Bo hurtled down the hill with flashing images of a red dragon flattened against the sand occasionally popping into his head.

He wasn't quite sure whether these images implied that Yvet had fallen to her death or that he had killed her - but he liked them all the same.

He stumbled on a rock but quickly found his footing, rushing across uneven terrain in almost total darkness. Not that the darkness bothered him anymore.

After jumping the rest of the way down the ridge, he bolted around its side, hurrying past a cave that glowed faintly.

So, there was a reason the cave looked familiar, he thought. Even if this was a different location, clearly, Borealis manifested in similar sites.

He skimmed across the sand, feet leaving barely a mark as he passed. Flitting through the desert like a ghostly wind, he raced toward the cliff face Yvet had jumped from, pulling up short in front of four deep claw marks in the sand.

Turning to look up, he saw where he had been sitting a few minutes previously.

The claw marks were hers, but there was no sign of the dragon who made them. Cursing under his breath, Bo squinted in the direction he had seen the light.

The glow wasn't visible from ground level, but what was visible was a scaly figure gliding down the side of a far off dune.

Bo started to pace on the spot.

On the one hand, he didn't want to rise to Yvet's childish provocations. On the other, he didn't want to lose.

His body soon made the decision for him, taking off in pursuit of the dragon as she disappeared over the lip of a dune.

As he blurred across the sand, wind rushing past, he could feel a faint connection to the Mi. A link he hadn't sensed before.

So far, he had only been capable of using the fire element, unable to grasp his second element, wind. But as he raced across the sand, wind rushing through his hair, he felt closer to it.

Reaching out, Bo grasped at nothing, trying to tap into the stream. But the swirling wind evaded his control, drifting just out of reach as though mocking him.

Unable to divide his attention further, Bo shook his head and focused on the chase – keeping Yvet's distant shadow at the centre of his vision. He was gaining with every passing second, but he might not make it there before she reached the light.

----------------------------------------

Yvet felt exhilarated.

She felt like she was floating.

She was floating.

The second she had jumped off the cliff, spreading her wings to let them catch the breeze, she had known she was alive. In that moment, she knew – with a certainty that was bone deep – that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

And then she had fallen.

As it turned out, flying was trickier than it looked, and after messing with her balance too much, she had fallen straight out of the sky.

Luckily, she hadn't fallen far, having already drifted most of the way down.

She had started to fully incorporate her half-gliding half-running technique, taking great leaps at the tops of dunes and drifting across their valleys. Her heart raced fiercely as she tugged at the wind, trying to get it to carry her further, higher, faster.

But she experienced no such luck. Unlike fire - which was rather blunt and straightforward - the wind was extremely elusive, evading control by its very nature. The most she could do was give herself a slight boost here or a tiny lift there, but as of yet, she had managed nothing substantial.

Still, she wasn't disheartened by this fact. To be able to glide at all was an improvement she would gladly take.

As she ran, Yvet noticed an odd scent on said wind. It was smoky with a bitter, iron aftertaste. The odour gave her pause as she tried to parse what it might be. She was aware that humans liked cooking their food before eating it, but would they cook blood?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Then again, what did Yvet know about the weird ways in which humans moved through life?

Her ears twitched as a few distant sounds reached them. First was the crying. It was low, soft, defeated. These were the cries of broken people.

Shouts too - angry - directing blame and resentment at anyone who would listen.

She slowed slightly, starting to feel a little apprehensive.

Something was off.

Another sound appeared from behind her. The soft tap of feet on the sand.

Bo was closing in, and if she wanted to make it to the light source first, she couldn't afford to stop and think about what she might find there…

But what if it was dangerous? So dangerous that Bo got hurt again?

She slowed her run, stopping altogether as the noises grew clearer.

Someone was sobbing. Many someones.

The crackle of flame, the stench of burnt meat, the weeping, the shouting – it all painted a dark picture. A picture that left her unsettled. Part of her wanted to turn away right now and be done with it.

She wanted no part of whatever lay in the realms of that light. Not if it meant Bo would be hurt again.

"Bo," she called out, her mind stretching back to touch his. "This doesn't feel right."

No reply, of course. He still hadn't figured out how to project his mind, the idiot.

But she could tell he was close. Judging by the volume of his nearing footsteps, Bo ought to catch up soon. Yvet started to pace nervously, her tail writhing in response to her mood.

