The dense forest ahead of us made me slightly nervous, I was never good in the wild and we really didn't have a hope of lodging in a human village. Though, Maxie was faring well enough, he was teaching us how to camp, start fires, and all that kind of stuff. I usually stayed off to the side lines until Tori noticed and would cling up to me to make sure I was okay. I was, but counting the days, the months since a traumatic event wasn't actually fun. We'd been out of school for a year, I would be nineteen this year as would Tori we sharing the same birthday. Maxie was the same age, however already nineteen he and Tori were together and the dragon was very excited to be here. Tori no doubt as well, Yona who we were looking for was a famous figure at home on earth.
Cat would be calling us often, basically I was asked to be the organizations errand girl. The organization on earth that was underground, there were more universes than you could count and they made sure earth remained safe from it. While other creatures leaked into our world often, mainly vampires and werewolves where people would claim they saw them but it was 'myth' to most humans. On earth, many of them were too fragile of mind to know. So the organization made up of humans and creatures worked with every government existing to ensure safety and survival. The president of said organization liked me, as I wanted to lead a normal life yet after discovering I was only half human my destiny seemed to be set.
A year and a half ago, before graduation all my friends got involved in the organization that I had trying to avoid my entire life raising my younger sister. That was when I discovered I was half Sonticus, a species that held a jackal wolf form inside them and mine would growl constantly inside of my head. That was when my friend Cat with her boyfriend Yaru(who was already a part of the organization sent to be our bodyguard at the time) joined the organization. She was for lack of a better word someone intimidating, with an admirable way of protecting those close to her. After the incident in high school memories were erased and we moved on with our lives, we remembered though unlike the rest, and thus life moved on.
I sighed, holding my hands close to the flame of the fire as Maxie and Tori spoke. My hazel eyes scanning over the edges of the tree's curiously. We were here mainly because Maxie wanted to investigate the dragons, considering their species was rare as it was. So the rumors of the four dragons was always interesting. He was around five foot eleven with dark hair with a few purple highlights in them. His eyes though, what marked him as a dragon, were intense and blue. Dragons nearly went extinct a long time ago, they took on human form to hide from hunters the difference between a dragon and creatures with dragon forms or dragon blood was unlike other creatures who were human first, dragons were dragon first human forms second. If their human forms were killed, they could easily return to their dragon ones until they figured out a new human form.
Tori on the other hand was completely and utterly human. Blonde hair that reached just above her chin. Green eyes, if she were a dragon it made me think how vibrant her eyes would be. We were around the same height, but I could never really tell, I was five foot five inches. With short brown hair that was dark enough to be mistaken as black, this place we were extremely safe with appearances. As long as Maxie didn't go off shifting we could have lodged but the last I scented Yona was in this area as we searched for her. Maxie was a huge help since he could sense where the dragons were, though no doubt they could sense him and were confused since the only one they didn't have in their party was the yellow dragon and Maxie was definitely not him.
"Shoe are you going to come join us?" Tori asked me snapping my attention back toward her. I smiled a little lightly before standing up and walking over to their portion of the log, sitting right next to her.
"The two of you looked like you were having a fun little couple talk." I teased as she blushed lightly. Maxie rubbing the back of his head, though it was obvious the two cared about each other. I could tell, leanin my hand against my leg placing my head into my hand. Tori pet my head lightly for a moment.
"We'll find Yona in the morning you know, you don't have to stay up." sometimes I just wanted to snap, she knew how difficult it was for me at this time. A few months ago I lost my own girlfriend, murdered by a mysterious man that the organization was still after. We had been in a life long relationship, would have gotten married and all that after six years of dating. I sighed mildly pulling her hand away lightly. My heart beating fast, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep.
"It's fine, I'm going to the lake for a few moments" Maxie would stop me by tugging on my sleeve as I stood up.
"Make sure you be careful it's the middle of the night." I smirked at him and nodded, I could defend myself if I wanted to. I placed my hands on my hips and stuck my tongue out at him before turning around and waving through the tree's to reach the edge of the lake shore. It was shallow enough to see the bottom, this place was free of any smog unlike earth so clean that all day it had made me a bit woozy. As I looked at my reflection in the water I sunk down to sit on the bank folding my knee's up to my chest to feel more comfortable letting out a sigh.
I knew brooding was a bit much, it was all I did most of the time. I just couldn't help but to feel uncomfortable about myself on all ends. The jackal wolf growled a little in my head, no words to be said but they tried to reassure me. Even if that was the part of me I hated, not being human, and I seemed to be obsessed with that. I let out a small snort to the creature before looking at the moon, it was awfully full tonight but it was my favorite part of the day. Though, I suddenly heard something moving in the water making me stand up and turn towards the bushes covering a part of the lake.
