The day was bright. So far the day had ben almost perfect to Emea. His raspberry bushes were doing well and there wasn't much of a problem coming from the bushes. The trimming of the bushes hadn't taken too long and there weren't many stems that needed to be removed, although that meant that the next year would have more stems that would need to be removed. Yet, that was the nature of the raspberry bushes.
The day was nearing its end and Emea was about ready to call it a day and head home. He wasn't expecting any raspberries soon, but he knew that it wouldn't be too long before they started to grow.
However, suddenly a scent in the air caught his attention. This scent was one that he didn't smell that often, but it made it alarms go off in his mind. The scent was that of smoke. Somewhere nearby was a fire and Emea needed to find where that was. He'd seen some smoke earlier in the day, but the wind wasn't carrying it towards him, so he didn't pay it much attention. Besides, it wasn't near where he was, so it didn't strike him as that important. Now, there was some nearby and that could be trouble. Especially since he could tell that it wasn't from a small fire, like a campfire or bonfire, but rather a large one. How large, he couldn't say.
He carefully put his tools down so they wouldn't fall onto the raspberry bushes and possibly damage them. Once he had that accomplished, he started walking down the hill towards where he could smell the smoke.
His plan was primarily to assess how big of a fire it was and which direction it was heading. If it was heading towards the village, he would sound the alarm, as was his duty, but rarely was that the case.
The unique fact no one really understood about the mountain Emea lived on, was that it somehow had the wind blow away from it. Even when the wind approached it, it would somehow change direction before it got to this mountain. Maybe there was a reason, but no one that Emea knew, knew what that reason was.
As Emea approached, he started to hear people talking. What they were talking about, he wasn't able to make out, but he had a feeling at least one of the parties in that dialogue had something to do with what was causing that smoke. Not that he could see either party through the trees yet.
He heard a voice say something, but he couldn't understand what was being said. Not because of the distance or anything, but because it sounded unfamiliar to him. He'd encountered a few languages in his life, but none of them like this one.
However, that seemed to be the end of the dialogue, so he wasn't that concerned. Although, he was confused at the fact that the odor of the smoke was going away. He knew there wasn't a change of direction with the wind, so there shouldn't be a reason for the smell to dissipate so quickly. Not when the fire had been so large. He wasn't sure what happened, but he was determined to find what it was.
Then, he suddenly came around a tree and saw a stranger walking with some pronghorn-kin. He could tell that the stranger wasn't a danger, given his people were on friendly terms with the pronghorn-kin and the ones with the stranger seemed to be following her as if she was protecting them from something.
Emea was certain that the events would be interesting to learn. Though, when the stranger stopped at his appearance, he stopped as well. He remained relaxed, as he didn't see her look like she was about to attack or anything.
"Who are you, stranger?" Emea asked, idly noticing deer-kin looking at them from lower down the mountain. Emea made a note that they were on bear-kin territory and decided to let the elder know about it.
"My name is Charlie Rivers," the stranger replied. "I was helping these pronghorn-kin get somewhere that they'd be safe."
Emea found it interesting that as she spoke, he could understand her now, except her mouth was moving in a different way to what he was used to seeing the words spoken in. He wasn't sure what was going on, but was confident there was an explanation.
"How much farther would you have before you could make them safe?" Emea asked, curious as to what her answer would be.
The stranger hesitated, but Emea was patient. Whatever she would answer would tell him more about her.
"Just a few feet," the stranger replied after a minute.
Emea nodded. She didn't look like she was a few feet away from anything, which meant that she was either lying or she was aware of something that Emea wasn't. Regardless, this whole situation was rather intriguing. What other surprises might this stranger hold?
"Would you be willing to come with me for a minute then?" Emea asked. "I have some other things I would like to ask you about."
The stranger nodded. "Alright."
Emea was more than a little surprised at how quickly the stranger agreed. This wasn't what he had expected. If nothing else, he'd expected for the stranger to have either tried to negotiate, hem and haw over whether she should accept, or to flat out take off. Especially if she wasn't telling him the truth about something.
However, before he started escorting her back up the mountain, he walked away from the trees a little more to see if he could see what the source of the smoke had been. If it wasn't around here, then he'd have to look more for it later. Since the odor had disappeared, the stranger took precedence at the moment.
When he fully came around the trees and saw the burn scar, he was stunned. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. Not only was the scar recent, but he could even feel al little of the residual heat from the fire that had caused it. Parts of it were still sending little wisps of smoke up. Then there was the fact that the area was completely square-ish. Fires had always been more of a round shape around the edges, and never so neat and straight on the sides.
