Amaryllis didn't led them straight to the closest settlement. Her way was long and convoluted, or at least that was what Igneous' feet told him, but when she explained it, it made sense. One, there wasn't a whole let to be had in the small villages and if bandits noticed travellers in the small villages, it could bring them even more harm than usual. More harm than usual... he never thought he would say something like that. Two, she said forests were a waste of time – if you encountered bandits, fighting them and going on with your way wasn't much faster than just going around and avoiding a battle in the first place. Three, she was looking to be payed for her recent kill and she was only going to get paid in a particular meeting place.
She didn't give a fourth reason but Igneous would insist on its existence. She seemed to like the fact that people were depending on her for directions and she was milking it for all it was worth. She liked to be in the front, to sway her hips more than they needed to be and Igneous found it more interesting to stare at his feet when she did that. He just wasn't interested and didn't want to be caught looking so the others could comment on it.
He did catch Elena starring at her quite often though. It helped that Orfeo was an intelligent horse and often steered himself, so Elena had the time to stare at Amaryllis and she seemed to enjoy it, judging by the look on her face. She had a dreamy look on her face and the slightest hint of a blush.
He was happy when they reached the city she was aiming for.
"I have to go meet my contact but I'll meet you here tomorrow!" she said with a smirk before putting up her hood and bouncing away. Igneous turned to Leigh. He was still mad at him and Saikur but he had to push personal feelings away when it came to business.
"Are we staying at an inn or outside?" he asked.
"If the inn has a place for all the horses and can accommodate Caayla's pegasus, then sure," Leigh answered curtly. "Igneous..."
Oh, the talk was coming. Before he could continue, there was a sudden, loud shout. The source of the shout was an argument that just seemed to have gotten worse. He watched with interest – though the voices were getting louder, he still couldn't seem to catch the all the words that the two people were throwing at each other. Something about getting fired? He was more even more interested when one of them broke off with an angry "FUCK YOU!" before stomping their way over.
He had short brown hair, blue eyes that were currently stormy with anger, with simple clothing – a black pants and a dark grey short sleeved shirt with a black vest over top. In the very least, he didn't look he could be much older than Igneous was, maybe a year or two at the most. He looked Igneous in the eye. "What are you looking at?"
Igneous blinked. He certainly didn't sound like a male.
"What happened over there? Are you okay?" he asked.
"I just got kicked out my mercenary group," the person said. "Apparently they don't like my attitude! Ha, I don't need them anyway!"
"You could always join us," Leigh offered. "We're always looking to hire more mercenaries. We need a lot to face the Zahan army."
"Zahan? Seriously? It sounds a little risky but if they pay's decent, then I have something to show to the assholes who thought they didn't need me. I guess I'm in. I'm Charlisse but call me Charlie instead if you know what's good for you. And whatever you think, I'm a freaking girl okay? I'm tired of people thinking I'm a boy for some stupid reason," she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"I could tell you were a girl," Elena mumbled.
"It should be help that we have more people who know what they're doing in Fraedia now," Arder muttered, his fingers brushing across the handle of a sword like he was itching to draw it. He also seemed keen on changing the subject but it wasn't like Igneous blamed him. "I don't like this place. I also ways feel like I have to be on edge."
"Fraedia does that," Charlie muttered with a shrug. "I mean, you're pretty much dead if you aren't paranoid."
"That's... nice to know," Igneous mumbled. Maybe the whole group was under prepared but before he could dwell on that, something strange popped in the corner of his vision. All he could make out was that it was purple and wispy, like fog or smoke that stayed close to the ground. He decided that the shape was vaguely like a small animal that was walking on all fours, like a bear maybe but much too small. It reared its head up at him, regarding him with glowing yellow eyes before growling, making Igneous jump a little.
It turned around, looking to the general direction of The Barren. It walked a little, then looked back for Igneous like it wanted him to follow it. He merely shook his head – The Barren was the last place he wanted to be and he wasn't going to follow some tiny bear that may not even actually exist. Something in his chest just screamed that it was a trap. He wasn't sure if it was just his gift or if he was actually imaging it because his visions didn't usually work that way.
