[IC] Ex Nihilo

[Stanifly]

🄴🅁🄸🅂🄴🄳

Erised hadn't been expecting a response from the duo, so it was unsurprising when the big oaf stared dumbly at her and the kid shied away. Desire shifted behind her. She looked over her shoulder, only turning around when she realised the dragon sitting on a human-siding dragon carcass had moved towards her. The show of power that followed...surprised her. She refused to be intimidated.

It had felt like restraint, a lingering, disgusting taste of suppression washing over her. Gross. It didn't burn, however, so she could assume that the dragon couldn't manipulate restraint itself.

Then it spoke. Of all the creatures that could've spoken her language, it was a dragon. Weirdly too. Kind of like when she spoke to souls in the sixth plane. Could he do that too? Was that how she knew her name? Also who the hell did he think he was, nicknaming her the second they met? The questions were quickly discarded when the dragon's words registered. Her expression twisted into ugly fury; her wings flared up, bristling.

'Gre-' she started, only to shut her mouth when the dragon had the audacity to talk over her, turning his gaze to the kid. Some exposition followed - seriously, what kind of cliche Chosen One shit was this - and a beat after the kid yelled at the dragon to stop, Erised yelled out, 'I'm not grey, y'bitch lizard! You're the one who tastes like it!'

Grey. Grey. Grey meant restraint. Grey was the robot. Grey wasn't Erised. Erised burned a fiery, hot red and she wore the damn colour like a badge. This stupid dragon must've been colourblind. What, was he hit in the head as a child-baby dragon-whatever. The only being to actually understand her in this place and it was some dipshit, colourblind prick!

'And I can still see you,' she said. 'Think you magically disappeared like some cool, wise-ass magical beast? Jokes on you, you're just walking away like a loser!'

By seeing him, she did not mean visually, but his desire burned bright as day just as everyone else's did. In a moment of spite, she took a better look at his more base desires - to move, to breathe - and the desire she sensed vaguely resembled his silhouette. Not that anyone would know what exactly she saw, so it ended up being a slightly pathetic, petty show of power for herself.

'Dick,' she muttered under her breath for good measure. Slowly, she took in a deep breath, crossed her arms and then exhaled. Right then, out of the corner of the eye, she noticed a pair of watery, wide eyes staring at her. She looked at the kid.

'Please, help me... I don't know where I am...'

Oh, hell no.

'Kid, I don't know where the hell I am. You get used to it.' When the kid only continued to cry, discomfort crept over Erised and she turned on her heel, shoving gloved hands into her pant pockets. 'Big guy here will take care of ya. See you around never.'

She meant it. Just, what the hell? She'd only just got here and the dimension was already trying to get rid of her. Magic: big, fat red flag. She could deal with random powers, genetic mutations, sci-fi bullshit, weird ass phenomenons - but specific magic with witches who knew how to use said specific magic was very, very bad. There wasn't any reason to add to the pile by associating with who was obviously a main protagonist. She stomped back towards the stables, ignoring the gawking townspeople. Let them stare. Any plans of blending into the background was shot to bits at this point, thanks very much, lizard. She was booking it out of here. Her horse was stood in its stall, calm - right, hadn't the dragon done...something? - but as Erised neared, it snorted, shifting its hooves uneasily.

'Come on, Bessie,' said Erised placatingly. She reached out to the horse, slowly. 'It's-'

It bit her. To clarify, it jerked its head forward, not unalike how a snake would strike, and clamped its teeth down on her hand, right up to her wrist. Erised shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

Then howled, with a few pleasant profanities peppered in.

She stomped back out the stables, shaking her arm as her gloved hand reformed itself (it had been a lot easier to replicate a new one than to pry open the horse's mouth).

'Fine!' she grit out to the kid and the oaf. The dimension was already treating her like shit - might as well kick its timeline's ass sideways. 'You wanna know where you are, kid? Then let's find out. You can take the damn horse-' Her words stuttered to a stop. 'Wait, did you just speak Wurld?'

---

HAILA

An Arist was in the village and Secor had said nothing about it. Haila released an indignant chuff from where she sat in the branches of another sturdy tree. An Arist sighting was a big deal, not something to be skimmed over!

Then again, they had been in somewhat of a hurry to get the clan ready for everything unbelievable that was happening right now, so maybe there hadn't been enough time to stop and tell her. Still.

'Could you warn me about the return of an extinct species next time?' she sent to Secor.

'We're not involved. Keep your head down and don't attract attention. Status update on the winged human?'

'Yes, she's landed.' Haila dipped her head. 'It's a human hatchling.'

'That makes it worse. Human hatchlings wouldn't know how to wield that kind of power.'

'I-Secor, they're talking.'

'Who are?'

'The Arist, with the winged human hatchling and the other two humans the traitors were chasing. They-'

Another voice broke into the conversation, rumbling in the space she resided in.

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

She stilled. Her body didn't move. Not a single twitch in her wings or tail. A distant part of her laughed at her state. How ridiculous, a dragon scared into submission. The wyvern stayed quiet, even as she relaxed with every passing second.

There had been no creature nearby, human or dragon.

'Haila? Haila!'

'I think the Arist spoke to me.' She cocked her head. 'He...gave me advice?'

'Haila,' and oh no, there was a warning tone to Secor's voice now, 'steer clear. Don't get any ideas.'

