmed over with a disinterested eye to look at the stables, currently in ruins. Another distant whinny sounded and Erised bristled. Her horse! Bet or no bet, she was getting that horse. Abandoning thoughts of world annihilation for the moment, she sped over to the stables. The fire hadn't spread there, thankfully, and the stables weren't as ruined as she thought. At least the roof hadn't collapsed. There was another dragon nearby; it didn't seem to be with the boring human-siding dragons so she ignored it. Landing roughly in front of the stables, she stumbled in and her expression immediately soured.

'Oh. You guys.' The unreasonably powerful kid and the big guy who'd come to get defence earlier. She didn't bother asking why they were there - the remains of brain and shattered bone splattered on the ground along with the limp body they'd belonged to filled her in well enough. No matter. She was here for the horse. She'd been content enough seeing these two obvious protagonists on the sidelines but crossing their paths directly, and twice, stirred an uneasy filling in her gut. Coincidences proved to be otherwise far too often.

The horse was still where she'd last seen it and significantly less composed. Great. Erised's chances of befriending animals were always abnormally low, but now they were nonexistent with the horse already freaked out.

'Hey, uh, either one of you a natural with animals?' she said. ''Cause it would be great if you could calm her down and then I'll be on my merry way.'

---

There was a stretch of forest that rounded the back of the village, before the trees petered out and sloped up into the mountain Secor called home. Getting down the mountain quickly had been easy enough for Secor; now he crouched among the top branches of a sturdy tree, peering out at the scene before him in amazement. The human village was doing its best to turn into a pile of ashes. Fearing for their lives, the humans scattered in a mad frenzy. Some retreated back into their houses, while most ran blindly away from the epicentre of the traitors' attack.

So far he had gathered that the situation centred around a female human hatchling, protected by a bigger male human. The human hatchling was most likely important, considering the traitors involved, but for what reason Valen couldn't fathom. The most alarming thing he heard amidst the chaos was the startled shout of 'ARIST!' - he'd stiffened where he was, instinctively ducking down even though he had no need to. An Arist? Here? How? He must have misheard. Reluctantly, he peered through the branches again. No, that was an Arist alright. He bristled, barely holding back a confused growl. He'd have to alert the clan and they'd have to set up a guard post. An Arist was no joke. Especially not when they were supposed to be extinct.

But this one wasn't doing much else, aside from attacking one of the traitors. Secor narrowed his eyes. He'd observe a little more before making any decisions.

'Secor!'

Alarm rushed through him a second time. Foliage rustled and he looked down as one of his floret wyvern neighbours came into view. Though her flowerlike mane and tail resembled some of the plant life around them, that was about where the similarity ended. Her spread of gold and back feathers made her stand out like wild mana in a pitch-black cave. He wasn't any better but at least he could take care of himself in a pinch.

'Haila!' he responded sharply. 'You shouldn't be here. It's dangerous.'

'I'm on my Wander. Secor, I saw the human village burning. Isn't there anything we can do?'

Wandering now, of all times? There couldn't have been a worst time to pick. Secor didn't know the details of the florets' rite of passage for their young but he did know that there was an unspoken rule not to interfere with wherever their floret neighbours chose to go. It was an etiquette that wasn't making his job any easier at the moment.

'It's a human village, Haila. The second you show yourself, they'll try their best to kill you. And will probably succeed in doing so,' he added. Some florets were tactically-sound fighters, but Haila wasn't one of them. She was known for her eager optimism; the enemy would rip her into tiny, soft pieces.

As if on cue, his instincts prickled. Not bothering looking up, he leapt down the tree, barreling into Haila and shoving them both aside. A chill ghosted against his back, and then something slammed into the ground behind them. The sound of resounding cracks followed its heels. Growling, Secor got off Haila and looked back, before immediately looking up through the newly-made gap in the canopy. A wall of ice was spread along the area they'd just been in moments before, half-buried into the ground. More concerning, however, was the small figure in the sky.

'No.'

A human with wings wasn't possible. Unheard of. As if hearing his thoughts, a massive red object pierced through the ice-breathing traitor, almost effortlessly. The other two traitors were dispatched similarly after, leaving the human alone in the skies. An unsettled growl rumbled deep in his throat. Haila shifted uneasily next to him.