My heart started to viciously pound against my chest, I felt my muscles tightening up and my break quickening. I covered my mouth in order to stay hidden as I moved to the bushes, using my free hand to pull apart the leaves. My eyes widened for a moment, meeting those ruby red eyes of the princess. I instantly knew it was Yona, and it took me a moment to notice that she didn't have any clothes on. My face started to heat up, it was probably bright red right now as Yona let out a small squeak of surprise alerting whoever was with her behind the tree's as he was suddenly pointing a sharp end of the spear at me. I tripped backwards, hand still over my mouth looking at him. Tall, black hair, bright blue eyes it was her bodyguard Hak.
"What are you doing here?" He questioned, that look in his eyes terrified me. I released my hand breathing heavily. "I… I didn't mean to I came to think and just ran into her." I shuffled back speaking fast to show off how nervous I was as Yona climbed onto the shore to grab her clothes to cover herself. Hak still trying to poke me with the spear, "Hey hey keep looking at me you damn pervert." I squeaked shutting my eyes and placing my hands over my ears. I opened them again as Yona now dressed pouted at Hak.
"Leave her alone Hak that's rude, it was only an accident." I wanted to laugh on the inside about how Yona was defending me who was a complete stranger. Though I highly doubted I was really that intimidating. In no time there was also a long green haired man by Yona's side which I deduced was the green dragon, Jae-ha, with a smirk on his face.
"She's right, you can't just do that to a young lady." Oh great, I looked at him a little unamused. He crouched, "What's your name beautiful young lady." Grabbing my hand he kissed the back of it making me recoil. I would have been more flustered if it weren't for the fact I had no attraction to males. Hak made an angry face at him as I remained quiet, if Maxie and Tori came right now it might have been bad, not sure why but I had a feeling. Yona puffed out her cheeks and squished herself in front of the two men.
"The two of you are scaring her." she crouched near me and grabbed my hands, making my heart skip a beat. Yona smiled kindly as I managed to relax if only a little. "What's your name?" she asked.
"Abby…. I uhhmm I'm sorry." I apologized again trying to calm down my breathing. My guess was the rest of them were sleeping soundly. Yet my focus was on her red eyes, definitely that of a dragon but not entirely. It was like purely she had taken human form, this planet was indeed very different. I hated having to keep the fact I knew all of their names, and even about the organization had to be kept under wraps. We were here to investigate their stability, however in my mind maybe we could help them find the yellow dragon and take back the throne. Yet, it would take a lot of trust to get them to talk about that.
"It's nothing, what are you doing out in the forest alone?" I tensed a little bit.
"I'm not, I'm here with two of my friends, we don't have a home here so we just travel." I explained as she let go of my hands my heart was still beating against my chest really hard. The jackal wolf again let out a small purr making me wince at the shrill noise of electricity in my ear. I had to calm myself down, an anxiety attack in the middle of a meeting with these three could just be disastrous. "Which reminds me that I should be getting back to them." I looked back into the forest I really just wanted to get away from this situation. I already was on bad bones with Hak now. Yona seemed to be noticing my nervousness as she grabbed my shoulders.
"We aren't going to hurt you or your friends it's okay. Why don't you invite them over with us, we're travelling with a few others as well." I turned back towards the girl. Hak placing his spear on his shoulder as Jae-ha smirked.
"I would never hurt a lady such as you." I scoffed a little at him as Hak hit him on the back of his head, it made me feel a little better. I started to stand up finally a little shaky, as I nodded my head.
"Umm, do two of you want to come with me?" I knew there was no way in hell Hak would let Yona come alone, none of the dragons would for that matter. Yona smiled at me yet again sending shivers down my spine, I started to lead Yona and Hak back to where we had our campfire. Tori was passed out as where Maxie settled her somewhere more comfortable, and he looked up at me next to Yona and Hak. Thank the heavens neither of them were the dragons for now. Once they found out maxie was one, it would be a roadblock that needed some time explaining. "This is Maxie, and the sleeping girl is his girlfriend Tori." I introduced the two of them despite Tori sleeping. "We came from a small village, and decided to leave together after things got a little sketchy." It was an amusing backstory but Yona seemed to be buying it as she smiled at Maxie. He blushed a little making Hak grumble a little, my eye twitched, the guy was too obvious. Yet Yona had no clue, I inched a little closer to Maxie to make myself feel more comfortable.
