"Sooo… where exactly are we going?"
It's been almost an hour since they left the waterfall and even the excitement of meeting and befriending a bear eventually wore off in the face of the silent calm of the forest. Being used to never having prolonged quiet in his family, the lack of social interaction, even for just a short time, was gnawing at the mind of Jaune.
Unfortunately for the blonde teen, the bear didn't acknowledge his question and simply continued walking to whatever destination it knew. Jaune sighed at the admittedly expected lack of response and resigned himself to just snack on the small fruits and berries still inside the basket.
"You know, I haven't seen a bear like you before." Jaune admittedly audibly while chewing on a blue berry he fished out of the basket. The bear still didn't acknowledge his remarks but that didn't bother Jaune. He was just trying to occupy himself with something, even talking to an animal.
"The bears I've seen back home and on tv were black, brown, or white." Jaune continued, looking at the monochromatic mammal walking beside him. "None of them were black and white."
"Still, I guess you look a lot friendlier than those bears. Softer." Jaune noted as he continued snacking, giving another look over his companion. "My sisters would love you, I'm sure. Maybe not Rory though." He continued, letting his mind drift to thoughts about his family once again.
'Yeah, Rory's too much of a worrywart to just ignore the danger.' Jaune thought fondly about his oldest sister. 'She'd probably be too busy keeping an eye on its claws and teeth to appreciate its cuteness.' Jaune smiled at the mental image.
"Gods, Flynn! Keep up!" The frustrated voice of his female kidnapper harshly broke the silence of the forest and brought Jaune out of his musings in alarm. He scrambled to a nearby tree and hid away from the direction the voice came from. As he did, the bear followed and sat by the tree which gave Jaune a some more cover.
"Oh come on Cass. Why the rush? Not like the kid could go anywhere." Another voice responded with a slight cocky tone.
'That must be Flynn. The guy that knocked me out.' Jaune assumed as he strained to keep his body as small as possible behind his companion and the tree.
"Come on, we can go a few rounds first. Get the blood pumping, you know?" The male voice continued with a more suggestive tone as the sounds of their movement became much clearer to Jaune.
Suddenly, rough shuffling and a loud thud echoed in the air. Jaune risked a peek out to see what happened and saw that the woman had the man pinned to another tree with a blade to his throat. Jaune quickly dropped back down to his hiding spot, not wanting to further risk his location as he listened in.
"Fuck!" Flynn cursed out in pain. "What the hell, Cass!?" He continued, his once light and easygoing tone replaced with aggressive anger.
"Shut up. You think I'm like you or your other girls in Argus; desperate for sex?" The woman, Cass, asked with a more disdainful tone in her voice. "A bastard like you might be a good lay once in a while, but honestly, I'd sooner cut it off if you're just going to get in my way."
Jaune faintly heard a soft whimper which he assumed to be from Flynn, thoroughly intimidated by the sadistic lady.
A loud and long growl suddenly came out of the bear, causing Jaune to tense up. He was tempted to peek out again to see their reactions but controlled himself and simply prepared himself to move quickly.
"Tch. You're lucky that bear's here." Jaune heard the woman remark in annoyance. "Come on, let's circle back and try somewhere else for now."
As the sounds of footsteps and disturbed foliage steadily faded in the distance, Jaune let out a sigh of relief from behind his hiding spot. Still, he felt it prudent to wait a couple of minutes more after the final footsteps were no longer audible before coming out from hiding.
"Is it safe?" Jaune quietly asked the bear as he cautiously peeked out from behind. Seeing no sign of his kidnappers in the area, Jaune stood up and gave a friendly pat to his animal companion.
"Thanks for hiding me there, buddy." Jaune expressed his genuine gratitude to the big mammal, looking straight into its eyes. It held his gaze for a few moments before it leaned down to lick his face. Jaune smiled at the apparent affection it gave him and gave out a soft laugh.
After giving its affection, the large bear went back on all four legs and began its walk again. Jaune followed closely, wiping the wetness of the bear's saliva off his face.
After a few more minutes, the pair came across a sizable cave entrance, easily accessible by the bear, unlike the one back at the waterfall. The bear moved first into the cave, softly growling at Jaune as if to beckon him to follow. While Jaune was skeptical of the deep, dark cave, he reasoned that by that point, he'd just have to trust the bear some more.
It didn't take long for the outside light to falter as Jaune went deeper into the cave. He was struggling to see what was in front of him, at times unsure whether his eyes were even open. His only source of direction was the sound of both his and the bear's footsteps inside the cave that echoed loudly with each step.
"Where are you taking me?" Jaune asked his first question again, this time with trepidation as his mind went into overdrive thinking about what dangers lurked in the dark shadows of the cave. Only the echoes of paws and feet were his answers.
They continued deeper into the cave in eerie silence with Jaune taking comfort in the generally repetitive sounds of their footsteps.
Step. Step. Step.
Step. Step. Step.
Step. Step. Step.
Step. Step. Step.
Jaune quickly reached out towards where he thought his bear companion was, desperately grabbing on to its fur the moment he felt it. It took him a moment but he realized the echo of their footsteps changed. From how it sounded, they were out of the long tunnel from the entrance and have entered a large chamber.
'It was easier when it was just a straight path.' Jaune whined in his mind as he kept his hands on the body of his bear friend.
After a few more paces deeper into the pitch-black chamber, Jaune felt his companion stop. Jaune was confused and determined to just tightly hug the body of the bear out of fear of being left behind.
"GRRROOWWL!" A primal growl emanated from deep within the bear, echoing loudly throughout the cave. As Jaune buried his face into the fur of the bear to calm himself, he felt the rumble of the growl from the bear's body.