This was a problem, a massive problem. If humans were harbouring magic this powerful and the Arist were back - and with one right here, they may all be in grave danger. He glanced at Haila and a flash of irritation went through him. If it weren't for her Guardian-cursed Wander...

'How good's your long-distance telepathy?' he sent.

'...I could probably reach the clan from here. What do you want me to send?'

'No. I'm heading back to warn the rest.' He hesitated, then continued. 'You stay here and keep an eye on the human in the sky. If anything develops, tell me. And do not, under any circumstance, engage with it or the traitors.'

Concern radiated from Haila. Secor hoped it was just for the risk her task held and not for the village humans. She had a soft heart and was yet to understand the ways of the humans. On the brighter side... she'd learn them soon enough.

A rumble of agreement escaped her. He started to move off, then paused.

'With heart, Haila,' he sent, and received a burst of surprise.

'With heart, Secor.'

He left without looking back. So began Haila's Wander, by the edge of a burning village.

---

Jack seemed different from the frazzled mess he was before. He didn't even meet her eyes until he was right up in her space. Mood swings and unstable magic; great travel buddy she'd been saddled with.

'Yeah, yeah, let's just go,' she said. It was about time, anyway. Without much fanfare, she slipped the coin pouch into one of Guinea's saddle bags, got on the horse and, assuming Jack followed suit, they were off at a full gallop.

An unlit oil lantern was hooked on Guinea's saddle bag but seeing as tonight was Beckon Season, she wouldn't have need for it. The three moons lit her path well, bathing the surroundings with their glow of pale green, blue and pink. The colours mingled perfectly - blending into each other without quite mixing. Maybe if Cheryl had a mind to appreciate nature, she might have thought it looked nice, but all she wanted now was a thrice-damned bed. The moons just meant she had one less problem to worry about.

Sonarlis, the meatpit of a town it was, was tucked away against a mountain and located a day's travel from the next nearest town. They certainly wouldn't be near any civilisation any time soon, but she'd clear at least part of the journey before finding a good spot to camp out. Jack better had his own bedroll, because there was no chance in hell she was sharing. The road out of Sonarlis was bordered by the forest edge and if one were to look, foliage and shadows would wink back before the tree line. Stare long enough and perhaps something else might look back. With her eyes on the road, Cheryl had to settle for shadows lurking just out of the corner of her eyes. Piper's breath chuffed against her neck every other moment. The steady rhythm of Guinea's hooves beating the dirt grounded her. With Guinea being one of the speedier breeds, Cheryl imagined they'd be able to cover quite a bit of ground before settling for the night.

If she pretended that no one else was in the saddle with her, it almost felt like a non-crappy night.

Sonarlis was a mess. Fire. Screaming townsfolk. Animals wailing. Blood. Death. Dragons. The stench of roasting flesh, wood and fabrics. And the feeling of something epic taking place, as if he was, once again, part of something really, really big. Boris was very happy. Not so much because of all that death and destruction, or even the sense that something very important was taking place, but because - as the very honourably looking dragon took up position nearby - the little Girl, Hannah, slipped her hand into his again. She liked Boris a lot, Boris could tell. He smiled kindly down at her. She was so small, such a fragile little thing, that her hand was practically raised overhead to keep hold of his. But it was pretty soon after taking his hand that her own attention was taken, and it directed Boris to events taking place in the sky.

Boris looked. He smiled. He watched, expression first overcome by familiarity, because even though the person was too high in the sky to make out properly, he knew who it was. It was that other little girl he had recently met. She was up there with the very mean dragons, and she was doing amazing stuff. Plus, she was flying, and that made Boris smile even more. It wasn’t the first time he had seen a human fly, but he found it fun anyway.

Eyes twinkling with delight, he watched the spectacle like a child looking up at a rollercoaster during his first ever trip to an amusement park. Soon afterwards, as the final mean dragon fell from the sky, he grinned down at Hannah who was now holding a mutual expression of excitement, and told her, 'I sure do wish I had wings, don’t you, little miss?' Regardless of all the chaos and death, her childlike disposition shown with a giggle.