'Me? Never. I'll send you updates if there are any more.' She tuned out of the long-distance channel. Then, eyes still on the winged human hatchling, she sought out the Arist's mind. Should she achieve this, she planned to ask, 'I've been told of the untrustworthiness and inherent evil of humans many times, but no dragon seems to want to explain why they are so. Will you?'

In the meantime, she watched the three different humans of interest. Her heart ached at the thought of the next steps her clan may take.

The winged human was only a hatchling.

---

CHERYL LUSBY

The ride so far had proven to be surprisingly peaceful. Even when Jack finally spoke up, his first few sentences were reasonable. Relatable, even. Then he decided to unload more weird alien meat, except this time what he was chattering on about wasn't quite so alien.

'And there was a dragon being referred to as… uh, Artist? Arist? Something like that. If that means anything to you as well?'

Cheryl sucked in a breath. Blew it out. Then jammed her elbow back into his direction.

'Yes, that does mean something to me,' she said airily, as if nothing had happened between question and answer. 'It means you're somehow connected to one of the most powerful dragon breeds in Nihilo. One that can kill all three of us quite easily. Thanks for that.'

The night just kept getting better, didn't it?

She mulled over his words, trying to make sense of them with a bleary mind. As such, the girl they passed by was disregarded completely. Shortly after, the forest on their right thinned out into untamed fields that stretched into the distance, while the one on their left thickened. The trees there became taller, their trunks thicker, and the gaps between them wider. A monstrous forest to hide monstrous creatures indeed.

There was no end to Jack's strange nature. Perhaps Cheryl would have dismissed his vision as a part of his alien abilities, if it weren't for the fact that elements of his story sounded familiar indeed. A dragon attack in Sonarlis... His daughter... The Arist. One Arist.

The inklings of a suspicion stirred.

'There was a dragon attack in Sonarlis,' she said, after a while. 'A long time ago. Before I was around, anyway. You never mentioned how old your daughter is - or did you? Whatever, I don't care - but I remember that there was a kid caught up in all that ruckus.' She shook her head. 'Don't really know what happened to her but lotsa folks say that she came back as the most feared witch around. Buncha dragon meat, if you ask me. Nobody survives an Arist. But that doesn't matter.' She pulled on the reigns and Guinea trotted to a stop with an agreeable gurgle. Without further chat, she slid off the saddle, then pinned Jack with a tired look.

'The Old Hag's connected to that witch. So I'd say we're all in the dragon-damned fire. Again, thanks for that.'

So that was who the cloaked figure in her house had come from. Jack had mentioned that Piper's life, specifically, was in danger too, hadn't he? Danger, danger. There was always danger. Finding money, danger. Surviving, danger. Mourning, danger. It felt like someone was constantly breathing down her neck, waiting for the moment she let her guard down to snap it.

...She really needed to sleep. Luckily, they'd arrived at their destination. That was to say, a stopover on the way to their destination. A little ways away from them stood a rundown wooden shack, with flimsy, mouldy boar skin covering the opening that served as its front door. The grass around it was no less untamed than the rest of the wild fields, wiggling irrationally as the tips of each grass blade gravitated to the bugs in the soil. She'd passed the structure in all her visits back home and it only seemed to look worse every time she saw it.

'We'll camp in there for the night,' she said. 'It's been abandoned for a long time so don't expect anything too comfy. But this close to a dragon grove, some shelter is better than none at all.'

The dragon grove mentioned was the forest on the left side of the path which had been steadily thickening and growing taller in the last ten minutes of their ride. At this point, the trees stretched up to a good 50 metres. A few steps beyond the tree line, foliage glinted in the moons' light, but the yawning gaps between trees remained pitch black. Cheryl spared it no glance; looking into dragon groves at night just wasn't a healthy practice.

Once again, Cheryl was thankful for Beckon Season - a cloudless night almost guaranteed no rain. The many holes in the shack's roof wouldn't have been kind in wet weather. It wasn't terribly big, but it was enough to fit the two of them with plenty of space apart. Having always travelled to Sonarlis in daylight, Cheryl had never seen a use for it but it would come in handy now. Good thing nobody lived here.

'Why, 'ello, young 'un!' said an old man as he stepped out of the shack. He had a cheery, tooth-gapped grin, with only a ragged union suit on. His scalp was bare, save for the few strands of long, grey hair plastered against it. 'Come to spend the night here?'

Cheryl took a very deep breath.

'I thought nobody lived here,' she said, and very politely did not say, 'Why the horse dung would you pick such a shitty place to live in?'

'Why, it's such a lovely place t'stay in, young 'un! Plenty'a space, plenty'a food-'

'Plenty near a dragon grove.'

'Exactly!'

A nutcase, then. She was attracting every single one of them tonight, it seemed.

'Ah, but where are my manners? Y'must'a travelled a long way, young 'un. That mountain village's a pain in the neck, ain't it? Me wife's asleep, but I'm sure she won't mind a bit!' The old man beckoned, taking small steps back to the shack as he did. 'We got the space!'

'You most definitely do not,' she muttered, but the old man was already disappearing back into the shack. A beat later, he poked his head out again.

'Me name's Rennard! Two Ns,' he stressed, then disappeared once more.

Well. At the very least Rennard didn't seem averse to Piper, who was practically a beacon of white wrapped around her neck. Cheryl glanced at Jack.