"Don't you think this should have waited until morning? We barely know these people we can't just trust them to sleep in our camp." Hak was trying to persuade the princess. She ignored him bowing a little.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Maxie, my name is Yona and this is Hak." Yona introduced herself, as I looked at Maxie his blue eyes gleaming a little bit at the other. He crouched near me, to whisper something in my ear.
"I can feel dragon blood coming from her, but she isn't like us…. they can't shift. And it's stronger in her than the others, like she's full blooded or something." I blinked for a moment. Hak was watching us, as I looked at Yona I smiled a little lightly. Maxie addressed them this time, thankfully. No matter how much I wanted to speak with Yona more, I sucked at conversation. "Sorry if Abby ran into you, I was just scolding her a bit. We don't mean any harm, just we got fed up with our village treating us so harshly. We really don't even know where the village is anymore." he shook his head and shrugged.
"In the morning we should meet up, we're resting just through those tree's. We're actually looking for somebody." As she explained Hak's eyes locked on Maxie. He was like a literal Hawk, it made me uncomfortable. We could never be too careful around someone that observant, it could ruin the plan totally. We weren't even really here to do anything, to us it was a vacation to them it was life. It made me a little sick on the inside. I made a simple sigh, I was going to try and sleep to no avail would it be difficult. Insomnia did funny things to be at night.
"We can help if you'd like, but it is rather late best you guys get some sleep." Maxie smiled, as Yona nodded, just like that they were gone. Once out of earshot, I felt myself take a breath it felt like a spring trap had been released. Now my heart was starting to flow easily, my muscle untensed themselves. I stepped back and sat down on one of the logs, placing both hands on the top of my forehead only to notice how hard I was shaking. Taking in a deep breath, I let it out only slowly, Maxie came to my left side to sit next to me placing his hand on my back. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked rather quietly as the fire snuffed itself out. I blinked for a moment, nodding my head.
"I'll be fine, it was just, a bit of a scare. Gonna take a bit for Hak to trust me now, why am I such an idiot?" I looked at Maxie a little confused. Why did I always have to screw things over. He made a sigh before patting my back.
"You're not an idiot, get some sleep tomorrow we get to meet them after all. After that we can decide what to do." I sighed at him. No matter the encouraging words I looked for to make myself feel better they never worked. I never told anyone what was going on inside of my head either. The snickering of the beast, the constant down spells, mood swings, it was worse than a newly born vampire. I bit into my lip some, looking at Tori for a moment. It was only a matter of time though, no matter the past two years I had spent with Tori and Cat. It couldn't amount to the damage I probably could do to them. I was a danger to myself as well as them if I was not careful about my emotions. That would be on my head, I growled silently to myself standing up before finding a spot near the now cold fire and plopping down.
I closed my eyes, and when sleep came it was blank. It was just glad no nightmares came.
"Abbyyyy get up." I opened my eyes slowly to Tori shaking my side. The light filtering through the tree's. My sensitive nose picked up multiple scents, making my shoot up frantically and turn around to the group of people Maxie was already talking with. Yona, Hak, the three dragons and the blonde boy that travelled with them my head searched for his name in that moment. Yun, that was right. My heart started to beat fast again but as Tori clung to me I glared at her a little. "Don't give me that face, you'll be fine." I sighed, no amount of glaring would do anything to her she very much knew I wouldn't snap at her at all. It wasn't something I could do. As I started to get up I felt a little dizzy, but that was lack of energy, it would be okay in a few moments.
"Abby you're finally awake, how are you this morning?" Yona asked as I placed a hand on my hip. Horrible, still brooding, my body not doing what I wanted it to do. "I'm fine you?" I smiled at her as the other dragons seemed to be focused on Maxie a little confused. It was obvious why though, dragon blood would always seek out dragon blood no matter what form it was in. "I'm doing very well, Maxie was just explaining to everyone where you guys were from. He says you can help us find the yellow dragon." I had to tilt my head like I didn't know what that was.
"Yona here is looking for the four dragons, these are three of them. We ran away from the capital after an incident and well are trying to take it back." Hak explained as he gestured towards the other dragons. I looked at them, white and blue. Shin-ah looked on with his mask. As soon as I looked over at him, he seemed to sink behind the rest of them to hide. I looked away a little guilty that I had scared him as Maxie clapped his hands.
