They have been traveling for several days now, and after so long, they finally had sight of land just a few hours away. Inside a large metal ship were several compartments, each filled with any and a kinds of treasure one could imagine, from glimmering jewels to clothes of the finest fabrics, all were stored away in their specific rooms, watched by at least two guards dressed in gray and black uniforms. Their route was surprisingly uneventful and not interrupted by any pirate ship or anyone with ill intent, of course they were prepared for such events, but peaceful travels like that one were never to be taken for granted, they could be rather rare.

While all compartments were clearly under vigilance, one in particular stood out for having twice the amount of guards and constantly watched by security cameras. In its center, a golden vase was displayed proudly on top of a white pedestal, its base was a dark blue, elegant patterns drawn on its surface. It didn’t need to be in a lit room for it to glow, like a there was a light inside it, but upon closer inspection, its inside was just as dark as a regular vase.

The sky’s bright blue was presenting tones of orange and pink, it was still a while before sunset, but it was quickly approaching. The door slid open and revealed two guards who stepped in and traded places with the ones that were guarding the relic before them.

The sun continued to lower itself, little by little, the shadows began to shift in unison with it. When the shade cast by a metal safe touched one of the guards’, something invisible to their eyes lurked into it. It went from one shadow to another, swiftly making its way in the room while unseen. Despite that it moved quickly, the process took some time as it calculated every movement and waited for the perfect opportunity. It patiently moved through the darkness towards the white pedestal. Taking advantage of a cloud that blocked the sun, it climbed up and into the vase, where the faint sunshine that sept through revealed a serpentine body with scales black as a moonless night, sharp fins along its back. An eye red as a polished ruby glimmered, slit pupil giving a piercing gaze.

It hid itself just in time, for the lights in the room began to turn on, it was safely hidden within the treasure. There was nothing indicating there was anything out of the ordinary.

It was just a normal, uneventful evening.

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....

A...

I...

Sa...

Sa...ve...

Save us.

All she could hear was a desperate, breathless scream, she didn’t know if it was hers.

Her heart rammed against her ribcage, her lungs gasped for air, but she still felt herself suffocating. Her claws dug into the ground, burning what little grass still remained. The ringing in her ears eventually subsided and her heartbeat slowed down, but her limbs still felt like jelly, unable to support her weight.

Above her was a butterfly, wings as white as freshly fallen snow, glowing like a pair of diamonds, it fluttered in circles around her. For some reason, its presence calmed her down, something about it brought comfort to her but she couldn’t understand what. Once her short gasps had gone to deep steady breaths, the insect fluttered away and disappeared in the sky. Perhaps it had landed on her while she slept and got startled when she woke up so suddenly.

Sol was left to her thoughts, wondering what had just taken place. Her eyes drifted to the half eaten lizard tail, which had been discarded just a few feet from where she sat. When had she fallen asleep? She wasn’t so tired that would justify falling asleep so suddenly.

What a weird dream...

She ate the remaining meat and dusted herself off, she had left the forest sometime ago and had finally found a lead towards the road, now travelling through a wide field of very short grass and bushes, she followed the unfamiliar sounds and smells. The more she walked, the more the scenery transformed into something similar to a desert, there were more dirt and stones than greenery now.

The smell she had picked up was metallic, not unlike rusted metal, she was advised to look for metal carts, so it gave her hope. The rocky mountains were rather close now, it couldn’t be much longer than a ten minute walk there, despite appearing even more dead than the semi desert she was in, she still felt drawn to them for some reason, Sol was so busy staring intently at them that she jumped when she heard a loud, booming laugh.

“What the...?”

She almost couldn’t believe what she saw: a large... something was stationed beside a dirt road, under the shade of a lonely tree, rested a group of five, steaming pots on each of their laps, one of them absentmindedly petted one of three monsters she had never seen before, pointed ears and long tails, black spikes coming out of their backs. The group was... peculiar to say the least, each of them wore black and red leather armor with a golden symbol on their chest, daggers hidden away in their sheaths. That seemed to be the theme for them, but that’s where their similarities ended: some had tails, other horns, others both, and one of them was so large they easily reached the top of the...large metal thing. Perhaps that was one of the “metal carts” the birds had mentioned? It had to belong to them, it even had the same golden symbol engraved on it.

She was mesmerized by them, she couldn’t understand a thing they said, but still couldn’t stop listening. She creeped closer to them, hiding behind the few bushes she could find. One of them was holding a small white device, they pressed a button and suddenly there was a blue screen in front of them, it showed some sort of map, it showed a blinking dot beside a road that led to a what she assumed was the city, with hundreds of small rectangles surrounded by a...wall? There was something written above it, but she couldn’t understand it. How she wished she could read at the time, it’d be much easier than having to base everything with only drawings and images.

Regardless, that had to be the city! What was the name again?

D..rough? Drurough! Yeah that’s right! It appeared like those people had the same destination as her, what a coincidence.

