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"What do you think?" the ranger snapped at the disembodied voice. She wanted very much to comment about how many empty threats he had been making but did not want to antagonize him into doing something more than just talk in her head.

She briefly glanced at the tiny bloodspecks on the side of her hand, a slight relief that the arrowhead hadn't dug in and done anything more serious. If it had, Kiru might have become second priority.

"As I said before, talk if you're going to talk," she said as her fingers carefully curled around the arrowhead, trying to keep it from sight as she tried to decide what to do with it.

Kiru chuckled again, now walking alongside the horse with a feather from the arrow sticking out from between his teeth. "Kill Micheal and you will find his dragon soon enough. Then you can do as you wish. Simple?" He pulled the hood of his cloak back, revealing a face well known to the ranger causing her insides to twist horribly in response.

It was Volpone, her second mentor, looking back at her.

She forced herself to look away, reminding herself how this impostor had only earlier shifted from the look of a dragon to that of a large human and that this couldn't be Volpone at all.

"More than simple. Human vs vampire. Right," the ranger said trying to undermine her own standing, using the extra bravado in her voice to cover up the fact that she already knew how she'd take out Micheal if she had to. "Sounds like a better match for you, but you don't seem interested in taking that fight yourself. Why's that?"

"Now, my dear, I care too much for him. I couldn't do it." He looked up at her with his red eyes. "You, your skills though, you have his trust which makes it easier for you... that is till you cross the upset Tainted called Dark."

He had described it exactly how she'd end up doing it - with a few less details.

"Can't kill the pet I see," the ranger said, avoiding Kiru's eyes for fear she would end up staring at them. "Then his dragon will come and tear me to pieces and no one would be the wiser about who was really behind it all."

The ranger took a shallow breath and clenched the hand holding the arrowhead. There was a second of metal slicing into skin before the night sky suddenly lit up with light, forcing her to drop the arrowhead and cover her eyes.

"Not again with the voices," the ranger cursed has she hurriedly dug through the saddlebags with one hand and pulled out the smoky-colored bottle that Micheal had gifted her earlier. Not completely confident in her own belief over the content's abilities, she instead put her faith in Micheal's words and belief instead before she began to drink. As soon as the first few swallows had gone down, her body jerked in shock as it began to feel as if she were drinking liquid fire. In her spasm, the cork as well as the remainder of the holy water spilled out across Dulcimer and onto the ground.

As the pain was already fading to a dull throb, she looked at the now empty vial and missing stopper. Grumbling about "why such cures had to hurt" she dropped it into a belt pouch and hurried Dulcimer to the next town.

A black bird with red eyes sat there and watched her ride off.

"Dark will soon fall."


Meanwhile, Micheal grabbed his throat as it burned from when she drank the holy water, causing him to double over in the old vacant library in the next town.

"Smart a**."

He quickly shut up as he rolled over to his side hitting the bookshelf, knocking a few dusty forgotten tomes to the floor. Micheal thought to himself that it had been awhile since he felt this kind of pain, but damned he was that it was inflicted by the person he was trying to help.

His voice grew more raspy as he started speaking to the shadows to welcome his pain. "I don't think I'll get much sleep today." Instead, he just looked at the books that fell before him. Ironically enough, they were old vampire tales.

"Fiddle this," he said as he tried to sit up. Feeling light headed with thirst, he propped himself against the shelf.

Micheal looked around the library before letting his eyes rest on a window of stained glass that allowed him to watch the hours pass and daylight fall. Still feeling like he was on the brink of death and lingering in pain, he walked past the door before transforming into a wolf and slowly exited out into the shadows in the direction the farmers' lands were more likely to be found.

As he passed through town, Micheal didn't focus too much on avoiding the people, only making enough effort to slip from sight until he made it to a farm. Slowly, he followed a certain scent until he reached the enclosure where chicks rested for the night. Crawling up inside, he padded into the hen house and scanned for the fattest hen which he quickly snapped his jaw around and waited for it to stop convulsing while the other hens stayed still.

"Okay, now the tricky part, to run with out getting caught again."

He sulked backwards making sure the hens didn't make a sound as his meal was in his jaw.

'Three... two... one!'

He forced his body to move quickly toward the trees and the bushes, no matter how much it ached, as hens began to screech and and cause a racket.

'Tree tree tree...'