'You don't like sharing, you can sleep outside,' she said, matter-of-fact. She didn't mind if he chose to do just that. Actually, she hoped he would. Maybe something big and hungry would eat him up and he wouldn't be her problem anymore.

[Hokum]

---

Jack

Was this girl even aware of the implications she was making? Jack was dumbfounded. He slipped down off Guinea, top lip curled in contempt of the words proceeding from Cheryl's mouth:

“Before I was around.”

“She came back as the most feared witch around.”

“The old Hag’s connected to that witch.”

You mean my daughter? He was thinking, She was here before you were even born? She is now a witch that everyone is scared of? She’s tied in with that Hag I just met at the blacksmiths? My own now very old daughter is a witch? So I’m several decades too fucking late – is that what you are standing there telling me, you stupid apathetic fff….

Jack had to turn away, if only for a moment to maintain his composure. While Cheryl continued ranting, apparently about the shack now, he glared across the road at the massive trees of the adjacent forest. Just glaring in anguish over the possibilities surrounding his daughter. But his glare turned into a suspicious squint when he thought he caught sight of movement between two tree trunks near the edge of the road. In that moment - a very short moment - he thought he also saw two small beady white eyes flash back at him.

His body shuttered. Goosebumps dabbed his arms. He turned his head to look down the road in the direction they had come, in a fleeting instant considering that maybe the feral girl he had seen back there was actually in need of help. He discarded the though with a small shake of his head before turning back to Cheryl, who was now conversing with some old guy who had apparently appeared from inside the shack. Jack listened to their conversation carefully. Considered the situation. At last, when Cheryl turned and made some ridiculous comment about sharing (presumably with her) or sleeping outside, he wondered which one it actually was: That this girl was out of her mind - cuckoo - or just the dumbest bitch he’d ever met.

‘You can’t be fucking serious?’ He finally spoke. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? Moons twisted your brain or something, lady?’ He looked at the shack, looked back at Cheryl. Shook his head with disbelief. ‘I’ve seen some naïve twats in my time, but are you seriously believing a word this old fart has to say?’ He threw his arms out to the side in an exasperated why-would-I-even-bother fashion, and then had to point out the obvious just in case she missed it. “Take a look around, Sherlock. Is there anything, ANYTHING at all in this place - in this very moment and time - that you even feel at all comfortable with? We pass some crazy possibly-escaped-lunatic on the road a few minutes back, we are now pulled up in front of a creepy-ass forest where two creepy-ass white eyes just looked back at me, we have three – and I repeat THREE,” He held up three fingers for effect; ‘moons hovering in the sky. And you have the bright-spark capacity to trust this old geezer at his word? Do you really, honestly believe that he is in fact just some old guy willing to invite two young strangers into this abandoned shelter to share the night with his aging wife? Your crazy mind sees nothing at all amiss with this situation? Really? Do you even live in this world at all?

Move out of my fuck’n way!’

Jack had his sword out, and it would have been then that Cheryl saw its brilliant steel shimmering in the light of the falling moons, and she would have recognised it - the wavy reflections of its unique colouring - to be that of arist steel, as Jack then moved right past her with a purposeful stride towards the shack.

He soon arrived. Pushed aside the boar skin and stepped past the threshold inside.

Sword at the ready.

Him at the ready.

Ready for anything.

---

𝕭𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕳𝖆𝖓𝖓𝖆𝖍

Bauble had gone without dignifying Erised’s remarks with a response.

Boris was dumb, and his goofy smile was continuing proof of that. His big, ironically brutish baby face had the look of an infant watching a stage show as Erised did her thing.

Hannah, now interested in Erised to the point of forsaking her own despair, watched on intently as well. By time Erised returned with a reforming hand – an aspect that couldn’t really be hidden by a glove – she had her head tilted and cocked, eyes narrowed with the concentration required to absorb Erised’s every move. When Erised offered her the horse, Hannah didn’t know what to say, since she had never been on a horse before. But when Erised finally showed - at least to Hannah - some vulnerability by stammering over her final question, she smiled. She smiled in the way that a girl who possessed the prospect of making a friend her own age in an otherwise scary place would smile.

‘I don’t know what that is,’ She said with a nervous yet hopeful kind of discarding laugh, ‘but I do speak English, if that’s what you mean?’

She took a step forward, glancing again to Erised gloved hand for reference. ‘How did you do that?’

Meanwhile, the townsfolk were becoming uneasy in the visual absence of Bauble, murmuring among themselves, some of them returning their attention to the smouldering ruins of their town. Others sharpening their stare on Erised, Boris and Hannah in an all too familiar where-are-our-pitchforks kind of way.

Boris, on the other hand, now becoming distracted by a thought, retrieved his drawing pad from his backpack. He flipped past a few parchments until arriving at a clean page, and then started scribbling something down with his charcoal pencil, tongue sticking out and writhing with childlike concentration.

---

𝔅𝔞𝔲𝔟𝔩𝔢

Haila’s effort to make contact with Bauble’s mind would have - at least for the immediate few second to follow - failed, as though some dark wall had been raised to prevent her access.

As she continued to watch on at the three humans of interest, nothing nearby that could have distracted her from events taking place in the town, not even the slightest crack of a twig or shift of a shadow – she would have suddenly felt a warm breath on the side of her face, accompanied shortly thereafter by a deep, whispered voice travelling through her head:

‘What are you planning?’

