Ch. 17: Secrets in the Mountains

Following Sun might have been easy if Yang hadn't been nursing a cracked tibia and minor frostbite, all while dragging an incapacitated Blake behind her. Though she had regained most of her senses, the wyverian had been too wobbly on her feet to justify walking. So with some ingenuity that might even impress Ruby, Yang had wrapped a rope around a flaking torn from the coral trees and was dragging the wyvern through the gritty sand. The raven haired girl had spent the majority of the trip lowly speaking with the First Wyverian in that strange language, the two talking animatedly about something because for some reason Yang wasn't privy to whatever they were discussing.

He can speak the common language, why am I not allowed in on this conversation?

Blake let out a quiet laugh and Yang glanced behind her to see Sun smiling and gesturing about. Something ugly was being birthed in her chest that she tried to ignore but it was difficult due to the fact that she was stubborn as hell. Her foot caught something and she slid in the sand, quietly cursing while she attempted to regain her footing.

"Yang?" It was Blake, "Are you ok? Let Sun help, you need to be resting your leg." Like hell Yang was gonna let that wild pretty boy drag Blake around! That was solely Yang's job thank you very much. And besides, who in the world wears shirts like that? Yang has abs! And they were way better than those stupid, washboard- Ok, well maybe her abs weren't that good - but still she was definitely sexier than him! Definitely.

With a grunt Yang shook her head and tightened her grip on the rope again, "Nope, doing fine thank you." She lost her footing again but masked it just perfectly with a fumbled step, "How much further Sun-shine? We gotta be getting close."

There was a noise from Blake, that same infernal language again, and Sun walked up next to Yang and put his hand on her shoulder, "I got it from here, you took a nasty fall and some heavy hits. Take a breather and walk beside your isiador." Yang furrowed her brows at the word but gave the rope up reluctantly, the tall wyverian taking it and shouldering the lead before continuing onwards in a much smoother pace than Yang's. With a deep breath Yang tightened her things to her body and fell in line beside Blake, a mean glare sent to the back of Sun's head.

"What's wrong?" Blake had her hand folded in her lap, her body swaying with each step that Sun took, dragging her further and further forward. Yang glanced down, and despite her foul mood, was happy to see the girl faring much better than before. The sweat and blood at her brow began to dry, and a little bit of the color had come back to her pallid face. Her breaths were still shallow, but not as worrying as before.

"I mean, we almost died, that's a pretty good reason to be pissed right?" Yang locked eyes with amber but looked away, content on focussing her ire on the man in front of them. Blake only responded with an indiscriminate noise.

"What were you guys even saying anyhow?" Yang said lowly, knowing that the man could hear her perfectly fine from where he was. There was a quiet that stretched for a moment that made Yang's chest hurt, only for it to be broken by a low tittering from the wyverian woman.

"Yang…" Blake said slowly once she got herself under control, "Are you - Hah - Are you jealous?" Yang felt her ears burn hard in the cold mountain air and spoke in sotto back, "I am not jealous! What's there to be jealous of?"

Blake giggled again, and the last bit of color came back to her cheeks, soothing Yang slightly. Blake got ahold of her fit of muted hysterics and said, "I don't get a lot of chances to speak a dead language everyday. Only my mother and experienced researches have ever tried to learn Ancient Wyverian, and the First Wyverians are the only living people to speak it fluently. Their dialect is very different from what I've seen in my books, I was simply asking him about vernacular differences. We should consider ourselves lucky to have met him, there aren't many hunters who they choose to assist."

Yang huffed and kept her pace, ignoring the throbbing building in her legs, "Gotcha." Yang caught an eye roll in the peripherals of her vision. They kept their walk in a brief silence before the huntress asked, "So, like, what's an isiador? He called you my isiador earlier."

Blake looked away and mumbled out, "Uh, it's hard to translate. It's like companion? Yeah let's go with that." Sun chuckled in front of them, shaking his head and making Yang wonder exactly what she was missing.

Before they could continue the blond wyverian stopped before a sheer rock face, bringing their party to a halt. "Ok, you two stay here for a second I need to go ahead and let my elders know we have arrived. Blake, you may need to walk from here out." The woman gave a nod, extending her hand upwards to grasp Yang's hand. With a shaky pull she wobbled onto her feet and wrapped her arm around Yang, who in turn put her arm around Blake's waist.

"Okay, we'll wait for you here Sun, thanks." The man saluted the pair and whipped his glaive from his back, spinning it quickly before vaulting into the air and up onto the face of the rocks, climbing swiftly on impossibly tiny holds and disappearing into the mists above. When he had finally exited from their view, Blake leaned over onto Yang's shoulder and said, "He's kind of like a male version of you."

