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“Mm, yes…” Lithian responded with a soft smile, amused. “It’s that early. I’m glad you like the food, though.” He ate as Casseth talked, nibbling until he finished his wrap. When Casseth finished, he nodded and glanced back towards the window, thoughtful. “If you like, you can lay back down while I look into arranging for some transportation? It sounds like heading to Obsidian City is our best bet as things stand…perhaps I can find a trader in the business of leasing out hastars to the incoming travellers. The traffic to the capital must be heavy enough to warrant it.”

Casseth declined the offer to stay in, however, now that he was awake, and after finishing their breakfast, they packed again and left together. Although they asked around some, just to be sure, no one in the port town knew much of anything of relevance, and before noon, they were renting out two thoroughbred Soudulian hastars. The down payment was hefty enough, but Lithian covered it in full despite Casseth’s uneasiness, and by midday, they were on the main traveler’s road to Obsidian City.

Lithian frowned upwards, squinting through the thick, dark canopy to the noonday sun above. “Even the day seems drearier here…like the sun is reluctant to interfere with the perpetual dark.” He shifted his weight on his saddle. As used to riding as he was, he wasn’t used to riding for quite so long at a time, and he knew by the end of their trip, he would be sore in more places than one.

Lithian blinked, glancing Casseth’s way as he rode up beside him, and at the gesture, Lithian tilted his head, attention on Casseth’s eyes. He didn’t think much about the fact that Casseth saw things — the entire world, even — differently than he every day. It was a staggering concept to grapple with. Not Casseth’s sight in particular, but of full-blooded oblivionites who saw nothing in color until late into their years.

“Hn…perhaps it’s much less noticeable to purebloods too, then. Not to mention that whatever the case, they’d be used to it…” Noticing Casseth fidget again on the hastar as he talked, Lithian gave a half smile and nodded up ahead. “Lunch soon?” he offered. “Looks like there’s a bit of a break in the canopy ahead and we could get a spot of sun to eat in…I’m certainly getting hungry.”

At Casseth’s agreement, they did just that. The trip to Obsidian City as a whole, however, proved to be longer than either of them anticipated, and it was nearing nightfall without a sign of so much as a rogue village when Lithian began to grow anxious. The shadows crept, ever-longer and dark across their path, making it harder to see, and the hoots and skitters of night animals stirring in the brush became more prominent. It didn’t help that the ‘main road’ seemed to have dwindled, at least at through their current portion, to little more than a cobbled path with ample weed growth.

Lithian tugged at the edges of his cloak, pulling it in a fraction tighter as he eyed the surrounding woods, and suppressed a shiver. “You’d think the primary traveler’s road would stay broad the whole way through…do you think we ought to keep riding through nightfall, or…? Should we try to make camp? Stopping too near to the road might be asking for a bandit attack, but I wouldn’t want to get lost either…”

“Casseth!” Lithian jerked his reins, twisting his panicking hastar around even as Casseth fell flat. He had moments to work with, and only a split second to make his decisions. If he dismounted now, they would almost certainly lose both hastars and have to pay the full price for each. If he didn’t, however…

It wasn’t hardly a decision to begin with, and in a moment, Lithian was slinging his leg around, dismounting in one fell swoop with his fingers already at the stoppered flasks at his waist. As the grounded diabi lifted its neck and opened its mouth, preparing a raw blast of dark magic for Casseth’s prone form, Lithian’s boots hit the ground, and he darted immediately in front of his friend, sweeping his stance low and cracking a stream of water out like a whip towards the beast’s open mouth. When he had its attention — earning a sharp roar for his efforts — Lithian moved aside again, drawing its attacks far from Casseth to give his friend a chance to catch his breath.

Lithian felt the shadows around him lengthen as the diabi’s gaze focussed on him. The darkness seemed to creep in: from every nook, every tree, up his skin and beneath it, and he swallowed hard. Struggling to shake the sensation, Lithian drew his water around again, and splayed his fingers when the beast roared, throwing up a shield just in time to deflect the snake of dark magic that burst out towards him. But he felt at a disadvantage. Night was crawling in fast, and these beasts were in their element.

Lithian’s pulse thrummed hard and quick in his throat as the first dragon burst to dust. Fighting with the ocean readily available was a rare luxury, but after just having had the experience, he felt stripped to an extent, his arsenal diminished from something infinite down to two flaskfulls of water. Glancing over to Casseth, however, Lithian shook the thought away and moved over, surveying for potential damage as he did.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “You took a good fall…you didn’t twist anything, did you? Or land on anything sharp? How does your back feel? And your head? If you need…” Lithian trailed off at a ripple of shadow across the ground. Immediately, his head jerked up — just in time to see a second diabi’s shape cut across the white of the moon. Pitch black, as though someone had carved a dragon’s likeness out of an empty swath of night sky and plastered it there. Pulse quickening all over again, Lithian swallowed. “We should get off the main road. Now.”

Lithian watched Casseth’s grimace and pursed his lips, his brow knitting with concern, but for the moment he only nodded. After gathering up what they could of their things — mostly scattered about on the ground during their hastars’ panic — they moved off into the shelter of the woods. It surely held dangers all its own, but neither of them wanted anything more to do with dragons, and at least from under the full canopy they would be harder to spot and thus less likely to suffer another attack.

Almost immediately after moving off the main road, though, Lithian stopped. “Wait,” he said, setting his things down and stepping up to his friend's side. “Put your things down for a moment. Let me see your back…”

“You don’t have t—ah…take your…shirt…mmm…” Lithian swallowed, flushing warmly, and cleared his throat, the rest of the sentence disintegrating to a mumble beneath his breath. Unstoppering one of his flasks again, he drew out a tendril of glistening water and pivoted his wrist, encasing his fingers in the liquid like putting on watery, faintly glowing glove. Once covered, he brought his hand forward, hovering at first over and down the small of Casseth’s back before locating the source of his friend’s pain and bringing his palm down to a gentle rest there.

He applied a light, concentrated pulse of magic to the area, momentarily causing Casseth’s otherwise dark skin to to absorb the soft glow of his magic before it petered out. The injury was fairly minor — nothing debilitating, at least — but it gave Lithian peace to ease his wincing. At the last second before withdrawing, his eyes caught on the dark blot of a scrape on the back of Casseth’s head as well and reached up brushing his fingers there, too, to seal the minor cut in a single go.

“There,” he said, face warming anew as he drew back and diverted his gaze. “You can put your shirt back on before something gets frostbitten.”

“I…” Lithian frowned, thoughtful as he eyed the surrounding woods, and without thinking about it, he lifted his arms, wrapping them around himself to stave off the chill. “I think I hear a river up ahead. We could head for that, try to get some rest, and look for the hastars in the morning? I doubt my parents would be pleased if I bought two hastars and had to inform them they’d paid in full for two beasts that were still lost in the forests on Soudul…but they’re bound to need to drink, and it would make finding them more likely?”

At Casseth’s agreement, they did just that. Thankfully, the river was near enough that the walk took little time, and they set up ‘camp’ without much issue — other than the fact that they were sorely prepared to do so, supplies wise. After gathering some brush from the surrounding area, Lithian worked for several long minutes trying to get a fire started before Casseth gave up on him and gently ushered him aside to start it himself. When the fire crackled to life, lighting up both of their faces and casting long shadows behind them, Lithian let out a small huff of a breath, and settled near to it, holding out his chilled hands.

Sparing Cas a sidelong glance, though, the corner of his lips edged up. “Perhaps not exactly how I intended to spend the evening, but at least we’ll have tales of adventure to tell the future generations?”