[Stanifly]

HAILA

When breath ghosted over her scales, Haila stilled once more. The Arist was here. Here! With her! Who would've thought she'd be privy to such an encounter in her lifetime, much less than a day into her Wander?

Then the nature of his question registered.

'Nothing! Nothing. Sir. Just observing. Sir.' Slowly, she lowered her head, her mane flattening against her neck in deference.

Perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised. The Arist had reached out to her, despite the distance between them; but even then, she hadn't expected him to approach her directly. Why would she? She'd been doing nothing but watching the scene in the human village play out.

'Why did you help them?' she sent, in a fleeting moment of boldness. 'You killed a traitor to protect the human hatchling.'

---

🄴🅁🄸🅂🄴🄳

'English, Wurld, whatever, it's the same to me,' said Erised, ''S'long as I understand it.'

The only human who she could understand and it was a kid. Typical. At least the kid hadn't broken down crying because of her swearing. Or freaked out about her wings. That would've been annoying.

Actually, the kid seemed to be calmer than she'd expected, considering everything that had happened. Not to say that Erised wasn't glad the kid wasn't in hysterics, but that was a quick recovery. The perks of being a protagonist, she supposed. Or maybe the human kids around here were just plain weird. Who the hell knew with this place?

'Nature,' she said, in response to the kid's question. The desires of the people around them rumbled - and not in a pleasant manner. Ungrateful bunch. Erised was not in the mood for running, or flying in a hurry, out of this village. Maybe if the horse hadn't decided that swallowing her whole was a great pastime, she wouldn't have minded. As it was, the kid and the oaf would be the ones enjoying a nice ride on good ol' Bessie while Erised worked her wings. Irritation flickered through her. She didn't even need to run.

'Hey, you speak their language, right?' said Erised to the kid, gesturing to the townspeople lingering around. 'And you're real good at being demanding, screaming left and right. Do me a favour and translate for me to the good people here, will ya?' Turning to their audience, she lifted a fist to her mouth and cleared her throat, dramatically loud.

'Right, she's a kid. Gotta keep it PG. Wait, shit, I always get long-winded with these things, does she have the attention span to keep up? Better keep it short. Two sentences then. Maybe three? ...This is gonna get real awkward if I don't say something soon.'

'Piss off,' she announced. With a flick of her fingers, desire popped into the physical plane - long, thin spikes that hovered in the air between them and the townspeople, wavering threateningly. 'Or die. Ungrateful shits.'

A little too short for her taste, but it'd be a waste of breath to launch into a spiel of intimidation when they couldn't understand half the things she said. Or all of it, in this case.

Movement caught her attention and she glanced over at the big oaf, who was scribbling away in what apparently passed as a notepad here.

'Is now seriously the time? Unbelievable.'

---

CHERYL LUSBY

& PIPER

While Cheryl wasn't known for her expressiveness, she reasoned that much of her reaction could be blamed on extreme exhaustion. That, and the fact that she genuinely hadn't expected Jack to be this much of an arrogant dumbass. She stared, wide-eyed, as he practically blew his top, spewing enough illogic that she considered sensitively, for just one second, that perhaps he was brain-dead. Then he drew his sword and Cheryl - again, she was blaming her tiredness - furrowed her brows in disbelief. What in the fire...? Was that an Arist-based sword? Jack was off before she could take a proper second look, presumably to do something stupid.

With a sigh, Cheryl took hold of Guinea's reigns.

'Come on, girl,' she cooed, petting her along the chin. 'You'd bite a dumbass like him, wouldn't you? Yes, you would.' Guinea choked and snapped her incisors at Cheryl's hand in a show of affection. 'I know, I know, you're a good girl.'

Screams rang out from the shack, male and female alike. Two sole voices - both had that cracking, warbling tone that came with age. They rang clear through the thin, deteriorating walls of the shack.

'Oh, mercy, have mercy!'

'Don't hurt us! Take what you want!'

Ignoring the noise, Cheryl lead Guinea to the side of the shack, instructed her to stay, then fetched her bedroll from the back of the saddle. She placed a hand on the saddlebag, then hesitated.

See, she wasn't a fan of carrying this much money on her. Folks who knew what to look for would easily paint her a target to rob or whatever, and she was not in the mood to deal with more idiots. After a few moments of thinking it over, she made her decision and opened the saddlebag. Once she was done, she closed it and then whistled, a short, familiar ditty.

'Dun wanna,' grumbled Piper. His mental voice was faint, garbling slightly with the weak connection.

'You got to sleep. You take watch.' He shifted once, twice, and then got up, claws digging slightly into her shoulders as his back bunched up into a stretch. His jaws opened wide and his ears folded back, the top of his head flattening into a huge yawn.

'Whatever.' Even as he sent it, he was already hopping onto Guinea's back. He circled, sat, then started gnawing at something between his toes. Satisfied, Cheryl walked to the shack's front opening, her bedroll tucked under her arm. Coming to a stop behind Jack, she peered around his arm. A thoroughly unsurprising scene greeted her, illuminated by Beckon Season's moonlight filtering softly through the gaps in the roof.

