//Another chapter has arrived, huzzah!!
//I would love it if you could leave a rating, comment favourite or critique. Anything is welcome.
//also just a side note, italics means it’s a thought.
//just a heads up I begin with a shift in perspective so do be alarmed.
Chapter 3
A Colourful Companion
Maia loosened the weighty reigns of the two Rawls. The two huge tamed monster birds had been pulling her and the cart across the Dessert of Antaria for months. Sitting back in her seat she grinned, and watched the birds huge claws sink into the hot desert sand and step forward almost effortlessly.
“This month’s haul is gonna be the best Ripa and Rapa. The goods we brought this time are going to stock our gold supplies for years to come. I even got some mana and health potions and balms for once, stupid weak human mages.
They sell the darn thing so overpriced it’s a joke. An entire gold for one, it’s a bloody rip off. But don’t you worry, I’m gonna resell these babies so high the profits will be through the roof. Hahahah!!”
Maia boasted to the unintelligent monster pulling the travelling market cart she ran. She relaxed and sunk into the wooden seat on top of the cart, spitting a lick of fire into air.
“Wooow, the weathers great, right Ripa. So hot and dusty, just the way us Draconians like it. It’s not like I’m sad because I’m too weak to live in a dragon settlement and too strong to live in a human one. Not to mention, not human.
Rapa and I are best of friends, we don’t need anyone or anything but gold, it’s the traveller’s life for us.”
Rapa chose that moment to give a strong snort, almost as if he agreed with his mastered frequent rants about being impervious to the solitude of her life. In reality, if the two beasts had any intelligence, they would have lost it by the more than constant yammering of their owner.
Slowly Maia and her companions travelled forwards, eating up the miles to Denari as the day passed. She had stocked up on supplies and goods in the merchant city of Masin, one of the four human cities, and began her travels the day before.
The cart slowed down and reached a cliff which plateaued into a cliff.
“The famed ‘Peak of Destruction’” Maia murmured. She passed through here many times on her travels and never got used to the heavy atmosphere of the place. This is where the Antarian culture supposedly used to reside, and met its doom.
Preparing her flight magic she looked down the hundred meter drop on the ground below and got ready to jump.
“Look, Ripa and Rapa. Can you see that,” spying a body lying face up on the ground with suspicious glow, she focused with her powerful draconian eyes. Not seeing any movement or the source of the suspicious glow she got ready to fly down.
“Doesn’t look like it’s a human desert raider trap. Regardless we can’t abandon a poor kid in such a condition without checking it out.”
She spoke the words of the human magic she had learned and cast it over the cart and everything.
¿F!ígHt¿
Slowly she rose into the air lifting the yellow sand. The dust swirled under her monster feet as the also rose.
“Here we gooooooo!!” Maia began to scream like a mad woman as she descended down the cliff with a rising speed. As the ground began to rapidly rise, the twin Rawls began to screech. Suddenly the cart slowed and hovered safely on the sandy floor.
Maia deactivates the magic and the cart falls onto the ground jostling the many potions and goods.
“You would think you scaredy birds would get used to it by now, I always do that, and your monster birds for Kallista’s sakes.”
(Authors note: Please read the prologue if you don’t get this!)
Jumping lithely off the driving seat of the cart she inspects the body on the desert floor. It was a young boy, his clothes in tattered and blood running down his mouth and nose. She looked around and saw not a figure for miles. Where could he have come from? There’s nothing around here for miles. She made the decision to take him with her.
“Can’t have him die on my watch” she says as she picks him up almost effortlessly and sets him in the back of her cart. Shifting the various skins bottles and mysterious objects around Maia, laid down the limp body onto the wooden floor gently.
“Nothing but skin and bones aren’t ya, wherever ya came from looks like you haven’t eaten for a month.”
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A burning sensation deep in Lewis chest woke him up and he lay on the floor feeling the rhythmic bouncing of a moving carriage for a minute. Slowly he opened his eyes, staring down at him where a pair of strikingly bright gold eyes. Scrambling back against the wooden floor he backed up till he felt wooden boards behind him. Looking around in fright he saw he was in a carriage going at a high speed. They even have horses on this world.
“Your finally awake, I didn’t think you would die, after all I used some expensive potions on you. What’s your name?”
Seeing his questioner and his eyes widened. She had pale white skin, voluminous hair and a shapely body which gave her an exotic beauty. But this was not what surprised him, what surprised him were the deep purple scales which started under her eyes and were very small. They grew in size towards her temple and continued behind her ears. She had dark luscious hair which didn’t grow where the scales did and so it almost looked as if she had half purple half black hair.
Rising of the floor Lewis saw she had scales around her hands as well. In fact, only her index fingers on both hands formed deep purple claws at the end.
“Well, can you hear me?”
Well, surprisingly I can understand what she is saying. I can’t tell her I’m from another world and I can’t keep my name Lewis. I can only recall fleeting moments of sadness the year I spent on the streets let alone my family’s death. I hardly even know who I am anymore, all I can remember is that I was weak.
“Faerwald, my names Faerwald”
“Ohh, sounds slightly different to most human names I’ve heard. I’m Maia, the great draconian travelling merchant.”
“Thankyou for saving me, may I ask you why you did so?” Faerwald was suspicious, after all he could be walking directly into a trap and she could have lied about using important potions on me, not knowing Maia also thought the same thing upon seeing him.
“I haven’t talked to anyone in the 3 days of travel so I thought you could be a good conversation.”
