"Dad!" Serah yelled as she rushed towards Rasze.
As she ran she took off her backpack and unclipped the first pocket that carried disinfectants and bandages.
"Stop!" Rasze shouted as his voice quivered in pain "Stay where you are and don't make another step."
"Dad," Serah breathed deep to try and stay calm "what happened to you."
"Mud drakes!" Rasze tried to explain through breaths "I stepped on a mud drake nest!"
To his left she could see a trail of blood that lead to a small hole in the ground, it was uncommon to see a mud drake nest so high up but that wasn't important right now, right now they had to get out of this situation.
"Okay, okay. Stay there." Serah said as she cautiously looked at the ground for ruptures and holes. Meanwhile, Nanaia's eyes had glazed over the image, she had never seen her father injured like before, and if it weren't for Manarams keeping her close, she would have dashed towards him.
Mud drakes are large and ferocious lizards that burrow beneath the ground and ambushed prey that were unlucky enough to step on top of them. Normally they try to avoid confrontation but when their territory is threatened they're relentless. These ambush predators are nimble but close to the ground and when they're faced with a much taller creature their first instinct is to tear through their legs. Serah had to hurry, Rasze was already on the ground, and with how fast they were he wouldn't have time to fend for himself. She could have quickly rescued her father but she knew she couldn't be reckless otherwise she'd put Manarams and Nanaia in danger.
"You know what to do right?" Manarams asked, the sound of his voice broke her out of her own head and gave her time to properly think.
"I think I do." Serah said quietly as she reached for one of the side pockets of her bag. "Take these."
In his hand were four lilac colored spheres; powdery residue clung onto his skin and they rolled in his palm. To most dragonkin these odorless spheres were strange unfamiliar alchemical concoctions but to Manarams he knew them as sleep powder. Often used by him and his brethren when they partake in hunts.
"When one gets close you know what to do." Serah said and Manarams nodded.
"But what about you?" he asked.
"I have something I've been meaning to test." Serah smiled nervously as she pulled out a blowgun and three darts. "A paralysis toxin I've been mixing in my spare time."
"I'm just going to ignore the elephant in the room here and ask," he said as he looked around cautiously for any incoming mud drakes "are you even sure that works?"
"No." She said confidently "But it's now or never because I don't have any more sleep powder and you have better aim with those than I do."
"Well for your sake" Manarams shrugged "you better hope it works."
As she loaded the blowgun with her poisoned dart she looked around for any changes or bumps on the ground. If they hadn't attracted the mud drakes to them with their noises, they were probably still aiming for Rasze. Serah waited patiently for the mud drake to emerge, Manarams kept watch on their flanks, and Nanaia held up her long pole in front of her face in defense.
Serah then took a knee to feel the earth for vibrations. The sound of leaves fell onto the grass, and branches creaked and cracked against the wind, but none of that would distract her. She was focused and soon it would pay off. She felt something close to her vibrate and soon the mud drake peaked its head out of the ground, like a shark breaching water. The mud drake leaped towards Rasze but before it could take another bite from her father, Serah blew out the dart and hit it on its broad back. The four legged lizard landed on top of Rasze, shaking and convulsing, unable to move.
"Dad!" Serah shouted and rushed towards him. His leg had deep gnashes from the mud drake's claws and it carved across his shin and calf. It wasn't going to do any lasting damage but it wasn't a pretty sight either, he was going to need stitches but for now she had to bandage the wound. "Alright, bite on this."
She unbuckled her belt and put it in his mouth; Rasze clenched his teeth and bit down against the leather as Serah poured a disinfectant on his open wound. She then bandaged his leg with the appropriate amount of pressure.
"What are you doing?" Rasze groaned as he spoke through the pain.
"Uh, helping you?" Serah shot back sarcastically "What does it look like?"
"No, not that!" Rasze replied "Did you forget that every nest has two mothers?"
As the realization dawned on her she heard Nanaia whispering her name.
"Serah" she said with a worried and teary eyed expression as she pointed towards the rumbling behind the bushes.
Serah loaded another shot and pointed towards the bushes. Again she waited cautiously and patiently for the mud drake until she heard the sound of a twig cracking under the creature's heel. As soon as she heard it she launched another dart towards the sound and rather than the sound of a lizard thrashing behind the bushes she heard something else. The distinct scream of a woman in pain.
Serah ran towards the sound and her face turned white. On the ground was a dragonkin woman, with a dart in her thigh, convulsing violently on the ground. The toxin she created was made to paralyze dragons, lizards, and alike - creatures that were physiologically stronger than the average dragonkin. A normal dragon would recover from its effects within half an hour with no lasting damage, but dragonkin could die from it.
