Welcome to Gaia! ::

Malta watched him with a pleasant hopefulness as he tested his leg, noting that it seemed to work fine – as it should. She had done a good job and she knew it. She just needed him to know it, too.

When he said better, her tail whapped against the ground happily, as if released by his words or, somehow, allowed to express her pride in her work. “Good!” she said happily, “Better is... good.” If she hadn't been experiencing a rushing flood of good feelings, she might have metaphorically started to kick herself for her poor use of words. As it was, she was just... happy. To have helped, to be achknowledged and, in the light of the Diabi dragon, to be alive.

Think of the monster and it will come.

Her blue-lit eyes turned uneasy she followed Detraeus's hollow gaze to... a dragon. Not another one... she mentally whimpered, backing away towards the tree line and a hiding place. Safely behind one of the great, arching mushroom trees of the Endeldarth riverside, she watched (freed, now, from her fear of him) in awe and envy as Detraeus seemed to dance through the battle on his wings, firing at the peisio and dodging its attacks with ease as if he was perfectly coordinated with the universe and with, she fancied, fate itself.

She wished she could do something like that. She'd tried once, against a bouken, but even against prey that was small and harmless, she couldn't get herself to move right and do more than flail with her claws. Her bulk was awkward and it got in the way, and in the end she'd felt sorry for the bouken, even though she had let it get away.

She gasped as the Peisio cast its spell, praying that her new friend would not be hurt again. She could heal him again, that was true, but it was always better to not be hurt at all.

But no, Detraeus dodged the Peisio's attack and dealt with it quickly and soon there was nothing left of the Peisio but ash and a glittering soul.

Cautiously, she peered out from the treeline, and determining it to be safe – well, as safe as anything was in this forest – she padded down towards where Detra stood, about as far away from him as he had moved after she had healed him. She looked at him, then back at the orb, then back at him. “Is this... a usual amount of dragons?” she asked, a little meekly. That had been, after all, four in less than one hour. That was, to the young alchemist, four too many.

In her time with a warrior tribe, Malta had become relatively fluent in understanding the expressive language of grunts.

There were a wide variety of grunts; the affirmative grunts, the happy grunts, the sad grunts, the reserved grunts, the angry grunts, the get-the-hell-away-before-I-bite-you grunts, the hungry grunts, and many more. Malta was not familiar with Magescan grunts, but she could extrapolate that this one was a neutral/potentially affirmative slightly-distracted grunt, which was not dangerous and thus sort of reassuring for her in an odd way.

A cave or a nest of dragons on the other hand was not reassuring at all. Malta wanted to not be near such a thing, if it existed. It was, she thought, definitely time to not be near the lake anymore and to get as close to home as she could.

In the light of that, his offer, she felt, was very nice. “Oh!” she said, surprised, “Thank you! I-i mean, I would really appreciate that, yes! Uhm...” She would have to give him a direction to go. “Home is...” She stood up on her hind legs and looked around her, sniffing the air, her wings slightly unfolded for balance. Where was she? When she got abandoned like this, the world seemed to rearrange itself: small trails became unfindable, landmarks changed place, even scents were different. She'd been getting better about finding her way back, however, bit by bit, implying that leaving her in the forest was, somehow, making her better.

But she didn't feel better, or stronger, or smarter, or even braver. She just wanted to go home. She scanned the trees on the further side of the same lake shore. “That way... I think.” The trees looked more familiar there than elsewhere, and she could swear that that Soudana's Locks weeping willow, with its distinctive tiny purple flowers and fungal symbiont crown, and a very large gall growth on its side was something she had seen before on previous trips to lake Korafiel.

Thus, home was likely that way. “Normally when they leave me out here...” she said sheepishly, returning to all fours, “I have to go home on my own, and it's really really scary...” she gave him a khehora smile, “So I appreciate this a lot...” it would be such a relief to not be alone this time.

Not that the Oblivionite wasn't scary, of course. He was – but he was scary in the good sort of way that would keep the other scary things at bay.