Thanks to the map, she could see the road continued on beyond Drurough and there were some more dots on the upper right, could those be smaller towns? She stepped closer to them, quickly making her way to the nearest plant she could hide behind. Now she could see smaller lines coming out of the main road, some of them led to the smaller settlements she had seen. The person holding the map had zoomed in the city before she could take a good look at their surroundings, but she swore she could see something in the corner...was that water? What a big lake.

Taken by curiosity, she walked closer, taking in all the details she could, keeping her body lowered. The adventurer touched the city and another screen popped up, it was mostly just hundreds of words she couldn’t hope to understand, but there was a symbol beside it: a sword with wings inside an upside down triangle.

Then she heard a growl. The red monsters were glaring at her, baring sharp fangs, the spikes on their backs and tails bristled. The five figures stood up, one of them pointed at her and exclaimed something in their language as their peers set their food down and drew out their weapons. At that point, only one word went through her head:

Fuck.

The three creatures did not waste time, chasing after her as soon as their owners gave them the order. Her instincts took over and she began to run, much like the last time she panicked that way, nearly all rational thought left her mind. She couldn’t say why she was going towards the mountains, the forest offered better hiding spots, after all, yet she found herself nearing the rock formations.

“Stop it! I swear, I just wanted to look at the map!” The small canine shouted in desperation, peeking behind her shoulder. Strangely, they did not answer beyond a few growls.

Sol snarled back, leaping forward and breathing out a blast of golden flames. The hounds merely jumped out of the way, so gracefully and quickly that they were barely slowed down at all.

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“Please, take me back to the forest, or the meadow, literally anywhere else, come on!” She begged. The pendant around her neck ignored her pleas.

Crap. How do you use this thing?!

She could hear the adventurers shouting, urging their beasts on as they entered the new terrain. On one side, she could avoid their merciless bites by hiding in the maze of stone, on another, she could end up in a dead end having nowhere to run to.

She narrowly avoided a set of sharp claws by diving into a small space between two boulders, spitting some fire onto the creature’s muzzles as they attempted to dig their way in, Sol squeezed herself deeper and deeper into the “cave”, until she finally found an exit and climbed through it. She looked down at the red monsters still attempting to fit through the small opening, the one she had burned was standing back, coughing some smoke, but their injures were barely noticeable. Was her fire that weak or was everyone so strong?

Sol looked around in a frenzy, attempting to find anywhere she could jump or climb to, unfortunately she was standing too far away from anywhere stable enough that she wouldn’t immediately slide off if she tried to hold on. The terrain was too steep, jumping down was her only option, just try to stay as far as she could from them. Just as she was planning the safest route down, a very familiar white butterfly peacefully flew by, dancing through the air with hypnotizing beauty. It hovered near her, then made a very specific pattern, it’s glimmering wings illuminating a shadowed path she had not seen before, it all pointed out to an opening deeper into the mountains. Being hidden away by darkness, she had failed to see the path presented to her, and apparently so did the hounds. Sol pulled out the eye shaped pendant, holding it firmly in her paws.

Please work...hide me in the shadows.

As soon as she focused on the thought, the circular crystal glowed and revealed its power. The darkness, once so threatening and lethal, enveloped her body in a cold embrace. Her golden and white fur was transformed into a dark shade of purple and blue, her chest and tail, which always glowed like fire, were now a light blue, but they were still shining. She supposed there was a limit to what the disguise could do, after all.

Quietly, she followed the butterfly towards the darkened path. Once she was completely hidden by the shadows, her coloration shifted again to black, her natural glow dimmed out as much as it could as she passed by the unaware hunters. Sol couldn’t help the victorious smirk. There were a few complicated jumps and a tall rock she needed to climb to get where the butterfly had gone into, she could only hope it wasn’t leading her into an even worse situation, like another dead end. Just when she had finally reached the last jump, she stepped on some unstable stones on the edge of the large rock, she didn’t fall, but her weight had caused them to crumble to the ground. She quickly dashed through the opening, but she heard the hounds' angered snarls and their claws clicking against the stone. She should know better than celebrate victory too early, hopefully they would take some time to climb all the way up.

Leaping from one boulder to another, she tried to put as much distance between them as possible, hoping the labyrinth of rocks would confuse them. Still with her disguise on, she ran under the shade to avoid her own light giving her location away. The path got darker and more humid the more she advanced, there was water somewhere nearby. The snarls and...barks? She wasn’t sure of those could be called barks, were getting louder and louder, she could even hear the adventurers' voices, how did they get here? The three creatures were much faster and more agile, they would catch up to her soon if she kept on a straight line.

She was barely able to stop on time as the path suddenly ended and gave way to a dark abyss. She searched everywhere for any other way, but that was truly the end of the line, the only way would be jumping to the other side, which was way too far.