As the growl continued to echo, Jaune lifted his head from the bear's body and saw a magnificent sight.
As they stood in the middle of the vast cave chamber, Jaune saw thousands of crystal formations jutting out of the cave walls brightly glowing green. They were of varying sizes, some looking like they were smaller than his hand while others the size of his head. They all illuminated the chamber in their emerald shine, their light like quasi-starry sky as pointed down from the high ceiling.
When the echoes steadily faded, the glow of the crystals also steadily lost their brightness and Jaune feared that they would die out again when the echoes ceased. Fortunately, even as silence returned inside the chamber, the crystals continued to glow emerald, only much more dimly. Still, with the sheer amount there was of the crystals on the walls, it was enough for Jaune to comfortably let go of the bear to walk on his own.
"How'd you do that?" Jaune asked the bear in pure wonder, connecting that the bear's growl triggered the crystals to glow. The bear simply began walking again towards another cave opening, to which Jaune simply shook his head in fond resignation before joining the side of the bear.
They moved through the dimly lit tunnels for a good while, their path winding and confusing for Jaune. While thankfully Jaune hadn't needed to climb up the rocky walls, he did need to be a lot careful at times with his steps as they went further and further up the cave network.
Jaune was already working up a mild sweat and had slightly labored breathing when they reached a small chamber with sunlight coming through from an opening. Jaune also noted a simple picture of a mountain carved into the wall just to the side of the opening.
'A drawing! There might be people here. Is this where the bear wanted to take me?' Jaune thought as he moved past his companion and looked out of the opening.
Jaune gulped in slight fear as he saw how high up they were but that fear soon turned into amazement as he saw a beautiful valley below, a lush green forest filling up the space between the mountain he was in and the next mountain in front of him. Jaune recognized the mountain as the one on the wall just inside, though Jaune had to look up to gaze upon its awe-inspiring form.
After admiring the view, Jaune scanned around him to see where he might proceed but he noted there wasn't even a ledge he could step on outside.
'Dead end.' Jaune acknowledged before heading back inside where he saw the bear sitting in front of the cave drawing.
"Where to now, buddy?" Jaune asked as he caught his breath. He saw the bear look at him for a moment before returning its gaze towards the drawing and pawing at it.
"There?" Jaune tried to clarify with the bear. It simply looked back at him before repeating its action on the drawing.
Thinking he somehow missed something, Jaune looked back out of the opening to see if there was any path they could take towards the mountain.
"There's nothing here, bud. Is there a path back down the caves-" As Jaune tried to voice his question, he felt himself get lifted from his legs before being flipped unto the back of the monochromatic bear.
"What the-" Jaune couldn't even voice out his surprise at the sudden mounting when the bear jumped out of the opening.
Jaune instinctively embraced the bear's body tightly and closed his eyes, a terrified already in his throat as they both fell to their deaths.
However, after a minute without crashing, Jaune felt confusion creep into his mind. While still deathly scared of his imminent demise, the anxiety of not knowing exactly when his impending death would come won out and made him open one eye to check.
They weren't falling. The verdant forests of the valley were still thankfully far below. Below the paws of the bear he was riding on currently. Below only the paws and nothing else in between.
Terror and sheer disbelief warred in Jaune's mind as he struggled to make sense what was happening. The bear was flying. The bear he was on was flying.
He tightened his hold on the bear as the realization sunk in his mind, hoping not to slip off the bear and actually fall to his death. He may have wanted to warm himself from the cold wind by huddling tighter into his own body but he remained resolute in securing his hold.
He didn't have enough time to calm himself when the bear began to move. It was flying up towards the next mountain.
"Correction. It's walking up towards the next mountain." Jaune noted with a weak voice, still in pure shock of what was happening. He watched as each paw of the bear glowed white and moved through the air as if walking on ground that was simply invisible.
It wasn't soon enough for Jaune when the bear finally stepped back onto actual ground, a clear platform formed at the side of the mountain.
Jaune immediately jumped off the bear and dropped on the ground, relishing on the security and firmness of the stony floor. As he calmed himself however, he noted that it was not just a simple clearing on the side of the mountain that the bear brought him to. It was another cave entrance, though this time, there was a huge set of stone doors that blocked the entrance.
The doors were made from the same stone of the mountain face in sat on, looking like it was carved into the mountain itself with how it naturally blended into the mountain. It was only easily identifiable by the beautiful carvings on its body depicting a much grander landscape of mountains, forests, and floating islands in the horizon.
When Jaune stood back up on his feet, he also saw a couple of symbols cut into the mountain just above the doors. They were clearly separated into five and they looked similar to the symbols he saw in Violet's Mistrali comics.
"Is this where you wanted to bring me?" Jaune asked as he looked at the grand entrance in its entirety.
"GGRROOWWLL!"
The bear gave the same primal growl it did back in the dark chamber, and Jaune prepared himself to see what would be triggered by it.
He saw the outlines of the drawing glow the same emerald color as the crystals did in the previous cave. It gave the carved landscape an ethereal beauty to it which quickly vanished as the glow died out.
A moment later, the large doors shook, dust and loose debris falling from the sudden movement. Then, the doors slowly swung outwards, the sound of moving rock filling the air until the doors were fully extended outwards.
Jaune stared into the opened cave, seeing a corridor with pillars and carved stone. Clearly, there were people here. Dead or alive, he couldn't tell. But as he looked back to the companion that brought him here and saw it gazing back at him with soulful eyes, Jaune felt that something was waiting for him inside.