“Umm...” she started, awkwardly. If he was going to protect her, it would be good to know his name, so she could shout it if she got in trouble. And also because it was nice to know names. But to know his name, she knew she should give hers. “I'm Malta.” she said, “Of Katangi.” she added. The name of a Khehora's mother was a pretty universal identifier, or so she had been told.

This wasn't the first time that a person who she had met serendipitously in the woods at night had threatened her cousins in some way. Malta looked away, into the shadows of the trees, slightly uneasy. It made her uncomfortable to hear harm wished on anybody, even her cousins. She knew – or at least was sure – that they had only the best intentions when they abandoned her in the woods. But it had been said to her enough times by enough people that she was starting to wonder if they deserved it...

This was not a path of musing that she wanted to go on. Instead she observed the new buds and leaves that had sprouted a vibrant blue green and the tiny glowing mushrooms that had taken sprout in her footprints. It was odd for the season, yes, but she was aware of her magic and its oddities and was heartened: she had been this way before, and it was likely the way she had come, which meant it was the right way.

She was feeling fairly good about how the night was going. It had started rather terribly with abandonment and dragons, and it was still scary. She had a good feeling, though, about the success of its ending, and she was just starting to relax when a whiff of something unsettling found its way to her nose. She slowed, hesitating before her next step. There was not enough to identify it, but it smelled familiar and it smelled bad.

She opened her mouth to mention it to Detraeus – whose name she thought was very interesting and sounded like it actually meant something and was more than a sentimental collection of syllables – when she realized what it was.

Dragons.

Or, rather, Oh Abronaxus's scales not more dragons. because there they were, a whole bunch of them, streaking through the sky and blotting out the pale moonlight allowed by the dark skies of Soldul. Malta counted eight. Her panicked brain counted TOO MANY, and didn't particularly care that they were smaller than the one that had attacked them at the lake.

They were big enough.

She shrieked as a small section of the group laughed and dove at her, scrambling into the deeper cover of the brush were she had at least an illusion of safety. She knew they were toying with her as they roared and crashed through the brush like children wading through a pond, laughing at her in their dark voices and flicking her with threads of dark magic.

She knew, as she barely wriggled under a claw strike, that they were letting her live. They were watching her squirm. Somehow, the thought scared her more than if they had been actively trying to kill her. She cowered beneath a giant mushroom. They were playing with her, and she did not like the game.

She expected, any moment, to have her shelter ripped away and to be exposed like a shelled shellfish. To run, in either direction, was to reveal herself as the brush dipped here and she could see one of the dragon's claws not a few feet away.

[[Come out come out wherever you are!!!]] it crowed. Malta knew that it knew where she was, and she knew that it was still playing with her. She scrunched herself into a ball, huddling terrified beneath the cap. Her mind flit from option to option, desperate for something, some way to not die.

Poison! Right! Yes!

Malta looked up into the mushroom's gills. She could magic it so that it put out its spores, and maybe its spores were toxic. But even if they weren't, they would be enough to stall the dragon. Maybe. It was the only option she could think of that sounded sensible. All the rest were ridiculous.

[[Are you behind this?]] said the dragon. A bush ripped from its roots to tumble like a toy across Malta's path of vision. The dragon rumbled, a mockery of play. [[Or this?]] a tree came down, slamming the ground with a thud. Malta flinched back and closed her eyes frantically, reaching for her magic to try to make the spores puff out in a cloud. [[Oh! Whatever is this mushroom doing all alone here? Maybe, little meat ball, you are under... Auuuuuuhhhg!]] it interrupted itself with a pained, gurgling roar.

She opened her eyes to see its steps falter. She could hear the whistle of arrows now, shrieking through the leaves. She heard the impact of arrows in flesh, the dragon roaring, then crashing as it fell, the earth rumbling beneath its body before, with a whispering, magical hiss, it disintegrated into ash, its dark whirling soul coming to rest on the ground.

Cautiously, Malta slunk out from under the mushroom, looking up and around her. As she looked up and spotted the dragons, another one fell to the ground, an arrow in its throat, piercing the base of its jaw. Its eyes were wide and stunned, and, with the keen vision of her khehora blood – the one gift of her kind she had not been skimped on - she watched the fell light in them go out moments before they became a rain of ash on the forest.