They both then continued to watch, and the honourable dragon too, as the flying girl descended quickly and landed by the stables. Boris frowned, thinking that if it had of been him flying around like that, he would have roosted on the roof – like a rooster!

He chuckled.

The girls comment, “Hey, uh, either of you a natural with animals? Cause it would be great if you could calm her down and then I'll be on my merry way", got nothing at all from Boris. He continued staring at her, but now in a kind of dumb fashion while Hannah receded, her grip on Boris fastening as she tucked herself away and peeked out from behind his tree-trunk thigh. Her sudden apprehension was however not for fear of the other girl, but instead on account of the dragon as it turned in all its majestic appeal upon its gruesome perch to face Erised.

With head held high, its unconscientious dignity was undeniable, enough to strike a sense of admiration in anyone, like some variety of transcending virtue. Despite all that had taken place, it was in that moment that even the townsfolk slowed in their terror and started to look back to observe the wondrous sight of a species – nay, a legend, once thought of as extinct, now come to life in all its heart-thumping prowess.

Bauble, an Arist dragon still of youthful age, stood at around three meters at the shoulders. Like all Arist, he had six main extremities; four legs and a set of wings, though his front feet clearly doubles as hands with opposable talon grips. His scales seemed to shimmer and change colour like the always changing reflection of a water’s surface, projecting shades of his surroundings in contrast to the delinquent slate-grey pigment of his scales. His wings too held a similar instability in their colouring, though for the moment they were tucked away and flattened to the contours of his ridged back. With the colour of his short, youthful jaw horns fluxing from blood-red to altering shades of dull blue, and the dark of his eyes murky with mists of cherry-pink, he stared down his nose at Erised.

The visual contact with Erised lasted but an intense moment. He seemed to be reading her. Glaring right into her soul – before one eyebrow perked up and his body shifted to turn and look away. He descended the dead dragon and walked just a few purposeful steps towards the burning ruins of town. He stopped. Like a cat catching sight of a sneaky mouse, his head lowered, eyes narrowing, seemingly observant of everything around him as a resonating tone, like that of a dull hum, caused everything around to tremble. Even the air seemed to vibrate. His torso inflated. His nostrils flared. His wings ruffles – and then at once, as though he were the center of an explosion, a shockwave expelled from his body as his torso deflated. It swept across the city, through everyone and across the land, and changed everything it made contact with: The fires were extinguished. The carcasses of the dead dragons, even the one that lay mangled far away on the mountainside, turned to dust and disseminated on contact with the wave of energy. In the following instant everything was calm, like the burst of power had in it a drug to subdue all life, like every problem in the world had been cast aside, as though the universe itself had been calmed. Including Erised’s horse.

All was still.

Boris in that same moment was struck with a subdued feeling. He felt light on his feet, his thoughts clear of any trouble or concern. It reminded him of the effects that alcohol had on him. He even swayed a little as Hannah’s grip loosened. She too was taken by a sense of overwhelming submission.

In the short time to follow, as the calmed and awestruck townsfolk began to gather in watch from a distance, Bauble turned back, glanced auspiciously at Erised's now calm horse, shifted to concentrate his virtue on Erised, and then he spoke. Yet not with a voice born of his mouth or throat. His mouth remained closed. The words were undoubtedly emanating from his person - like telepathy, but aloud, vocal; a deep reverberation that took the various forms needed to create words. It was like listening to the deep notes of a base guitar if it could speak:

'Your aura is strange, Eri…. I do not know what you are, but you seem too arrogant for your own good.' He paused, tilting his head in deep thought and further observation of her. 'So many colours. But so much grey.' His countenance than shifted to indicate a change of topic. 'Though the king is no more than the filth that accumulates at the corner of a troll’s mouth, he is nevertheless dangerous. He will be after you now. He will come. For you. His men. His witch whores. Their magic’s. Be aware.'

While Erised would not have been familiar with the audible language he spoke - the deep tones of his audio present only for the sake of others listening - Bauble transcended his meaning past the physical for her. It came through seemingly submerged beneath the vibrations of his words, yet in the very clear form of distinct and finely tuned levels of excitations, impressions, and depressions - refined notes of desire; feelings; emotions - what to Bauble was spiritual understandings, language, or even what could have been considered nothing but variations of energy, but a language that to Erised would have been just as easily understood as the spoken words were to the others listening.

