Nidria finished putting together the make-shift basket/carrier for Speckles to use. She places a small blanket from her bag that she packed, inside, to fill the bottom of the carrier.
Speckles, before the blanket is all the way inside, climbs over Nidria's arm and into the basket.
"I'm not done, brat!" she teases her cat. But she knows Speckles wanted to go inside it so desperately, she didn't care if it was perfect.
They had been traveling for three days, now. Nidria brought as much cat food and water as she could, and they're only eating twice a day, trying to save as much food as they can, not knowing who they can trust to help them.
She doesn't have a single regret of bringing her cat with her. The Tarkans didn't care about pets, but they would've grown an interest if they knew what she could do. Speckles isn't just a family cat, or best friend to Nidria. She also has a rare feline gift of communication. She can send pictures into other people's minds to communicate. If the Tarkans found out, they'd kill her before she could warn the other colonies.
But even though Speckles is special for her kind, she is still as lazy and demanding as any other Calico cat.
As Speckles starts to take a nap, Nidria gives in to her tired body and need for sleep. Looking around, she checks her surroundings, stands up, and shoots straight up, into the air.
They're in a forest. And if Nidria remembers right from her geography lessons, it should be the Sander forest. When she's high enough above the trees, she does a full circle to see where the closest village was. The nearest one looked to be a little less than ten miles away, with smoke rising out small gaps between the trees. Nidria wanted to start a fire, but didn't want anyone finding them. She didn't know where the tree folk stood with the Tarkans. She didn't even know what they looked like. They could be half tree for all she knew. She did remember learning about their leader's gifts and how they can communicate with and control trees and plants.
Hoping they were in an area that was far enough to not be found, she goes back down to Speckles, carries the basket and her bag to a nearby large tree, and uses her coat as a blanket before laying down and closing her eyes to sleep.
Her dreams become a scene in the forest. A couple of people were in the far distance walking toward their area. The audible noises started to grow louder. When she looked down, she saw Speckles staring, and meowing right at her.
This wasn't a dream.
Nidria woke up with Speckles staring right at her. Speckles had been showing her people who were getting close to their location. After her cat points her nose in the direction of the others, she climbs into her carrier till she's almost unseen. She's definitely not the bravest cat in the land.
As the voices grow louder, Nidria grabs her bag, coat, and the carrier, and moves behind the large tree, to get out of their line of sight.
"I don't know, man. How do we know they'll give us what they promised?" one male voice says.
"Trust me, if we don't follow their orders, they'll kill us, or make us their slaves. We don't have a choice!" the other exclaims. They are really close to them now.
"Yeah, but-"
"Wait." The other interrupts. "Do you smell that?" they both sniff the air.
"Yeah, almost like an animal."
"That's no animal…" the second one exclaims.
"Do you think it's that girl they were looking for?" the first asks.
"Oh… we'd get so much if we brought her back."
Nidria realized they must have been talking about her. She's the only one she knew about who got away.
"All right, you go that way and I'll go this way."
When she hears them go to her left and right, she waits till they're far enough to not be seen before getting up. She then quickly puts her coat on and closes her bag before standing up.
"There you are." She heard one of the men behind her.
She slowly turned around to face the man.
He was tall, muscular, dirty, and had yellow eyes, just like a rodent. He also had a long spear in both hands pointing right at her.
"Now, what are you doing out here all by yourself?" he snickered. The other guy is back now, watching her carefully. The second guy, who is a little smaller and younger, has a bow and quiver of arrows.
After she doesn't answer, the taller man started to approach her.
"Don't you think about running away." The older one hisses as Nidria instinctively took a step back. The younger one raised his bow up and aimed it straight at her chest.
"Wait, I don't know what's going on. I think there's been a mistake." Nidria insists, but immediately curses herself for opening her mouth.
"Sure, because we always get travelers here." The older one jokes, sarcastically.
"Maybe she's telling the truth-"
"Shut up, fool!" the older one yells, and hits the younger one for his outburst. This caused the younger one to step back and lower his bow.
"Even if she isn't the one they're looking for, we could use another female at the camp." The older one announces, looking her up and down.
While Nidria shoots him a look of disgust, the man looks over to his partner and laughs.
Nidria used that moment to quickly grab her bag and basket in one swoop, and shoot into the air.
"Hey!" she heard them yell, but she's flying as fast as she can to get out of their sight.
Just before she is past the top of the trees, an arrow flies by and scrapes her leg.
"Ah!" she cries out, but doesn't stop flying. Once she's high enough, she flies north, away from their camp, as fast as she can, ignoring her new injury. Countless miles later, she passes the end of the forest, and lands to look at her leg. The air is much colder, the farther north she goes. She landed on a cliff overlooking a dry canyon. Far ahead, she can see mountains with even more trees, and what she believes is snow, covering the area. She has never seen snow before, but has heard of the ice tribe, and their cold weather.
