The four of them approached the clearing, all mostly silent aside from the sound of their feet making quiet impacts against the ground. Cinder was walking in close to Hazel's side, just barely a step behind the man, while Watts and Tyrian led the way. She wanted to be a little bit closer to the front of their group, but Cinder had decided it was better to be towards the back.
If only because she was afraid of what was to come.
If she'd known that she would end up in a situation like this one when she had first found these men, Cinder would have run. She would have run and she never would have looked back.
But now it was becoming more and more apparent to Cinder that she didn't have much of a choice in the matter these days. Now this was a matter of something much bigger than herself, and she was afraid.
Cinder had lost her eye.
She had experienced countless nightmares.
She had seen things that didn't belong within the realms of reality.
Cinder didn't even realize that she had stopped and let herself fall behind. Hazel was standing just a few paces ahead of her with his eyebrow raised and looking curious, if a little annoyed.
She didn't like it, but Cinder forced herself to catch up with the man and follow after him. He looked back at her over his shoulder and sighed.
"Are you ready for whatever we may see?" Hazel asked, his voice so low in volume and tone that Cinder couldn't help a slight shiver that ran up her spine. She hadn't thought about it all that much before, but Hazel somehow managed to sound like he was more bestial in nature than human. It was strange.
Cinder nodded. She hadn't tried to use her voice yet since she'd gotten up before the departure from their camp.
Hazel nodded as a response and turned his gaze on to the path ahead of him. "It'll be fine." He said calmly, and Cinder realized that the man seemed to be doing his best to keep calm for the sake of keeping her calm. "Nobody's going to die today."
Cinder really didn't know how she felt about that, but was willing to play along for now.
The group of them managed to make their way to the clearing with the pond. Cinder stared out at it with her one good eye, looking for something out there but unable to figure out whether or not something was there. Hazel entered the clearing ahead of her, and she watched the way that he raised a hand to rub at his chest.
A burning feeling began to erupt behind Cinder's eye, and she didn't let herself move to try and relieve it. It was only too easy to make things fall apart, or to injure herself further.
"Nothing!" Watts snapped, turning and whirling around so that he could face Hazel. "We come here and there's nothing."
"We need to be patient." Hazel replied, his growl hitting notes of aggression. "We don't know what is going to happen."
Arthur rolled his eyes and looked over at Tyrian. "You are to stay by me, boy." He ordered, and Cinder felt a slight wave of anger that began to rush over her. There was something about the way that Watts treated the rest of them that managed to leave Cinder worried and frustrated.
"I understand." Tyrian said quietly, shrinking back just slightly.
Cinder made a mental note that it was for the best if she didn't let herself stray away from the group too much. If she did, then she was sure that she was going to find herself in a position where she was on the receiving end of Arthur's jabs.
But Hazel had not intentions in waiting around, it seemed. Hazel took a few steps forward, approaching the side of the black pond and watching it like there was going to be something that would happen.
The man raised a hand towards the pool, holding it up over the water and never allowing himself to waver.
Cinder took a step forward, creeping her way up towards where Hazel was standing and settling in at his side. She glanced up at him and looked for a response.
He just stared forward at the pool and didn't move. "Cinder." He said, his voice as quiet as it always was. "Can you speak?"
Cinder blinked, unsure of what to read into the question but she opened her mouth. "Y..." A voice came out. It was her own. For some reason that felt like a surprise, but Cinder couldn't quite place her finger on why. "Yes."
"Good." Hazel replied, dropping his hand to his side again and reaching into his pocket. "You know about these?"
"Some." Cinder replied calmly, staring down into the black water and staring at her own reflection, watching it stare back at her.
She was never really going to be able to get used to the fact that her left eye had been burned away. With a careful hand, Cinder reached up and brushed her singed hair away from her face.
"Good." Hazel replied. Cinder pulled her gaze away from her expression and watched as the man lowered himself down to the side of the pool. Slowly and warily, Hazel reached a broad hand out for the liquid and Cinder watched as his fingertips made contact with the water before he pulled himself away from it, waving his hand away as though he'd been burned.
