My head hurts… a lot. 

It's been that way for days now. Never changing, never dulling. This is literal hell. You may be asking why I'm in such mental pain… the answer to that is walking right beside me as I speak.

My head turns to glare at the manifestation of intellectual torture which is the mystery man known by… what was it again? Headache, no that’s too long… Stupid? No, that’s too good of a name… Ah! I remember now! Its Pain in the Ass!! That has to be it right?!

“Are you thinking up mean names for me again?” The nightmare in dwarf clothing says while giving me his iconic shit eating grin. “Oh really! What gave you that idea… What was your name again? Migraine…. Head-pain?” I say in a false negligence. He Pouted, then like a kid, he throws his arms up and starts whining.

“It’s Riga! My name strikes fear into the hearts of my foes! They quake in their boots when my legendary name is spoken!” He starts exaggerating… again. He said this exact line a hundred times by now.

“Sure it does… Riga.” I say in a totally not demeaning way. “But, would it kill you to be less, I don’t know, ANNOYING!” I yell, finally letting my irritation at him boil over. Why does the person that I need help from have to be this guy? I would rather my good arm be ripped off than have to deal with this idiot any longer! 

But, I can’t deny the fact that he is powerful. 

I still feel my muscles tense up and twitch from when he looked at me after he killed that Wolf. The overwhelming and oppressive feeling of just his stare is seared into my brain. It was in all honesty…. 

Terrifying…

That unnatural glow, it felt like all the light around was drawn to it. Like it was a beacon that not even the most ancient of elements could stand against.

There are many questions I have about this strange person in front of me, but it will have to wait till after we save my sister. 

Speaking of my sister, we are within a 3-day walk from our destination. I should probably talk to Riga about the plan for infiltrating Abigor’s castle.

“Hey Riga!”

He turns around, drawn from whatever stupid thing he was probably thinking about no doubt. Why is he giving me a look like I said something mean to him? Could have sworn I have been keeping all the insults internalized for a bit.

“Why are you giving me that look for?” 

He turns around, and starts to stroll again. He yells out to me, “Nothing! I must have been thinking of something stupid…” He turns to glance at me cheekily “No doubt.” He keeps on strolling down the path while I’m dumbstruck by his comment.

Did he just read my mind! What the hell is that!

I run up next to him in a frantic panic about to ask just what in the hell, or more like who in the hell, is he.

But before I could even utter a syllable, he comments “So boss man, what’s the plan for getting into the castle to save your sis?”

I, shocked by the sudden question, took a breath and calmed myself. 

Save sister now, Questions about him reading minds later.

After finally cooling myself down, I start to talk to him.

“Yes, Sister. If I know Abigor, he probably has an army of monsters ranging from B to A rank, probably totaling at 10,000 in number around his heavily fortified castle.”

Riga tilted his head towards me and said “Who lives in castles anymore?” 

He then questioned. “How do you know if that number is correct?” 

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I pause for but a second then sighed. If I’m going to have him help me, I might as well trust him enough to be a little personal. 

“Since the very second my sister was taken from me; I have not slept or have relaxed without thinking about this fucking bastard in the back of my head haunting me. Every image I dream is films of nightmare fuel showing me all the horrors he maybe enacting on my soul family member….”

I look him dead in his golden-amytal eyes and exclaim.

“That is why I know that number is correct.”

Everything goes quiet for what seems like hours. The silence that was oh so deafening finally was broken by the victim of my episode.

He slowed to a halt. I stopped and turned to ask why, but before I can he looked up at me with a look I haven’t seen on his zany face before. 

It was sorrow.

I have to confess…. That really confused me. Why was he so sad? did my outburst really hurt his feelings that much? 

“I get that…” he said with such grief in his voice that it almost made my mood match. He continued.

“I also know the pain of losing someone close…” 

His eyes began to mislay to a gray color. The usual golden vividness of his pupils turned to a dark apricot.

   But not even a second after, He looked back up at me with his eyes alight. Riga then proclaimed with his smirk slapped on his face like routine.

“But I promise, I will help you save your sis!” He barked out so loud that the birds in the trees fluttered off.

For some reason… I believe him…

“Well I... appreciate the sentiment.” I softly smile.

“But.” I turn toward the setting sun. “We have to hurry. We only have 2 days to get to his fortress and recover my sister before the wedding, and at the rate we're going, we will be a day too late.” I say in forbearance.

Riga looks at the sun, then back at me. He looked like he was pondering something. Then his face illuminates into a big grin. He then asks me.

“What direction is this fortress in roughly?”

