Few soldiers patrolled the Lusitran borders. There was no clear border marking the end of the Pericland and the beginning of the country. Perhaps they had entered Lusitra a long while ago; there was no way of knowing. Still a single monster had yet to appear to our travelers. A few times Madella had found herself questioning whether they'd even left Mackia.
She'd ceased looking around in search of monsters about five days ago, a while after they'd found Teerom, but her mind still churned with confusion and intrigue.
"Hey," Jurie nudged Teerom, "Can you ask it again?"
Teerom moved up with a great grunt from a lying position to the lion's head. "Umm, how much left to Lusitra?"
Madella intently watched him try to speak to the monster for what must've been the fifteenth time. Again, it didn't make a sound in reply, but it did turn its head slightly and look Teerom in the eye briefly.
Sighing, Teerom returned to lying down with his head hanging behind its butt. Jurie took a great yawn, blinking hard and shaking her head to keep herself awake, producing a smile on Madella's face.
"We'll get there eventually. Don't worry." Madella gently bought Jurie's head down and lay her on her lap.
"When?"
"I don't know. But we will get there."
"How do you know that?" Yawning, Jurie slowly began shutting down.
"Do you trust Mr. Lion?"
To that, Jurie nodded just before she fell asleep. Teerom had fallen into a deep doze a while back.
"You shouldn't worry about how long something takes. Because if you desire it enough, you know it will come to you eventually. That's called hope, Jurie." She ran her hand back and forth Jurie's head and looked out at the horizon where a wall of clouds lay, surrounding the world. She couldn't help but smile thinking that she was in the middle of a cloud-shaped donut, Maro's favorite snack that she'd introduced him to.
As the sun began to set, with the taste of fresh oranges on the tongue, ahead they saw a large canyon before a Mana Forest, stretching so wide that it nearly touched the horizon. The lion monster halted at its edge, allowing its riders to look down at the 50-meter-deep valley. In it there was a thinning river with mild shrubbery at its edges. Most of the vegetation - small branches from which hung nests of some kind of monster insect species - had grown on the canyon walls
"You should go around," Madella tapped the side of the lion's head, but it remained in place, waiting.
"Maybe we gotta get off now," Jurie suggested.
But Madella waited. Until the ground beneath the lion began to swirl and splash into itself like an agitated liquid. The monster took a step back and they all watched in awe as the fluid ground came to life, rising toward the other side of the canyon, smoothly connecting into a bridge made of earth. Despite having no piers for support, it held firm and solid.
Everyone, including the lion, took a deep breath as it stepped onto the bridge. Not a sign of imbalance. The dense dirt felt hard under the lion's paws but its weight was enough to leave prints. It continued bravely until it reached the other side and turned around, expecting the bridge to crumble and fall after its use, but it didn't. It remained strong, unnatural, and unaffected by gravity.
The night was approaching fast and the lion began toward the mana forest ahead. Madella was now on guard. If they finally saw monsters, though they may have been insects, whatever luck they've been enjoying so far may have vanished.
A few minutes into the forest, they began to hear rustles in the dense shrubbery. The lion had suddenly become careful and began growling. Jurie screamed at the sudden appearance of two dots of red in the darkness between the trees; given the hunger that lay in them, they were definitely the eyes of monsters. Madella grabbed the two quivering children and held them close to her, holding her sword out in front of her at the red eyes. More and more dots began to appear and she quickly found that they were completely surrounded.
Silhouettes became visible and the next moment, one of them came into the moonlight. Madella hadn't even an instant to react before it had closed the gap and grabbed on to the lion with its clawed feet. It was a horrendous, brown, bat monster with a humanoid body. It threw its clawed wing forward and opened its mouth, ready to feast, and the remaining cloud of bat monsters of varying size and shape revealed themselves from the darkness.
Madella dropped the sword and bought Teerom and Jurie into her, curling up above them, her back en route to being impaled by claws. But nothing happened. Though, a sharp stabbing pain suddenly clutched her heart. An insurmountable dread.
The bats had all frozen in place, some of them mid-air. Their mouths gaped, but no sound came out apart from despaired gargling. Then, they exploded. Like balloons filled with water, they blew up, but instead of water, it was dark greyish blood that painted the forest as well as Madella and the children. The lion meowed something shakily and continued walking.