"What are you-"
"Testing something." Hazel replied, grimacing and forcing himself up to his feet. "Arthur, Tyrian."
The two men looked over at the two of them, and soon enough Tyrian and Arthur were coming to join them. Arthur looked a little bit like he was about to snap, and Cinder found herself feeling more than glad that they were in a position where she wasn't going to be the target of Watts' frustrations for the time being.
"What do you want, Hazel?" Arthur asked, his voice all too intense. "Because-"
Cinder looked between the three men, and then she paused, following Hazel's gaze when she realized that the man wasn't actually looking at the others. His expression was locked into something akin to nervousness.
She watched as the water began to disturb itself. She watched the way that it somehow managed to ripple inwards in too-perfect circles that started at the edges of the pool and didn't reflect that Hazel had made contact with the water at all.
In the center of the pool, the liquid began to meet and it looked like it was boiling. Cinder wanted to pull herself away from the situation and run, because there was something very, very wrong that Cinder didn't want to be there to see.
However, there was something there that was locking her into place and keeping herself from budging from where she was standing.
The water shifted more and more, boiling and getting closer and closer to rising into the air until the pool went completely still. Not a single sign that there was anything wrong.
It was the sight of the waters beginning to separate itself again, rippling outwards until finally something at the center of the pool began to change and shift and something began to emerge from it.
The water revealed bright white spines, and Cinder's eyes widened when she realized exactly what was happening. The forming spines that emerged rose higher and higher before revealing a creature, a large black wolf. It shook its body and forced the black black sludge it had come from to fly off of its fur.
Cinder reached for her weapon, unsure, but was stopped by a hand in front of her, like Hazel was doing his best to place himself between her and the threats that had begun to arise. It was like he was afraid of something that could happen, and Cinder didn't know how to read into it. There had to be something wrong.
"What-"
"Don't." Hazel said, his voice quiet and intense. His eyes flickered over to Arthur. "Beowulf."
"Yes." The other man replied, standing up tall and raising a hand to adjust his tie for a moment. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"It has." Hazel grumbled. "This..."
"We found our spawning pool." Arthur said calmly. "Without a single doubt."
"Do we kill it?" Cinder asked, her voice quiet because there was nothing else that she could think of to ask. This was wrong, but it was also something extraordinary, and Cinder knew that. It was evident in every way that things changed.
The grimm crept towards the edge of the pool, and made its way onto the banks where it shook again, shrugging off the rest of the inky liquid that clung to its body.
Cinder watched it, the way that its burning red eyes turned and the monster stared at them, sniffing like it thought that it would find something of interest on them. It knew that they were there, and everything that Cinder knew told her that this thing should have been turning to attack them.
But instead of moving to attack, the grimm let itself walk on its four paws and creep out of the clearing, heading deeper and deeper into the forest. Cinder swallowed and looked between Hazel and Watts, hoping that at least one of them would say or do something to give them some purpose in what they were doing there.
"Should we follow-" Tyrian started,eyes wide with wonder and obvious fear.
"Perhaps." Arthur replied. "I think it's best we wait."
"We should follow it." Hazel responded, his voice hard. "Before someone else gets a chance to kill it."
Standing off to the side and staring after the beast was Tyrian. His voice was quiet when he spoke, trembling and scared.
"Why did it pass us by?"
That truly was one of those questions that Cinder had no good answer for, and hearing it raised only managed to make her skin crawl and her blood run cold. Everything that she had ever heard about grimm, everything that her studies had ever told her, had always suggested that a proper grimm would just attack the second it got its chance. Especially in the case of the young ones.
All four of them were silent and they looked amongst each other, all unsure of what to do and what to say. Cinder blinked and looked to Hazel, if only because he seemed like he was going to be the one that managed to be the best leader for them.
But the man stood there, gazing off into the distance like he was somehow able to see much more than any of the others could. Cinder didn't dare question it, but a certain wave of warmth told her enough. Hazel was pushing his aura outwards for the sake of seeing what was around him.
"I don't know." He finally said, taking the first step forward with his hands clenched into fists at his side as he walked. "We need to follow it."
