A soft, almost feathery sensation spread through Elequinn's body as a gentle breeze coursed through her hair. Turning her head around in confusion, the girl narrowed her teal colored eyes as she looked into the distance, hoping to find something that would act as a clue of her whereabouts. As far as she could see however, there was nothing but pure whiteness stretching out all over the horizon.
Snow…?
Indeed, the utter paleness of the area reminded Elequinn of freshly fallen snow. Yet somehow, the girl found herself shuddering at that thought. A nagging feeling chewed away at her mind, although she could not remember precisely what it was that perturbed her so. Surely she had forgotten something?
Something happened here. First there was white, then red. And then-
As if in answer to her thoughts, a bulky black beast burst through the ground a few feet in front of her, letting out a triumphant roar and causing Elequinn to recoil backwards in shock. The ground where the creature had emerged was stained an ugly crimson. Now she remembered. How could she have forgotten?
Gripped tightly in the creature's jaws were the remains of the three other trainees who had been grouped with her shortly before their demise – Joe, Stephen and Amelia. Their bodies had been mangled horribly by the beast, and each one of them were barely recognizable. As she watched, the monster in front of her began to devour them one by one, biting huge chunks of flesh out from the corpses.
"No! Let go of them!" Elequinn found herself screaming at the beast as she moved towards it, her hands instinctively moving to her waist to grab her weapon. Her palms found themselves grasping at thin air instead, and it was at this point that the girl finally realized that she was in fact weaponless.
Her shouting had been heard however, and the salivating creature in front of Elequinn turned its head towards her, an insatiable hunger gleaming in its beady red eyes. Kicking the corpses of the trainees towards the huntress, Elequinn found herself frozen in both fear and guilt as she stared at the bloodied bodies. Although they had been greatly mutilated by the monster, the girl noticed that the dead cadets seemed to almost be glaring at her, their eyes brimming with hatred and blame.
Are they angry at me for leaving them behind?
"It wasn't my fault," tears started to stream down Elequinn's face as she found herself looking up into the maws of the monster before her. She could smell its putrid breath mixed in with the stink of rotting flesh as it breathed onto her, opening its mouth to reveal rows of razor sharp yellow teeth. A low growl sounded from inside the belly of the beast as it lowered its lips around Elequinn's head, almost as if it was relishing the power it held over the huntress. "Please-"
Then, in a single smooth and practiced motion, the jaws clamped shut.
A sudden intake of fresh air into her lungs caused Elequinn to gasp, and the girl found herself looking at a magnitude of different colors, each dancing before her. Her body felt heavy, and it took some effort for Elequinn to move her hands and bring them towards her eyes to rub them. That action did the trick however, and the colors soon melted away, replaced by a dull gray ceiling with a single fan attached to it that was blowing cold air towards her.
As she got up, Elequinn found that she had been lying on a fluffy lavender colored bed sheet drenched with sweat – no doubt thanks to the nightmare she had earlier. Her head hurt slightly, and the girl's limbs felt weaker than they had ever been before. Deciding that attempting to move straightaway without warming up was not the best of ideas, Elequinn instead opted to stretch her arms and legs while still seated. She felt some minor muscle strains as she did, and the girl felt glad that she did not try to jump out of bed as she usually did upon waking up.
Stifling a yawn, Elequinn looked around groggily as she collected her thoughts. She recognized the room she was in as her own, and it didn't come as much of a surprise to the girl that the Guild decided to send her back home to rest after her ordeal. Rays of sunlight shone in from the slightly ajar window, hinting to her that it was some time in the middle of the afternoon. The gray walls surrounding her was a welcome sight, and Elequinn never thought that it was possible for her to be feeling this glad to be sitting snugly in her bed at home.
A close shave with death does change one's perception of life after all…
Looking downwards, Elequinn found that she was dressed in her usual home attire: a white t-shirt with a matching pair of knee-length beige pants. Her aquamarine tinted hair brushed against her arms as she moved her head, and it was then the girl realized that her hair was undone. But since no one else was around, she couldn't care less about how her appearance at the moment.
On the foot of her bed was an entire collection of stuffed toys designed after several monsters, although made to look much less menacing and significantly cuter than they would be in reality. There were eighteen in total – the girl knew this by heart because her father would buy her a new one during her birthday every year without fail. Reaching out for her favorite, an inflated Zamtrios with a round and adorable body, Elequinn gave the toy a tight hug.
Such an act would always provide temporary relief to her, and Elequinn let out a sigh as she looked at the mini Zamtrios in her arms. Up till the incident in the tundra, she thought she had been prepared sufficiently to become a top grade hunter. Under her mother's guidance, she had been making steady progression since young, training her physical and mental fortitude diligently. Even long after her mother vanished after leaving for her last hunt, Elequinn had not stopped searching for ways to improve her skills out in the field.
