Disclaimer: I only own the stuff that I created. You cannot use anything of mine without asking me first. So HA. The Dragoon Judges: MINE. The new Dragoons: MINE. The new characters: MINE. This plot: MINE. And anything else that I created: MINE. I also own myself and the Couran and Cougarus.
Chapter XVIII: Now You See It, Now You Don't
Mariath and I now stood in front of the town, Ediroso. The town was near the top of a mountain so it was incredibly cold here. Snow covered everything.
"You should let me do the talking, Crystal. Some of the Gigantos here do not like Winglies." Mariath told me.
"Y-yeah, you can do t-the talking..." I said to her as I looked at one of the huge Gigantos. The Giganto was glaring at me. "Y-you can do all the talking......" I shivered. It was really cold here.
"Couran return." A Giganto walked up to us. He was in golden robes and fur. "Chief glad to see Couran."
"I am glad to see you too, friend. This is my friend Crystal. She has come here looking for her friends. There are three Winglies in her group of friends. Have they passed by here?" Mariath asked the Chief.
"Chief no see Winglies. Girl only Wingly that Chief has seen come here." The Chief walked towards a door. "Please, friends join Chief for dinner."
I looked at Mariath and she nodded. I followed her and the Chief inside the large house. We all took a seat at a table.
"So, um," I rubbed my arms to keep warm. 'No wonder why these Gigantos wear fur.' "c-can we s-stay here for t-tonight?"
"Yes. Friends stay. Blizzard coming." The Chief began eating his food. "Eat."
I didn't really know what it was, but it was warm and I was used to eating strange food. And plus, after the first bite of that food, I really liked it.
"Wingly will need warmer clothes." The Chief motioned for a Giganto woman to get me some clothes.
"F-fine..." I continued to rub my arms. 'I always hated winter...' The woman came back with a stack of clothes in her hands. I took them without hesitation.
"Wife will show friends to rooms." The Chief said.
The woman, obviously the Chief's wife, showed us to our separate rooms. I quickly changed. I kept on my heavy jeans but changed my shirt. I now wore a black, long sleeved shirt. The woman had also given me a heavy, tan trench coat. The ends of the sleeves, the neck, and bottom of the coat was trimmed with white fur.
'I'm defiantly gonna keep this.' I thought as I rubbed the fur against my cheek. It was so soft.
"That is the softest fur in Endiness." Mariath said as she walked into my room. "It comes from a monster that us Couran hunt. We hunt that monster for its fur. It is called the Glasseriath. It lives close by so maybe you will get the chance to see it."
"That would be cool." I put the coat on. "Well, looks like I'm gonna sleep in this tonight."
"It will defiantly keep you warm." Mariath turned to leave the room. "The Chief would like to speak with us. He says he has important news that he thinks we would like to know."
"Okay..." I quickly follow the Couran out of the room.
"We are here." Mariath said as she opened the door to the Chief's place.
"Come. Sit." The Chief pointed at a couple of chairs. Us two sat down.
"So whatcha wanna tell us?" I leaned back in the chair.
"Chief want to warn friends about legend."
"Legend?" Mariath and I looked at each other.
"Yes. Legend. At top of mountain," The Chief pointed to the mountain that we could see right outside of the window. "is mythical creature. Mythical creature makes blizzards so travelers unwelcome. If friends go up there, friends may not come back alive."
"Don't worry 'bout us, Chief." I told him. "We can handle anything."
"But friends don't understand. Creature disappears."
"Disappears?" Mariath and I said in unison.
"Yes. Disappears. Friends must not go up there." The Chief sure did seem worried. Mariath and I looked at each other. "Now friends rest. Blizzard stop in morning."
We both headed back to our rooms.
'A disappearing creature, eh? Well, this should be interesting... Very interesting...' I laid down on my bed and tried to go to sleep.
XxXxX
I got up early, and I mean early, the next morning. I was already dressed and standing next to Mariath's bed.
"Hey, you. Wake up." I whispered.
Her cat ears twitched and turned towards me. "What do you want?"
"It's time to go."
"What? Is the blizzard over already?"
"Yep. C'mon." I jerked on her tail.
"YEOW!! Don't do that!" She shrieked.
"Then get up."
"I'm up. I'm up." She sat up. "Why are we leaving so early?"
"I want to get to the top of that mountain before it gets dark."
"What?!" This made Mariath jump to her feet. "Now why would you want to do that?!"
"Because I'm me. Now, come on, or I'm leavin' ya behind." I turned to leave.
"I'm coming!!" She jumped up and down a couple times then ran past me.
"Where friends going?" The Chief greeted us once we both ran out.
"We're going to get a head start on finding our friends." I told him.