"Who's up for breakfast I can hunt for all of us." Maxie smiled but Hak frowned,
"Bullshit I'm helping you blue eyed moron." the man protested holding his spear, Maxie seemed a little frightened of the other. It made sense though, they were the same age. "Fine fine, I'm sorry I didn't invite you." he waved a hand at Hak as the two men turned towards the lake. Maxie would be more skilled into stalking actual prey. I shook my head to let the thought skip of hunting as I sat down on one of the logs. The others started to gather as well, and obviously they were going to start to ask questions. I only hoped my anxiety let me handle it carefully. Yona sat to my left, and Tori a little protectively to my right. My eyes were mainly staring at Jae-ha, if he came near Tori I'd punch him in the face gladly enough. From observing him I could tell he was lying to himself. He had no interest in women, but he reminded me of some annoying, that annoying cat what was his name. I cursed myself for not remembering it.
"So, are you married Abby." it flew from his mouth. Oh gods the irritation I felt, and the fast beating of my heart. "Maxie told me how old the lot of you are. How you have a younger sister somewhere as well." I crossed my arms to make myself feel a bit more calm. It was a sore wound he had stepped on, a very sore one. As if he stuck a sword in the open wound and was sticking it farther and farther in. I was letting it happen of course, maybe I had grown an addiction to the pain. No one understood how hard to was to get over someone of six years after their death. Even if it had been a few months the wound was still very fresh to me. Before Tori could rescued me though, I answered it on my own.
"You know you shouldn't ask a stranger to much about her personal life. Quite frankly that question is a double edged knife to me. And I'm not going to tell you why so please drop it." I glared at him, most of them were taken aback by my attitude. Though Jae-ha looked pissed himself, it suddenly made me feel bad, I recoiled with fear. Tori looked at me sadly as I relaxed my arms but Yun stood up.
"She's right Jae-ha you need to stop being so insensitive." he placed his hands on his hips. Kija waved his dragon arm covered in bandages, the scent coming off of it was stronger than the others. Yet I memorized them just in case, Yona's was hard enough to find, if we didn't have Maxie it would have ended badly. As the boys bickered Yona started to talk with us.
"He means well, Jae-ha, I know he gave you fright yesterday." Was this girl really Sixteen years old? I was almost nineteen and I acted like the world revolved around me and was collapsing on it's hinges. It was a wonder why Cat and Tori stuck around. Then again, they had Yaru and Maxie to take care of them. I was alone, I would always be alone, and I deserved to be alone.
"It's nothing Abby's strong she'll get over it. It's just." she scratched the side of her cheek. I hated it when I was unable to tell people, "A few months ago, her partner passed away." I sighed at the words. Passed away, she was murdered in cold blood. I remembered the endless crying, I curled up into a ball and locked myself in my room. It wasn't until Cat kicked down my door after both my sister and Tori called her worried about me. The black haired woman punched me in the face and told me to get back on my feet. I regrettably say, I needed it, otherwise there was no amount of motivation that would have made me snap out of the darkest parts. Yona looked sad as I tried to avoid eye contact.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be, life sometimes throws things our way that we don't expect. How we treat it, is how the outcome of our life comes out." I mused. Yona grabbed my hands, I looked at her I couldn't look away entirely.
"You're going to be fine, me and even everyone here is here for you even if you don't know us very well." I blushed a little tugging my hands away uncomfortably only to have Tori clinging to me on the other end like a kitten with that smirk on her face.
"Oh come onnnn guys!" I complained, trying to pry Tori off of me yona giggled as he stood up away from Tori puffing out my cheeks. I stepped backwards and tripped, falling as I felt someone catch me. Looking up I noticed it was Shin-ah. I breathed a little as he settled me down and let me go. Just standing next to me as I blinked. "T…..thank you." I looked at him and he smiled a little. A squirrel probably Aoi looked at me, but instead of jumping on my shoulders he hissed at me, fur peeled back. Inside my head the jackal wolf growled as well, it obviously thought of the creature as food making me stand. "I'm going back to the lake." I mused and started to walk off. I was annoyed with the creatures reaction, anything that reminded me that there was a ticking time bomb of a monster waiting underneath my skin. It was six feet tall, had to tails and saber fangs.
I didn't look behind me as I reached the bank, I could see Hak on the other side of the rather small lake hacking away at fish. My nose catching his scent as well as Maxie who was in the forest, the two of them worked hard didn't they. At least I knew Hak did, I didn't usually confront people on my own but I started to walk around the lake to reach him. For a minute I didn't say anything looking at the pile of maybe four fish he had caught. Maka hated seafood, seeing it sort of made my stomach turn.