The woman gasped for air but couldn't, her hands twitched and thrashed until they stopped, her eyes darted back and forth trying to call for help before they too, froze. She was paralyzed and it could kill her slowly.
'Bahamut's beard, this is bad' she thought. Her mind raced with the consequences of her actions and while she was shouting 'no' over and over again in her head, she could only manage to whisper it.
"The antidote!" she yelled as she got her bearings together. There was still time before the woman died, before her bodily functions would give out to the paralysis but she had to administer the antidote fast.
Serah turned back and bolted towards her bag once again but as she crouched down to take the antidote from it the mud drake struck. The lizard reared its head above the ground and tackled her to the ground, scratching her arms in the process. But before it could bite her neck open Manarams shouted to get its attention.
As it turned away for a brief second to face Manarams he kicked the drake, sending it flying across the clearing and to finish it off he threw the soporific concoction right at its face - causing it to fall asleep.
"Hurry!" He shouted.
Serah thanked him, nodded, and quickly got onto her feet. Searching through her bag she took out a clear colored liquid and a dagger.
"Woah, woah, what are you going to do with that!?" Manarams asked in a panicked voice. "Don't tell me you're going to just put her out of her misery?"
"No, you idiot!" Serah said, her voice peaking as she tried to not sound just as panicked as he was. "The poison travels through the bloodstream, I need to cut into a vein and pour the antidote in."
"I'm really sorry for this." She said to the woman who most could still hear her.
Serah's hands shook profusely, she clenched her teeth as she tried her best to stabilize her hand for the cut. Slowly but surely, Serah managed to cut through the dragonkin woman's wrist and poured in the medicine as fast as possible.
As movement slowly returned to the woman's body she gasped for air before her eyes rolled back up and fell unconscious. Serah, checked to see if she was still breathing, if her pulse was still beating, and surely enough the woman was alive. Letting out a sigh of relief, she smiled back towards Manarams.
"I did it." She said with a tired yet grateful expression before it turned sour as she continued her sentence with "I don't ever want to do that again."
However before she could even celebrate her success she heard a voice calling out a name from the mountain's trail.
"Riam!" the man called out "Where'd you run off to now!?"
'This is Riam isn't it' Serah thought, but before she could run off and hide the man saw his beloved unconscious on the ground, bleeding at the wrist. Over her body was the pale, blonde haired, woman carrying a knife.
"What did you do to Riam!? What did you do to my wife?!" the man shouted as he threw a right hook that hit her square at her temple. The strike sent her crashing to the ground knocking the blade out of her hand. He clutched Serah by the shirt and demanded "What did you do, devil!?"
"Leave her alone!" Nanaia cried as she tried to get the dragonkin man, more than twice her size, off of her sister.
The man knocked her away effortlessly before Manarams could react.
"Enough!" Manarams shouted as he grappled the man off of his friend and threw him to the ground.
"Just look at her, you dolt!" He said as he pointed towards Riam. "She's alive."
The man rushed over to his wife and gently laid an ear to her chest. As he heard her heart beat and her lungs breathing he clutched her, saying her name.
"What's going on here?" A voice from the trail demanded.
"Oh by the ancients what is it now?" Serah let out an exasperated breath and looked towards the latest arrival to this wonderful crowd. Under the shade she saw the last person she wanted to see: Urok the Evoker. Urok bore deep red scales, carried a staff, wore sorcerer's robes, and had a medallion that marked him as a watcher.
As Urok arrived at the scene, he looked around and saw everything. Two unconscious mud drakes, two dragonkin folk bleeding, one crying man, a child, and then finally Manarams and Serah.
"Brother." Urok said while his gaze was firmly fixed on Serah, who was still lying on the ground.
"Brother." Manarams replied.
"Take the child and the injured off the trail." He said with a blank expression.
"Urok, I can expla-" Manarams tried to say before Urok interrupted him by pushing the tip of his staff towards his face.
"I'm sure she can explain the situation much better." Urok continued "Now go. I have much to discuss with lady Serah."
"Nice to see you too Urok." She said sarcastically.
"If you have enough strength to mouth off at me" Urok's eyes stared daggers into her "Then you have enough strength to get up and tell me exactly what happened here."
The day went on as Serah explained what had happened on the mountains. When they returned to the village Urok took Serah and Denath, Riam's husband, to the watcher's hut to settle their dispute. Meanwhile Riam and Rasze were taken to the dragonkin healers to recover. The day shifted to afternoon as arguments between herself and Denath flared.