That was all that there was to it, it seemed. Arthur sighed heavily and looked deeply annoyed, but he took the chance to turn and follow after Hazel. Tyrian followed as well, though he lagged between them with his tail in his hands and managing to look a little bit like a kicked dog.
That left with Cinder with only so many options, she knew. She took her first step after the group and was quick to catch up with them, falling in beside Hazel if only because he seemed like he was going to be the best one to stay by. He could see, he was even-headed, and he was strong.
He also tended to be a bit kinder to her than any of the others were, in his own unique way.
"We follow it and see if it goes towards a road." Arthur said, although he was doing his best to set ground rules for all of them. "If it turns on us, we cannot hesitate to kill it, Hazel. You know just as well as I do what a beast of that size is capable of."
"I do." Hazel grumbled, not bothering to look anywhere except for the path where the grimm was walking. "Stay wary."
"I already am." Arthur responded in a deadpan. Cinder looked between the two men, and for the first time Cinder realized that Arthur was beginning to prepare himself for battle. He was stretching his hands out in front of him, stretching his fingers like he thought that he was somehow going to be better for it.
Cinder glanced over at Tyrian, and watched as the too-thin man also stretched his arms out and prepared himself for some sort of fight. He was checking his gauntlets, it seemed.
As for Cinder, her swords were beginning to feel all too heavy at her back. She had no way of getting past this, and Cinder was already thinking back to every lesson that she'd ever been given in Haven Academy. She'd been told that Beowulves had previously been one of the most plentiful grimm out there.
According to the old books that she'd been taught from, Beowulves were the types to run in packs. A small group of people would normally be enough to bring in a pack, and the stronger grimm would be larger and more powerful. However, they were also ones that would have had to be around for much longer than the one that they were currently tracking.
But there was something wrong. There was only one grimm that they were tracking. Shouldn't there have been more, theoretically?
And that wasn't to mention the fact that grimm were just different from before they had been before. What if whatever had changed only managed to make grimm mature much quicker than they ever had before?
Cinder didn't know for sure. That was a particular area where practically all study into the topic had only managed to prove to be inadequate at best. There had to be more to it, but she didn't know what it could be.
But judging by the size of some of the beasts that were out there in the world, Cinder was willing to follow this thought to its conclusion. Perhaps when she had the time she could bring it up to Hazel and Arthur. The two of them seemed to know plenty about how grimm work, probably more than anyone that she had ever gotten a chance to talk to before.
The path that they were travelling down narrowed, and Hazel stopped at their vanguard. He was silent but he slid off to the side of the path before silently waving Cinder up in front of him. She nearly felt her heart stop when she realized what the man was doing. It felt like she was about to be thrown to the literal wolves in this case.
"Why-" Cinder opened her mouth and spoke up, looking back at the man with one eye. "Do-"
"You have a bow?" Hazel asked, his voice low and growling. He didn't look at her for long, letting his gaze flicker between Cinder and the path ahead constantly.
"I do." Cinder replied, although she didn't know what to do or say beyond that. She didn't know how to say that she didn't know that she was going to be able to use the weapon when she only had one eye. There was no easy way to discuss it. "But-"
"Then you're taking the front." Hazel said, passing it down as an order because there was no other way that he could address the issue. "We need someone that can shoot."
"No fear, girl." Arthur said, grinning widely as he fell in behind Hazel as though he knew that they were working under some sort of specific order. "It won't bite too hard. You have a good aura, don't you?"
That question really managed to say everything that needed to be said, and Cinder hated it. She hated the way that the discomfort settled more and more down in the pit of her stomach. Arthur was looking at this with the perspective that they could just throw her into the middle of the fight and hope that she didn't get killed first.
But Cinder also was sure that there wasn't so much that she could do to avoid how bad things had gotten. She picked her head up and held it high, knowing that the only way to combat the ridicule was with pride. If she didn't let the other see that she was upset, then Cinder thought that she might have some power over the others in some way.
Whatever little that power might be.
So Cinder turned and took her place at the front of the group, locking her eyes onto the grimm and following after it. The beast was keeping a fairly even pace, stalking forward and stopping every once in awhile to move or observe. Cinder watched it closely, and only found herself wondering what it was leading towards more and more.
