Hunting For A Hunter

He stared, mouth falling open, as he watched Serana grow and grow and grow and- something inside him told him he needed to run. He didn't put up any objections to this, but evidently, his body did, for as he took first one step back, then another, he fell backwards, and was barely able to push himself up onto his hands. It certainly didn't help that some of his bags had fallen down onto him, and he was far too focused on the large crystalline being in front of him to bother trying to shove them off. "D-d-d-d..." he tried, but it was no use. His mouth just refused to work. His brain, on the other hand, was working just fine. Well, sort of. A dragon, he thought. She's a dragon. And she doesn't like me. OhgodsI'mgoingtodieI'msorryI'msorry-

Serana looked at him and snorted. "Get up, I'm not gonna eat you. Everyone is just so skittish these days." She turned and lowered her leg to make herself easier to mount.

Liz chuckled. "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you think she's a dragon. Well she's not. But I'll let you guess at that until we arrive. Gives you something to ponder on the ride." He turned and hopped up onto her back, then patted a spot.

After a long moment, he pushed himself to his feet, eyes still wide. He grasped for his bags and managed to get a hand on all of them, shifting them so he had two free hands. He awkwardly began clambering up her leg, somehow not falling off and both bruising and embarrassing himself several times in the process. Not that being more embarrassed would really change anything now, he reflected. He slid into the spot Lizair had indicated, then started looking around, hoping to find some way to hold on without saying something that would tempt Serana to accidentally lose him somewhere over a forest in the middle of the flight. Or over an ocean. Or a volcano.

Liz chuckled. "Let's go for speed, Serana." He fished a hand into his bag and drew out a small sapphire. He tossed it into the air, and Serana snapped it up. A moment later, the crystals covering her body began to crack. The diamons shifted and retracted, with sapphires taking their place. She also became more smooth and curved, as opposed to her previous jagged shape. Her wings spread wide, and the Gemdrake lifted into the air, moving in a quick burst.

Liz held on with one hand, grabbing onto one of the crystals sprouting from her back.

Marik probably should have been screaming. It certainly felt like he should be screaming, at least. His throat wouldn't cooperate, however, so he settled for an expression of absolute terror. Two of his hands grabbed onto nearby crystal growths, hard enough that he would have lacerated his hands if they'd been sharper. The rest cradled his bags, trying to hold on to Serana at the same time. It would be a very, very bad idea to drop something right now. For one thing, they might seriously hurt someone if they landed on their head.

Liz looked back at Marik for a moment. "Okay, Serana. Let him in."


The dragoness huffed, and suddenly the air pressure from the speed stopped. She's made an air bubble around them to keep things smooth. "Now, are we gonna keep flying around, or do you plan to give me directions?"

Marik gulped and took in a large breath of air, then another, then another. Finally, he was able to calm himself, and he looked around, trying to figure out where they were in relation to the Light Castle. "Southwest," he called, surprisingly clearly, although the trembling of the finger he pointed in the appropriate direction wasn't all that surprising. "It will be easiest to find if we go towards the place where the first major tributary breaks off from the main river."

Serana banked and started wheeling around to head in that direction. "Just keep the directions coming and I'll get there."

It was about an hour later that they landed in the village. Or, more accurately, the burned and blasted remains of a village. It was impossible to tell from a glance if animals had been there. The chaos of footprints, scorch marks, craters, and dried blood made sure of that. Every building had either burned or had large sections blown out of it. No bodies littered the ground, nor bones. Either somebody had cleaned up, or whatever had rampaged through the area had made sure there were none. Doors, where they remained, hung open, or were flat in front of the places they should have lead in to. Curtains fluttered through gaping holes in walls, where they hadn't been devoured by flame. Scents wafted from inside, mixing with the outside air to make one awful, pungent bouquet. The tang of blood lingered in the air, mixing with the smells of smoke and iron to create the aroma of catastrophe, only made worse by the occasional accents of flowers, burned cooking, and damp cloth. There wasn't a single whole building left, not even a small cottage. From the way random objects were strewn about on the ground, the insides were probably just as bad.

Marik's eyes were tightly shut, and it wasn't from fear, but from expectation. He knew what he would see when he opened them. Even as he tried to remember what it had looked like before... before this, the smells brought back the awful reality of its current state. He curled in on himself, then told himself Lizair would probably need to know things about this place, about what should have been. Slowly, he opened his eyes. Focusing only on what was immediately in front of him, he grabbed his packs, and started climbing off of Serana.

Liz slowly slid off Serana, settling his weight on the cane as he started to look around. Whoever had done this was... thorough. "What was this place like before? Not tone-wise. How many buildings, what were they made of, how many people?"

Behind him, Serana glowed for a moment and turned back into her human form. She stayed right behind him, ready to catch him if he fell.