The scarce light that could filtrate through the clouds and the dense foliage made the leaves at the cave's entrace glimmer with a hazy transparent touch. It was like watching through a curtain of green, rice paper. Suddenly, darkening the whole curtain with night, making the trees outside sway with a powerful gust of wind, a shadow flew past. It was enormous, and it happened to fly over the cave a few more times, before it decided nothing interesting was there.
"W... what was that?" Yolei stuttered, staring at the thick foliage, and the emerald leaves.
"Dragon!" Silven hissed with a hatred and anger in his voice it was almost scary, almost animalistic.
"I... I saw a white dragon this morning. Maybe it's following us." Yolei's throat was dry, and her voice trembled lightly.
"Hum?" Silven turned to stare at Yolei, "No... that dragon isn't following us." He said, looking away shamefully.
Yolei inhaled a deep gulp of air and tensed visibly. The woman had just realized just how close Silven was to her. What made her heart beat much faster was the fact that she was very comfortable, feeling his heat so close to her body. The woman began to ponder as she observed the saddened face, so gentle, and beautiful. The silvery golden hair flowing down in a long mane, and the violet eyes, so mysterious and intelligent.
Silven glanced at the woman and gasped. There, under the shadows, hearing the gentle rain, their clothes stuck to their bodies, Yolei looked more beautiful than ever. Silven had to admit that the mage outfit was like a glove to the hand for her. The long, lavender hair fell in a cascade, wet and sleek, over her shoulders. Without even thinking what he was doing, Silven began to lean forward, towards Yolei. Something inside him was pushing him forward, a deep desire he had never felt before. Yolei, on the contrary, was so stunned that she tried to push herself further away from him, meeting a very nasty wall behind herself.
"Silven!" a loud neigh said rather excitedly.
"Fury!" Silven snapped over reacting, standing up and smiling effusively at the stallion. The reason was that he wasn't stupid, he had seen Yolei's reluctaness to kiss him, and knew how stupid he had been.
"The orcs are far away, and the rain has stopped." The stallion said tossing his chestnut head, and staring at Silven through the bright, amber eyes.
"Fantastic. What happened to the dragon?" Silven inquired, looking at the horse proudly.
"You are talking to the horse?" Yolei inquired, staring at the two creatures as if they were crazy. However, Yolei was starting to understand stray words, here and there, from the animal's conversation.
"Gone, it was Shadow." Fury explained, ignoring Yolei's remark, and looking disturbed.
"Shadow!" Silven growled, clenching his fists and lookin so furious Yolei was momentarily frightened.
"The coasts are nearby, but I think it would be a better idea to camp for the night." Nightmare's black head appeared through the thick curtain of leaves, looking tired but serious.
"Here?" Yolei snapped abruptly, glancing at Nightmare with slight fear.
There was a thick silence spreading over the creatures like a veil. All eyes were on the young mage. Fury's and Silven's were surprised, while Nightmare's brown eyes were looking at Yolei with a patient gentleness that softened the horse's spirit in a motherly way. On the other hand, Yolei's palm cupped over her lips after a loud gasp, the shock being read on her features. Nothing was clear any more.
"The orcs will never find us inside the cave, and we have to make sure that this dragon has fled far away before continuing our path." Silven explained patiently, staring at Yolei and smiling lovingly at her, holding her hand tighly, comfortingly.
Yolei looked pale and shaky. All of this was being too much to cope with, and she barely understood any more. As far as she knew, she had come to this world searching for Izzy. There had been no sign of Izzy, but she was now inside a cave, with a terribly handsome elven man, two stolen horses and the knowledge that she was a mage along with her new ability to understand 'equine'. Unable to do anything else, Yoley stood up and fled into the dark depths of the cave, escaping all of this madness to think about all of this.
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Tai knew he wasn't supposed to be doing this. It was a crime, minor, but a crime nevertheless. The boy had entered Yolei's empty room, in the middle of the night, and was fidgetting with her documents.
"Come on, baby, show me what I need." Tai muttered in a whisper, reading the scribbled handwritting on a notebook.
The boy smiled brightly. There it was, the instructions, the steps to follow, the theories, everything was written in this book. Tai shut the notebook, his eyes glinting ferviently, and leapt out of the window. Vanishing into the sky, Tai was traveling now back to his how, but also towards a new, fascinating adventure.
