Lupin pushed through the brush. He would need to find a deer to pay his shaman, and he still needed to hunt for the rest of his tribe. He was not far from his camp when he heard a pained squeak.

Lupin looked around the base of the tree where the sound seemed to be coming from and saw a small bat lying crumpled among the roots. Its wing was twisted at a funny angle and it was whimpering quietly.

Lupin hesitated. Bat wasn't the tastiest of foods, nor very filling, being rather small and scrawny, and this particular bat was quite thin. However, it clearly wasn't going anywhere, making it an easy kill, and judging by the pain in its squeaks, it might be better to just put it out of its misery. The moment Lupin reached out a hand to touch it, however, its scarlet eyes flashed open and it darted away, flapping to a high branch stiffly and awkwardly on its twisted wing.

"Where's Lydia?" it cried, not quite managing to keep the pain out of its voice.

Lupin froze. Bats didn't talk. And this one just definitely asked him a direct question in Common. No, it just squeaked and it sounded like words.

"Maybe you didn't understand me," said the bat, hugging its injured wing close to its body. "I asked you where Lydia was!"

The bat had switched to Orc in that last part, which left Lupin in no doubt that the bat was speaking intelligently, leaving him only in doubt of his own sanity.

"Who's Lydia?" he asked slowly.

"My sorcerer!" squeaked the bat. "I'm her familiar and I know she's alive or else I wouldn't be! Where is she?"

Lupin had no knowledge of the way a familiar worked, but he was pretty sure they could talk, so this whole conversation suddenly made a lot more sense. "What does she look like?" he asked.

"She's an elf, with medium-length blond hair and green eyes. She's about five feet tall and looks like she's the same age as a twenty-two year old human." The bat said this all very fast, as though it were losing the rest of its quickly evaporating calm. "And judging by the pain I felt before I fell, she's likely covered in blood," it added, almost as an afterthought.

"I took an injured elf that fits that description to the shaman back at my camp," said Lupin.

"Take me there!" the bat ordered.

"My shaman doesn't know if she'll live or not…"

"Well she's still alive now!" the bat shrieked, baring his fangs. "If she were dead, I wouldn't be talking to you, and I'm not going to let her die alone! Take me there, now!"


Back in the orc camp, Lydia was stirring. She slowly opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, very disoriented. The first thing she noticed was the canvas tent above her head. The second thing she noticed was that she was completely naked.

Clearly, she had been stripped of everything in order to bandage her wounds, but it didn't make waking up in a strange place without any clothes on any less awkward. A quick glance around told her that she was alone, and that her possessions were elsewhere.

Lydia jumped slightly when she saw an orc slumped in the corner. She had covered herself before she realized that he was dead. She stood up slowly, wincing as her wounds burned. She wrapped a blanket in the tent around herself, holding it closed at her chest. Where was she, and why was there a dead orc in the tent with her? Well, a dead orc was better than a live one in any case.

Said live orcs chose that moment to enter the tent. The two didn't even look at Lydia. They froze when they saw the dead orc in the corner. They dropped the food they were carrying and ran to him. They shook his shoulders, begging. Lydia understood some Orc, and could tell they were pleading with their shaman to wake up. After a tense minute, one of the orcs looked up at Lydia. There were tears in his eyes, along with the cold fury and hatred, directed right at her.


"Come on, go faster!" shouted the bat, riding in Lupin's palm.

"We're almost there," panted Lupin. "If you're unhappy with my pace, then why don't you just fly?"

"I can't fly right now, you dipshit!" said the bat angrily. "Have you ever tried flying with a twisted wing? It hurts!"

"We're almost there," Lupin repeated.

"She's in trouble," said the bat, more to himself than Lupin. "I can feel it."

When Lupin and the bat entered the camp, however, the bat's feeling was proved one hundred percent correct. His beloved Lydia was at that moment, surrounded by twenty odd orcs, tied to a stick with a pile of wood at her feet. The look on her face was one of terror.