"You have no choice!" it barked at him, like it spoke directly in his head. "You can go willingly or be dragged kicking and screaming!"
"Igneous!" Garath called, shaking him harshly by the shoulders. Igneous blinked and the tiny, wispy bear vanished from sight. "You there?"
"Yeah, I'm here," he answered. He got a lot of strange looks, mostly of concern, and he slowly realized that he was the only one who could see or hear the tiny bear. He must have zoned everybody else out to watch it. Garath was one of the only ones who didn't give any sort of look and he smiled when Igneous responded.
"Good. You zoned out on us. Do you need a break?"
"How long did I zone out for?" he mumbled.
"Just a minute or so," Iniabi answered. "You see something?"
Charlie huffed. "Yo! Any of you mind filling me in?"
"Once we're out on the road, you can get the full story," Leigh said. "I don't think Igneous would appreciate saying anything in such a public place." At least Leigh learned something from their talk. He was at least thinking a little bit of how Igneous was feeling and he did appreciate that nobody demanded that he tell them what he saw. He was still stuck wondering himself if it was actually there and he was the only one sensitive enough to see it or if it was the strangest vision he had ever seen.
Wait, no, he saw something like that before, back at the temple just after the fire. He was with Saikur, he could remember that. That time, it also been trying to lead him somewhere, probably to The Barren, but it didn't talk before and that bear was also bigger. Should he be concerned?
Well, at least they didn't seem to be able to actually touch him and endanger him in any way. It was more like an ominous warning at best but for what, he couldn't tell. There was no use in getting concerned then.
The inn had no accommodations for the all the horses, and Leigh and Saikur were both worried that somebody may try to steal them, so they all decided to just camp outside again, much to the disappointment of Igneous. It was hard to sleep outside when he knew a bed was so close! Caalya wrote in her book that she was glad that they were staying outside – she didn't want to leave Athena alone, Athena being her pegasus. It wasn't so much that she was afraid Athena would run off, just that pegasi were more sought after than a regular horse was and she couldn't help but to be worried that something would happen to her. If they had gone with the inn, Igneous had a feeling Caalya would stay outside, both to protect Athena and to put some distance between herself and Gerben.
It was still early in the day, so Gerben had decided that he wanted to forage a bit in the forest they left behind. He had the sudden craving for some fresh berries and for once, Igneous didn't quite mind walking around some more, especially if it got him out of talking with Saikur and Leigh because for some reason, he was still a little ticked off with the both of them. Clearly, they could tell because they didn't linger around him for long but who knows when they decided that they needed to talk? He wasn't in the mood for it.
"Can I come with you?" Igneous asked as Gerben stretched himself. He seemed surprised.
"I thought you didn't like walking?"
"I'm not fond of it," he mumbled. "But you know..."
"You want some space, sure." He rose to his feet and he went to the closest person. It was Charlie. "Hey, Charlie, right?"
She was sitting down, wiping her blade clean when she looked at Gerben. "Yeah, what of it?" she asked, her look one of silent judgment. She seemed like she was a little rough around the edges but maybe she was still mad that she was kicked out of her other group. He was beginning to see why how others might not like her attitude though.
"I'm taking Igneous with me for foraging. I just wanted to let somebody know," he said simply. Charlie nodded. "We should be back in a couple of hours."
"Sure," she stated simply. "If go missing for any reason, get separated or whatever, the universal meeting place in Fraedia is the capital, Valburn. If we can't find you, I'll send everybody there. It's stupid to go outside from a main group with no plan."
"Sure, thanks for the idea," Gerben said, his look serious but softened when he looked back down at Igneous. "Let's go, kiddo."
The forest wasn't far away from the city, it was visible from the city, but it was large enough that even while it was far away, it looked like it was close. It didn't look like a twenty minute walk but that it was. "Remember to stay close. Amaryllis said something about the forests being possibly dangerous, right? If we run into problems, I'm transforming and we're dashing."