He focused on ignoring the pain telling his body to sleep but the strain became too much and he toppled over his feet and slid through the dirt. He slowly forced himself up and without thinking he grabbed the meal he dropped and walked deeper in the forest to where he would be hidden by some boulders.

Not wishing to imbibe more drink that she already had that night, she decided to return to the inn, though she did not immediately return to her room. Instead, she sat in the stables near Dulcimer for a good portion of the night just letting her mind try and unwind from the past few days, to let everything just sort itself out. By the time she was ready to leave the stables though, everything felt just the same as before.

Jay passed the rest of the night in her room, straightening out the belongings in her packs after lighting a candle and cleaning her weapons. When she was done with that, she returned to her bed at the physical call of being tired this time.

Having already gotten some sleep from earlier, it was a little later than break of day when she woke again. She made a second stop at the tavern for a meal when she heard something from a nearby table that made her fingers twitch.

"Yup, dead alright. Right in the hutch to. He is runnin' around more angry than when Mullagen was swindled in that game of Widder's Catch last week!"

There was a ruckus of laughter at the table following the last line.

Coincidence?

She walked over to the table, pardoned herself for interupting and asked for the location of the place they had been speaking of, explaining she might be able to help. With some weary eyes, the gave her directions and after she left they had quickly gone back to their happy ruckus.

Stopping back at her room for her weapons and backpack, she headed toward the hen house, not bothering to meet the owner of the property first for any sort of permission and scoured the ground.

And there were the wolf tracks again... and again the ranger followed them off to the woods.

She had lost the track somewhere farther into the woods. The territory had gotten rocky which left little in the way of marks in the ground. Even the drips of blood had tapered off at one point, which left only one thing to do.

That night she sat near cover just within shot range of the hen house, high enough up to be able to have a clear line of sight over the surrounding fence. She had gone up to the farmer and offered to watch the birds for the night for no coin. She told the man that she couldn't guarantee any lost birds, but when she had mentioned she would do it for free, the fellow didn't seem to care.

Just one night, she thought to herself. If it didn't come back this night, she was going to keep to her plan of moving on to the next town.

So from her perch in the tree and bow and arrow in hand, she watched as best she could in the night, the only lights coming from a lantern the farmer had hung next to the bird's hutch and the lit lantern hanging from the front of the man's house.

It was just the wind and the occasional stray cluck of a chicken for the initial period the ranger sat up in her tree. Normally this sort of wait didn't bother her. Patience came naturally when she was left alone, but this time around everything was edgy. The casual sounds of the eve were barely broken by what sounded like a couple dogs from the next plot over. The sounds brought about curiosity in the ranger, but untrained dogs were easily riled up over the littlest things.

No, it was just too dark to go check it out and she didn't feel like dealing with dogs if they just happened to turn on her. Even if...

Her chances were better if she just stayed in place for the moment, she thought as she turned her attention back to the chicken pen nearby.

It just wouldn't leave her mind though. For a time the barking had quieted as if the dogs had gotten bored of whatever game they had been playing. But then it seemed to pick up again just as wildly as before - possibly even louder this time. She couldn't help but, every so often, look to the side and into the blackness in the direction the sound was coming from.

Something wasn't right.

"Jay," he forced himself to say, not paying attention to his step and slipping from his next branch to the ground, sprinting the remainder of the way toward the tree. As soon as he was in range, he lept and deftly landed in front of her.

"No... it's me... no shoot..." Micheal said between raspy breaths while his insides continued to pain him, his hand immediately over the arrow and holding the bowstring to prevent it from being shot.

Caught by surprise, the ranger instinctively leaned back from him, overriding her memory for a split moment that she was up in a tree. The ranger's hands let loose of all they held and wildly grasped at her sides for something - anything - but only snagging loose bark before she began a downward decent.

Micheal's teeth flared as he saw her start to fall. Tossing the bow and arrow, he quickly latched onto the tree and caught her outstretched arm with his free hand as his nails dug into the bark creating claw marks. Slowly he slipped forward as he pulled Jay back up and onto the branch before falling himself. Once on the ground, he pressed his back against the tree and growled despite the pain in his throat and chest, attempting to strike some fear into the three hounds that had caught up and now snarled and barked back not far away in front of him.

Hanging over the branch on her stomach, she tried to regain the breath knocked from her lungs while half upside down with an awkward view of the scene below. Unsure who was making more noise, the pale man or the dogs making little trying to keep him in his place, she became certain something was wrong. The cocky demeanor Micheal had facing the hunters from before was gone and replaced by something more... desperate.

