(A/N: This is only meant to pique your curiousity. Yes, it may seem confusing because there's not enough detail. However, as the story progresses, read this piece again and you'll find that certain pieces fall into place. The first real chapter should be up within the next week.))
Biting Off Too Much
Prologue
If someone had stopped at the top of the ridge and looked out over the rest of the island, they would most probably have stopped and enjoyed the view. Maybe sit down and watch. Both of the small twin suns that scorched the land were setting, one east, the other north. The sunlight that was still in the sky shone down on hard, red soil, a red dirt scrubland covered mostly by short, stubby bushes. Occasionally, there was a taller tree here or there to provide some shade. During the hotter parts of most days, the animals of the island, whether they were carnivore, herbivore, bug or beast, would call a natural ceasefire and relax in this shade. Now that the sun was setting, however, the daytime creatures were preparing to bed down while the nocturnal species were starting to wake.
It would be a beautiful, picturesque scene.
Except for one last factor that has yet to be added in: the only people around weren't concentrating on the sunset, or the view from the ridge, or anything to do with that at all.
They were concentrating on not getting killed.
Yuffie clung close to him as they flew down the ridge. Their mount dodged around bushes, leapt over rocks, crashed through thorn patches, while the driver kept one hand on the reigns, the other hand on his head, where a dusty, worn and battered cowboy hat was pulled over a filthy green bandanna tied around his head. She could hear the other riders also crashing through obstacles, though some were having a more difficult time of it.
Those were the ones who were wounded.
They were the least likely to live through this.
What they were all running from made itself known when they reached halfway down the hill. The rattle of automatic gunfire, accompanied by the booms of tossed explosives, reptilian snarls and growls from the creatures they were running from…and the screams of the other riders and their mounts as they died, one by one.
A large, scaly, three toed foot finally crashed through a log as their mount made it to the bottom of the hill. Without pausing at all, the giant avian continued its flight towards open ground, out of the gunners' range. The driver kept urging the creature on, untried by the bullet wound in his torso that was, even now, pumping blood down his side, over Yuffie's arms, which were wrapped around his waist, and down his leg.
Given a few more minutes and the faithful Terror Bird, as it was sometimes called, could have propelled all three of them to safety, out of range…if not for the fact that the gunners fired a mortar.
With a screech of agony, the Brutornis was knocked off its feet, spilling its riders in transit. The great bird flopped around in pain a few times, screeching, then died at the crack of a heavy rifle from the ridge.
Yuffie and the rider rolled into a ditch, both collecting fresh new wounds. Yuffie felt her head bounce off a large rock, and her vision blurred, screwing up her senses. She could feel herself blacking out, could feel the wound in her head, could see the red tinge around her blurry vision.
She could still hear perfectly, though.
"Oh, shit! Yuffie! Yuffie, listen, you have a wound in your scalp, and you might be having a concussion right now, but whatever you do, don't move or talk!"
The voice of the other rider…the man who'd protected her ever since she came to this damned island.
"Lionel…" she managed to whisper before she blacked out.
The last thing she heard before she blacked out was the boom of a shotgun above her, accompanied by the screech of a giant reptile in pain.
And then she knew no more.
((Now, like I said, this is confusing, but you'll get it eventually. The entire story is actually started by Yuffie's curiousity as she reads one of Merlin's books when bored...))