"What about the berries?"
"We eat as we go!"
"Is that safe?"
"I know which ones are safe," Gerben said with a confident grin. "Or if you're worried, you don't gotta eat any of them. You said you just wanted some space, right?"
"Yeah... it's still awkward with Saikur and Leigh right now," he mumbled.
Gerben frowned. "What happened anyway? I know you were mad but you know, I don't want to make the same mistake they did."
Igneous frowned too. "They were just... too protective. They wanted to know everything about what I see when they just don't know about anything about them and usually, I guess it would be alright, but it was like they were entitled to know everything. I feel like I'm better off not sharing everything. I don't like the idea that somebody's constantly hounding me when they don't know how it feels," Igneous mumbled.
Gerben merely nodded, his eyes carefully scanning the bushes while his nose scrunched.
"You are alright though, right?" Igneous asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?
"You haven't been as cheerful since the fire."
"I'm worried, I won't deny that. It's obvious I can't always protect you," Gerben mumbled. "But you seem fine either way, you must be confident in everybody if you can put yourself in harm's way on purpose. I just need to get used to sharing the responsibility and the guilt. It's not just us three anymore."
Igneous blinked. "You're jealous."
"A little... I guess. Especially when there are others that are doing a better job at protecting you than I am. I thought that as one of your long-term guardians, I would have done better."
"But didn't you save Mira and I?"
"After you got hurt, I killed the man who attacked you but it's not like that did you a lot of good, right? It wasn't like they were going to kill you," Gerben said with a sigh.
"But that wouldn't have been the same for Mira if they thought she was too much trouble and if you hadn't killed him, I might have be in Zahan hands right now," Igneous mumbled. He was unconscious at the time but he did hear about what happen from Mira. At least, Gerben was protective in a different way than Saikur and Leigh were. Instead of chewing Igneous out for putting himself into dangerous situations like Leigh and Saikur did, Gerben internalized his own mistakes when he wasn't able keep Igneous safe. It was never Igneous' fault with him, and Igneous wasn't sure which one he preferred because he didn't like watching Gerben doubt himself. "You're doing fine. You're one person, a big person, but one person. You can't be everywhere, you said that yourself!"
Gerben didn't say anything at first, just looked away for a moment. Igneous bit his lips but managed a smile when Gerben managed to find one.
"Thanks, Iggy," he said, ruffling his hair. "Now for those berries!"
Igneous lost track of how long they spent in the forest but he alerted Gerben when he realized they didn't have a lot of sunlight left and that the others were probably worried, especially Saikur and Leigh. He was beginning to expect to see Amaryllis looking for them at any moment, because out of everybody, she seemed to be the best when it came to tracking people down because her income basically depended on being able to find people. However, he doubted she was done with whatever business occupied her.
However, he began to realize that he didn't even know where he was. They must have gone deep into the forest because he could no longer see the tree line in any direction he looked.
"Do you know where we're supposed to go?" Igneous asked as Gerben began to stretch after spending a great deal of time compressing himself to be at the same level as the berry bushes. He definitely seemed to be pretty satisfied with his trip and he even managed to get Igneous to taste some the berries.
Gerben looked at him with a look Igneous didn't want to see – he looked perplexed. Igneous frowned and got worried when he could see realization hit Gerben.
"You're a bear! How do you get lost in a forest? Wouldn't you have a better sense of this stuff than a regular human?"
"What does that have to do with anything? I'm not a full-time bear and even if I was, this isn't my natural habitat! Real bears would probably do better when it comes to be in an unfamiliar place!" Gerben shouted but Igneous knew not to take it personally. Gerben wasn't in the business of offending people so when he shouted, it was more at himself than anybody else.
"And I never really had to leave the temple and when I did, I was always with somebody... so I never needed a sense of direction," Igneous mumbled to himself. He knew how bad that sounded, with the lack of independence and all, but it was most certainly true. It wasn't even really hard to find the temple in Dosia because if he couldn't see it, somebody else always knew where to find it. However, there weren't helpful people in the forest and all the trees looked the same. It didn't help that there seemed to a distinct lack of a path in the forest, or if there was one, neither of them seemed to have noticed it. Was there even a path when they went in? "What do we do?"
