A/N: I really have nothing to say other than inspiration struck again for this story. Beta'd by Notori. Thanks much. :3
She awoke with a start—or had she been awake from the start? It'd felt like she'd been in the middle of taking a step, and only once her foot had firmly hit the ground had she been dragged fully back to consciousness.
"Where am I...?"
The grassy plain spread as far as she could see, cloven in half as it was by the wide dirt path she found herself walking down. A gentle gust of wind sent her hair flickering into her view. Raven black, with hints of dark blue highlights when the light hit it.
But of course, her hair had always been that color.
"Something wrong?"
"Huh?" she hadn't even noticed that she'd stopped walking or that her companion had continued ahead of her. "Oh, um... No. No, I'm fine. It's just..."
Where were they? Who was he? Why were they traveling together? What was the destination?
She looked back down the way they had apparently traveled together before turning back to the man. "Had my head in the clouds, I guess. Where are we again?"
"The Greater Eastern Plains of Fuuka!" the man puffed his chest proudly, as if it were the grandest proclamation he'd ever made; or perhaps he was trying to show off to her. "Home to some of the greatest blademasters in all the land!"
As he turned back away from her, she caught her reflection in the gleaming metal of the broadsword strapped to his back. Forest green eyes, a lightning-shaped clip tucking away the bangs from the left side of her face... The hair clip itself felt cool and metallic as she reached up to trace its shape.
But of course, she had always looked like this. So why did it feel like she was seeing herself for the first time?
"And I suppose you're one of them?" she chuckled, mentally chiding herself for the odd lag in conversation before flashing him an indulging smile.
His leather armor told her he'd just started on his journey. Leather was the cheapest and weakest of armors, meant only for areas with weak creatures. Not that her clothing was much better, but she at least had chain armor on between tunic layers. Her shirts and trousers were made of heavy, protective cloth. Despite that, they were spotless, and clearly very expertly made.
"W-Well...no. Not yet," a light flush crossed the man's darkly tanned cheeks as he nervously ran a hand through his messy black hair. She just now noticed the small cross-shaped scar under his left eye. It was faint and most likely an injury from childhood. "I just enlisted, actually. My family's from this area, so I know the types of beasts that will raise my rank faster."
"Going for a quick promotion, huh? Tired of the area already?"
"N-No!" he blurted out loudly. "It's not that I'm tired of the area, it's just... I just want to get out and explore more! See new monsters! Go new places!"
"New monsters?" she glanced upwards at a shadow that had suddenly flown above them. "I don't recall dragons being big on taking plains as territory. That's new."
"That's odd," he corrected, following his companion's gaze to the circling beast and frowning. "There hasn't been a Firewing around here for a while. The last time must have been... over two years ago."
"Really?"
"Yeah, they usually keep to the mountains in the North. It takes something big to make 'em move down this far."
The Firewing continued its erratic circling course before turning sharply south. This drew a loud curse from the blademaster-in-training and he took off running in the same direction.
"It's headed right for the outpost! If we hurry, we can get there in time to help!"
The way the Firewing listed heavily to its side in flight told her it would not put up much of a fight, but she followed regardless.
The state of the outpost once they arrived was not as the young blademaster had suspected to be. Instead of chaos and panic, there was merely a sense of tension and unease. Merchants glanced nervously to the field to the other side of the small encampment, as did the guards. Staked out in the field were two head of cattle, standing listlessly with glazed eyes. Occasionally, one would let out a low bellow, weak and shaky.
"What..." the young man breathed out unsteadily.
The dark-haired woman stood next to him, an impassive look on her face as she watched the scene. The Firewing from before had landed, and had already eaten a third cattle that had been staked out in the same field. Its head swayed, the three sets of grass-green eyes dull and nearly lifeless as it considered the two others. As if to clear its head, it gave a little shake, a set of fins extending as if the motion would bring it clarity.
Seeing the dragon closer showed just how ill it must have been. What would normally have been pure white scales were dull gray; the mane on the underside of its serpentine neck, a sad, unkempt shadow of its former self with patches of bare skin where once there would have been rich fur. The most telling was what gave the beast its name: The flames along the trailing edge of its wings should have been burning brightly. In flight, the flames could easily stretch for yards and, truth be told, the heat should have been felt from where they were standing. From what she could tell of the dragon's tail, it was likely scratched and wounded, along with most of the beast's underbelly. It couldn't—or didn't—fly as high as it should have, resulting in multiple wounds from trailing too low across a forest or mountain range.