She looked around for the source of the arrows, but could not find him. Where was Detraeus? Was he all right? And, if he wasn't, would she be?

She heard the dragons grotesque laugh and she looked up – further than she usually needed to – beyond the sparse trees of this part of the forest into the sky where the dragons danced and twirled in the sky and, between them, a smaller shape.

Which had to be Detraeus.

Malta rose to her haunches, to get a better look, her claws twitching in concern. She was alarmed by how ragdoll-like the Oblivionite looked compared to the dragons and how far up in the air he was. Too far for her to see if he was hurt, too far for her to help, if she was capable of helping.

It was difficult to follow the fight from her ground bound state, but her flying ability was awkward at best and she didn't want to be near the fight at all. So, she settled for watching from the ground, trying to track the leather-winged and leather-clothed shape as it became the focus of the cluster of dragons.

Is he... riding one? Malta thought incredulously before scrambling for cover as the dragons swooped overhead. But she was, for the time being, ignored. A dragon fell, spiralling to the ground, its blood spattering on the domed shapes of the small mushroom trees before it became ash, and she watched, peeking out of her hasty cover as the remaining two dragons turned back and swooped overhead again, ascending in awkward, staggered circles until, suddenly, with a finality that gave Malta hope, the dragon that Detraeus was riding fell. It fell impossibly slowly, vanishing away into a pitiful column of ash.

Pitiful.

Malta didn't know why she worried. Against Detraeus, the dragon was what she was. Pathetic. The word was bitter in her mind as she watched it fall, feeling a sad, twisted and horrible kinship with the beast as it disappeared.

She turned her gaze back up to the hovering small figure in the air and the dragon swooping and twisting ominously towards it.

Malta didn't know why she cried out as it struck Detraeus and sent the Oblivionite spiraling to the ground, following the path of the killed dragon like an echo. He had done so much, Malta half expected him to somehow recover, but as he fell, and as the dragon wheeled away, she felt a sinking feeling in her soul.

He was not going to recover and, from that height, he could die... he would die.

She didn't want him to die... he'd been so nice to her, he'd protected her. She had to help him.

Yes.

She had to help him.

He was not far away – the dragon's swooping movements had brought him fairly close at hand – but he was falling so fast.

Could she jump and catch him in midair? No. She couldn't.

Could she break his fall with something? Tree branches, maybe, but that would kill him too.

She screamed mentally as he careened towards the ground: She had no time to think.

She poured her magic into the ground, bending the plants to her will as she never had before. It was not a skill she truly carried. Growing and controlling that growth, yes. But forcing a plant to do something while already grown and stable was wholly different. It made her sick.

The thought that this person could die if she did nothing, though, overrode all else.

She could not use tree branches, but this was Endeldarth: She could use mushrooms. She knew she couldn't stop his fall too fast, or he would be harmed, so as he fell to the canopy, she forced one of the great mushroom trees out of shape, growing and angling it so that it caught him. He bounced slightly and slid off, to another mushroom, and another – a series of fibrous slides.

As he began to slide beyond where the mushroom canopy could reach, she knew what she had to do and, shoving her panic aside, she did it: she bounded, forcing her legs to move as fast as they could and then, with a leap that was uncommonly able for her, she pounced into the air, wings spread.

The falling Oblivionite crashed onto her back with a painful, crushing cracking of the spines of her back fins.

She yelped as she was shoved from the air onto the ground, flailing her wings to slow her fall and to try to stay upright until, her muscles screaming at the unaccustomed activity, she came to a stop.

She took a moment to get over the sharp pain in her neck ridge before, with a rolling movement and a sloping of her wings, she – as carefully as she could – moved her burden off of her back and onto the ground, rounding to him to check on him.

Her ears told her he was alive, a brief flicker of her magic told her that he was damaged. Badly. Her own damaged back and neck spines and the bruises she could feel on her body were not life threatening – they could wait. She had magic left, enough to help him, and she had to help him. She had to. He had gotten hurt protecting her, and... and...

Malta forced herself to concentrate and assess, like she had been taught by the healer.