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“…”
“Come, let’s continue our talk outside in the comfort of the heat after you changed” Maia gets up and knocks on the wooden doors of the carriage, shouting “Ripa, Rapa we are stopping”.
Must be well trained horses , Faerwald thinks following Maia back with his eyes as she steps through the back of the carriage.
Faerwald looks down and sees his fully tattered shirt and blushes as he realised how bad he must have looked the entire time. After pulling the blue silk shirt Maia had left on the floor next to him over his head and looking into the mirror he was surprised. He realised he was quite handsome, chiselled face, piercing blue eyes stared back at him framed by his long blonde hair. Faerwald felt some déjà vu, he must have done this same thing not too long ago in the past.
(Authors note: Although If you can’t remember take a gander at chapter 1)
Turning on his heel, he gets out and climbs the steps to the top of the carriage where the reigns are taking a seat next to Maia. Finally seeing the monsters which pull the cart his face pales.
“You ok, humans don’t like the heat do they?”
Shaking his head, Faerwald can’t help but imagine what other powerful monsters exist if such powerful creatures pull Maia’s carriage.
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“I found my-self in your carriage, I can only think that I must have fallen from that cliff you found me under and lost it”.
“I see, so that’s how you have forgotten your memories and so you couldn’t possibly know how you got into the middle of the Antarian desert” says Maia.
Nodding his head up and down, Faerwald is secretly amazed at the gullibility of his rescuer. Who on Earth, I mean D’lrow, would believe such an unbelievable story. Even though I did water it down the story a whole lot, it’s still basically the truth. After an hour of random conversation the topic came up off how he found himself in the middle of the Antarian desert.
Although sweating profusely, after hours of talking Faerwald comes to understand the nature of the beauty and enjoy her simpleness.
“Lady Maia, may I ask you what you are?” Faerwald trying not to be disrespectful, his curiosity overwhelms his caution and wants to know what kind of being she is.
“Maia is just fine, hehe. Well, I am a Draconian as I said earlier. Do you at least remember what a dragon is?”
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Faerwald nods his head and says; “For some reason I can still remember some things but other things, I cannot.” He looks down, Faerwald still can’t recall his own parent’s faces.
“I’m sorry” Maia visibly looks sad after seeing the young boy’s expression, but then brightens, “Well, dragons are part of the Draconian race. Although I’m way too weak to even live near an actual dragon, I still possess some draconian magic.”
Then proceeding to breathe fire out of her mouth, she looks over at her new companions face. Faerwald eyes widened and jaw fell open, and could not stop the look of amazement from taking over his face.
Chuckling, Maia was secretly happy she cheered the boy up and said; “Not only that, I’ve been a travelling merchant for many years and already learned intermediate class human magic.”
“There are classes of magic. Wow, you already know human magic as well! Amazing”
“Don’t praise me to much” chuckling she downplays her power by saying, “Actually for a Draconian I am still considered weak, since my Draconian magic is weak. But enough of that, it is already becoming dark, we must set up camp”.
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Journeying for another hour they come across a relatively flat piece of land covered in sand and stop the cart. They both step down from the side of the carriage and Maia raises her two hands, squints her eyes and begins to activate another type magic.
¡ChAngé
Faerwald slowly witnesses the carriage change. The wheels begin to retract, lowering the whole carriage onto the floor. A solid bed of wood pops out from the top of the carriage and in the front where Ripa and Rapa the monster Rawls complacently wait, shoots out a number of shifting wooden boards.
They eventually form a shelter for the birds. While Faerwald stands in shocked silence, Maia gathers wood from the back of the carriage and throws them onto the ground.
“Although the days are comfortable, the Nights in the Antarian desert are extremely cold for a Draconian like me”.
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Faerwald and Maia sipped the herbal tea they had brewed and relaxed on the wooden logs they hadn't burnt yet. They had comfortable lull of their almost constant conversation. Faerwald had an otherworldly quality about him, and didn't think in the same way that most beings Maia had come across.
“So if you met an overwhelmingly powerful magician you would not bow your head even though you are sick, but if you met a beast that was overwhelmingly powerful you would try to escape, why?”
“Magicians can maintain reasoning and probably admire a wilful person but a beast probably would attack me on the spot since they have no restraint!” Faerwald exclaims.
“Actually..” begins Maia, but before she could finish two thing happen simultaneously. Faerwald drops his cup and falls backward onto the floor convulsing and spewing blue light and blood from his mouth into the air again. Maia starts forward coming to his side almost instantaneously, but as soon as she does a roar echoes across the dessert. Slowly a large figure approaches from the west side of the camp site of the travellers. As it approaches the fire a pair of gleaming red eyes are visible followed by two massive gleaming fangs and a white horn. Faerwald fit resides for a second and he can make out the beasts appearance.
It is almost identical to a lions, except almost twice the size with a blood red mane and eyes, vicious fangs and a gleaming pure white horn.
Pure terror takes over his body and the boy cannot take the pain of the mysterious fit and the pressure of the mysterious animal so he succumbs to unconsciousness.
The monster Rawls begin to screech feeling a killing intent directed towards their master. Maia spins around and stares the huge figure in the eyes and resolutely stands firm.
//Hey guys another chapter done, sorry for the later than I expected release. My internet is pretty pathetic and drops in and out and I have up on editing and submitting after the fifth try.
//Hope you follow, favourite, comment and support me in this story if you enjoy it.
//The next chapter is going to have some ‘developments’ in terms of Faerwald. Hehe.
//apologies if there are any mistakes,twas a little rushed :(