The bat froze in horror for a split second before screaming, "Lydia!"

The elf looked up to see her bat sitting in the palm of a smaller orc. "Zyphre!"

The bat rounded on Lupin. "How many of these orcs understand Draconic?" he demanded.

"What?" Lupin asked in alarm.

"Draconic! The language of magic! How many of these orcs understand it, no matter how little!"

"I have never heard of that language before…"

"None, then, got it!" said Zyphre, turning back towards the elf and shouting in Draconic, "Lydia, what happened?"

Lydia shouted in Draconic over the heads of the orcs, "I don't know. They think I killed their shaman."

Zyphre froze. "You killed their shaman?" he repeated faintly.

"No!" shouted Lydia. "I woke up in his tent and he was dead, I don't know what happened! But they think I murdered him and they're going to kill me!"

Something in Zyphre snapped at hearing these words, triggering a full-blown freakout. He flapped his good wing frantically and started squeaking unintelligibly in Bat, high-pitched and terrified. After a long series of squeaks he turned to Lupin and shouted in his ear in Common, "Get me over there!"

Lupin pushed his way to the front of the crowd, holding Zyphre out of sight behind his back. When he got to the front he turned his back on Lydia to face the crowd, and Zyphre hopped from his hand and began climbing the ropes painfully, moving so that Lydia's body shielded him for view.

"What has this woman done?" Lupin asked his tribe. "Last I saw her, she was bleeding to death, and now that she has been saved she's going to be burned? What has she done?"

Zyphre clung to the ropes behind Lydia's shoulder and began to bite through them with his sharp canines. He shifted his twisted wing and whimpered softly, the sound muffled by the rough rope.

"Lupin, you need to keep your ugly face from where it doesn't belong," grunted a large orc. "This woman has murdered our shaman, and she needs to pay for this crime with her life."

"Shaman is…dead?" asked Lupin, caught off guard. Grief swept over him before getting a hold of himself. "Where is the proof that she has killed him?"

"There is no proof, but she was there when he died, so she is guilty!"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

Zyphre crept up to Lydia's ear and said softly, "If I bite through one more rope, you'll fall. We need a distraction."

"I'm on it," murmured Lydia from the corner of her mouth. Without another word, she closed her eyes and cast Obscuring Mist.

There were cries of alarm as a thick white mist shrouded the crowd of orcs. The mist was so thick that it was impossible to see anything. Lydia felt Zyphre bite through the rope binding her and she fell catlike on the ground. Zyphre nestled himself on her shoulder, holding his wing oddly.

From what Lydia had seen when being dragged to the stake, the camp was not that big. There were four tents, besides the one she woke up in, so her stuff had to be in one of those. She was about to run to the closest tent when the smaller orc who had been carrying Zyphre came stumbling out of the mist. Lydia snarled and raised her hand to cast Magic Missile when Zyphre yelled, "No! If it weren't for Lupin, you'd be dead!"

Lydia slowly lowered her hand, eyeing the orc with distrust. Up close she could see that he was only half-orc, but that didn't make things much better. "Lupin, was it? Do you know where they put my stuff?"

"They probably put it in the chief's tent," Lupin answered, gesturing to the tent farthest south. "Hey, wait – !"

Lydia was already running to the tent he had pointed to. Her mist was thinning and orcs were beginning to stumble out of it, it clicking in their tiny brains that they were dealing with a magic user. She darted into the tent and after a quick search, found her clothes and her bag, along with her dagger. She turned around and started violently to see Lupin standing right behind her, a good foot and a half taller than she was. Zyphre was thrown from her shoulder as she jumped back, taking to the air with a small cry as he awkwardly tried to stay airborne.

"Don't do that," Lydia hissed as Zyphre landed clumsily back on her shoulder, gripping her hair tightly with the claws on his uninjured wing.

"They're searching the camp for you," Lupin said softly. "There's no way you can get away without a fight now."