The inside of the shack was in no better condition than the outside. Mould spread across the floor in wide swatches and crawled up the walls. Some of the floorboards had fallen through, rotting on damp soil. On the left, there was a stool with a broken leg in the corner nearest to them and a small bookshelf with collapsed shelves along the wall. A half-assed guard post that had been abandoned halfway, Cheryl guessed. The lack of windows was a glaring sign. There were only gaps in the walls where parts of the boards had rotted through.

At first glance it seemed like the one square room took up the entirety of the shack, but there was another opening at the back, barely hidden in the shadows. Seemed like a storage room, big enough for a child to sit in, legs drawn up, but not enough to sleep in, unfortunately.

Resigned, Cheryl returned her gaze to the spectacle in the first room. A crude, unlit campfire was in the middle of the space, sticks neatly arranged on a ring of stones. That was about the only thing neat here. A pile of clothes and knick-knacks seemed to have been tossed against the bookshelf and two thick burlap bedrolls were haphazardly strewn in the back left corner. One old woman sat on one of the bedrolls, sobbing in a faded nightie.

'Please spare us,' she blubbered through tears. 'Oh Lord, we was just trying to provide for ourselves, young man, please.'

'Take what you want!' the old man said for what was probably the fifth time. He was on his knees in front of Jack, hands clutched together in a death grip as he shook them at Jack's feet. 'We have, we have food, we have lots of it, we have money, oh for fire's sake, take the donkey-'

'How will we travel, Rennard?' wailed the woman.

'It's better we live than die over a donkey!'

Other than the random shit scattered about the room, it was pretty clear there was nothing around that could mean ill intent. Having had enough, Cheryl elbowed past Jack.

'Shut. Up.' She did not shout, but she said it with enough meaning that the old couple fell silent. 'We're not here to rob you.' She turned on her heel, squinting up at Jack with utter condescension.

'Turns out that there isn't anyone here moronic enough to camp out in this filthy place-' she pointed to the floor '-across a flaming dragon grove-' she pointed at said grove across the path '-in the slightest chance that they'd get to jump two idiots like us who'd stop right here during Beckon Season. What a flaming surprise.' She dropped her arm. 'Maybe listen to the local next time.' She turned away, not giving one slice of meat what Jack had to say, and looked down at the old man.

'Get up, Rennard,' she said, not unkindly. He scrambled to his feet, but hunched, half-bowing in an act of submission. Cheryl sighed again. 'It's a misunderstanding. Sleep with your wife, we're just here to camp.'

'Oh, thank you, thank you, young 'un, thank ye kindly-'

She tuned out the response. Between the couple's bedrolls taking up a good half of the shack; the bookshelf and the pile of clothes on the left; the campfire in the middle; the broken stool in the left corner nearest the entrance; and all the damned rotting floorboards, the only place stable enough to lie on was right where they stood and the corner on their right. They could throw out the broken stool and have them each take a corner but even then, it wasn't the most spacious situation.

Regardless, she was the one with her bedroll at hand. Quickly - and perhaps irrationally - she tossed it into the corner before Jack could call dibs.

'Piper's keeping watch outside, if you care,' she said over her shoulder. She bent down to untie the bedroll, then hesitated.

She didn't care about his situation. At all. It was an inconvenience and an annoyance, and frankly if it wasn't for all the threats looming over her and Piper, she'd be very happy to leave him. But if she'd connected the dots right...

She was no parent, but the notion of one missing out on their child growing up entirely only reminded her of who she'd lost tonight.

'Think of it this way,' she said, gruffly, without looking at him. Mildly aware of the two other people in the room, she chose her words carefully. 'At least she became someone powerful. She's safe.' Then, because she couldn't resist, ''Course, doesn't mean I'm safe. She could kill me any time I'm no longer useful. Great stuff.'

Awkwardly, the bedroll was rolled out; a sad, lumpy thing. Something else from Jack's earlier rant floated into her thoughts. She frowned.

'Who's Sherlock?'

[Hokum]

𝔅𝔞𝔲𝔟𝔩𝔢

‘Why is a fish judging a crab?’

Bauble’s whispered telepathy resonated through Haila’s head again almost instantly after her second question was complete. Then the following statement became distorted and broken as the telepathic words began to be replaced by an audible voice: ‘None of us should be so quick to point a talon. These humans may not be so very terrible as you think.’ While the message was being delivered, Haila would have seen the air beside her move, first like a mirage coming into view, the moist waves of which then filled with colour and solidified into a person… but not a dragon. The end of the statement was only audible, spoken in the tone of a young human male. Just a teenage boy. He was sitting on a branch of the neighbouring tree.

He was maybe in his late teens to be generous, legs dangling, feet swinging back and forth. His feet were bare, but he wore knee-length tattered green shorts, a dull and collarless buttoned shirt, and a typically mischievous teenage grin. It was incredible, really, the detail of this round-faced lad, right down to the youthful twinkle in his sky-blue eye, the two small pimples on his chin, a few fading freckles on his cheek, and his short, unkempt auburn hair.

He clicked with his tongue and gave Haila a wink, then in one swift movement he was up on his feet. Now standing on the limb he faltered for a moment and swayed, his arms flailed, expression of exaggerated fear; a believable impression of a reckless teen showing off to his crush. Done with his act, he corrected his balance with a second, playful wink and proceeded to walk the length of the limb - heel to toe as if daring a tightrope – and then leaned in on the trunk of the tree, head angling around to peer with sarcastic suspicion at the people gathered in town.