Focus the panic was very difficult to put out of her mind, but she could keep it at bay for a time because she knew and it knew that she needed to do this, and that someone else was counting on her. If he was badly hurt, or dying, she had to make it right because it was her fault.

No, its the dragon's fault. Focus.

The next step was assess. How hurt was he? What did she need to do to help him?

”Praise Soudana” she whispered in dragon. It was a miracle – she had to have caught his fall in time: he was not too hurt at all. She couldn't find, with sight or magic, anything amiss in his body aside from a few bumps and bruises and scratches and smaller unpleasantness.

Except... her gaze moved to his wings. There was something off there, something not right. She knew his wings fairly well, since she had been there at their... growth? Emerging? And she knew that the part of the wing-humerus that attached to the shoulder was not supposed to look like that.

A gentle touch told her that it was bad – a broken bone.

Malta could heal a bone. But they were tricky, and trickier still – she knew – in wings, where things had to be just so. She owed it to the Oblivionite to try, though.

She had to stop the bleeding in his body first, though. Blood was supposed to be inside, after all. She touched her nose to each gash in turn, sending her magic in to seal them, if not heal them entirely, and she left Detraeus' slight head bruising and dazedness intact – they were not life threatening, after all, and she knew she had to save her magic for the bone.

She rarely used so much magic in one day, ever, if at all, and she was starting to feel odd, empty in a way that she was unfamiliar with. She did not like it, but she had to keep going. She had to finish the job.

She spread the wing out with careful jaws, extending it to its fullest extent. She located the break and, with the backs of very careful claws, nudged the bone pieces into the places they were supposed to be.

Focusing was difficult. Her mind felt scattered, the panic bouncing around in the background. Closing her eyes was too easy – they wanted to stay closed. Everything wanted to slip away.

She forced her reluctant eyes to open and called up her magic, forcing it to her tired will as she sank it into the matrix of blood, bone, muscle, and skin that was Detraeus's wing. Her breathing slowed as she forced the bone spurs to grow, knitting together as she forced it to hold its place. She could feel pain sear through the wing, flashes of hot signals traveling down Detraeus's nerves. Pain was good. Pain meant things were working the way they should.

For a moment, though, just a moment, she was aware of just how easy it would be to lose herself in the ricocheting riot of blood and chemicals and nervous impulses that made up life, to just fade away into the pattern...

She swayed, dizzily, and fought it, staggering back away from Detraeus's wing. She did not want to fade away.

Malta heard her own name, at least, and at some level was pleased that her patient was able to speak, but mostly she was too tired: So tired that it wasn't even tired at that point.

She had used so much magic and, like losing too much blood, it made her sick and woozy. Mostly, though, she felt weak and empty, beyond hunger or thirst: her very soul cried out for sustenance as she slumped, flopping like a feline onto her side, her head barely managing to meet the target of her paws as she slipped into a foggy in-between state. Her head lolled, her eyes closed, and her breath slowed.
The last thought she had before she fell, suddenly and completely, away into fuzzy and amorphous nothingness was that everything was suddenly very comfortable.

~~~

“You stupid brats.” snarled Elder Jik'ri, rounding on Kumog and Vorkin with her formidable fangs bared, “You left her alone again?!”

“We're just trying to toughen her up, Elder.” said Kumog. He sat near his kill, a sizable Garghon which would have been cause for praise if he and his cousin hadn't caught it and its twin – caught by Vorkin – at the expense of the young Alchemist's safety.

“Yeah.” said Vorkin, “She's got to take care of herself sometime, right?”

“It is one thing to leave her alone to find her way back.” Jik'ri paced, but it was clear she wanted to hide the two, “It is a whole other thing to abandon her completely and not watch out for her from the shadows. Which you two should have been doing instead of hunting.” she rounded on them again, hissing. “She could be in danger - or dead - now because of your foolishness.”

“Pff.” Vorkin laughed. “Flowerclaws? She'll be fine. She always is.”

Kumog gave him a look. “Vorkin...”

Vorkin yelped as, faster than her age would suggest, Jik'ri slashed him across the chest, drawing blood. “You will refer to the Alchemist by her title, and you will treat her, her profession, and her clan with respect.” she drew close, “Is this clear, you shitfaced little runt?”

“Like ice, elder.” grumbled Vorkin, taking a submissive posture. He made a face at Kumog as she turned away.

“Good. Now. You two will go with me and we will find her and, hopefully, rescue her from any trouble. When we find her, you will do ANYTHING she asks of you, and even things she doesn't. You will be cordial, polite, respectful, and helpful.” She glared at them, daring them to say anything against her.

Kumog nudged his cousin with his tail and inclined his head. “Yes, Elder.”

Vorkin bared his teeth at Kumog, but bowed his head as well. “Yes, Elder.”