"Watch me," Lydia growled.

She stuck her head outside the door to see all the orcs wandering the camp. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as cast as powerful a Ghost Sound as she could. Instantly there were the sounds of running and shouting to move faster coming from the east side of camp. Most of the orcs shouted and ran towards the sound, but a few stayed behind to keep watches, including two blocking their way to the southern exit.

Lupin hesitated before saying, "Leave them to me."

Lupin exited the tent and drew his axe. He reached the turned backs of the orcs and quickly whacked them both in the neck with his axe. They fell to the ground, never to move again.

Lydia seized her chance and bolted. She ran past Lupin and the dead orcs, clutching her belongings to her chest with one hand and holding Zyphre on her shoulder with the other, since he was unwilling to dig his claws into her bare flesh. She ran and ran, not stopping until she was a long way away from the camp. It was only then that she realized that Lupin had followed her.

"Why did you follow me?" she demanded, moving behind a tree to pull her clothes back on.

"I've set free a prisoner and killed two of my tribe mates," said Lupin simply. "I'd really be allowed back after that."

"I am grateful for your help, but I do not require it any longer," said Lydia, stepping fully clothed from behind the tree, rummaging through her bag to make sure everything was still there. Satisfied, she let her bag fall to her hip and began to scale the largest tree in the vicinity.

"I could help you," said Lupin.

Lydia rolled her eyes and continued up the tree. "Unless you know how to get to Waterdeep, I don't require your help any longer," she repeated, settling herself on a thick branch, a ray of moonlight hitting her.

"But I do know how to get to Waterdeep."

Lydia looked down at him. "You do?"

"Yeah."

Lydia considered him. "Very well. You may accompany me as far as Waterdeep. But I do not trust you, half-orc."

"If you don't trust me, then you can take the first watch."

"That's perfectly alright with me."

Lupin shrugged and settled himself on the mossy floor, his snores quickly masking the sounds of the dark forest. Lydia glared in disgust before transferring Zyphre to her lap.

"Now, what happened to your wing?" she asked, her tone considerably warmer and concerned.

"Nevermind about that, it's nothing," said Zyphre. "What happened to you? I was just flying along like you told me to, thinking about something, probably you being stupid, and then there was pain and I was falling out of the sky."

"I was attacked by spectral wolves," said Lydia unconcernedly, ignoring Zyphre's shocked cry. "I'm sorry. Did this happen in the fall?"

"I guess so," said Zyphre. "I know I smacked some trees on the way down before I lost consciousness."

"Let's take a look at it," said Lydia, reaching out to touch it.

"No, really, it's nothing!" said Zyphre, drawing his wing up close. "I'll be fine after a rest, really."

Lydia ignored him and took his wing between her fingers, prying it away from his body. Zyphre squeezed his eyes shut and cried out as she straightened out his wing, gritting his teeth. "Zyphre, it's dislocated. Twisted too, by the look of it."

"It's fine," he said in a tight voice.

"Brace yourself," said Lydia.

"Wait, what? Ahg!" Zyphre broke off with a yell of pain as Lydia forced his wing back into place. "That was highly uncalled for!"

"Oh, hush, and get some rest. It's still twisted, but it'll heal faster now." Lydia smiled at him and rubbed his ear. "I'll stay up. I can recharge my spells when you wake up."

"You sure?" asked Zyphre, tilting his head.

"Yeah," said Lydia. "Go to sleep. I'll keep watch and make sure you don't twist up your wing while you sleep."

Zyphre slowly nodded and climbed up onto her chest, nestling himself down between her breasts. He stretched out his bad wing with a grimace. "Night, Lydia."

"Good night, Zyphre."

"Promise me something, Lydia."

"Yeah?"

"Never get into a situation like that again."

"I won't, Zyphre," said Lydia softly. She leaned her back against the tree trunk and stroked the soft fur on Zyphre's back even after he had fallen asleep.