‘And you would know better, all of you would, if you spent more time with them. Like I have…’ Said the teenage human Bauble, turning a shifty, narrow stare to Haila, “…I’m the orphan stable hand.”

Before Haila could reply, Bauble lifted his hands, palms up, and sighed despairingly like a boy who had broken a toy, and then squatting low on the branch he popped his eyes as though he just very well had to tell her a secret he’d been holding onto for years.

He whispered low, ‘Let me show you something….’

Though Bauble did not move or reach out, the following event would have felt invasive to Haila, like a physical hand reaching into her head to place a tangible item in her mind. The item was a memory - a memory suddenly coming back to her, but a memory not her own. In the memory she would have seen a war-torn area of land. The land was mostly ash, houses were burning in the distance, the nearby forest afire. In the middle of this land was a group of powerful human mages. These mages had in the grip of their power three arist dragons, two adults and one infant, pinned to the charred ground by some type of red forcefield. All around and looking on were humans and various breeds of dragon, all of them battered, dirty and bloodied as though they had all been through a battle, and all of them now looking on at what the mages were doing.

It would have soon become clear to Haila that these wicked, powerful mages were torturing the three arist dragons, taking turns as they laughed and enjoyed every second of it. The arist's wailed in agony, calling for help, struggling to break free from the magic field that not only held them there, but prevented them from using magic of their own to defend themselves. Yet, no dragon came forward to try and help. No, not one. Neither did any human step forward - well, there was one. Just one. A human female. Just a hatchling, no older than twelve. The girl's clothes were tattered and stained as she pulled free from her mother’s hand. The dirt on her face – a face that very much resembled that of the human hatchling Haila had been referring to now in town - was cracked with tears. Her sweet, broken voice pleaded and begged for mercy on behalf of the arist's. But the mages did not yield and the child came running and screaming, her tiny fists beating at the arm of the nearest mage who turned to her with a mocking smile. He placed one hand on her head, muttered a curse, and the child fell dead where she stood. Her mother screamed and came running, only to be stopped by a bolt of lightning from the heavens.

Now was when Haila’s implanted memory faded to black. Bauble was still a teen boy, seated on the branch once again, feet no longer swinging. Sorrow was his portrait. He asked her in a solemn, cracking voice:

“Did you see any dragons trying to help me? Did they try and help my mother? My Father? No. They did not….’ A tear welled in Bauble's human eye. ‘Despite the danger. The threat. Only a human girl came. A hatchling.’ He turned his head towards the town. ‘Just like that one.’

With a blink the welled tear vanished. He composed himself. His feet began to swing again.

‘All three dragons, the last of my kind, were said to have died that day. But no…. I survived. So please if you will, Haila, be careful whom your judgements fall upon. I have been living as one of them for quite some time – and I tell you now, dragon, they are not so bad as most would say. They, just like us, fear what they don’t understand.’

---

𝕭𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕳𝖆𝖓𝖓𝖆𝖍

Hannah didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know how to feel. She was so very traumatised – not just by the events over the last day, but also by her own behaviour – that her emotions were taking a rollercoaster ride. For the moment she was on a low, and she did not want to holler or scream as this very strange girl had implied she might. In fact, by the way she was currently feeling, she didn’t even know where those previous outbursts had come from, as she also had no idea about the power she’d apparently been wielding.

For now, and perhaps it was a convenient distraction from the real issues at hand, Hannah was intrigued by this new possible friend of hers - Eri, as the dragon had called her. She leaned with curiosity, hanging on Eri’s every word. She watched carefully as the spikes of some sort of magic appeared in the air between them and the crowd, and then while Eri shifted her attention to Boris she considered - with what appeared to be great concentration - the request that Eri had made. After a moment of careful deliberation, and proceeding a moment wherein her face screwed up like she had bitten into something sour, Hannah called out to the crowd somewhat less aggressively than Eri had probably hoped:

‘You should all go home now.’

She then gave Eri an apologetic look, shrugged one shoulder, and referred to the hovering magical spikes with an apprehensive glance. ‘What are those things?’

Meanwhile, Boris had paid no mind to the look Eri had given him. He was too involved with his drawing to care about anything else, his tongue still protruding and writhing with concentration as he vigorously scribbled away.

There was barely enough time for Eri to respond to Hannah’s enquiry when one of the townsfolk felt daring enough to speak up. It was a man, perhaps 30, dressed like a common farmer, and probably a stall holder to one of the food stands that had just been destroyed in the market. ‘What is it you want with us?’ He called out, pretending not be intimidated by the looming spikes of magic before him. ‘We are just a simple folk! We only want that you leave us alone – you and your… your…’ he glanced at Boris, Hannah again, then glared at the girl he had formerly seen flying around. ‘…you and your brutes and your ungodly wings and your magic! We just want to be left alone. And if you happen upon that flaming king, well you go ahead and tell him I said so too! Just leave us alone! You might think you're tough with… with y-y-y-your - those WINGS and fancy magics – but this wouldn’t be the first time we had to fight off a WITCH like you!’

In response to a brave little spat, many other of the townsfolk were encouraged to step forward, yet while many of them called out in support of the farmer in various ways, the terror in their voices couldn’t be ignored. Some other townsfolk broke off into groups, conspiring in heating whispers, while a few souls took off in search of weapons. It was simple, though; their town had recently been ravaged by the king's dragons, it was likely that many of them had lost a good chunk of their livelihood, and they couldn’t in good conscience just stand by mute while any further threat literally hung in the air.