"Takeda?" a male voice queried from among the milling crowd, "Takeda, is that you, you old stick swinger?"
And the moment was broken, the dragon forgotten briefly by the young blademaster as his attention was drawn elsewhere.
"Tate?"
Both Takeda's and his female companion's gazes were drawn over to a group huddled outside one of the foodmerchants' stall, 'Tate' was waving, a broad smile on his face.
Another blademaster, then... The dark-haired woman thought idly.
Amongst the rest of the group she could pick out... an orange-haired Beastmaster, halfway through her training for the rank of High Beastmaster given the set of sigils collected on her pair of reinforced dragon skin bracers. The rest of her armor was made from dragon skin, as well. Hard as the material was to come by, she had to have been training under the royal family's personal beastmaster. The beastmaster seemed the motherly sort, chiding as she was a raucous monk-in-training.
Judging by the additional layer of fabric under the traditional warrior monk's habit, this particular member was female. The trainee could have easily been mistaken otherwise; her short black hair obviously unmanageable, and the twin braids dangling in front of her ears belonged to both the male and female initiates regardless. The habit itself was a combination of gray and brown, with the white trimmed sash of an initiate crossed diagonally across her front and back from her left shoulder to right hip.
The rogue... How rare to find one of her rank this far from the capital. She probably worked for the royal family as well. Visible beneath her cloak were several belts. One contained what looked to be throwing knives. Another held individual vials or varying colors. The most telling of her rank, however, were the incredibly specialized gloves she wore. It was hard to tell from this distance, but the gloves may well have covered the length of her forearms. Ridges followed along the fingers, and it would take a very deliberate motion to extended the hidden blades along their shafts. Simply put, this Grand Master was someone she would never want to fight against.
"...be damned at finding you here!" Takeda was laughing, slapping Tate on the back. "I just started out today and we're already running into each other!"
"Right? And you even got here by yourself!" Tate's laughter was loud and brash, clashing with the tense atmosphere and drawing several glances of ire in his direction.
"Not quite by myself." Takeda admitted, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I had a companion about half the way here, she's just over...there..."
But when he looked in her direction, it was as if she had simply vanished.
"Hey, Mai," the rogue murmured.
"Mikoto! What have I told you about taking food that doesn't belong to you?"
"But Maiiiii-" The black-haired child whined.
"Mai," the rogue raised her voice, speaking a little firmer and with a hint of annoyance.
"No buts!"
"I'm hungryyyyyy." Mikoto was nearly in tears.
"Hey, titty monster!" Nao finally snapped, her carefully manicured nails coming dangerously close to digging into the skin along her jawline.
"Nao!" Mai's glare was nothing short of scandalous.
"If you'd responded the first two times I said your name..." Nao grit out, "but now that I have your attention, do you see the paladin over there?"
The beastmaster looked in the direction that Nao was pointing.
"...No? I don't see anybody that looks remotely at paladin rank."
"Wha-" Nao scoured the crowd again, dammit!
The one time she'd taken her eyes away and the woman had disappeared into the crowd. Her other hand tapped a furious rhythm into the wooden table she was seated at, clearly irritated.
"Anyway, shouldn't you be getting all animal's rights on these people's asses?"
"There's not much I can do now." Mai crossed her arms, looking over to the dragon as it consumed the second cattle. "I've confirmed that they've been poisoning the poor thing, which is against the law as Firewings have been on the decline ever since extermination event two years ago. This one probably avoided it entirely by staying in the mountains."
The winged beast gave a strange warbling groan and, unable to or unwilling to finish the last of the bait, took off unsteadily. An audible wheeze could be heard each time it pumped its wings to get airbone When it eventually did, its left wing grazed one of the watchtower roofs, leaving barely a smoldering amber on the wooden tile as it flew overhead.
The outpost residents and visitors breathed a collective sigh of relief once the dragon's figure had receded into the distance. It was then that Mai strode up to the nearest guards and demanded to see the leader of the outpost.
"I'm here under the authority of the royal family of Garderobe! You've been feeding poison to a species that is expressly under the protection in the Kingdom of..."
It wasn't that she trailed off, it was more that Nao didn't much care to listen. She glanced around, watching people as only a well-trained rogue could.
