"HEY! HEY! WAKE UP YOU LOT! WAKE! UP!" Larishazza practically screamed in my face while violently shaking me.
"W-What!? What!?" I repeated over and over as I came to realize Larishazza's state. Her face was stained with tears and red with fear and worry. Her movements were jittery and unstable and she had more trouble than usual focusing on one thing.
"NIN AND VADEI ARE GONE!" she answered with a howl while pointing at where they had been the night before.
"No, they haven't, their tracks are there..." I replied slowly with as I held out a finger at the large footsteps Nin left.
"THEY'RE ONLY TRACKS! I TRIED FOLLOWING THEM BUT THEY DISAPPEAR!"
"Alright, alright, calm down, maybe it's just Nin playing a trick on us, hm?" I said to her while gesturing my palms at her. I needed her to calm down as this wasn't helping my rising panic either.
"HE'S NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!" she screamed into her hands before she locked them together. Various knots were formed out of her fingers as she dashed about as well.
"Hold on, Larishazza!" I said to her as I started to follow the tracks. Only to stop in confusion when I saw that the airship was gone as well. A large burning crater in the spot it should have been in... And as I put my hand over my mouth, it dawned on me.
They didn't did they? They seriously did not just abandon us in the middle of a wasteland...? Our supplies were untouched, sure, but... What had they done?
Had they just moved on elsewhere just for the moment and would return? No, that made no sense. If this was just a temporary thing then they would have discussed it with us. They would have told us...
"Was that why I heard them being loud last night...?" I then questioned myself as I stumbled backwards in shock. Collapsing shortly after as I just did not know what to do... Why had our friends just abandoned us? If this was a plan, why hadn't they told us...?
I couldn't figure any of it out and I was becoming increasingly enraged the longer I thought about it. And as I became angrier, I became more violent. I lashed out at the gravel and dust and kicked it about in a violent tantrum. Then, once I had wandered away from the camp enough...
I screamed into the sky and let all my magic out at once. Getting caught in a ginormous explosion as a result of this sudden magic outburst. And once that rage was let out like that, I focused skyward before I then tried to turn into lightning to get into the clouds. But, as I surged upwards towards the clouds, a golden bolt swatted me away.
A blow that sent me screaming back down to the earth below. Disaster only just being avoided when Larishazza caught me in her arms. An explosion enveloped us both once she crashed into the fragile earth. Large, shattered apart shards of firmer rock shooting up as a result, even if the explosion eroded them back down.
"Let go of me..." I cried out in despair as Larishazza then dropped me without a care. Tears in her eyes as she looked about once more. And tears would come to my eyes too, but I could not wipe them away. As otherwise, I would get dust in them, a paltry issue compared to Nin and Vadei's abandonment of us...
And it sort of stayed like this for quite some time. The pair of us just cried in despair before finally calming down. How our feet forced the gravel together and apart is the only sound coming from us as we went back. Back to the camp, the one we set up together as a group, that is where we went. And, well, where else would we go?
The Anvil-Peak? The far end of this wasteland? Back to the great canyon? Without the airship we were lost...
"They're gane?" Heiya asked us as she approached our slowly moving forms. Larishazza paid her no mind and just went elsewhere to sulk. Leaving Heiya my problem to deal with should I have chosen to do so... But, I was going to deal with her, I was too angry and I needed someone to vent out on...
"And the airship too..." I let out with an exasperated sigh as I threw my arms up in the air. Shuddering out a sigh into one of my palms as the hands came down afterwards.
"Aaare we still gaing ta fallaw them ta Tabaaabaaalle?" she then asked me and just before I shook my head in frustration, I changed my mind.
"No... No! We're going to find those two and demand an explanation from the pair of them!" I declared loudly as I clenched my fists together. Glaring off into the distance, even if it wasn't the way they were headed.
"Find tracks. Follow." Heiya's father then explained as he walked up to me with supplies already on his back.
"If they stole the airship how are we going to find their tracks!?" I nearly shouted down at him whilst glaring at him. Nearly moving on to shouting when he shook his head and gestured me to follow. While Heiya pointed it out once we reached the edge of the camp.
"Aver there! See?" she said as her short arm and small hand pointed out the distortion in the gravel. Not where the airship was nor where I and Larishazza landed. But, rather, at the long serpentine trail heading off into the distance.
"They head straight to Nin's home?" I asked with a notable angered emphasis being put on Nin's name.
The pair nodded, "All way to front gate." Heiya's father said while nodding.