Its riders sat wide-eyed and with their mouths open, looking back at the bloody scene behind them. There even seemed to be some traces of blood in the very air like vapor.
The scents of flowers had begun to overpower the stench of the monster's innards that drenched their clothes. They continued until they were finally out of the Mana Forest and into a regular forest before they arrived at the foot of a river beyond which lay an abandoned cottage and barn. The lion stopped and looked at them, motioning with its head for them to get off.
"Is this Lusitra?" Jurie climbed on Teerom to look around and all she found was the top of a church in the distance.
"It's Gouon," The lion said in a deep gravelly voice that only Teerom heard.
Noticing this, Madella asked him what it said. After Teerom told her, she turned to the lion and caressed its beautiful dark grey fur before hugging it. "Thank you. Thank you, so much." She smiled and looked into its eyes, her expression quickly dissolving.
She turned with extraordinary speed, looking frantically beyond Teerom and Jurie, at something in the distance… someone.
"Mom, are you okay?" Teerom asked, but his question was left hanging in the air. Jurie joined Madella, looking around in confusion for a few seconds before tugging on her sleeve to get her attention back.
"Teerom," The smile returned to her face after she calmed herself down, "Did you call me mom?"
"Ah! Sorry, I didn't meant to!"
Madella giggled and crouched to pat him on the head, "You can call me mom. From now on I'll be raising you. Both of you."
Tears suddenly began to stream from his eyes and his face contorted comically. He nodded and tried desperately to wipe his face to no avail. Jurie couldn't help the slight smile that formed on her face.
Madella took their hands, bid the lion monster farewell once more, and crossed the shallow river, turning again to watch it disappear into the dark forest. Despite it being midnight, they weren't cold. Oddly, they were warm.
Madella tried the door handle to the cottage but it was locked. "Hm, it looks abandoned, though," She said, looking up at the broken windows, the old cracked wood, and the straw roof falling apart.
Teerom tapped her and asked for a hairpin which she reluctantly gave. They spent the next minute watching him try the lock and impressively enough, the door opened.
"What mischief have *you* been up to?" Madella teased, pulling his cheek as they entered.
What they found was nothing short of a filthy, dusty living room with a pile of ash in the campfire ahead and a slew of broken furniture all around.
Madella sighed. They had a lot of work to do.
After sleeping close together outside, the next day they went North toward the capital of Lusitra, Gouon, bordering between being a city or just a large town. They approached the guards at the Southern Gate who were preoccupied with a traveling merchant and his wife. After letting the merchant take his small cart of goods through the gates, they asked Madella for identification. Madella admitted she had none and asked if they could visit the city for a few hours to which the guards stated a payment of 20 silver was required.
Before Madella could reply, however, Teerom pulled out a handful of gold coins from his pocket and gave one to the guards. "Can that buy us five visits?" He asked, trying to ignore the stern look Madella was giving him.
One of the guards asked them to wait for a while as he disappeared into the city and came back with five slips of browned paper. He handed them to Madella; they were one-time passes into Gouon. Madella thanked them about three times before walking into the city.
Although Lusitra was backward, it had a charm to it. The houses were built on thick stone foundations with excessive lumber supports to keep the white-grey walls standing. Every roof was of different colored wood and the streets, instead of being smooth, were cobbled with grass lining between the road and house.
A soft burnt smell filled their noses and they heard nothing but the intensity of human activity: people chatting and laughing, carts being lugged around, horses neighing and their hooves clacking, and above all of them, the shouts of men at small stands convincing you to buy something from them.
Madella took two gold coins from Teerom and left him with the remaining thirty-two, pulling his cheek and telling him, "Go find that merchant and give it back to him."
"I can't, it'll be awkward!"
"Shouldn't have stolen in the first place."
Teerom mumbled, "You wouldn't have those two gold coins, then"
"Hm?" With her hand, she emphasized her ear.
"Nothing!" He ran off to look for the two merchants. Jurie had to tug Madella to continue down the streets of Gouon until they arrived at a bazaar between two stone blocks, warehouses. Between their roofs, a red cloth was tightened, coloring the sunlight that fell onto the stands and groups of people ruby. Madella took Jurie's hand and entered the bazaar.