The walk took a long time. Not a single time did the grimm look back at them or pay them even the slightest attention, but there were too many times where Cinder would feel a wave of pain that would wash over her. It was always one that was close to debilitating, and always focused in her eye.
It was only when the grimm led them all into a clearing that Cinder realized that they might have found their destination. It wasn't anything like the first one, even though Cinder would have expected that it would have been similar. They were still in the same forest, but this time the clearing that they found was so tightly surrounded by trees that it was next to impossible to see outside of it.
Cinder stepped in and made her way off to the side, allowing for the others to make their way through the path and into the space themselves. She was nervous, reaching back for her bow because finally, for the first time, the grimm stopped dead in its tracks.
The beowulf turned slowly, its glowing red eyes focusing onto the four of them and its teeth beginning to bare themselves. That was bad, and Cinder was ready to run. She drew her swords and was preparing to combine them when Hazel raised a hand to stop her.
This was dangerous, Cinder thought to herself. The fact that the man was so willing for them to stand by and get themselves killed was a bad thing. It was something that Cinder could only think was bound up in foolishness. Hazel was going to get them all killed, and for what?
The grimm was still there, sizing them up, and Cinder watched as Hazel reached down into his pocket with his one free hand. The man kept his eyes on the grimm, and Cinder watched as he removed something from his pocket.
It was only once she recognized a slight blue glow that Cinder realized that Hazel was carrying in his hand a dust crystal.
The last time that they'd been in a village, Hazel had gotten a new supply of Dust, and there had to be something that he was planning with that in consideration. He wouldn't go wasting the resource so quickly.
Hazel took a half-step forward, silent and wary, reaching out and offering the crystal towards the grimm like he thought that it was going to somehow react to him.
"What the hell-" Arthur snarled, and Hazel just shot him a sharp glare as a response.
"Quiet." Hazel growled, and then threw the crystal towards the grimm. It landed on the ground, rolling forward slightly and Cinder watched it. The glow that Cinder now realized had been coming off of Hazel's aura was disappearing. She looked up at the tall man, wondering and searching for something in his eyes.
Finally, Hazel spoke.
"Not like last time." He mumbled, watching the crystal and taking another half step forward. The grimm shifted now, reacting to Hazel's motions and beginning to watch him closely. It lowered its head, staring him down and taking its first few steps forward towards them. Despite it all, there wasn't a single sign that it was preparing to attack them. It was terrifying, but it was a part of their reality. There was nothing like that, though.
The grimm was watching. Almost like there was a bit of intelligence there in its head. That was the absolute opposite of everything that Cinder had ever been taught about the grimm. They were supposed to be mindless, until they grew old enough that they were somehow able to gain intelligence.
But this grimm didn't fit that description, and that scared Cinder. What was she supposed to think?
"It..." Tyrian began, taking an almost-careful half step forward to get a little bit closer to the grimm. "It's not..."
"No." Hazel said, his voice still hard and his expression serious. "It's not here to attack us."
"Then what are we doing here, Hazel?" Arthur asked, keeping his eyes glued to the grimm instead of looking over at the man.
"It's not like the first time I saw a spawning pool." Hazel said calmly. "That time I watched Dust turn to sludge."
All of their gazes fell onto the dust crystal that Hazel had dropped into the center of the clearing. The grimm drew closer to it, lowering its snout and breathing something in through bone covered nostrils.
And Cinder watched in absolute horror as the dust began to change, shifting in color and beginning to change, rotting away slowly like it was turning to liquid out of nowhere. She watched the pool spread outwards, growing larger and larger.
The Beowulf let out a tortured snarl, followed by a howl, and then it collapsed to the ground by the dust crystal.
Cinder had no choice but to watch in abject horror as the beast's body began to change and sink into the land. It was like it was rotting away, turning to nothing all at once, and it left behind only water.
The understanding of what she had just witnessed was something that had come quickly enough. The grimm had died, and left behind a new spawning pool in its place. Cinder looked between Arthur and Hazel, and couldn't help but to wonder what time it was. She didn't know how long the two of them had been travelling, and the fact that their group had left their camp behind was something that weighed heavily enough on Cinder's mind.