I wonder why he is asking it, but I consider the question seriously.

“Well, we just pasted North of Borjan a day ago.” I pondered.

“Which would mean…” I point toward the left of the sun on the horizon. “It should be that way, just a little to the left of the declining star. Why?”

He proceeds to grin even more deep, if that was even possible, and chuckles out a tone so sickly elate that my hair stiffens on end. Then like a mirage he disappears before my very eyes.

The next thing I see is the hand of my companion coming from below my arms hooking their way around my chest, then the ground as I am hefted off it and cradled under his left arm. I look up in panic. 

Riga looks down at me all giddy and childish while expressing out loud.

“Clinch your cheeks, and make sure you don’t leek in your briefs!”

Me in my confusion didn’t have time to understand exactly what the childish comment meant. All I was thinking was, why was he holding me under his arm? Why was he giving me a look of excitement and pity? And lastly, what did my undergarments have anything to do with it? All the questions I had where meaningless. 

Because the next second, my vision went black.

I woke up and the first thing that came to me was the whooshing of air and the crackling of ozone. I tried to open my eyes but the pressure of the wind blowing on my face was too great an effort for my poor eyeballs to conquer. The smell of water was quite heavily permeating from all around, and it was very cold, like the arctic gale blowing down upon my unprotected skin. I could already feel the dew that decorated my hide start to crystalize on it.

But, the gust starts to lessen its force on my being. It de-escalates until I could finally open my eyelids. 

Gray clouds where everywhere. 

I was confused, but that didn’t last long.

The gray clouds parted and light pierced into my eyes making me close them in pain. Eventually, I fully adjusted to the brightness, and what I saw blew my mind away.

The colors where the first thing that came flooding in. Like a portrait of a master painter, the sky was decorated in a kaleidoscope of pigmentation. The mixtures of crimsons and corals, along with the cobalt’s and indigos made an orchestra of colors wash across the silky pearl and iron sea. The clouds like paint stokes of oil across a canvas. The sun looked like a golden jewel floating in the middle of this vast ocean of wonder. 

I was so mesmerized by the site in front of me that I almost forgot about the pain up to this point….

I said almost.

“Hey big man!” I heard the cause of my ground displacement say. I looked up, seeing Riga looking down at me with a smile that was soft and gentle. The sun’s rays giving him an almost cosmic glow around him. 

I then hollered out.

“I didn’t know you could fly!” 

“This would have been handy to have a couple of days ago.” saying while smiling back at him, equally happy and excited about the prospect of getting too my sister faster.

His face contorted, one eyebrow raised, and looking at me like I grew a third eye or a set of horns. 

What he said next chilled me to my very core.

“I can’t though?”

My eyes widened, and my brain froze. Nothing could pierce through the fog of my brain. Those 3 words echoing hauntingly in my mind.

I guess my internal plight was written across my face, because before I knew it a sharp pain drilled through my skull. My coconut was flung back with a strength that no forehead flick should have. 

Dam. That’s going to leave a mark.

“Dam. Didn’t mean to flick that hard!” he nervously chuckled. 

“Sorry. you looked like you could’ve taken at least that.”

Before I could angrily retort to his stupidity and my headache, he interrupted me with a question.

“So. Can you see the castle from here?” 

I rolled my eyes in frustration and reluctantly scanned the horizon. Looking over every inch with my trained eyes.

In the far distance, we're the sun and the curve of the planet meet. I spot a spire ascending past the clouds toward the heavens.

There it was, were my sister is waiting. Castle Deireadh Tús. The home of that fucking monster called Abigor. 

I turn to tell my man napper where the castles location. I point to the left of the glowing star and said, “It’s that tower to the left of we’re the sun is setting.”

He smirked, the same one as always. He tightened his grip around my torso and said.

“Make sure you keep your mouth closed. Don't wantcha to bite your tongue while we're moving!”

He started to tilt forward in the direction of the spire. In one fluid motion, he lifted up his right leg. Then with a force that I haven’t seen since the fight with the wolf, the leg launched at a speed so fast by the time I heard the boom we were already half the way there! 

But the strangest thing was that I couldn’t feel the cold wind blowing on me anymore. In confusion I lifted my hand easily to my face, no force keeping them down like before. 

I was shocked to see that my hand was covered in a fog like, orange energy. It felt slightly warm, with what I could only describe as a heartbeat rhythm that made my own feel at ease. It was like a hug by a soft blanket that covers every inch of your frame.

I didn’t get to think much on the strange new power. 

Before I could look away from it, everything went dark accompanied by the sound of a meteor impact.

Not again…