"Wh- what happened?" he asked, not intending to voice that question out loud, but unable to keep himself from doing so.
"Uh, yeah, that was me," the stranger who had called herself Charlie said, sounding rather sheepish. "Sorry."
Emea shook his head. Just another thing to add to his questions. This was certainly a strange day.
As Emea was about to turn away and lead the stranger and pronghorn-kin up the mountain, movement caught his eye in the burn scar. So caught up in the scar itself, he hadn't noticed there was anything else about it.
However, as he looked closely, he saw that there were deer-kin who had been caught inside the fire. Some were still alive, but in clear pain from their burns, but Emea knew there wasn't anything he could do himself to help them. Even if he had the skills to do anything to help, he doubted that they would live long anyway. The burns had charred away their skin and he'd never seen anyone survive for long after being burned so badly.
Emea then turned back to the stranger. "I'll need you to follow me now," he informed her as well as those with her.
"As long as those I'm with will remain safe, I'm fine with whatever," the stranger replied, holding the hands of the two oldest of the children with her.
Emea smiled at how the two girls looked at the stranger. He might not know exactly what was going on, but he was pretty sure the pronghorn-kin looked to this stranger as a protector of some sort.
What else there was about her wasn't yet quite clear, but he was sure that it was going to make an interesting night. With nothing else going on at the moment for him, Emea was looking forward to it. It also would give him a chance to speak with the elder, since he doubted that whatever he learned about the stranger would be fine to not inform the elder about her.
Even though he knew the elder really didn't want to see him at all, he was sure that the elder wouldn't be able to refuse to see him in light of this turn of events. There was too much going on.
Although, a stray thought came to him as he watched the stranger walk up the mountainside, following his directions as she walked by him, as she interacted with the pronghorn-kin girls. Was she a forest spirit he'd heard legends about? A forest spirit that has unbelievable powers that will help or hurt whom they pleased for no reason they would share?
If she is a forest spirit, she had a much more physical presence than Emea had ever expected to see from a forest spirit. She looked like she was a regular person, but he couldn't tell which of the beast-kin she was. Her ears didn't look like any he'd seen before, she didn't have any distinguishing characteristics, and he couldn't see if she had a tail, which he wasn't too surprised about, since even the pronghorn-kin didn't have a tail that could be seen outside of their clothing, since it was so short.
One thing did worry him though. The stranger's clothing and the pack she had on her back didn't look remotely familiar to him. He'd been around several different tribes and groups of beast-kin and what this stranger was wearing didn't look anything at all like any of the garments he'd seen before. Although, he did enjoy looking at her legs. They were certainly a pleasant sight for him.
_
Ralph hadn't expected that they would have to worry about the deer-kin when they were done, but it was clear that Tim's raptors weren't going to finish off the deer-kin before Tim's strength was gone.
Another thing that had surprised him was the fact that none of the deer-kin had even shown any signs of surrendering. What that was about, he couldn't say. Only that the deer-kin, while they had cornered them, were going to be able to eventually push back once Tim's magic was exhausted.
"Hey, Tim," Ralph said quietly, trying to keep from being overheard by the deer-kin. "We probably should be heading out now. If we need to, we can try something later, but I don't think we'll get them before you're tapped out."
Tim nodded weakly. "Alright. Make me invisible and we can walk away," Tim replied, exhaustion clear in his voice.
Ralph pulled on his magic, as he put Tim's arm over his shoulders, just in case Tim needed support, and made it so both of them were invisible and they started walking out of the deer-kin's encampment.
As they walked through the camp, Ralph could only stare in shock at the carnage he saw around them. Even though he knew what the raptors were going to do, seeing it was so much different from what he'd expected it be like. It didn't even match what he'd seen in movies and video games. For one, the movies and games didn't include the stench that was already rising up because of all the blood and gore. The thing about it was that not all of the deer-kin were dead. All the ones that were still moving were clearly dying, but still alive.
Ralph had to force his breathing to stay even otherwise he was afraid that the sense of panic that was pushing against him would take over. While he hadn't had a time where he'd tried using magic during a state of panic, he doubted that he'd be very good at it. Which meant that he'd likely not be able to keep Tim and himself invisible like he knew they'd need to keep the deer-kin from attacking them.