~~~

Jik'ri knew the two little whelps hated her. She'd heard rumors that
the elders, including her, were weak for letting the Ysali and her crafter noncombatant ways into the tribe. Well, Jik'ri was of the opinion that if they wanted to challenge her, she'd be happy to show that she was still as strong as the day she killed her first Diabi dragon. Stronger, even.

She knew, though, that the tribe knew it. They were not elders because they were old – they were elders because they had survived. Even her daughter, who understood so little, understood that. Nobody dared to openly challenge her or one of the others – it was just grumbling, and grumbling was not so bad.

This, though... she glared at the two... this she had to stop it before it happened again.

The whelps had told her that they had left Malta by the lake. Jik'ri could think of worse places to leave the Ysali, and was sure that Vorkin and Kumog had left her in those places as well and the poor timid creature – no surprise - hadn't told her or the other elders.

She'd caught Malta's scent alongside the scent of new-grown plants, which amused the Elder because of course there were newly grown plants in a Ysali's steps. Then, though, she'd caught a scent that bothered her: Blood, and an Oblivionite. Not that Jik'ri had anything against Oblivionites personally, children of Soudana and all that, but she did not like how his trail and Malta's trail were basically the same. As if he was following her. She sure as Oblivion wouldn't be following him.

“All right, you two. We spread out and advance this way...” she pointed, “From the shadows. Keep an eye out and your guard up – she may have had to hide from a hunter.”

The three Diabi dragons faded into the shadows and moved quickly through the forest, focused on the scent. The blood smell grew stronger, as did the Oblivionite's smell, and Jik'ri hissed softly. She didn't like it. She gestured with her tail for the young warriors to move to either side of her and crept forward, and it was not long before she saw them.

Jik'ri did not like anything about the scene before her: the pudgy ysali alchemist on her side and prone, the Oblivionite crouched over her with a bow. It was obvious what had happened – Malta had been hunted down and killed. Jik'ri growled, rage building as the Oblivinite stood to attention. Then she began to notice the inconsistencies: Malta herself was not bleeding and had no arrow wounds though the Oblivionite clearly preferred the bow and – it was barely perceptible, almost not there, but Jik'ri could swear that she saw some rise and fall of Malta's side.

Jik'ri was pretty sure her first assessment was right, but she hadn't become an elder by jumping to conclusions. She waited a moment – just to make Vorkin, Kumog, and the Oblivionite sweat a bit – before she stalked out nonchalantly, glaring right at the Oblivionite with her fierce purple eyes.

“Explain. Now.” she commanded, baring her teeth. She was already big, corded with muscle and marked with scars. She pulled magic from the environment to make herself look bigger, a trick her daughter shared. “Explain why you are standing over the body of my granddaughter” she growled, low and rumbling and threatening “and maybe you will live.”

Probably not, though. She doubted his explanation would keep her claws from his barely-armored body, if he even had one.

Didn't want to abandon her in a swamp, eh? That sounded very familiar. Jik'ri resisted shooting a glare at Vorkin and Kumog and revealing their position, but she could see, out of the corner of her gaze, their squirming. They knew they were in for it.

“Is that so.” she said. Vulnerable, she could believe. Malta was very vulnerable and practically unable to defend herself, which was why she was SUPPOSED to have bodyguards.

That wasn't the point, however. It was clear, now, that Malta was not dead. So, the question remaind: “How did she become... comatose.” she said, holding back her urge to just kill him and be done with it.