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The mage was impressed. Deeper inside the cave, passing along narrow corridors, was an enormous chamber, bigger than eyes could see. Sparkling in the vast walls were some really big torches, created out of pool shapped stones. The happy, dancing flame, reflected on the most amazing treasure Yolei had ever seen. Mountains of gold, silver, jewels, and the most pictoresque collection of shapes and forms were placed right before her eyes. Separating Yolei from the treasure, was a small lake, tinted gold by the reflection of the mount on the watery surface.
"Amazing, this must be a pirate's cave!" Yolei gasped, captivated by the gold, like all humans.
"Actually, it's a dragon's cave." Said the calm voice of a female from behind.
The movement was sharp and abrupt when Yolei turned around, and a rather powerful ball of fire had appeared on her hand, ready to be thrown at the intruder. Relaxing, Yolei saw it was none other than the black mare, staring at her from the entrance of the cave. It didn't please her to have company, much less a company she could understand, all of a sudden.
"Oh... it's you." The mage's voice couldn't have been more dispassionate.
"I'll pretend you were more effusive at my appearance." The mare snapped annoyed, taking slow steps towards Yolei.
"If this is a dragon cave..." Yolei inquired, turning back to face the treasure with craving delight, "Shouldn't we be worried that it might return?"
"Probably, but this dragon looks like it has been away for a long time. There is barely no dragon smell left, and anyways, it is not a bad dragon." Nightmare answered, reaching Yolei's spot.
"How would a dragon enter the cave to bring all this treasure?" the mage didn't look at the mare, "the corridors are very narrow."
"I'll prettend I didn't hear that, Yolei." Nightmare said, tossing her head from side to side.
Yolei was about to protest, until she pondered about the dragon's ability to shapeshift. Her open mouth was shut rapidly.
"Why can I understand you?" finally, the young mage reached the question that had been bugging her for the past minutes.
"I thought you'd never ask me." Nightmare turned her head to stare at Yolei, only to find with deception that the woman was evading her gaze. "I think we share a special bond." Nightmare's brown eyes stared at the mountain of gold.
"What kind of special bond?" Yolei inquired slightly abrupt, turning to stare at the mare.
"It's hard to explain. I think I became your familiar. A familiar is an animal with whom a mage shares a very tight bond. Familiars and mages would give their life for each other." Nightmare explained, her voice similar to a proffesor's.
"Who created that bond? How did it happen?" Yolei's curious mind made her throw a rainfall of questions at the poor animal.
"I'm not sure, Yolei, I'm just a horse!" Nightmare, feeling assaulted, defended herself harshly. "I can tell you some things I know about familiars. The bond is not created by an specific person, or by a spell. It's a more primigenial magic. Something more powerful and wild.
Eventually, something makes the mage and the animal share such bond. I heard of a mage who saved a male stag from drowning on a swamp, and he became the mage's familiar. The mage who had the wolf pup when he was a kind, and which is now his familiar. Even mages who saved a butterfly, bee or ant from being mutilated, and have such animals as their familiars.
In our case, I think it's all we have gone through, and the fact that I acompanied you through all of your adventures." The mare was more gentle when saying this.
"But I don't get one thing, what happens to mage or familiar if something were to happen to either?" Yolei inquired as clearly as she could.
"If one of them perished, the other would too." Said a terribly familiar voice behind them, "The bond between a mage and a familiar is very tight. It's so tight that familiars such as bugs and mice can live ages, when their natural life rarely exceeds a few months or a couple of years." Silven said more expertly, emerging from the darkness and aproaching the two females, being followed by the red stallion.
"Oh..." Yolei didn't know whether that preocupied her, or animated her, so she decided to distract her gaze back on the delightful treasure.
"This treasure was property of a white dragon, I wonder what happened to it?" Silven asked, walking towards Yolei and sitting next to her.
"Probably it got killed somewhere, seems like you can't turn around a corner without having the worry that something at the other side might get you!" Yolei snapped, keeping her distance very seriously.
"Look..." Silven said, smiling at her with such a care it made Yolei's heart soften, "I'm sorry about earlier, I lost it completely. I let myself get carried away." The boy said blushing to the tip of his pointed ears, "But I promise you it won't happen again."
"Well... that clears something then, I though, for a moment, that you had feelings for me!" Yolei laughed a rather nervous laughter.
"Yolei..." Silven said very slowly and seriously, staring at the lake with a dreamy gaze.
"Hum?" the woman's laugh was silenced, and her eyes stared at the elf.
"I'd lie if I said I don't hold any feelings for you. I'm not sure myself of what I feel, and I'm not sure I want to find them out either. But I won't do anything against your will..." the boy never stared at her.
"But... I love Izzy!" Yolei protested, looking alarmed.