"I'm going to climb one of these trees to try and see where we are in comparison to the tree line," Gerben muttered. Igneous looked up at the trees.
"... Can any of them support your weight? Can you even climb them?"
"Pfft, bears are better climbers than humans!" he exclaimed as he suddenly transformed and dashed up one of the trees. He did a lot better than expected and the tree trunk didn't move even with the new weight on it. However, as he watched Gerben climb the tree, a sudden chill ran up his back just as a feeling of dread washed over him. He supposed it was the feeling of being watched, though he couldn't recall ever feeling anything like that. He just didn't know where such a feeling of dread would come from, especially with Gerben being so far up from the ground.
"Gerben?" he squeaked. He wasn't sure if he heard him.
Suddenly, an arrow whizzed by, hitting the tree trunk just by his head. It was a warning shot, he figured. He turned around quickly to find two figures, one holding some sort of bow and the other appeared to another ursurine. She was female, the first female Igneous ever saw, with hair dark hair the seemed to go down to the middle of her back. Like Gerben, she had the stone cuffs around her wrists and legs, though it was obvious to Igneous that she held more weights in a vest, which she wore over a sleeveless white shirt and black pants. Her blue eyes were full of excitement and her skin was tanned, much like a lot of Fraedians, he was beginning to notice. Maybe Fraedians happened to be out in the sun more often than Adossians.
Gerben suddenly landed on the ground in front of him and protectively stood in front of him with a low growl just after shifting back into his human form.
"Hey calm down! I don't mean you any harm and I'm sure my cub here didn't mean anything," the ursurine said, patting the smaller human on the shoulder, which earned her a pout from her companion as he swatted her hand away. "But hey, if you want a spar, I'm always up for a spar!" She cracked her knuckles.
"Who are you guys?" Igneous asked, peeking from behind Gerben who kept up his aggressive posture. There was no sign of him relaxing so if somebody was going to be nice, it had to be Igneous. "And why did you try to shoot me?"
"I was trying to get your attention," the other stated. He definitely sounded male, so Igneous was going to assume he was one but he kept himself completely concealed in a green cloak. Igneous did notice that he didn't seem to be wearing any sort of footwear though. "What's your business here?"
"Gerben wanted berries. We just got lost!" Igneous muttered. He didn't feel so threatened anymore. It was obvious that the guy tried to be threatening, or at least he tired to appear cool and uncaring, perhaps to try to get an answer from him and he may have been worried if the ursurine was anything but the way she was acting. She was so laid back that it made the seriousness of the other almost funny. Even Gerben was eventually relaxing himself.
The female laughed. "Only a bear would get lost for berries!" she cheered. "I'm Orla and my cub here is Will!" She knocked the hood off of his head, to reveal somebody with messy, brown hair that went down to his neck, and light green eyes. He shot her a glare as he replaced his hood.
"I'm Gerben, and he's Igneous but I like to call him Iggy," Gerben said while Igneous focused on Will's appearance. Green eyes reminded him of somebody he knew. Green eyes, green eyes... who did he know with green eyes? When he thought about, more than one person came to mind. Damn.
It was bugging him, trying to figure out who Will reminded him of. It must have shown on his face because he earned himself an elbow to his side, courtesy of Gerben. When he recovered from that, he straightened himself out and took in a deep breath. "Do you have any siblings?" Igneous asked all of a sudden.
Will gave him a nasty glare. If Will didn't trust him before, he certainly didn't anymore. Even Gerben gave him a weird look, then looked up like he was contemplating something. "Yeah, he looks like kind of like Mira, doesn't he?"
"Mira... how do you know Mira? Where is she? Is she alright?" he asked, his shooting hand reaching for another arrow but Orla smacked his hand away.
"She's travelling with us and last I checked, she was fine but then we got lost so..." Igneous muttered. "Are you the brother she's looking for?"