"It..." Cinder spoke, her voice too quiet. "Is that normal?"
Hazel and Arthur exchanged a look, their eyes locking. "No." Arthur said finally. "Before..."
"Before spawning pools were static." Hazel provided, cutting the other man off before he could say too much more. "Nobody knew how they were created, and She never..."
"Then how did you..."
"A hunch." Hazel replied, reaching into his pocket again. "Something I saw before."
Arthur was staring Hazel down, raising an eyebrow down and just watching the man with some rather clear disbelief on his face. There had to be something that neither of them was trying to breach. They were both worried, at the very least.
Cinder took a few steps forward, approaching the pool and wondering whether or not it was going to shift and do the same thing as the first pool that they had found. Would a creature birth itself from it? Or would they be left there to wait and watch and see what came next?
"What do we do now?" Tyrian asked, turning his head to look up at all of them with wide eyes as he crouched a little closer to the ground. "Because if this is how our Goddess has decided to lead us..."
"If this is how she's decided to lead us, then we have no choice but to follow." Hazel said, his voice hardening all at once like there was something else on his mind that he wasn't telling them.
"And what if she isn't leading us?" Arthur asked, his voice raising and his tone harshening significantly. "I am having a rather hard time imagining that this is actually getting us anything-"
Cinder looked to Tyrian, who was shifting nervously and seeming just as unsure as the rest of them were about the situation. If Tyrian wasn't completely on board with things, then Cinder didn't know whether or not there was a good way to read into the situation at all. What if things were just bad and there was no other way to consider it?
She looked to the pool, to the black water which rested, completely still as though it was waiting for something. Something that none of them knew about, and if things were as she was beginning to suspect and they would have to wait for another night of rest...
There was no way that their work could be fruitful in any meaningful amount of time, was there.
Hazel stood up tall, holding his head high in a way that Cinder had never seen him do before and glared down at Watts. He was using his height to its greatest potential, and Cinder couldn't be surprised by it.
"Do you have a better idea?" He asked, his voice hard. "Because-"
"We don't have any leads!" Arthur snapped. "The stories, the rumors, it's all given us absolutely nothing-"
Cinder swallowed and looked to the water, feeling that burning behind her eye again and finding herself unable to ignore it at all. She took a step forward towards the edge of the water and reached out for it.
Maybe it was different from the last one. Maybe it was the same. Cinder didn't actually know either way. At her side, Tyrian stood up tall and finally began to move, wandering away from the pool as though there was something tugging him away from them.
Wherever he was going, Cinder didn't have any idea where it could be. And really, that might not have been a bad thing.
She looked to the two fighting men and then back to Tyrian, who had chosen a place to crouch low to the ground and was looking out for a way to go. He blinked and picked his head up, and Cinder stepped up to his side before speaking up.
"What-"
"She's called us here." Tyrian said, his voice lilting with something akin to love. "She would not forsake us-"
Cinder raised an eyebrow, deeply unsure of what she was supposed to do or say at that point. Tyrian seemed confident to some degree, but Cinder couldn't figure out what it was all about.
"But-"
"Look-" Tyrian lifted his hand, point off through the trees.
Cinder couldn't help but wonder what he had seen.
She narrowed her eyes and forced herself to focus, peering through the trunks and into the darkness that had formed between them in search of something that she didn't know. Cinder looked at Tyrian directly, and the man didn't dare turn his head so that he could look over at her.
"What-"
He didn't say a word, just crouched a little bit lower and began on his way towards the break in the trees that he had spotted. Cinder paused before following after him, looking back to Watts and Hazel to check whether the two of them were paying any attention to Tyrian and her. The two men were still bickering.
Cinder hesitated, feeling her weapon's weight and taking it as a comfort before beginning on the walk into the woods after Tyrian. Just ahead of her, she was keeping low to the ground and feeling his way down a path that didn't exist. Cinder could watch the way that his hands skimmed against the surface of the ground, and Cinder couldn't help but wonder what he was looking for.
He walked, and Cinder watched as the ridges of the land on each side of them began to rise higher and higher with every step in. It was like the two of them were being boxed in, until they were finally faced with a cave.