She remember reading that because of how cold it was up north, they have to always wear animal fur. She quickly pulls her coat tighter, hoping it'll be good enough for her.
Speckles looks out at their surroundings before climbing out of her little hut. Luckily the carrier is still intact.
Nidria grabs a small first aid kit out of her bag, and looks for medicine. Then she pulls her, now ripped, pants up to inspect the wound on her leg. The cut wasn't too deep, but it was at least a foot long. After pouring a small amount of water on her leg to clean it, she dabs it softly with the tiny bit of medicine she had, and wraps it with a thin piece of cloth she made from ripping an extra shirt she had. Speckles was right next to her when she finished, and put a picture of food into her mind.
"You wanna eat, huh?" she responds. "Let's see what we have."
She pulls out the bag of cat food, grabs a small handful, and lets Speckles eat out of her hand. She can hear her stomach grumble, but felt a little too woozy to eat. She was more worried about finding fresh water. There was a fresh water river in the forest, but she doesn't want to risk going back there and being found again. The Tarkans had definitely reached the tree folk.
As Speckles finished, she sent pictures of ice and snow melting into water.
"Good idea, Specks," she acknowledges, "but I think I'm gonna rest my leg first."
She flies them to a large rock so they can have the wind blocked.
As Nidria started to lay down on the cold ground, while avoiding the wrong side of her leg, Speckles drags out the small blanket she gave her, and brought it to Nidria's chest.
"I'm okay with my coat." She tries to convince her, but the cat continues until she has placed the blanket all the way over her.
"Thanks." She replies before Speckles went back into her little hut.
After laying for five minutes, she started to shiver in her coat and blanket, but eventually fell asleep.
When she awoke, hours later, her entire body was stiff, and her mouth was dry. She grabbed her water and notices the small amount that was left. After taking one sip, she pours the rest in the lid, and puts it in with Speckles to finish. Her cat purrs as she licked the lid dry.
"Let's go get some more water." She says while packing her bag and trying to move her legs. Her cut leg is sore, and fills with pain when she stands up and puts pressure on it.
Relieving some pressure,she flies a tiny bit upward, which is harder with the pain shooting down her leg. But she is still able to grab her things, and carefully fly towards the snowy land.
When they're above the snow, Nidria can't believe how beautiful it looked from a closer perspective. The snow covered the ground like a blanket. She continued to fly towards a more flat ground that was farther north.
She lands past a forested area and onto flat ground with multiple cliffs ahead in the distance. The snow crunches as her legs touch the ground, and another wave of pain pulses from her leg.
"Agh" she cries, causing her to fall. She tries to set Speckles down safely as she fell. Her face made contact with the snow, proving to be a lot colder than she'd imagined. And her clothes didn't keep the snow from making contact with her skin.
Speckles peaked her head out, but stayed inside her carrier. Nidria sat up to try and wipe all the snow off of her body.
The cold snow was starting to make her leg go numb, which took some of the pain away, but made it more difficult to move.
Before she forgot, she took out her empty water bottle, scooped a handful of fresh snow into it, and puts the bottle back into her bag for it to hopefully melt.
She then inspected her leg to see if she could move it to at least get up.
When she finally found her balance, a giant "whoosh" sound catches her attention from a distance behind her. Turning around to see where it came from, she sees a brown mass in the sky flying towards her and landing only ten feet in front of her. It looks like mud, but then it starts to bubble and sink into the ground. She didn't know what it was, but it looked acidic and dangerous.
Another "whoosh" came from the distance. She didn't know what started it, but another mass of mud was flying through the air, and directly toward her. Before the mud came close to hitting her, she quickly moved out of the way as it landed a few feet to her side. Another shot of pain jolted up her leg as she put pressure on it. Too tired to fly, she ignored the pain, and started to move away from the trees and whatever was landing near her. Grabbing Speckles and her bag, she limped ahead as fast as she comfortably could.
When she looked back after hearing another sound, she sees dozens more, high in the air, flying towards her. She picked up her pace to a run, tripping from an explosion of more pain.
"Over here!" someone yells from far ahead of her. She sees a figure at the end of the cliff they were on.
Not knowing what else to do, she bit back her pain, got back up, and continued to run toward the person, who seemed to want to help her. The person was completely covered in layers of thick clothing.
"Follow me." The man under the large fur said, turning around and jumping down the side of a crevice. Looking over the edge, Nidria noticed a ledge just below, that he must have disappeared on.
"This could be a trap." She thought to herself. But looking behind her was not a pretty path, dozens more piles landing closer. She didn't trust herself to get far by flying cause of the pain, so she took the jump down. She's able to slightly slow her descent so she could make sure she didn't land on her hurt leg. She also tried to make sure the basket didn't hit the ground too hard. The impact still made her cry out and fall forward, dropping the basket to the ground, and landing on her side.
Remembering the person she followed down here, she looked up to see the same person staring back at her, in an archway about ten feet ahead.
"Who are you?" the man asked, his voice low.