Soon Rasze would join his daughter at the watcher's hut to try and explain the situation. As tensions rose between Denath, Rasze, and herself, Serah had little to say save for the fact that it was indeed an accident. An accident that wouldn't have happened if she wasn't there, she thought.
"What are you going to do about this, huh?!" Denath cried out "What if that devil's poison has lasting effects!"
"I'll handle it, please accept our sincerest apologies." Rasze said as he bow to Denath, pushing Serah's head down to bow with him. "I'll give your wife a thorough examination for free."
"Fine." He snapped "As long as she's safe."
"As for you, devil, I don't ever want to see you around me or Riam ever again!" he spat the words with vitriol as he left.
"It's a small village, you're going to see me whether you like it or not." She whispered under her breath and Rasze slapped the back of her head in response. "Ow."
With Denath gone, the two of them could breath easy. Relief washed over them knowing that they've somehow managed to avoid exile or worse.
"Glad that's over." Serah said.
"No, it's not!" Rasze threw an tired look at her. "What was that? What just happened there?!"
"I know I should have been nicer to him." She rolled her eyes "But he punched me in the face, dad!"
"No, that was rude, but we're not talking about that!" He yelled.
"Was it the fact that I forgot about the second mud drake?" She said cluelessly.
"No, forget that!" He threw his arms in the air as he tried to explain. "Why, for the love of the ancients, do you have a paralysis poison? Where'd you even learn how to make that?"
"Trial and experimentation?" She said, trying to soften his mood by parroting what he had taught her as an alchemist.
"We are going to have a little talk about your experiments when you get home young lady!" He said as he limped back home.
"Dad, come on" She called out to him "at least let me walk you home!"
"Nope, I'm fine." he replied "You should worry about you!"
As he said that she could feel the distinct aura of a "stuck-up" right behind her. As she turned to face him she could see Urok's stern glance and angered expression. She could even see smoke between his teeth.
"You got lucky today, devil!" He said angrily.
"I'll try to be careful next time." She said apologetically.
"No, I will see to it that there won't be a 'next time'" His eyes flared red with rage. "Hand it over."
"What?"
"The poison, hand it over."
"Bu-" she tried to protest but Urok interrupted her.
"No," he shouted "That is far too dangerous in your hands, you've proven that today. Now give it."
"But we still need the antidote to make sure Riam is safe!" she explained.
"If Rasze needs it he can take it back from us." His eyes squinted at her in annoyance.
Serah reached down into her backpack and angrily shoved the poison bottle and its antidote towards him.
"Now, since we're done here, the door is over there." He said as he pointed her away.
Frustration fumed inside of her, she wanted to say something back to him, she could say something, but she's not stupid. She's smart enough to know when something is her fault. She tried to look up at Urok, tried to meet his gaze, but she couldn't and stormed off.
"I'm sorry this happened, Serah." Manarams said as he reached out to hold her.
"Mana?" She had done her best to hold back her tears in front of Denath, Raim, Urok, and even Rasze but she couldn't help it now. As Manarams held onto her she could feel a swell of emotion and began to cry, despite her attempts to laugh it off. "You're still here? How long have you been waiting out there?"
"Long enough. It'd be rude if I left a friend in this cocked up situation" He laughed, trying to cheer her up. "But, Nidhogg's eye, this is messed up!"
"I bet that guy wouldn't have punched you if you were dragonkin!" Manarams said with an exasperated and frustrated voice, throwing his arm up at the sky in anger. "You've been with us for nineteen years now, you'd think they'd do more than just tolerate you? Or they could start by not calling you a devil."
"That's just how the cookie crumbles, Mana." She tried to make light of the situation but she still couldn't look at his face. "It's gonna be like this until I kick the bucket."
"Come on now, Serah. You can't just accept that." He said as he tilted her head up to look at her teary eyes. "You're not a devil. You're you and they should treat you as an equal!"
She smiled, she's at least grateful that there were a handful of dragonkin in Verderis that were kind to her. He was right, she thought, it wasn't fair that so many dragonkin treat her the way they do, but what could she do about it?
As she pondered that question a colorful pillar of light burst into the sky, taking the shape of a beautiful prismatic dragon. It lit up the auburn sky with dazzling lights, the dragon's wings stretched out among the clouds, before taking off and vanishing into the night.
Serah could hear voices and murmurs throughout the village. Many were struck with awe at such a dazzling display. But most of the dragonkin knew what it meant. This beautiful light show marked a sad, bittersweet reality. Skaedir, the Regal Rider has passed away.