Something was wrong, Cinder thought, every old fight or flight instinct that she had flaring up all at once. Going into a cave had to be dangerous, if only because they weren't going to know what they found there.
"Tyrian-" Cinder spoke up, with a voice that managed to feel like it was completely borrowed from someone else. "We shouldn't."
The thin man blinked and paused, raising his way up to his feet and standing up straight to watch her. The man's gold eyes were completely trained on ehr the entire time, and Cinder couldn't' wonder if he was looking for something from her that she didn't have. "She's here, my dear Ember. We cannot-"
"Tyrian." Cinder said, her voice a little bit harder. This was so different from the first time that the two of them had spent together, except it somehow managed to feel almost similar. "This is dangerous."
"And She will protect us." Tyrian replied, raising his tail over his head and letting it flick back and forth as he finally turned and began on the way inside. "She has marked us, we are safe as long as we carry her scars."
Leaving him to get killed alone was wrong, an old voice in the back of her mind told her.
Another voice told Cinder to do something else, and so she took the first step in behind Tyrian and brought her hands to her sides, stretching her fingers slightly as she prepared herself for whatever could come.
If they needed light, she had power. the only thing was that she hadn't exactly had a chance to use it since her own branding.
The cave turned to unnatural blackness so quickly that cinder shivered. She took her step further in behind Tyrian, and watched as he made his way in. He pressed himself to the wall, and seemed to follow it with his hand. That had to be a bad idea, Cinder thought, and so she forced her semblance up to the surface.
Sure enough, a light appeared in her hand, although it was weak. If this was going to be what she had to fight with, Cinder didn't think that fire was going to be enough.
"Tyrian-"
"Come!" Tyrian hissed at her, ignoring her protests. "She's here-"
Cinder began to walk just a little bit faster so that she could follow closely after the man, and finally made his way into a large opening in the cavern.
It was empty, for the most part. When Cinder looked up, she saw the slight blue glow of Dust through the stone, and she realized quickly that they were somewhere important. And also that their presence had just become much more dangerous.
Tyrian froze in place and took two nervous steps forward so that he could reach the cave wall and press his bare hand to it.
The blazing pain behind Cinder's eye only got stronger when he did.
Tyrian tore his hand back away from the cave wall as though he had been burned. He closed his eyes. "She's here, dear Ember, She's-"
Cinder didn't listen. Whatever Tyrian was saying it managed to drown out in her mind, and Cinder made her way forward just a little bit more so that she stood next to the wall with Tyrian.
The flame illuminated it, just enough, and Cinder recognized the carvings in the stone. They had to be old, possibly ancient. Cut into the cave wall there were girls and men. There were swirling patterns that she couldn't quite track, that had been faded away long ago.
And she followed the swirls and the way that they stretched out further and further across the cave wall. They were beautiful, and they seemed to be weaving together a story that Cinder couldn't make out.
Whatever it was, it was ancient.
"Tyrian..." Cinder began, her voice quiet as she let her fingers trail over one carving that reminded her of a leaf. "What is this?"
"I do not know." The man whimpered, shrinking back from the wall. "I don't-"
Cinder blinked and nodded before looking to him. "Get them."
Tyrian understood. He stood up tall and was soon sprinting his way out of the cave and leaving Cinder alone.
When she was finally alone, there was suddenly a certain sort of echoing through the space that reached her ears.
And every time, it repeated one word and one word alone.
Fall.
Fall.
Fall.
It was her name. It was an order. It was so much more than she could have ever been able to think of that easily.
It made the fact that she was there alone in the cave so, so much more terrifying.
There was a flash of gold behind her eyes, and Cinder collapsed to the ground with images of a girl with brown hair and eyes soft brown skin and a smile like the sun flashing through her mind.
There was something familiar about her, but Cinder couldn't put her finger on it if she even wanted to.
When she came to, it was light and Cinder stared at the others as they stood around her. The only one to illuminate the space was Hazel, and it was with a crystal of dust that he held securely in his hand.
"Cinder," Hazel began, his voice low and growling. "Explain."
When Cinder opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out.