The blonde whipped her head at Blake who was already chuckling into her hand, the crinkle in her eyes giving Yang heart palpitations. Yang was really trying to stay mad, but it just wasn't going to happen when Blake smiled, and so the blonde had to settle for mock annoyance.

"Oh please, my arms are way bigger than his." Yang flexed the tricep that Blake was holding onto to emphasize the point, eliciting a hum of appreciation from Blake.

"I'll take your word for it. Yang -" And the blonde turned to the wyverian, looking down at those beautiful eyes, " - thank you for saving me. I'm not sure I would've lasted long if you hadn't gotten to me with those potions." Blake stood on her tip toes to peck Yang on the mouth, stunning the huntress completely. "I'm nervous, but I'm happy that I'm even getting a chance to see my mom again. Thanks."

"S'no problem." Yang said lamely, heat creeping into her cheeks as she looked back up the muted stone wall, "Do uh, do you think he forgot us?" Blake laughed again, leaning heavily onto her shoulder.

"I have no idea."

There was a guttural scraping noise and the pair nearly leapt backwards as a seamless stone door slid back in front of them, a grinning Sun waving them forward, "Sorry about the wait ladies, step right in."

The pair hobbled through the archway, hearing Sun slide the stone back into place as they walked into a dimly lit corridor. A sliver of light muffled by the cloud cover crept in from spidering cracks above. As Yang set them forward she called over her shoulder, "So, you're definitely not taking us to some secluded area to murder us right?"

"Yang." Blake chided, her hand that was wrapped around the blondes shoulder slapping her softly.

Sun laughed, the sound echoing in the enclosed space as he leisurely followed them, "What a waste of time that would be. Would've just left you to the Legiana if I wanted that. But sadly, the infected must be culled. They are causing us all sorts of problems out here." There was a shifting noise behind Yang, but when she glanced back at the man she saw that his previous smile was replaced with a more somber look. When she turned her head he began again, "Well, to answer your questions I'm taking you back to our village, which I have to admit in any other situation would have been a pretty special occasion - Is that the word? Occassion?"

"Yes, that's right." Blake said softly, turning her head and whispering to Yang, "We may be the first outsiders to visit a First Wyverian village in a millennium Yang, so be nice!"

Yang grunted in response, her leg flaring with each step. After a few more yards of walking, the sand dissipated to smooth stone and their foot steps echoed drearily around them. Ahead, more light began to crest around a corner, Yang unconsciously increasing her pace to find herself in a rocky clearing canopied by a single enormous coral tree above. Throughout the clearing were swaths of ropings and covers, each woven with strands of crimson and violet, perfectly masking the space as part of the mountainous reef. There were dwellings made of hollowed coral, barnacles and tapestries with strange marking adorning their walls. There were not quite as many wyverians as Yang was expecting, perhaps two or three dozen gathered about various points of interest. Several small fires masked under kilns and ovens dotted the carved pathways, as well as stands hanging drying meats and pelts interspersed between them. Many of the First Wyverians wore large hats with hanging vines and webbings that obscured their faces, yet a few were bare-faced and staring intently at the new arrivals.

Sun brushed passed Yang and Blake and called some thing into the village, his hand gesturing as he rambled off something to the open area. Many of the inhabits simply returned to what they were doing, though a few of the ones not wearing masked stood and walked over, curious looks on their faces as they got closer. Yang could feel a peal of anxiousness creep into her, definitely not helped by the stares being sent her way from some of the more mysterious masked entities. A large wyverian walked up to Sun and spoke in the ancient language, gesturing at the pair. Blake piped up and responded, stunning the man who eagerly responded to her. Soon several of the unmasked wyverians gathered around them, and Yang was drowned in a sea of halting consonants and lilting vowels.

"Uh, so I guess everything is cool?" Yang said lowly to Blake, who simply smirked and nodded. Suddenly the crowd parted, and a hunched figure crept towards them, garbed in a flowing robe of webbing and masked with a stone shell on their head.

"Greetings, outsiders." The voice was soft and raspy, Yang being unable to distinguish the gender of the elder. "Mul'for Sun has told us of your plight. Please heal your injuries here, you will find no malice in our home." Blake disengaged from Yang and bowed, prompting Yang to do the same. When the researcher had finished her respects, she latched back onto Yang and slumped against her side.

A young women said something to Sun, who quipped back, eliciting a couple of gasps and coos from the gathered crowd. Yang glanced at Blake to discern if it was something she should be worried about, but only noticed that the wyverian's face was quite red. Yang shrugged internally and said, "Thank you for your kindness. We hold no grudges and honor our hosts." Blake raised an eyebrow at her, and Yang whispered, "What? It's a saying in the old country, you said to be nice!"