"Right, you two gather up our stuff, then, I am going to speak to Larishazza." I ordered them before walking off towards the woman in question. What I considered my former rival for Nin's love soon entered my eyesight shortly after. And, well, she was in the most pathetic state I had ever seen her in.
Wailing away pointlessly like a child...
"We found a way to follow them." I tell her as she pays no heed to my presence.
"Leave me alone..." she tells me as her face disappears further into her arms.
"I do not intend to leave you on a dusty rock in the middle of nowhere. Now, get up." I sternly told her as I grabbed her by the elbow. But I readjusted my grip onto her bicep when it proved too awkward a place to hold.
"No!" she whined.
"Get up!" I told her once again as I yanked her up. Holding her awkwardly when she refused to stand at all.
"Get off me!" she said as she weakly tried to get out of my grip.
"Larishazza! Get up and quit acting like a child!" I then said to her before I tried to thrust her back down. But, her legs stopped me from putting her down and that glare I got from her unnerved me. Anger was not an expression I had ever seen on her face before. And it looked like a murderous intent hid behind it.
"Leave. Me. Alone." she said very slowly to me as she pushed me towards the rocks behind myself.
"No, not u-until you come with us... You deserve to hear an explanation and apology too." I explained with the slightest stutter as her grip tightened on me. Only for it to loosen as she collapsed on to me to cry again.
"Had I done something wrong...? I thought Nin was my friend... I thought they both were..." she cried out while holding me close. All while her teeth chewed away at a now bloody bottom lip as she did so.
"We both were led to believe that, now, come on... We need to catch up with them or we'll miss them entirely and be stuck out here in these wastes." I explained while giving her a reassuring hug. Even if I did not believe I could reassure her in a time like this. I couldn't even reassure myself, I could only make myself angrier...
"I hope I can figure out why they did not want to be my friend anymore..." she said with a sniffle. Something I think gave a keen insight into what she was like. She was accepting no other reason other than self-blame... She detached the idea Nin and Vadei could ever do anything bad to her completely...
But, I felt the same way I guess, "I would like that too..." I said as we stopped hugging each other. One of my arms rubbed the other before we walked towards the slavers. Even though I would be cursing their names from now on... I was still confused as to why they did it.
What compelled them to just abandon us...? We were coming along with them to help them. I certainly proved that when I nearly died in my efforts to save Nin! I was nearly burnt to death when I went to save him!
So why was he able to just leave us so easily...? Had this been his plan all along? I mean, now that I thought about it... I was only here by circumstance because I was asked to help fix something on the airship...
For no real reason as well! They could have asked anyone to do it, so why did they pick me? Was there some kind of orchestration to this event? There had to have been...
But why did he want to leave us on our own? We were with him now so we could help him! Did he not want our help? Was he afraid we would do something?
His lack of speaking to us about the whole affair was not helping me figure it out... But, the more I thought about our time together. I just couldn't keep up with the idea he abandoned us out of spite or cruelty. There must be something else to this whole affair...
Maybe I was just trying to make it seem like he made a mistake when it wasn't. Or, maybe, despite the rage I was going through earlier... I did not genuinely believe he had done anything wrong in some strange way? That he was just thinking he needed to do this on his own...?
It was frustrating to think about and I quickly found myself growling into my closed mouth. While the slaver, father-daughter pairing stared up at me the entire time. Something that oddly enough, calmed me, or at least distracted me. And, thankfully, they were also all done with gathering up our stuff.
"We go?" the older of the two asked as he held up a bag to me. With Heiya doing the same to Larishazza.
I looked at my blue-haired friend before answering, "Yes, let's go and drag them back so we can get an answer." I answered before sighing out my frustrations.
"I'd rather not drag them." Larishazza quietly clarified as she quickly went ahead of us once we set off.
"Follow tracks." Heiya's father loudly stated to the distant woman who then glued herself to said tracks. Many of their ridges and near-perfect ridges collapsed as she stepped on them. Their state only got worse as my heels speared into their remains as well.
"This shouldn't take long, should it?" I then asked, hoping we would not be walking in such a boring land for eternity.
Heiya's father briefly laughed before his daughter spoke, "It will taaake aaa lang while." she initially said with a smile before she groaned upon looking down. A mumbled complaint about how her feet will be ruined by the time we reached Tobaballe came after. Which was valid I suppose, probably more so for me seen as I was an idiot still in heels...
"Might be better off taking them off..." I then thought aloud even though I did nothing with my footwear.