Rohchec held the cloth door of the tent open for Nadira, and she stepped through. Darkness covered most of the marketplace except for a few tents dotted about, giving off their magic glow. The wind was cool.

As they exited the tent, there was a small gust. It wasn't enough for Nadira to notice, but Rohchec looked up, and he tensed completely. Nadira wondered what he was looking at.

Sleek fur caught the dim light. Something silently swooped around in the open space above the market. It must have been as large as three of the market huts put together. It was a thin form covered in a fine pelt of black fur, gliding with two sets of webbed wings. Its long whip of a tail trailed behind it. There was no sound. Even the patrons of the Sot’s bars soon noticed the changing in the atmosphere and became quiet.

Nadira had never seen one in person. She had heard of them. 'Era bats', or something. Daress would have remembered the name. They stayed in the Forest, although they used to swarm throughout the caves in ancient times. They would hunt the deep insects, and the dragons would hunt them.

It swooped closer to the market than any of the patrons were comfortable with. It came to hover over some of the markets. It landed, knocking over a stall in a different district which was abandoned for the night. One particularly inebriated man let out a scream and toppled in his stool. Fellow patrons helped him up, and they huddled together like children. They took a collective step back, looking towards the many exits into the tunnels, but daring not to move.

The sound of the scream had the beast turn. Its tall pointed ears were carefully controlled, moving before the rest of it. Its eyes were small, relative to its short face, like obsidian jewels catching the light. Nadira noticed that she could see its ribs, and patches of fur were missing. This creature was starving.

Rohchec took a step forward. He didn’t cower but wasn’t stupid either. He didn’t get too close. Nadira hadn’t any of that kind of willpower. Her legs were stiff with fear, and she could hardly breathe. She moved in with the others in the huddle, as if being in a group would be a good defensive position. She wasn’t sure if it was or not, she’d never had to think about it before.

She noticed that Rohchec had stepped away from her. A part of her told her that this was her chance. This was the moment she was waiting for. She should run. There were zero reasons not to - except for the fear to move at all.

It seemed the beast would be the one to act first. Rohchec had approached it at a distance, and they stood off. It would seem that they were meeting each other on some kind of mental or spiritual level. Everyone was still. Then, the beast placed its front wings on the ground and shook its fur out. From its fur, a mist spread out across the market. It was like the release of spores from something gone bad.

Before Nadira lost her vision, she saw the beast open its mouth. Its jaw opened wide, showing large and jagged teeth. It sent a shiver down her spine. It looked as if it was going to screech, but she heard nothing. She saw nothing but mist and glow from some lights. Even they were dimmed through the vapour.

The sudden loss of vision panicked them, and the group screamed and started to bolt in the dark. Nadira started to run too, if only to not be exactly where she was last standing - not that it would matter. It was a big creature, so the best hope she had was to get somewhere small enough that it couldn’t reach.

But she also wanted to lose Rohchec. She had a vague directional sense of where the entrance to the Sot tunnels was from their market. Perhaps that could be enough. As she ran, she stumbled, and she knew her knee had been scraped against the ground. She cursed. She had no idea where she was going. She could only feel around the stalls, knocking signposts down and ripping fabric. Sometimes she heard the flap of massive wings and further screaming coming from behind her.

She could follow the commotion urging people to the tunnels as best as she could. They must know the way to the tunnels better, and she felt she was making better ground.

The mist effect didn’t last for very long. Before she had made it very far, she started to see the shapes of things emerge for her from the mist. She saw the exit and dashed it while it was still in her sights. She chanced a look behind her.

The beast had picked up one of the barmen in its claws. The man hung limp, enveloped in the hook of talons. Rohchec climbed up to the roof of a stall and started to run with a speed that Nadira had never seen before. Before she could turn around and continue her escape, he had leapt from a structure's peak. He grabbed onto the claw of the beast as it had swerved passed. Climbing up the fur of the creature, the beast started the thrash around in the air. The man slipped from its grasp and she heard a thud of him hitting the ground.

Many other observers started to mutter to each other. For a moment, Rohchec got onto its back and it started to fly smoothly. Then it did a rebellious spiral, and Rohchec was thrown. It started to descend again upon where the barman fell.

Rohchec crashed into a stall, the wood splintering against him with the force. Nadira almost wanted to see if he was alright, but he stood up like it was nothing. She could see even from this distance, maybe thirty feet from the scene. There was blood on him, but he was smiling.

Nadira didn’t have time to watch this. She had to move while Rohchec was distracted. It was an unmissable opportunity. She turned her back on the chaos in the market and made her way into the tunnels.