Boris lifted his head, giving the farmer a sideways glance, then noticing the hovering blades of magic as if to question their existence for a fleeting moment, but still, again, returning to his drawing.

Hannah sighed a certain sigh as she observed the townsfolk's reaction, the sound she sometimes made when realising she’d been mistaken. She pushed some hair back behind her ears and looked around at the encroaching crowd. ‘Stop!’ Her voice was loud again, even louder with the following words, ‘Don’t be stupid, you will die!’ It was like the words themselves were pulling to the surface another burst of heightened emotion, dredging with it an energy that once again frightened her as much as it made her feel like her body was about to explode.

It was hard to ignore the arrays of dark colours fluctuating down the length of Hannah’s arms and into her hands, resulting in sparks and smoke from her finger tips like she was some sort of malfunctioning cyborg. A glow of emerald light shone from her eyes. She levitated several feet above the ground. A dark shadow enveloped her person. The ground started to convulse and shift like the planets seismic plates were suddenly undergoing maintenance.

Boris looked up from his notepad. He finally put it away. He spread his feet to keep balance against the rising tremor. The dragonbone on his back began to glow a deep turquoise hue. Yet he did nothing, for the moment at least - more delighted than anything else, as though he were watching a butterfly break free of its cocoon.

This was more than the townsfolk could bear. What courage they had was swiftly removed. They started scattering like a group of ants suddenly alarmed by a drop of water.

But it was also right then that an old man was present. Whether he had strolled up, or somehow just appeared, could not have been clear to anyone, since nobody knew he was there, yet. But there he was, standing on the road between the misfits and the bridge out of town. The man had a mule. The mule, as traveling merchant mules often were, was laden with all manner of luggage. The old man himself, however, was hunched with what appeared to be pain induced by the burden of too long a life, and leaned most of his meager weight on a cane that wobbled under the strain. The cane had the look of something hewn from the twisted and knotted branch of perhaps the first tree to ever exist. His clothing appeared almost as old; a faded brown cloak that touched the ground, tied about the waist by a fraying rope that was obviously defying the laws of physics by being able to secure anything any longer. His face was sunken, cheek bones almost perforating his dusty, wrinkled skin, while his jaw was jutting forward, chin raised, thick bottom lip pulled up over the top of his mouth and nearly touching the hairy curls extending from the flared nostrils of his long and lumpy nose. His eyes, however, were without doubt the creepiest aspect of the old man. One of them were nearly shut, not on account of squinting, more like it was just being lazy, deciding that it didn’t really care what there was left to see in the world, and wanting no part whatsoever in the shenanigans of his second eye that was rather popped and wily, darting about in a crazed sort of fashion to assess the situation.

Somehow though, the old man was unaffected by the earthquake, his mule too, as he also found the strength to lean back a little, raise his cane, then drive its tip down hard against the crusty surface of the road – a small act of itself that nobody would have noticed, but caused everything to change. And it would have only been then, after the earth stopped shaking, after every townsfolk had vanished, after Hannah dropped to the ground in an unconscious heap, after the glow from Boris’s bone turned off, after the spikes of desire exploded into quickly fading particles of dust, and after the day was snatched away by night and two large moons hung low together in the heavens, that Boris or Erised may have noticed the old man there. If not (which would likely be due to everything else that had just taken place), he cleared his throat to make sure.

Boris didn’t hear the old man clear his throat, neither did he seem to care that the town was quiet, or even that it was night time all of a sudden. He had rushed to Hannah when she fell to the ground. It was only once he had swooped her up, Hannah looking like a tiny doll cradled in his arms, that his pouty expression happened upon the old man.

Due to the land being lit by Azul and Terrariell (the two largest moons of Nihilo hanging close together and symbolising the night after Beckon Season), and the immediate area lit up more so by two street lamps - one beside the stable entrance, the other across the road closer to Boris and Erised - there would have been no problem seeing the old man shuffle very slowly in Erised’s direction, sparing a moment on his tiresome journey to shake his head wearily at Boris, almost as if he were embarrassed by the massive brute. An uncomfortable amount of time later, with the mule keeping pace close behind, the old man came to a halt a few feet from where he had previously been standing, his good eye jittering hard in an effort to keep a glaring focus on Erised as he spat out the words –

‘What are you daft, you hyped up little self-indulgent abomination? After all this time you’ve spent existing and bitching about everything and achieving absolutely nothing, you let the universe get in the way of seeing the stars? Sure, yeah, I wouldn’t expect dumb-dumb over here to figure it out,’ He said with a glance to Boris, ‘but it’s pretty damn obvious that Hannah is going through a quickening.’ He mumbles something in some other language, and added, ‘You haven’t even figured it out, have ya, Erised? After all this time… it still hasn’t registered in that Dodo brain of yours that you are where you are because that’s where you’re meant to be. That’s life, stupid!’ He said the last part in a somewhat aggravated tone, but quickly relaxed while his good eyes spun in circles a few times and his mule made some stressful forlorn groans.

The sound of a cow was also heard close by, mooing loud and startling the night. But there was no cow to be seen. Boris looked around utterly confused. He also regarded Erised, and then Hannah passed out in his arms, suspicious that it may have been one of them that mooed.