Had Kiru gotten at shot at Michael as well? In such short time, she couldn't imagine anything else aside from possibly another group of hunters if they were better coordinated than the last.

There was an 'urf' and a sharp intake of air from Jay as she tried to swing a leg over the branch unsuccessfully. Her bad elbow throbbed as she stopped putting her weight on it. Without the use of both arms to get her on the branch, she still knew of another direction she could go...

She landed in a crouch just an arm's length behind and to the vampire's right, the longsword sliding from its sheath and held low and as turned and faced the remaining dogs in front of him. If Micheal was displeased with her joining the fray, he made no show of it other than his growl slowly going mute.

Before the cloth even touched the metal though, Micheal reached out and took the sword from her with ease, moving slowly enough for her to see it happen. With her sword in hand, he went to the dog he had drained dry and stabbed it in the throat where he bit, twisting the blade to hide the marks.

"Now you can clean the blade," he said as he looked at skyward to judge how much night was left before handing the sword back. As soon as she accepted the hilt, he had his back already turned to her and was walking away.

"Hold up," Jay called out, a twinge of irritation in her voice. "Do we tell the farmer that some random dogs were the cause of the chicken problems or do we play this mess off say that a wolf was in the mix as well? Because if it's the latter, we're better off dragging these dogs to the woods. After a few days, scavengers will make it look like a wolf's work for what these people know."

He stopped and looked back at the dogs and then at Jay trying to not growl from his frustration.

"How far?" was the only thing he said, trying to calculate the time it would take to carry them and how much effort. The way things were going, he wasn't going to be fully healed for a long time if he kept working off the life force he just gained every single time. He wasn't allowing enough time for his body to rest and returning to his coven to do so was becoming more tempting.

"Right. You've had a bad night. Got it. Make that two of us." The ranger interrupted his thoughts as her sword slammed back into its sheath before she turned to collect her bow and arrow from the ground behind her. "If you need to go find somewhere to hide before light or whatever it is you have to do this time, then go. I've dragged a carcass before. I'll get them out far enough." Awkwardly she slipped off her backpack to retrieve a length of coiled rope and walked toward the closest dog.

"Fine, go to bed," he said, shaking his head as he walked over to the dog about to be tied and flung it over his shoulder. He took the second body and did the same, taking only a moment to steady his balance.

"If he hurt you I apologize, but two beings not in proper health puts us against one another." He started to walk off again as his white shirt was now safe to say fully destroyed from the adventure thus far as the blood further stained it.

She uncertainly considered how health 'put them against each other' other than making her more of a target for his sustenance.

"He?" Jay said, giving up on handling the dogs herself as she watched Micheal give them a simple toss over his shoulder. "Now are we talking the dog or Kiru?" Her tone more than implied what answer she thought it was.

"Nevermind," the ranger tersely said, cutting off any possible reply. "Let's get this mess out of the way first before that topic is unburied. If you feel like showing your presence tomorrow eve, I'm at the waystation in the town like before, ground floor this time. You can probably figure out which room on your own. I'll go tie up lose ends with the farmer during light hours after I get some rest." Her eyes trailed to a lit window of a farmhouse nearby. Fortunately the farmer stuck to her earlier advice and stayed indoors for the night - at least so far.


"Then why did you bring it up?" He laughed briefly to brighten his own spirits while nodding to the rest of what she said. There was one thing that puzzled him, however.

'Now why the directions if she's aware that I could find her with my skills...?' he pondered to himself.

"Cause I'm human."

She didn't look at him as she said it. She just got up after repacking the rope and slung the backpack over the shoulder of her good arm.

She needed to vent, but after she started to do so, she had reminded herself that it wasn't a good time as Micheal had pointed out.

"I'm going to go give the farmer a talk so he doesn't do anything rash," she mentioned curtly as she walked toward the farmer's hut, forcing the conversation to end.

Micheal hefted the dogs lying on his shoulders once more, getting them settled into place as he watched the ranger walk away. "Interesting," he muttered as he turned back toward the forest and started walking away as well. There was a nice spot of sharp rocks he knew of where he could toss these formally troublesome mutts...

The wait for nightfall did not seem long. Upon waking, his face turned the direction where he sensed her.

"Well, finally it's wearing off," he muttered as he walked out of his room, following what he sensed up to her door. He knocked and waited.