As they left the camp, Ralph looked around and was able to see the tail end of the pronghorn-kin climbing the slope he and his friends had walked down on their way to rescue them. Sighing in annoyance, he helped Tim climb the slope.
He didn't try talking with Tim, even with their magic, as if he did that, then he wasn't sure if Tim would be able to either respond or if it would knock him out. While he could help Tim up the hill, he knew that he'd be screwed if he had to carry Tim up the slope.
Fortunately, while it was all uphill, it was still only a mile, so it would only take around ten minutes at the most. Not that big of a period of time, so it wouldn't be that big of a pain.
As they were climbing the slope, Ralph heard the noises of the raptors dissipate, and he was pretty sure that Tim's illusions had disappeared. Either because his grip on his magic was too weak or because he dismissed them himself. Regardless, now they needed to hope the deer-kin were too exhausted, too afraid, too hurt, or any combination of the three to follow after the pronghorn-kin.
For one thing, Ralph didn't want to deal with another massacre like this. A massacre because he had to acknowledge that the deer-kin had no chance against them. Maybe some of his friends had gotten hurt in their attempt to save the pronghorn-kin, but at the same time, he was confident that all of them would survive. The only one he really worried about was Charlie. Mostly because they hadn't heard from her, not that they really expected to, but it would be nice to be able to get in contact with her.
However, once she steps foot in Petals forest, Ralph knew they wouldn't be able to even use their magic to talk with her until they could get there themselves. Though, despite that, it would be nice if she would at least give them a shout out every so often so they'd know she was okay. Especially since there was no way to tell if the two deer-kin they'd left tied up would create a complication and possible danger for her that they hadn't considered.
Ralph shook his head to get rid of those thoughts. He didn't want to build his worries any more than they already were. He had to trust that Charlie would be okay and everything would be fine.
They needed to have her back, not only because she's their friend, but because she's also the only one who would be able to tell which world had the griffin canyon that they were heading towards. And not just because Charlie was their friend, but because it would help Petals out and she was their friend too. Which actually kind of made it a double reason for Ralph.
When Ralph and Tim made it to the top of the rise, Ralph was surprised. The time it took hardly felt like it had taken any amount of time. Almost like it was just a couple minutes.
The pronghorn-kin were making their own camp back almost where Ralph and his friends, minus Charlie, had their granola bar dinner. Ralph took a deep breath as he continued forward.
"You good there, Tim?" Ralph asked as they walked, Ralph still holding Tim's arm over his shoulders.
"I think so," Tim replied, his voice indicating to Ralph just how tired he was. "Though, thanks for helping me up here. I probably would have stopped halfway up, at most, and taken a nap."
"Definitely wouldn't be the place for a nap," Ralph commented, glancing back to see how close they were to the edge of the rise. "Don't want the deer-kin to see you and pick you up just because."
"Yeah, probably wouldn't care for that to happen," Tim acknowledged.
After they took a few more steps, Ralph was confident that they were far enough away from the edge of the rise and let his magic go, removing the invisibility from himself and Tim.
As soon as Ralph let the magic go, he suddenly felt a gigantic wave of fatigue slam into him. He was shocked at how tired he suddenly was. At least he was in a place he'd be able to rest, he told himself while he also wondered, maybe I'm not that good with illusion of any kind.
Although he was a little afraid that having himself and Tim suddenly appear would startle the pronghorn-kin, but they didn't seem to react at all. Maybe they were tired themselves or maybe they were accepting that what happened might go hand in hand with anything else strange going on. Regardless, Ralph was happy that he wasn't suddenly on the wrong end of any weapons they might have at the moment.
As he walked by the various people tending to their own needs, Ralph kept an eye out for any of his friends. He knew Wes was hurt, and possibly Amelia, though he was pretty sure Hannah was alright, though he didn't know about Beth. He hoped that Wes was the only one hurt and from something that could happen anywhere.
Amelia had him most worried, given how bad she looked when she was being carried out. Her head was slick with blood and he couldn't say if it was hers or if she'd happened to fall into a pool of blood or something. He refused to speculate of all the possible ways her head could have been coated so much with blood. Or at least what he had been able to see of it. The more he speculated about it, the more he felt his anxiety rise.
While he may try to keep up a devil-may-care attitude and play pranks most of the time, he still cared about his friends. He definitely didn't want anything to happen to them. Especially if it was over something that he could have done something about.
Fortunately, as he neared the center of the camp, he saw his friends. They were all laying down, only Hannah was awake.