"Chief understand. Travel safely."
We both ran out of the town. "Hurry!" Mariath ran through the snow.
I had only been with Mariath for two days and her bubbly personality was just starting to show. 'I don't think I can handle another Meru...' I sighed. I ran after her. She was tremendously fast in a foot of snow. "I think I'm just gonna fly."
"You'll waste your energy like that. It's best to just walk." Mariath spun around. "And plus, it's fun."
"Yeah, right." 'I never liked snow, much less winter.' The snow was so fluffy. "How long do you think it'll take us to get to the top of this mountain?"
"Oooooooohh, I'd say several days, maybe. IF we don't freeze to death."
"How reassuring......" I looked back at Ediroso. I could barely see the town anymore.
"So, tell me again why you wanted to climb the mountain?"
"Because I like challenges, and I have a feeling that fighting that disappearing creature will be a challenge." I turned my attention back to focusing on where I was walking.
"So tell me a bit more about your friends." Mariath was several feet away from me.
"Well...there's not much to tell, really. The brown haired girl, Selistia, is kinda sweet, I guess, and then, of course, there's Milro the comedian." I smiled just thinking of him. If he was here with us, then he'd probably start a snowball fight.
"What about that one guy? The one with the black hair." Mariath looked back at me, but continued walking. There was a long silence.
"Do we have enough supplies to last us the trip up there and back?" I asked her, trying to change the subject.
"Yep."
Silence. 'This is gonna be a longer trip than I thought it would be...' I rubbed my head. 'A very long, irritating trip. Especially if she brings up the subject of Hajeri again......'
XxXxX
"I think I see the cave." I said. It had been two days since we left Ediroso. We were now walking up a very large hill. Ahead of us, we could see a jagged cliff and near that cliff was a cave.
We finally managed to walk all the way up the hill and now, to the left of us, was a cliff. I looked down. "Man, I hope we don't fall down there 'cause it's gonna hurt if we do."
"Hey, look! A Glasseriath!!" I heard Mariath holler.
I turned around and I looked in the direction that she was pointing in. A creature about four feet tall stood several yards away from us. It had long white fur and its neck was trimmed with curly, white fur. It also had huge ears and a tail as long as its body. Its sea blue eyes stared at us. It had no arms, but only two long hind legs. The Glasseriath began sniffing the ground for some food. All of a sudden, its head jerked up and it sniffed the air. It let out a screech and it started to run off.
"I wonder what scared it?" I watched it run away.
"Oh no..." Mariath obviously knew what had scared it.
"What?"
"A Glasseriath knows when a blizzard is coming."
"Okay. So...does that mean that-" I never had a chance to finish my sentence. The wind picked up and it started to snow even harder. The wind pushed Mariath and I towards the cliff. In just a few seconds, the wind threw us both off the edge of the cliff. The wind kept me from letting out my wings and keeping myself from falling. Everything got darker as we continued to fall............
XxXxX
My body ached as I tried to sit up. I opened my eyes and looked around. Snow. Rock. And...snow. I just laid there on my stomach. My head hurt and I could see bright red blood on the snow. My coat was missing and the left shirt sleeve of my shirt was ripped a bit. I rubbed my arm and the scar that was there had been split open again and it was the reason why blood was on the snow.
'Man, I just don't have good luck.' I slowly pushed myself up to my knees.
"Hey, Crystal. Are you okay?" Mariath was sitting beside me.
"I just fell several, several hundred yards. How do you think I feel?" I was not in a good mood.
"I'm sorry. I was just worried."
I sighed. "No. That's okay. I guess I'm okay. What 'bout you? Anythin' broken?"
She shook her head. "Nope."
I took the pouch off of my belt and checked it for some Healing Potions. "Oh this is just great!" I must've landed on the pouch because the potions' bottles had been broken and only glass and the Future Dragoon spirit was in there. At least the Dragoon spirit was safe.
"What's that?" Mariath pointed at the spirit.
"Oh...um..." I closed back up the pouch. "Do you have any potions left?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
"Unfortunately, no, I don't." She stood and looked around. "We should just walk straight; considering that back there," She pointed back behind us. "is a dead end and walking straight is the only way out of here."
As I stood up, pain ran through my left leg. 'I would love a Healing Potion right about now.'
"You okay?"
"Um, yeah. I could be worse." I looked up. 'I have a lot of bad luck...' "Oh maaaaaann......" There was my coat... It must've gotten stuck on a tree limb that was sticking out of the stone wall while I was falling. "Hey, um...Mariath, do you think you could get that for me? It's gonna be a long, cold trip outta here and I may need it."