Meanwhile, Haila, watching on from her position beyond the town, would have received the same message, only she would have heard an additional message spoken at a variance to be heard by her ears alone:

'Don’t be foolish, Haila. Listen to your brethren. Stay back. Humans cannot be trusted. Only family.'

At the same time, and although the now subdued townsfolk were listening on, it was not the message to Erised that they heard. They did not hear what Haila heard, either. They heard their own singular message from the Arist:

'You have seen me now. I will not hide from your eyes any longer. Spread the word if you must. No doubt you will. But know that I intend your kind no harm. For what good is a whip without understanding? You know not what you do, and I will not hold ignorance accountable.'

Once the first range of messages were delivered – Boris and Hannah, so far hearing only the message to Erised – Bauble shifted his glare to Hannah, and sending forth vibrations on a level that only they and Erised could hear, said, 'The king lusts for you. He lusts for the great power you yield, as he no less lusts for your flesh in the most despicable way. You will need protection. You will need to hide. Or kill him.'

As he finished speaking, Bauble changed. His entire body took on the many pigments of his surroundings. He was seen as nothing more than vapour, a mirage of his former self as he headed towards the tree line to leave.

Boris was impressed by all that the dragon had done, mostly by the way he just made the dead dragons disappear, but he didn’t pretend to understand what the dragon had said to Hannah. Not exactly, anyway. But he received a notion of what the dragon might have meant, and that notion wasn’t good at all. He was angered by it. He would have spoken out right there and then, said something to show just how much he desired to protect Hannah - had Hannah herself not spoken up before he got the chance.

'That’s not even true!' She spat, jerking her hand from Boris’s grip as she stepped boldly towards the retreating dragon, 'That king… THAT king!' She raised her voice, quivering with emotion, 'Doesn’t matter who he is – because he won’t get me. He won’t get me, DRAGON! I’m not scared at all, not of you, and not of any king, either! Because my dad will kill him, you just wait and see!!'

The faint form of Bauble paused to turn its head back and regard the child, poising motionless long enough to say, 'I have seen your vision. Your father is too far from here to come.'

'STOP!' She screamed.

Bauble did not stop, he did not regard her again. He said nothing and continued on his way. Hannah looked back to Boris. She looked to Erised. Her expression now one of destitution, like a child abandoned, not knowing which way to turn.

'Please, help me….' She began to cry, tears welling in her pleading eyes, jaw shaking in raw trepidation, 'I don’t know where I am….'

---

After receiving the bad news from his wizard, King Eor fetched a concubine. Across half the castle grounds and up into his concubines bed chamber he dragged the teen naked by her hair, tied her to the bed, disrobed himself, and then proceeded to whip her legs with a plaited leather rope. With each stroke she screamed for mercy and got none. Every strike became harder, more vicious, increasing the kings excitement until her thighs were torn, swollen and purple. Her screams had become mute. But everybody knew. His guards. His servants. His wife. His royal counsel. They were not deaf. The castle became quiet as all that remained to be heard was the continuing lashes against tendered, blooded flesh echoing thought the kingdom.

Eventually he had to stop, not from lack of will, but just because he no longer had the physical stamina to continue. He was sweating, exhausted as he stared down at the half-conscious girl – her breath wheezing - his own breath laboured as he pushed out words with each exhale;

'Arist… do not… live… and alas they live….' His rage, so incensed, appeared to almost pop his eyes from their sockets as he continued; 'They humiliated… your king. You hear me… wench? They humiliated… me….' He wanted to give her one more lash of the rope, but his arm was too heavy to respond. 'That… is what they did…. That barbarian… that flying bitch… the arist…. They will... they will pay…. They will all be killed. And I will have… that little whore… to myself… her… her power… her untainted flesh… it will all be…. Mine.'

As yet another tear of so many broke away from her eye, the young concubine forsook her own life to reply to the king in a whisper:

'The God of life is just. You will perish in great pain.'