Jay set aside the leather armor and got up to undo the wood bolt on the door, motioning for Micheal to move inside. For a brief moment, she wondered how different it might have felt to invite a guy in like this had she been raised like the other girls from her home versus her life with the apothecary and the road.

"Wasn't sure you'd come," she said fairly quietly, almost not even audible to herself. "It's been a long day or two and suppose we both have some stories to tell." Lifting the armor and oil from the bed, she nodded for Micheal to sit while she took the other end of the bed to sit on.

"Shall I start or would you like the honors?"

Micheal walked in and was about to respond "almost didn't" until he was offered to sit on the bed.

"Well, I would like to start. I need a new shirt and you being the only one that is human, please do me this favor," he said as he sat on the bed though he hasn't sat or slept in a bed in ages. It felt strange to him.

"Other then that, you sound as if you need to talk to me."

It took a moment for Micheal's request to process in Jay's mind - she had caught her returned 'human' retort much faster. In the weak light and as soon as it was pointed out to her, the darker stains and larger tatters were more apparent.

"Outside of swiping one left out to dry or checking around for any that are of no use to someone, most are either hand made in these parts or need to be fitted for by someone. I suppose I can check some widows if they have extras assuming I can guess what fits you."

She looked away with something akin to shame on her face as she addressed the 'human' comment.

"I suppose deserved that bit of tone though for the words the previous night, though mind you foul moods make for foul mouths." She began to oil the armor in her lap as it helped distract her from her emotions. "But yes, I did wish to talk tonight. First of all, can you explain who Kiru is - beyond someone who betrayed you in the past? Maybe what happened..." she paused for a moment to think of a way to pinpoint the place, "...back at the woods outside the other town will make more sense if I know. Maybe I'll be able to explain it better somehow."

After Kiru left...? Burned his insides...? But...

The ranger had opened her mouth to say more, but Micheal turned the topic and so she closed her mouth and quit pointing like a fool, returning that ill-mannered hand to oiling the armor.

She had gotten Micheal and not Kiru with the holy water?

Something twisted inside her. Her eyes cast downward toward the object in her hands almost as if she were to look away, the dirt would return. Micheal had brought up the shirt again, but Jay couldn't think of anything to say in response. All that kept playing through her mind was the conversation with Kiru, wondering who Kiru was, the holy water, and the fight with the dogs. She kept trying to wrap her mind around it, to make it fit with everything else she had known, but it was so much, so much to understand at once...

Micheal then looked at the wall as he closed his eyes. "Jay.. one thing at a time.." His eyes were darker than usual, but he remained silent as she was searching through himself as slowly his fangs started to play with his lips.

The ranger closed her eyes unknowing that Micheal had also and slowly sucked in a breath of air, holding it for a moment before letting it release; the same followed a few more times.

"What is Kiru? Tainted dragon or vampire?" she asked, the words coming with one of the outbreaths. Her mind, still trying to process all the scattered pieces, had latched onto the one fragment like a weedseed would catch a pantleg, the vision of him as a dragon one moment and a tall human-something being one of the more played out sights in her thoughts

Micheal said in a negative tone as he disapproved of the question, "What is Kiru? Kiru a Tainted dragon not likely. Vampire yes he is..." He then paused before adding on. "More of a clan leader, one disappointed greatly about the existence of Tainted."

Had Kiru been a dragon there might have been a chance however slight it might have been. The ranger's shoulders slumped forward a little as the opening she hoped for disappeared.

Micheal then rubbed the side of his ribs again as he thought again, closing his eyes.
'Dark must of sensed him through me.'

'Then he knows'

Then in a curious tone he didn't look at Jay when he asked, "What are your honest feelings about dragons?"

The ranger did not look up at the question but remained sitting with her head down and eyes closed. The answer probably mattered little now and she may as well be upfront.

"At best, they think lesser of us in their own world. At worst, they steal souls and burn villages. Be it the fault of the mages or dragons that brought them to this, it matters not to me." There was an odd, almost disturbing upturn at the corner of her mouth for a moment. "Funny, I never though much of 'souls' unless it involved dragons."

Then a sudden chill went down her spine as a picture of herself and Kiru flashed in her mind, standing together, both with a similar hatred...

"Honestly, you distaste dragons so? You might be useful indeed then."

Jay's eyes shot open as his words echoed in her mind, and she turned her face away from Micheal.