‘The girl needs your help.’ Concluded the old man, and spared one more glance to include Boris in that statement. ‘She’s in your care. For now.’

---

Jack

There were no monsters. No transforming beasts. No six headed dragon. Just a couple of old farts suddenly pleading for mercy. Jack’s specific line of work made him well tuned to many things about human nature, and fear was one of those things. He’d been around, he’d witnessed it, he’d been the cause of it, he'd seen it so many, many times to know that the fear of this old couple was real. He lowered the sword to his side, tip of the blade rested on the mouldy floorboard as he stared into the eyes of the old woman while she pleaded with him.

Remorse took hold of Jack. He regretted his actions. Not for what he was doing right at that moment, but for something he had done over a decade ago. It was a memory, among a surprising few, that would forever haunt him.

It was one of the first jobs he did for Johnny Big after being released from Juvenile detention, and an order that came directly from Johnny Big himself. A home invasion: “Go to their house. Kill the guy. Collect the goods. Clean before leaving.” But Johnny, somehow, had the address wrong. The numbers had been mixed up. Jack burst in through the door of the house next door instead, subsequently scaring the living daylights out of the old couple watch TV from the comfort of their sofa. Jack was armed with a semi-automatic pistol, the cold hollow point of its silencer aimed at the old man’s head while a look of confusion crippled Jack’s face. He’d been expecting someone younger. Mid-thirties. Not this old decrepit fool and his wife.

The old man lost control fast, arms outstretched as he wailed and turned in circles in the middle of the lounge room, as if he’d just realised that everything in his life - his family and all his possessions - had suddenly been stripped away. Jack watched on, speechless, set aback by this spectacle, entirely unsure of how to proceed until the old man stopped: He gripping his chest with his right arm. His left arm hooked in on itself like it was having a cramp. He turned towards Jack. He dropped to his knees. His face paled. Physical pain screamed from his eyes as what were to be his last words whispered almost inaudibly from his trembling lips –

‘You… fuck….’

It was obvious the old man was having a heart attack, and his wife - who had up until that point been pleading for mercy from Jack - ran to embrace her husband. He collapsed fully into her arms, reaching for a final breath but got none. His face paled further. Life was fleeing his widened stare. His wife bellowed in a way Jack had never heard before. It was like as if a cow and hyena were screaming together in some sort of twisted opera. And then all became silent as she turned her face to Jack, eyes no longer full of fear. No sorrow. No despair. She was no longer a victim. She was now the embodiment of accusing hatred glaring up at Jack.

Then, right there, was the remorse Jack felt. That woeful feeling of regret. Swelling. Sickening. Ripping him open inside. What had he done? It wasn’t his fault! Surely? An obvious mistake – He wasn’t to blame! No, this couldn’t be happening! This couldn’t be happening at all. He couldn’t be responsible for this – no! Not now! Not EVER! All at once it hit him – in one overwhelming moment he knew he couldn’t bear it; a prophecy of eternal nightmares flooded his heart. There was no way out, no escape, no relief from the future life of torment he was to endure on account of this one singular act. It couldn’t be true - surely - But he could already feel it haunting him the rest of his days – that accusing look in the old woman’s eyes! He needed to go. He needed to escape. He needed to turn back time! He needed to end this NOW!

He urgently squeezed the trigger multiple times.

A procession of muffled gunshots danced about the room. The old woman’s brains, blood and fragment of skull now covered the TV screen where a new contestant was currently being introduced on The Wheel of Fortune.

Jack was jolted from his memory of the event when Cheryl pushed by him into the shack. He looked at her, saw her mouth moving.

The old man and woman, though now eased back on their bedroll due to Cheryl, were still watching Jack with lingering apprehension.

While Cheryl then claimed a section of floor and said something stupid about his daughter, he drew a small breath, steadied himself, and then raised his free hand as if he were a priest bestowing a blessing of calm upon the old folks. They gave him a curious look. He added a nod of his head and it appeared, at least a little, to help comfort them. Jack returned his attention to Cheryl.

He didn’t have one - a bedroll, that is. Cheryl’s looked like something a homeless man had been dragging around the gutters for the last 20 years. Didn’t matter, though, he was too tired to care about the condition of her bed. But ‘Tactful’, as it turned out, was obviously not a word she was familiar with, not in the slightest. Her attempt at empathy, followed by yet another ill-timed note of self-preservation, found Jack irritated more than ever at her apparent lack of humanity.

Without thinking about the correct way to react, but remembering the callous elbow she jabbed him with on the ride there, he hooked his foot under her buttocks as she squatted with a thoughtful frown beside her bedroll, then shoved her out of his way with a firm thrust of his leg.

‘Move!’

The movement would have been strong enough to lift Cheryl and slam her firmly against the corner walls on top of her bedroll, while Jack simultaneously swung the same foot to the side and kicked the stool right out the door. It exited the premises quite dramatically and continued toppling into the night for what sounded like a good distance.

Before Cheryl could have recovered, he was on his back on the rotting floorboards, head without a pillow. He had one arm resting on the edge of her bedroll. His exposed sword lay by his other side. His feet occupied the spot where the stool had been. His hands, coupled, were rested on his stomach as he stared up into the night, focused partly on the broken timber of the roof and partly at the stars beyond.

‘Just give me an excuse….’ He muttered a warning at her, then clenched his jaws as he repeated the warning in his head.