"Sure." Mariath crouched then jumped upwards. She jumped from rock to rock and when she came close enough to the coat, she grabbed it and landed on her feet. I slowly put it back on 'cause my arm hurt every time I moved it. 'OW...' I winced as I finally got the coat on. I groaned as limped after Mariath.
XxXxX
So we had walked for what felt like hours. My leg still hurt, but I had gotten used to the pain by now and I had bandaged my arm up to stop the bleeding. Mariath on the other hand seemed to have no injuries what so ever.
"How can you be fine? I mean, we both fell the same distance and I more hurt than you are." I asked her.
"Well, Couran can heal, but it takes a while. For a Couran my age, it takes a little over four hours to heal completely. For an older Couran, it can take a little under an hour." Mariath explained.
"So, how old are you?"
She smiled. "I am one thousand and five hundred years old."
"Man, I'm still the youngest in the group!" I complained.
"What about that one girl? I think her name is Phirala."
"Phirala's over eleven thousand..." I told her.
"Then I guess you still are the youngest in the group." She smiled. "See? We've almost made it out." She pointed at a cave entrance.
"Hopefully there's a way outta here through that cave..." I leaned up against the cave wall once we walked inside. 'I wonder where everyone else is? Maybe they'll be the ones to find us?'
"C'mon, Crys. We need to keep goin'." Mariath stood beside me. "Do you think you could light up the place?"
A fireball appeared in my right hand. We continued walking again.
XxXxX
Several hours later, we had managed to get out of that cave and we could now see the snow.
"My energy's running low..." I said as the fireball in my hand disappeared.
"Maybe we should rest right here?" Mariath sat down on the rocky ground. I nodded as I also sat down. It felt could to get off of my hurt leg. Low growling could be heard.
"Oh no...now what?" I looked around. Mariath was able to fight, but I wasn't. My energy was incredibly low and my leg and arm still hurt.
"Maybe it's just the wind? Yeah...it's just the wind..." Mariath stood up. "You stay here. I'll check it out." She walked out onto the snow.
I heard the growling again. I turned my head to face the darker end of the cave. Blue eyes shimmered in the darkness. I turned my head to look back at Mariath then back at the eyes. No more eyes.
"Hey...um...M-Mariath..."
"Yeah?" She was several feet away.
"I-I-I think y-you should come b-back now..." I slowly stood up. I had a very, very bad feeling. It wasn't a Virage, but something much, much worse.
Mariath turned to face me. "What's wrong?"
"S-something's coming." I shivered. I was too weak to fight, so I practically depended on Mariath to protect me. I turned to limp away, but it was too late. Something flew out of the cave and grabbed me with its front claws. It flew up into the air. I looked up and found that Dragon from earlier. 'So the Dragon is what the Giganto was talking about!' The blue and silver Dragon looked down at me and growled. The Dragon tossed me up in the air and she would've had me in-between her jaws if I hadn't had gathered up the last bit of my energy to summon up my wings. I landed on the ground...well...I wouldn't quite call it landing. My wings had disappeared when I was a couple of yards away from the ground. The Dragon flew down after me. Mariath crouched, then jumped upward and pulled out a whip. The whip wrapped around the Dragon's neck, and she swung herself onto her back. The Dragon flew upwards and tried to get Mariath off of her back. Mariath hung on tightly, but then the Dragon twisted and threw her off and fired a bluish-white sphere at her. The attack hit Mariath and she hit the ground.
The way I landed really didn't help my leg, so I had a really hard time just getting up. Mariath flipped back up to her feet and dodged the next attack that was thrown at her.
"Crystal, do you think you have enough energy just for one magic attack?" She asked me.
"No... I couldn't even keep my wings out for five seconds..." I decided just to lay on the ground for now. It wasn't really the safest idea, but I couldn't really move all that well.
Mariath nodded. The Dragon stared at her, then glanced over at me. She disappeared, but yet, I could still sense her.
"Looks like she's gone." Mariath walked over to me.
"Yeah. It looks like she's gone, but she's still here." I thought for a moment. The only thing I could really think about was how the Predators in the Predator movies could cloak. "That Dragon can cloak!!" 'That's what that Giganto meant by 'disappearing'.'
Mariath gasped. "Are you sure she just didn't transport?"
"I'm positive. I can still sense her. Wait...okay. Now she's gone."
"Why didn't she attack us while she was cloaked then?" She asked.
"I don't know." I winced as I moved my leg. "Do ya think you could help me stand?"
Mariath helped me stand. "I think there's a town not too far off."
I looked over at her. "How long will it take for us to get there?"
Mariath looked worried. "About a day or two. Do you think you can make it?"
"Yeah, I should be able to make it..." I looked down at the snow. 'I hope.'