"Where are you headed?" he suddenly. "If you're not lost, then I can protect my sister again."
Igneous was about to say something when a vision came to him. He wasn't sure what he was seeing – the sky was literally black, the grass was brown and it was dry enough that it crunched under his feet. Along the grass, he could see a rusty chain, with each link of the chain being larger than his head. The chain seemed to go on infinitely in both directions but suddenly, the chain went taut and rose off of the ground. He could hear a heavy sigh before suddenly, the rusty chain was ripped forwards and Igneous jumped back, giving the chain plenty of room before it inevitably snapped.
It hurt his ears. The snapping noise was louder than it should have been and he could feel it ringing in his head. Whatever sighed earlier was laughing and cheering – it was a deep, masculine sounding laugh that dripped with malice. He noticed that when the chain on his end was laying flat again, the broken end just by his feet, a fog rolled in. It was dark in colour and heavy, sticking close to his feet before slowly twisted up his legs. It made him feel disgusted and nauseated, like there was something tainted about it and he may have just been more sensitive to it than anybody else. He shivered.
"You're ignoring me," a deep voice stated simply. "Go ahead. Keep running, keep ignoring me, but I will always know where you are."
He came back feeling nauseated too, on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He never had a vision that felt like it beat him up so badly, he was never left panting and feelings never carried over from the vision back to reality. Gerben helped him into a sitting position because he felt... out of it. That was the only way he could describe it. Something didn't feel right with him but he couldn't figure out what was bothering him so much or even how to really stop it from bothering him. It freaked him out when something out of the norm happened and that was definitely out of the norm. He would have to asked Elena about it.
"Iggy? What happened?"
"Saw something... I don't know what it was but it was not nice," he said. He didn't understand much of it himself, he didn't have the time to mull over what he saw, but it was hard to do when he just felt so bad. He could feel a dull ache in his chest on top of the nausea and it just left him confused. Why was he having so many problems?
Orla looked alarmed and Will seemed curious.
"Do you need to rest for a bit?" Gerben asked. Igneous nodded and had no problem leaning his weight against Gerben. He fell asleep quickly.
Gerben waited until Igneous was deeply asleep before he shifted his weight and placed Igneous against a tree. He could really sleep soundly if he wanted to do and it seemed like that was one of those times that he could – he really needed the sleep if he reacted so badly to a vision. Gerben was panicky about it but somebody had to be calm about it or Igneous would spend all of his free time freaking out about it too. Igneous was sensitive in that regard.
"We should get moving. It's bad to stay in one place for too long in the forest," Will mumbled. "Are all of your allies in the nearby town?"
"Yeah, we walked about twenty minutes or so to get to the forest from town."
"Oh, we can get to that easily then," Orla said with a grin. "Grab your cub and get going!"
Gerben did as they told him to do. It wasn't that he was a pushover but if they didn't return soon, then Leigh and Saikur would most certainly send a rescue party, assuming they hadn't done so already. Maybe they were going to wait for more light. Gerben wasn't the best with planning – he let his somewhat whimsical desires lead him in life. He didn't have much direction or any goals, he just did whatever struck his fancy and that worked well enough for him. It was how he met Igneous. He saved up some gold with the intents of seeing what the oracle was all about, but he didn't think he wasn't going to return home or be the only ursurine he knew of in Adoss.
But that was just where life led him, he supposed. He did care about Igneous, he wouldn't have stayed if he didn't, but he didn't much care about all the politics that followed his 'cub'. Gerben left that to the people who cared – Leigh who needed such order and control and Saikur who seemed overly attached to Igneous.
He noticed that Igneous already felt rather warm in his arms. Maybe he was coming down with a fever and that's why he reacted so badly to the vision but he seemed fine prior to it. He never really stuck around during one of Igneous' fevers though – he got them every couple of years but Gerben just gave him space and only came if Igneous' ramblings demanded it. He had too many people crowding around him as it was.