At least, that had been what she thought. Out in the coldness of the tundra, facing an actual monster before her, the girl came to the harsh realization that no amount of preparation could have readied her for a real hunt. She would never forget the way her feet froze, how her heart had palpitated so wildly in fear, and how she had made the choice to abandon her comrades.
In the end, I'm still nothing compared to mother.
A sudden rattle of the doorknob made Elequinn turn towards her room's door in surprise, and a split second later a familiar figure entered the room. The girl's first thought was that it was her father, heading into her room to reprimand her for ignoring his concerns over her wellbeing and registering herself to become a hunter anyway. Much to her astonishment however, the black haired male that entered the room couldn't be any more different from her normally depressed looking parent.
Tanned and robust, the man that stood before Elequinn was about an entire head taller than her, and had unkempt hair with a fringe that covered the entire upper portion of his face, blocking out his eyes from view almost entirely. Only his sharp nose and clean shaven cheeks were untouched by his disheveled black hair, giving the male an almost goofy looking appearance. He was wearing a black and featureless singlet and a pair of blue jeans, complete with a pair of sport sneakers on his legs. Draped over his shoulders was a red jacket that had the design of a Rathalos emblazoned onto it, and it was this particular piece of clothing that caught Elequinn's attention.
"G- Galix? Is that you?" The girl could hardly believe her eyes. A small part of her mind questioned the view before her – perhaps she was still dreaming?
"Morning, sunshine," the man that she had addressed as Galix gave Elequinn a charming smile. "How're you feeling?"
"How am I feeling? What about you? Where the heck have you been the past month? Whatever happened to you? Were you kidnapped or something?"
Elequinn quickly found a barrage of questions flowing uncontrollably from her lips. It had, after all, been at least thirty days since she last saw her childhood friend. The girl had presumed the worst at the time when he went missing mere hours before his official admittance exam into the Hunter's Guild. Although she had reported his disappearance to the Guild, they had seemingly minimal interest in locating a greenhorn hunter, and no further action was done after a brief investigation was performed. To make matters worse, Elequinn could not find a single trace of the most recent birthday gift she had given to him either – the same red jacket that Galix was now carrying around his shoulders.
"Whoa there, one question at a time Elly," the well-built man smiled knowingly as he closed the door behind him, ensuring that it was properly closed before he continued, "But before anything else, you might want to soften your voice a little. It's preferable that no one knows I'm here."
"Huh?" Elequinn blinked in confusion before narrowing her eyes with suspicion at Galix's weird request. "Why would you not want people to know you're back?"
"See, I'm sort of in a certain position such that the dogs of the Hunter's Guild would be absolutely craving for a chance to arrest me on sight, and put me on trial," Galix replied matter-of-factly, walking over to the window and taking a brief look outside.
Something in his tone of voice told Elequinn that her friend was not lying. Despite their two year age difference, they had sort of grown up together in the same household, and as a result the both of them knew each other like the back of their hands. It was exactly because of this that the girl's curiosity desired to be sated. She knew Galix wasn't the type of person to perform a felony for no good reason – what then could possibly have driven him to become an enemy of the Guild?
"What's going on?" Elequinn found herself staring at Galix as he continued to look out the window, his eyes darting around as if he was searching for something.
"I'll tell you later. For now, those people from the Guild should be coming over to your house right about…now," the male darted away from the window quickly as he said that, and as if on cue, Elequinn heard her doorbell ring. "Now then, be careful what you say. And if they ask about me, I was never here."
Raising one of her eyebrows in confusion, Elequinn watched as Galix opened her wooden wardrobe and stepped into it, pushing the clothes to one side to make room for himself. "A tad stuffy, but it'd have to do."
No sooner had he closed the wardrobe doors did Elequinn hear the sound of two voices approaching her room. She recognized one of them as her father, but she did not know who the other party was. Whoever it was didn't sound very friendly though, for they possessed a raspy voice and an impolite tone. As the voices drew closer, Elequinn hugged the Zamtrios toy in her arms tightly. She wasn't sure what to make of her entire situation, but it seemed as though something bigger was afoot.
"I'm telling you for the umpteenth time, she's still unconscious-" Her father's voice cut short as he opened the door to Elequinn's room and found her staring back at him. "Oh."
"What is it? Is she awake? Well it's about damn time I finally get to write my report. Get out of my way," the raspy voice sounded behind Elequinn's white haired father, and the neatly dressed elderly man rolled his eyes before stepping aside.
An old male Wyverian dressed in orange stepped into her room, and Elequinn found herself staring at the aged being in wonder. She had often heard and read about the Wyverians working at the Hunter's Guild, but have never actually had the chance to speak to one of them until now. His short stature and grumpy looking face complete with tuffs of white hair and a long moustache gave him an overall grouchy appearance, not unlike those of cranky old men.