Merchants were wheedling and extorting visitors for barely upgraded weaponry or parts for crafting. Really, if the new recruits were willing to spend a little more time out in the fields, they could have their boar hides or porcupine bristles in exchange for some good exercise rather than turning over what little coin they had at this point.
It didn't help that their pockets were already lighter just from a grandmaster rogue being in the vicinity.
Fisherman based on the nearby lake had joined the argument against Mai. The dragon threatened their livelihood, filling its gullet with their hard-earned cultivation! A year's work gone before they and the others in the outpost acted in the only way that they felt they could. The complaints they had sent to the capital city had revealed nothing in time for the beast to ravage their fishery.
Blah, blah, blah.
Something was happening at the entrance to the camp, right by the guards' area. A shouting match was working its way louder and louder about...a horse?
This could be interesting. Nao perked up.
When she recognized the dark-haired woman from before, the interest turned quickly to dread. The paladin—and there was absolutely no doubt of that now, as the woman had materialized her armor and weapon using paladin-specific magic—all but shoved aside the hapless guards to grab a mount.
Wait.
"Their Majesties will be informed of this regardless! You can't just-"
"Mai!"
"Don't interrupt me, Nao."
"I'm the senior rank here, you listen to me," the rogue grabbed Mai's scarf, dragging her all the way across camp toward the guards' stable. "That dragon of yours is dead for sure if we don't leave, and now. Grab a horse, and get going!"
"Hey!" one of the guards shouted, "you can't just take our horses!"
"Yes, we can, you nitwit." Nao growled out, revealing an emblem with the royal family's crest on it. "We're here on a nice little business trip that you fucks screwed up by messing with that Firewing."
Mai and Mikoto each grabbed a horse before the guard could further protest them, mounted, and rode out. Nao only sneered before grabbing a horse of her own,mounting it, and following her companions out of the outpost.
Hooves pounded along the dirt path as the trio pushed their borrowed horses as fast as they dared go.
"I'd be willing to best my rarest items that Firewing is dead before we get there anyway."
"How do you know there isn't a chance to save it?!" The beastmaster snapped.
"That paladin has a head start on us. Even if we could get there in time, it's either going to be dead by that person's blade, or the poison those idiots back at the outpost have been feeding it will finally drive it insane and it'll end up tearing itself apart." Nao snapped back.
"Wait. The same paladin you thought you saw earlier? But they're all supposed to be-"
"Back at the palace, yes."
"What's a paladin? Is it tasty?" Mikoto chirped.
"No, and the only way this paladin would be out here, unaware of the edict is if they happened to have been missing for over a year."
"But there's only been one declared missi-... Wait. You're not saying it's her?"
"I honestly don't know who else it could be." Nao drawled sarcastically. "Of the five paladins we're supposed to have, Shizuru's been following the rules staunchly since that incident, and the other three paladins don't have the balls to break the edict in the first place. The last one... Well, we never found a body, so she was declared missing in action."
"But after two years? She's already been declared dead by default, hasn't she?" Mai asked incredulously.
"Just because she should be considered dead by now doesn't mean anything. There are magics beyond your grasp that allow even a corpse to be revived in perfect condition, and with its own autonomy." Nao ground out.
A forest grew on the horizon ahead. The ground grew softer, and the tracks from the paladin's horse dug deeper into the soil. One tree at the very edge of the forest looked to have been snapped clean in half and dragged along the ground further in. A shriek emanated from the forest, and both horses were nudged into a faster gait. A blood trail grew slowly; small spatters of blood turned into long streaks against the ground. Gouges marked the trail where the Firewing had dragged the broken tree with it.
They both dismounted, opting to take the last stretch on foot.
The scene they came upon, Nao had expected. Mai let out a strangled gasp. The Firewing had been speared through by a tree, most likely the one they had found broken earlier. Blood oozed from both that wound, and where it had been beheaded.
But the most unexpected, perhaps...was the armor-clad figure. She left the sword where the final cut had been made and turned only enough that her body was in profile, and she was looking directly at the intruding trio.
"...I'll be damned." Nao breathed out. That hair, those eyes, that perpetual frown... "It's really you, isn't it?"
The paladin's eyebrows creased, as if trying to place where she had seen the trio before, why they would care who she was, but she otherwise said nothing.
"It really is you..." Mai murmured in shock. "...Natsuki."