Turning back, she was greeted with three snarling hounds, having slowed down, but still quickly shortening the distance between them, their owners running close behind, weapons and ropes out and ready to use. Her tiny flamethrower would be no match for all of them. She looked back at the cliff, there was a fog covering it (thankfully white and harmless), making it impossible to see its bottom, it could be shallow enough for her to escape with a bruise or lead her straight to death’s arms. Would she?

Six rows of sharp theeth approached her, just a few more seconds and she’d be minced meat. The amulet's effects had worn off at some point, she couldn’t run nor hide. She glared back at her pursuers, growling through gritted theeth.

Then she jumped off. The adventurers let out alarmed shouts as she leaped straight into the abyss. She didn’t even get close to the other side, she wasn’t trying to. The last thing she saw before the fog swallowed her whole was the three hounds looking down at her, eyes wide as she glared. Her glowing irises were still visible for a brief moment after her body disappeared into the abyss, giving her pursuers a piercing glare.

The sensation of falling was familiar, it didn’t make it any less unpleasant, but perhaps a little more bearable. Instinctively, the still growing wings on her back opened as much as it could, which wasn’t nearly enough to make a difference.

Sol reached to her pendants, the lavender liquid had reached about a third of its maximum capacity. She held the small flask close to her and held it tightly, in her mind she pictured the calm meadow where she had first appeared, the feeling of the grass beneath her paws and the soft war breeze. In response, the pendant began to glow brighter, small orbs of energy danced around her falling form.

Take me to the mea-

She didn’t have a chance to finish her thoughts as her body had fallen through what she recognized as vines, they snapped under her weight and drastically reduced her falling speed, but being significantly aged and rather thin, were unable to completely stop it. Sol’s breath was knocked out of her as she fell through the net of vines, she almost even lost her pendants again in the desperate attempts to hold on to something, which were all in vain.

The sounds of water splashing against stone reached her ears, she barely had time to realize what awaited her before she had fallen into the frigid waters and carried away by the currents. She suddenly felt as capable as a puppet being tossed around, whenever she reached the surface, she only had precious short seconds to breathe before being pulled down again. Her attempts at swimming only resulted in wasting energy and air to flail her limbs around, taking in deep breaths and coughing up some water, she searched for her pendants and was relieved to find both of them were still there.

Sometime during her desperate attempts to swim back to the surface, the tip of her claws brushed against a hard surface, which she instinctively held on to and pulled herself up, it took some failed attempts, but she finally balanced herself atop the object. Her lungs burned as she coughed up the water she had swallowed, as well as a white smoke. Slowly, her vision became less blurry and the pain in her chest subsided, she realized she was holding on to a piece of tree bark, many others could be found floating down the current, all remnants of a tree that had fallen not too far from there.

Exhausted, she adjusted her grip on the wood so she could rest above it. Water quickly went up on her list of things she hated with a burning passion, right behind cold temperatures and giant bloodthirsty monsters. Why’s life so complicated?

The currents had slowed down to a safe level by then, the desperate fight to stay above the surface had become a peaceful and uneventful ride.

Then she saw it: quite literally the light at the end of the tunnel. Despite her species having an affinity for light, her eyes were blinded by the sudden brightness.

The harsh light eventually stopped hurting her eyes so much and she was able to open them again.

She was surrounded by greenery, trees of all sizes, shapes and colors; beautiful flowers displayed their elegance for all to see; the waters that had previously nearly taken her life was now a peaceful and innocent looking spring. A series of chirping sounds made her instinctively perk up, finding a large group of birds flying by, their forms drawing a triangle shape in the sky. A waterfall descended from between the rock mountains, which surrounded the garden like a protective, deadly layer. No one would be able to guess it could hide something like that.

Illuminated by the light of the sunset, she attempted to take in the sheer beauty of the place. It was nothing like the dead and dry desert she was traveling through, and so much more lively than the forest, it was like there was some sort of energy inside it, she couldn’t hope to explain that feeling through words, it was like the currents had brought her to a sacred land. An oasis.

Once they had neared shallow water, she hesitantly let go of the tree bark. Fighting against the rising panic from her previous experience, she paddled towards dry land. She pulled herself out of the water and immediately shook herself dry(er) and collapsed on the grass, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes, she allowed herself to rest. Sol hadn’t felt so much relief since she had been saved from the icy wastelands, which was...this morning? Strange, it felt like it was an eternity ago.

She rolled on her back and gazed at the orange sky, the sun had set a while ago, but there was still some light left, which painted the sky with orange, red and yellow. It was so beautiful...

She crawled under a nearby tree, curling up in between its roots. It wasn’t an ideal bed, but it felt like heaven to her tired body. Sol fell asleep quickly after that, she didn’t care about anything at the moment, not even the possibility of predators or more crazy hunters. She was so tired...

For once, her sleep was peaceful and dreamless.

Somewhere not too far from there, a large metal ship arrived at the docks, where a large group of armed guards awaited, standing between them was a figure with long light blue feathers and wearing an elegant white dress. Her beak showed a small smile as the doors to the ship slid open.