The stooped elder tilted their mask, a soft chuckle bouncing inside of the stone covering, "Indeed. Please follow Mul'for Sun. He will bring you to the Third Fleet researchers." With that Blake's head perked up and looked to Sun, who was beckoning the pair to follow.

"Follow me! I gotta say Blake, me and Kali have become good friends, it'll be nice to finally befriend her daughter she so often talks about!" Yang felt a grin creep across her face, nudging Blake with her hip as she lead the wounded wyverian forward.

"Hear that Blake? The walking sex symbol is good friends with your mom!"

Blake didn't look at her, "I will break that leg again if you don't shut up Yang."

"Yes m'am." There was a sing-song tone in the blonde's words as she shuffled her charge forward, the crowd dissipating as Sun lead them towards a pair of cloth coverings on the opposite side of the den. Sun pulled the cloth aside and ushered them through, leading to a low tunnel that opened on the opposite side to a cliff face with a marbled wide shelf. At the far end of the shelf sat a gathering of tents, and most surprisingly, piles of books. Around them piled several wyverians wearing swathing robes who huddled against a campfire that burned feebly. To the side of the cliff dozens of ropes moored an airship against the side of the tumbling cliffs, thick brown wood hanging underneath purple balloons that held it aloft.

"Kali!" Sun called, a grin on his face as he held his arms aloft. A single figure stood from the camp fire and walked towards the group, only to freeze in place.

"Blake?!" The woman gasped.

It was strange for Yang to realize that she could've been looking a Blake's twin for all that she knew. The woman was equal in height, but with shorter hair cut in a haphazard bob that hung just shy of her shoulders. Her face was almost the same, slightly fuller with a few creases around the eyes. In the span of a breath Yang had to wrestle with the fact that one: wyverians age like fine wine, and two she was attracted to Blake's mom. The woman put a hand to her mouth before rushing forward, Blake disengaging from Yang to meet her halfway.

The two collided in a 'whumpth' that almost knocked the breath out of Yang, holding each other tightly as Blake began to cry.

"Im so sorry." Blake wept openly into her mother's shoulder, "You were right, you were right."

The woman only whispered soft reassurances into Blake's ear, petting her daughter's hair as tears spilled down her cheeks. Yang felt emotion choke up her throat, and she cleared it twice before she was able to get herself under control. Behind Kali a short red headed wyverian walked forward only to stop a ways away from the pair. She had a speckling of freckles across her cheeks, with soft grey eyes that held a a misting of tears as well. One of the other researchers stood and grabbed her shoulder and lead her back to the fire, the woman glancing back at the reunited pair a few times before looking away in defeat.

A hand touched her shoulder and Yang flinched from the contact, finding Sun with his hands held upwards as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn't.

"Uh, whoa. So, I think they should have some space. Wanna come get some grub back in the den?" His smile was earnest, disarming, making Yang feel a smidgen of guilt for her earlier distrust of the man. She cast a glance at the red headed woman at the camp fire, then at the mother and daughter. With a sigh she stretched and popped her shoulder, rolling her neck and feeling the taut pull at the muscles there, "Yeah, that sounds good. Lead the way Sun-shine."

The other blond nodded his head, "Well alright then! And my name is Sun, not to be confused with the light of the sun above."

Yang held in a laugh, "I know, it's a nick-name."

"Nick-name?"

As Yang explained the intricacies of nick-names and teasing she followed the boy back through the cave and out into the community area of the First Wyverians. Halfway between sitting down at a cooking fire and rubbing her sore shoulders she remembered that she was surrounded by people who may not know what she was saying, and that her translator was twenty yards behind a sheet of rock in the opposite direction. She rolled her shoulders and set her things to the side, deciding that she would have to settle for Sun.

Around the fire sat several of the unmasked First Wyverians, most of them young in the face with a few children interspersed between. A bubbling pot of soup sat in a metal harness set above the tickling inferno, colored a murky brown with indescribable chunks rolling to the surface. A bowl was passed her way and Yang attempted to sniff it discreetly. Low conversation lifted into the air around them and Yang poked at her stew, Sun watching her unsubtly beside her, "It's good, it'll heal your wounds and make you strong. Give it a try, it gets better each mouthful."

Yang tepidly wrapped her lips around the bone-carved spoon, a sour tang assaulting her tongue before giving way to more earthy flavors. With a grimace she swallowed her mouthful, feeling the acrid liquid slide down her throat and forcing a cough from her chest. With eyes pressed tight she wolfed another few spoonfuls and found that it was getting better, but that was probably because her tongue was growing numb with each passing moment. That numbness spread down into her chest, before reaching out and spreading to the tips of her fingers and toes.

After her first bowl, she asked for more, and after her third she felt the sting of the frostbite leave and her leg cease its aching. Yang leaned back with a content sigh, peering around to find that more than a few of the First Wyverians were watching her, that same young woman from the crowd before - she had blue hair and green eyes - spoke up, "Huntress tell me. Is it true you have machines that spit fire and lightning?"