"How did you meet your cub anyway?" Orla asked with a smile as they carefully began to move in the forest. He never really thought about calling Igneous is cub but he guessed that it was like that at the end of the day. Igneous was young when they first met and he was the closest thing he had to a child – he didn't have to be an ursurine to be his cub. Will was definitely not an ursurine but he was still got the nickname from Orla.
"He's the oracle. I just wanted to see what it was all about and he wouldn't let me leave."
"And Orla wouldn't leave me alone. I let her stay because I couldn't make her leave," Will mumbled.
"He says that but he appreciates me," she said with a proud smile. "We met-"
"He doesn't need the story of our lives right now."
"Fine," she grumbled.
They travelled mostly in silence from then on when Will reminded her that needed to be quiet if they wanted to avoid any bandits who decided to hide in the forest. Gerben used the hand that supported Igneous' neck to tuck some hair out of his face when he realized that Igneous was way too warm, even warmer than he was when Gerben first noticed that something was amiss. His temperature shouldn't be going up that fast, should it?
Orla must have noticed that he stopped because she stopped too and took a glance back. "He's looked better," she mumbled.
"We're not more than half an hour away from the closest town. Mira and your allies should be there, right? Surely he can hold on," Will mumbled.
"But his temperature's going up way too fast," Gerben mumbled. But they were right – Igneous wouldn't die if he had to wait half an hour at the most and as soon as he was in Elena's care, then he would alright. He was just concerned.
Orla talked to him more after that, partially because she seemed to just want to take his mind off of it and the other reason being that just seemed to be the type to talk a lot. She bragged about how much weight she could carry, which actually wasn't all that unusual for one ursurine to do when they met another. Strength was something most ursurines worked their entire lives for, regardless of sex or age, and it was customary for cubs to get their first set of stone cuffs when they win their first fight or displayed some other great display of strength, and more cuffs were made and more weight was added as they grew older.
The cuffs themselves were basically two pieces of interlocking stone that a professional would carve from stone. Most professionals were also ursurines but Gerben could remember finding a human in Adoss that would make his grieves when he showed them how his cuffs interlocked.
Orla really just reminded Gerben about his life in Vedia, where he did grow up some other ursurines in a blended village with humans. He could remember the competitions he had with the other ursurines in the village, he could remember how they bragged about how much weight they could carry and the next day, Gerben would be carrying more. He forgot about a lot of that stuff when he decided to stay in Adoss. Nobody really asked him about what it was like to be an ursurine but he was also sure that general population of Adoss were just frightened and didn't want to be in the presence of somebody who looked like he could snap their neck without any effort.
But when Gerben thought about it, it didn't take much to kill the human that attacked Igneous. Perhaps their fears were well founded.
"So about that spar?" Orla asked. "When your cub is in safe hands and my cub can see his sister, of course!"
"Sure," Gerben said. He couldn't remember the last time he actually had a friendly fight with somebody. Sure, he exercised to maintain his muscles and fought in more serious battles, but a light hearted battle was probably just the thing he needed to feel more confident in his abilities to protect Igneous, or his cub as Orla liked to call him.
"Awesome!' Orla shouted excitedly, cracking her knuckles in anticipation.
"I'm beginning to feel like you two should be related," Will said with a sigh. "One Orla is enough. I don't need Orla and somebody like Orla."
"We barely met," Gerben mumbled.
"I know. But for some reason, I can see you both drinking and playing cards and both of you being bad at it."
Igneous suddenly groaned, almost like he agreed with Will.
"It was one time!" Orla mumbled.
"The one time it counted," Will mumbled.
"We need more people like Orla in our camp though," Gerben mumbled. "I can't be the only one to defend poor Iggy against the seriousness that is his other guardians."
"See, it's a good thing."
Will's shoulders fell. "We'll see about that," he said quietly as the broke the treeline.
I would have uploaded earlier, except that I had three midterms in four days and an assignment on top of that. It wasn't fun. I also like to get more of the next chapter done but I seem to have trouble with it.
I was also going to introduce another character here, one more of the submitted ones, but I figured that three were probably enough and I shouldn't over do it.