"I'm not going to bother with any pleasantries, Miss Ferami," the Wyverian took out a pen and a piece of paper as he spoke, "I have another meeting coming up after this, and I'm a very busy individual, so let's just get this report over and done with."
"Erm, okay?" Elequinn wasn't pleased with the attitude that the Wyverian was giving her, but she didn't want to risk angering the Wyverian further by challenging him.
"Now then, according to the instructor in charge of batch of cadets, you and the group you were supposed to be with went missing shortly after being officially dispatched on your training mission, correct?"
Elequinn replied with a nod.
"Some time later, you came stumbling towards the camp, with none of your team members in sight. Care to explain what happened?"
"We…encountered something deeper into the tundra," the girl visibly grimaced at this point. "A wyvern of some kind, blackish in color."
"Details, Miss Ferami, more details. Any other distinguishing features about the creature you remember?"
"Well, whatever it was, its saliva was able to melt away the iron armor the Guild had provided with ease."
"Saliva?" The Wyverian's pen stopped writing for a moment as he looked at her with bright eyes that hinted at a large intellect hiding behind his tiny physique. "We did notice your armor appeared worse for wear, but you're positive it was caused purely by the creature's spit and not by you falling down a steep cliff or being hit by a claw swipe?"
"No, it was definitely the saliva," Elequinn shook her head fiercely as she recalled how the metallic soles of her shoes had disintegrated in front of her mere moments after she had accidentally stepped into a puddle of the beast's drool.
"And this monster, you said, was black? Not, say, green, by any chance?"
The girl closed her eyes as her mind replayed the scene where the monster had found her hiding inside the cave. Now that the Wyverian mentioned it, she had glimpsed a few splotches of dark green on the creature's body as she was stabbing its face in with a carving knife. But there had been an overwhelming amount of the color black as well, particularly around its head. Opening her eyes, Elequinn answered the question posed to her with confidence, "It was both."
"Ah, that's worrying," the Wyverian hunched over and cringed, as though he had come to a sudden realization of something. "I should hurry to report this back to the Guild as soon as possible. Well then, Miss Ferami, that's about all I need to know. Your cooperation with the Guild is…appreciated."
The last word spoken by the Wyverian was said after an awkward pause, and Elequinn looked confusedly at the elderly being as she replied, "You're welcome?"
"And before I forget," a smirk appeared on the wizened Wyverian's face, almost as if this was the best piece of news that he had been waiting to deliver to the girl before him. "You no longer have to report in to the Training School. Your application to become a hunter has been disapproved, permanently."
His words struck her like an arrow through her heart, and the girl's eyes darted back and forth between her father and the Wyverian. The former simply returned her confused look with a shake of his his head, as if silently telling her not to pursue the matter any further. Naturally, Elequinn was having none of that.
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?!" Her cry echoed a little around the room.
"Exactly what I said," the Wyverian snorted in contempt, "You broke the rules of the training school by moving beyond the allocated training area, and have managed to successfully get three other innocent cadets killed in what was supposed to be a training mission. How well do you think you would fare out in the field if we approved you as an official hunter?"
"But that wasn't my-"
"That's enough out of you," the Wyverian cut her off mid-sentence, waving his arm at her and turning to leave. "You had the option to convince your team of the dangers and make them turn back. You knew the risks, and yet you chose to ignore them. Now the three of them paid the ultimate price, and you have to pay yours. Never being able to hunt again is a significantly better option than being dead."
Elequinn bit down hard on her lips, fighting back her urge to cry out at the unfairness of the whole situation. Instead, her teal eyes simply glared at the back of the Wyverian in silence as both he and her father left the room. A few moments later, a creaking of her wardrobe door as it opened reminded Elequinn that there had been an unseen individual listening in on the conversation the entire time.
"Well, that was exciting," Galix popped out of the wardrobe wearing a goofy smile, his hair even messier than before after his short stay in the closet. "It seems that little dog of the Guild enjoyed being a messenger of despair."
"And what are you so happy about?" Tears formed at the sides of Elequinn's downcast eyes as she held the Zamtrios toy in her arms. "You heard him. I can't… I'm not qualified to be a hunter."
"Hey, hey, hold your tears," the tanned male quickly went over and placed a supportive arm on Elequinn's shoulder, using the other to brush aside his fringe to reveal a pair of serious looking icy blue eyes. "He never once said you weren't qualified. As long as you've learnt your lesson and are willing, you can still become a hunter with potential that surpasses your mom's."
Unable to control her emotions any longer, Elequinn threw her arms around Galix, hugging her friend tightly as she struggled to fight back her tears. The man sighed softly before he returned her hug, patting her back slowly in encouragement. Having her lifetime dream effectively crushed however, was simply too much weight for Elequinn to bear.
A moment later, Galix felt the warmth of freshly shed tears against his skin as Elequinn let out the first of many sobs.