"Well, they fire bullets which I guess can have fire and lightning in them…"

A small child spoke next, peering from behind the wyverians shoulder, "Is it true that there are lands beyond the sea?" Yang laughed and nodded her head, "Yeah, that's where I'm from." The wyverian gasped and said something animatedly to another set of girls and boys who were peaking at the human from behind a tent flap. The group giggled as they stared more, listening for anything they could make out from the other random snippets the curious wyverians peppered Yang with. Yang saw one turn to Sun and say something, the blond responding and saying that word again that she had heard so much today.

"What's that word mean?" Sun turned and looked at her, "Which word?"

"Isiador. Blake said it meant companion but I don't think she was telling me the truth." The woman beside Sun laughed and said, "Companion? That's a rather light interpretation. I would say it means more like… Lover? Mate?" She turned to Sun who nodded his head in affirmation, "Yeah that's what I would put it as."

The two could not be more casual as Yang burned bright next to them, she heard a few more giggles directed at her as she stared back towards the direction of where Blake had been. She covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smile as she weathered a few more jabs at her expense, but she couldn't find herself to care much.

She could only try to pretend in front of all these strangers that this wasn't the happiest day of her life.

Blake followed her mother deep into the Third Fleet airship, a make-shift invention composed of the front half of their flag ship to the New World nearly thirty years prior. The walls were lined with rows and rows of bookshelves, spotted by the dripping spires of candles that occupied every table, shelf and inch of space that wasn't occupied by parchment and bound leather. Blake let her fingers trail across the spines of several books, feeling their marbled skin kiss against hers. This was her home, the smell of the highlands mixing wonderfully with the thick scent of paper and ink, calling back a lifetime of memories with each step she took. Her mother lead them to a most familiar room with a small bed and even more piles of opaque wax and loose leaf. Her mother pulled a chair forward for her and took a seat on the bed. Blake nearly collapsed on the ancient wood, happy to be off her feet once again.

"Thanks mom." She accepted a passed flagon of wine, taking a gulp and feeling her parched throat feel just a tad better. The wine had been watered down a considerably amount, lacking its usual bite. It was strange considering that Kali normally kept the container filled with much more acceptable wine, Blake passed it back.

"How long have you been grounded?"

"Long enough to run out of anything worth drinking." Kali took a half hearted pull from the container herself, setting it to the side before leaning forward and putting her hand over her daughters.

"How are you?"

Blake let a sad breath slip from her mouth, "Well, I'm pretty sure I've taken softer falls in my life. My head is still hurting pretty bad, and it's hard to see right now." She blinked her eyes and tried to focus on her mother again. The woman smiled softly and squeezed Blake's hand, "Well you're a tough girl, you'll feel better after some food and rest. No sweetheart, how are you? I heard about… What happened to him. People gave me updates on you when they could but… I thought you wanted some space. After the last time we saw one another."

Blake looked away as shame pooled in her stomach, "I regret everything I said. Adam… Adam wasn't worth any of that. I'm sorry." Another reassuring squeeze brought her attention back to her mother, the woman smiled again and said, "It's ok Blake. I was never mad - well I was a little mad - but I'm just happy that we can talk again. Even if it's under less than ideal circumstances -" The woman let out a sigh that showed her age, "- seeing you again is all I wanted for the last couple of years."

Blake held in a sniffle and leaned forward to wrap her arms around her mother, "I missed you mom." The elder wyverian pulled her daughter in and the two held each other for several moments. Blake felt her mom say lowly next to her ear, "I like that girl you brought with you, when do I get to meet her?"

Blake pushed her mom away, trying to keep the blush on her face from showing by hiding behind her hair, "Never because I don't think I could handle the two of you in a room together." Kali smiled devilishly and laughed, "Well now I have to meet her. Are you two…?" Blake nodded, the look on her mother's face dipping slightly, "And I trust she's taking good care of you?"

This time Blake allowed herself to smile, "I believe this is the third time she has saved my life. I think she's a little crazy, but its probably a good crazy."

Blake could see several conflicting emotions run across her mother's face, but the one she settled for was something close to contentment, "Well alright, I guess when you put it that way, I can't worry much. Well any more than usual. What on earth have you been doing to have a huntress save you twice before today? Did you start hunting again?"

Blake leaned back into her chair, digging into her bag and withdrawing her notarized journal, cracking the clasp open and handing it to her mother.

"Probably the same reason you've had to ground the airship. Mom, have you heard of the word 'Grimm'?"

AN: Thanks for the reviews, I took some time to write an outline for the remainder of the story, I'm excited to see what you all think!