As blood flowed from a new gash in the girls neck and the last spark of life escaped the windows to her soul, the king left the bedchamber without first dressing himself, and descended to the basement where he met with his wizard once again. The wizard stood to greet his king, but kept his eyes to the floor as not to view the kings’ nakedness.

'Forget the dragons,' announced the King, 'it is time to do things the old fashioned way!'

---

The three moons were unreal, in any sense of the word. Well, the whole world was, needless to say, fantastic – but the moons this night, they added such an enchanting essence that it felt like he and Cheryl were galloping upon the spawn of a supernatural steed through a high-fantasy world created by CGI in Hollywood studios. It was overwhelming. Beautiful. Frightening.

Jack was a good deal taller than his companion, which meant that he had a good view all round, even to the front where he could peer down the road, over Cheryl’s head, but at the same time - despite the surrounding wonders - being crunched up behind this odd individual made the whole situation a tad awkward. Fortunately, Jack didn’t really get put off by the standard human feelings of discomfort, or even fears. He recognised them for what they were and set them aside, so it wasn’t long before the awkwardness faded like all emotions that weren’t fed and nurtured. Though remaining alert and on guard in this alien world, he relaxed well enough and enjoyed the ride.

Overall, he didn’t speak, and didn’t find the need to. It was what it was, at least for now. When not admiring the view, and when not suppressing the genital response to a bumpy ride, his mind was deep in thought, reflecting on the events taken place: The sword, the old hag he had met, the blacksmith who apparently didn’t even forge his sword but was told to give it to Jack anyway. And then there were these powers? And visions? All these new abilities he now seemed to have – what the fuck was all that about? There were so many things that made little sense, yet he knew that somehow it would all piece together in the end. Life was like that. Of course, the one thing that plagued his thoughts the most was Hannah; the vision he had back at the blacksmiths, the giant man she was with, the dragons, the burning town. His daughter had been there …or was going to be there. Somehow. In some way. And in a way, regardless of needing to keep moving and following the instruction of what information was being provided thus far, it felt like he was moving away from the only connection he had made with her since arriving in this world. It felt wrong, like seeing your child waiting on the side of the road in the shady side of town, but driving away without picking her up.

It wasn’t until a good half hour into the journey with Cheryl that Jack, seeing that the three moons were no doubt getting lower in the sky, finally broke the silence:

'I’d say it’s gonna be getting about as dark as a bears hibernating ass soon. And I’m getting tired. I don’t think I’ve slept in two days. Probably best we stop when the moons sleep. I won’t be trusting this place in the dark. And another thing….' He continued speaking, even though he felt himself to be saying too much, 'Does the name "Hag", as in "old Hag", mean anything special around here? Maybe a witch? The blacksmith mentioned one to me, apparently my sword came from one. I also saw her, the hag, right before I received a vision of my daughter in Sonarlis. It might have been the past, maybe the future. Don’t know. But I know she’s been there. Hannah. Don’t know how I saw what I saw, just that I saw it.' He was hoping the description of the vision would ring a bell with Cheryl. 'There were dragons attacking. The town was on fire. Hannah was being protected by a big dumb looking bastard of a man. And there was a dragon being referred to as… uh, Artist? Arist? Something like that. If that means anything to you as well?'

Jack felt he had misplaced his words. Like he shouldn’t have been so forthcoming with Cheryl in that moment – or even that he should have spoken up at all - but hoped at least the description would pay off in some way. He tucked back a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. Now that he had expressed it all in words, he feared for his daughter’s life more than ever.

Not that anything he had just said mattered much anymore. Every word seemed to have gone to waste the instant he saw someone standing on the road ahead.

It was a young woman, maybe in her early twenties - not standing in the middle of the road, but to the side enough to allow them passage. She looked a mess. Short, thin, slouched and grubby, like some sort of feral forest dweller. She was dressed in a sleeveless rough spun tunic, her light shoulder-length hair frayed and tangled. Her hands were loose, open, empty, no visible weapons on her person, no apparent baggage. No shoes. She stood still, only her head turned slowly as she watched them approach, and gave an exaggerated wink clear enough for them both to see as they passed by.

Jack looked back, curious, and admittedly a little spooked.

She was not pursuing.

‘Weird-ass feral.’