Before she could make up her mind, he arrived.

He was breathing hard and red-faced, with a scowl that would make Ethron proud. He stared down at her in a way that Yvet couldn't quite place, his gaze brimming with frustration and relief simultaneously.

"What's wrong?" Bo asked, "I heard your message."

Yvet hissed suddenly, "shh, keep It down."

Bo crouched down beside her, nodding. "Sorry," he said. "What is it?"

"Listen," Yvet said, cocking her head to the side.

Bo nodded, and the unsettling sounds soon found their way to his ears. His face darkened as he listened, with every new thing he heard making him scowl deeper.

"We should go see what's wrong," he said finally, motioning to move.

"No." Yvet jumped in front of him, standing between Bo and the light.

"Get out of the way," he said, voice low and oddly threatening.

"We don't know what's wrong, Bo," Yvet pleaded. "What if you get hurt again?"

Bo sighed, shaking his head helplessly. "I won't get hurt," he said quietly. "The danger has already passed."

"How can you know that?" Yvet asked. "We should at least scout out the situation first…."

For a moment, he just looked at her, scanning. Finally, he nodded. "Sure, we'll take a look around first."

Yvet bobbed her head, and they both turned, creeping their way up the side of the nearest dune. From there, they could see the soft orange glow from many lonely fires spilling out over the desert. The fountains of light twisted and contorted, casting long, slithering shadows that danced with wild, starlit abandon.

Neither could quite distinguish what was happening within the light from this distance, so they slowly crept forward, sticking to dark corners as they moved.

Soon, they were close enough to see something, something that Yvet wished she hadn't laid eyes on.

It was a child, or at least... the body of one.

Half buried beneath sand stained a ruddy brown, the mangled corpse looked lost, forgotten in a viscerally painful way.

Bo's gaze hardened when he saw the body, but he didn't rush forward - sticking close to Yvet as they circled the camp.

They soon came across another body, this one out in the open and mutilated to the point that its gender was unrecognisable. All that remained was a bloodied face locked in a perpetual scream.

Help me! It seemed to cry out.

Bo shuddered, his hands clenched in tight fists.

"This is…" Yvet whispered, her tone unsettled. "This isn't battle; this is just cruel."

"The Racten don't fight fair," Bo muttered, his tone icy.

"What are the Racten?"

"… You'll see."

They continued walking, coming across more and more bodies as they went. Some looked human. Others...

Others looked like they might once have been humans.

In the orange glow of burning supplies and bodies, everything felt hellish. Yvet imagined she was walking into the underworld, with bodies and misery as mere footnotes on their odyssey through purgatory.

Soon, the voices and cries grew distinguishable, and they were quickly able to infer what had happened.

But they didn't rush in when the victims were still reeling. That was a surefire way to get an entire tribe to attack you in a mixture of fear and fury.

Bo paused as they walked. They had neared the centre of the tribe, where all its members were gathered. He looked down at Yvet - the dragon - and frowned.

"They might attack you on sight," he whispered. "Can't you turn into a human or something?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't know how."

"Brilliant…"

After reaching the nearest dune to the survivors, they stopped, trying to think of what they could say.

Knowing that 'Hi, I'm some kid and his dragon' wouldn't cut it, Bo furrowed his brow as he thought. Was there anything he could say that would make them seem unthreatening?

He doubted it.

Part of him would have liked to turn around and leave the tribe to grieve, but that wasn't an option when he didn't know what direction the Racten were going.

Besides it being an unspoken rule that once someone found the Racten's location, they must - under any circumstances - kill them, or die trying - Bo didn't want to wander off into the desert and bump into a tribe of cannibals.

He needed to know where they were going so that he could pick a different direction. And he needed to ask the tribe where it was that he didn't want to go.

"Bo." Yvet nudged his back with her snout.

"What?" He asked distractedly.

"There's a little human watching us."

For a moment, this didn't register. Too busy thinking up an opening line, Bo's mind disregarded this rather crucial fact right up until the last moment.

He whirled around, finding a boy, maybe ten.

His face was covered in a smudged, yellow, chalky substance, and his eyes were so wide they almost met in the middle.

He was staring directly at Yvet, mouth agape, and any moment now…

"MONSTER!!!"