She followed the crowd in the chaos, listening to the sounds of the crashing and destruction behind. She wanted to get to some position where Rohchec couldn’t find her.

“Don’t think I’d forgotten you.”

So he could get in her mind after all. Not good. “Aren’t you a little busy right now?!” she shouted, not knowing if he could hear her thoughts back or just send them out. Even if he couldn’t hear her, it felt good to shout. She was starting to feel a bit desperate.

She tried to swerve through the tunnels as much as she could, taking every turn and moving up every set of steep stairs or makeshift ladders. She lost the crowd quickly this way - although where she would end up she had no idea. It didn't matter, she told herself, as long as she got out of his reach.

The sounds of crashing in the market had become silent as she moved deeper. The caves felt narrower and narrower as she made her way through them. The paths she took became less and less known. She dare not stop moving. The passages started to all blur together as the minutes endlessly consumed her.

She turned a corner but had to stop in her tracks. Staring at her, taking up the entire cavern ahead was the beast from the market. Its ears were flattened against its body and its little black eyes saw her. Its black fur on its face made it seem as though it was the path ahead, and she almost walked straight into its jaws.

It gave another silent shriek with its open mouth and she bolted back the way she came. How did it get here, she swore to herself in a panic. The creature squirmed through the tunnels after her. Its hook of thumbs at the top of its wings used as climbing axes. Its body was thin and compact for such spaces. It held its lower sets of wings against itself and using the front wings for their claw and power. It seemed to navigate the space with almost as much ease as the open spaces above the market. It seemed like she couldn’t shake it. Terrified, she wouldn’t think of what would happen if it caught up.

How did it get ahead of her? What had happened to Rohchec or that man it had taken? The creature was barely any distance behind her. Its body was not disturbing the structure of the caves at all. In fact, it was almost just as silent as it was before, aside from the clink and scratch of its claw against the stones. It moved forward with its mouth open slightly in a pant. Its breath smelled like decay and rotting meat, and the scent filled the tunnels around them.

Adrenalin and terror raced through her veins, and she couldn't even feel her body run at full speed down the twists of the underground. Luckily, she didn’t stumble during her rush out of there. But where was she going to go? Would she keep running to the Sot Home? She wasn’t sure which way that was anymore.

She came to a fork in the tunnels she wasn’t sure she had ever been to yet. Everything seemed so much the same in the tunnels, and she hadn’t time to figure out any further information.

Out from a different tunnel at the crossroads came Rohchec. At least that narrowed her choices. She took the third option and ran down that way. She scurried around a corner and into a dead end. The caves there had collapsed.

She slapped herself against them, sweating with the exertion of running at such a sprint. She tried to move some of the stones with shaky hands. She couldn't face looking behind her.

“It’s no use, Nadira.”

She tried to ignore him, pushing more of the rocks to one side, even though he was standing just behind her now. The smell of the carnage from the beast was filling the space as well. They had allied together, it seemed. She refused to turn around and look. Just moved the rocks.

“What do you even hope to achieve?” Rohchec asked. His voice was soft, and careful.

She could feel those walls made up in her mind fading away. This was as far as her luck had gotten her. Thanks, Eazu, she thought sarcastically. What else was she meant to do now? And what had she hoped to achieve? It was a good question. But she reminded herself of what it was all for.

She had wanted to have an adventure. She wanted to see the world and become someone. Someone that she would understand. Someone with something to say. She wouldn’t be a nobody. She wouldn’t be nothing, an empty void to be ignored. An ornament. A symbol of being less. She had wanted Family, and if not that, to at least know what she was capable of, no matter what other people saw.

And was this it? Was this all she was capable of? She moved the rocks, but eventually, some of the rocks were too big, and she was too weak. And still, the path was not clear. She felt tears well in her eyes.

“I can’t trust you to come willingly, can I?” he asked.

She closed her eyes. “What I say doesn’t matter.”

The sound of the creature breathing was the only sound there. Large, heavy, lumbering. It sounded almost like purring. Its breathing was synced up with Rohchec’s.

He turned back, and she considered seriously taking one of the small rocks and using it as some kind of weapon. But he brought that big creature, and there was no way it wasn’t eating her if she attempted that.

He didn’t even mention her thoughts. All he said was "Come with me, Nadira".

And she went with him.

Once in the marketplace, she joined him on the back of the beast, and they flew up over the damaged stalls and huts to the Orphanage. There, she was delivered, just as Rohchec had promised.