Sera groaned lightly as the squeezing sensation stopped, slowly pushing herself up from the ground and struggled to open her eyes. A green canopy and comforting browns of bark, root, and earth greeted her senses along with a mix of scents familiar and foreign. She moved her head about, checking for any sign of Zephyr as her heart began to pound with anxiety before finally spotting the dark green scales at the base of her neck amidst her own tan fur.
“Good… good.” Sera breathed in relief as she carefully moved about. “No broken bones, limbs moving fine but a little sore. I’ll be able to walk it off. No sense in wasting magic on healing just yet then.”
She looked around, listening to the forest and hearing the rustle of leaves in a light breeze before straightening her stance and raising a foreclaw.
“Nature’s breath, point the way.” She mumbled quietly, pressing her claw down slightly in mid-air and letting the light pressure of warmth circulate through her body before she turned sharply to the right. “Ah, North is that way. I can’t see any signs of what time of day it is… wait, Where’s Twilight!”
She twisted and turned more frantically, not seeing any initial signs of the pale-skinned hag-hunter. She forced herself to calm down as she felt her dragon charge shift on her back and began investigating the area for any signs of her fellow councilmember. A few short minutes of investigating both ground and foliage for signs of disturbance, she concluded her search and could feel Zephyr waking and looking around.
“Well Zephyr, I think it’s safe to say whatever that intrusion was back in the castle had separated us from Twilight.” She explained. “Odds are they will attempt to retrieve her first, then us. We’ll need to make due until they can find her, use the planar travel spell again, then find us and do the same. With any luck, it will only be a couple weeks.”
“Zephyr Zeph, Zephyr-ryr.” The little dragon replied.
Sera slowly blinked, turning to zephyr and raising a brow.
“Zeph?” he asked, then tilted his head as she failed to comprehend.
“What in the hells?” Sera frowned, then decided to revert to his more comfortable language, draconic. “Did the planar travel make speech difficult for you? Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right.” Zephyr answered with mild indignance while puffing out his cheeks. “I was only saying I'm going to miss my bed of shinies!”
“Ah, of course. How silly of me.” Sera replied with a slight smirk. She could ponder the strange speech in common from her charge later. They could still talk normally in some fashion, and that was enough.
Sera took a moment to get her bearings, studying the region to tell what kind of climate they were in and debating if she should take flight to find landmarks as a reference point when she could hear rustling of foliage behind her. Confused, she turned around to face it, wings slightly outstretched as she extended her head to inspect the area.
“Zeph?”
“I hear it, but I don’t see-” Sera blinked before a small cry came from low to the ground and burst through the foliage.
Running as fast as its little legs could carry it was a strange blue creature with black markings and tiny spikes protruding from the back of its hands. It continued to look over its shoulders, eyes fearful and full of tears. It continued to run toward the duo without looking their way before a human height green praying mantis-like creature came out after it, wings buzzing furiously and eyes reddened.
Sera could sense the creature was angered, likely by the smaller one’s antics somehow, but it looked like they were about to be dragged into whatever this was-
“Zeph! Zeph Zephyr!”
“Ri!” the cry came back, startled but making the small creature look their way and running straight for them.
Sera spared only a brief glance at the little dragon that seemed to guarantee her additional trouble, but she knew what side they were taking in this little feud. She took a deep breath, then with a glare, she roared deep and long at the mantis.
“Scyth!?” it spoke, looking up and seeming to notice Sera for the first time. A flurry of variations of ‘scyther’ came out, as if threatening spittle with how agitated it was before pointing a scythe-limb toward them.
“Rioluuuuuu.” The smaller creature answered dejectedly.
“This child was eating some berries from a tree when this ‘scyther’ thing noticed and yelled about it being in its territory. It tried to say it was only hungry, but they insisted on a fight to settle the problem. She ran, and here she is.” Zephyr answered when Sera turned slightly to get an eye on him.
“I see.” Sera answered, then slowly turned to face the mantis with a growl in her chest. “I understand they took from your territory, you are right to be upset at that, but how much do you expect a child to make penance?”
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“Scyther!” It answered menacingly, rubbing its scythes together as if sharpening them and causing the small newcomer to tremble more, even going so far as to bury its head under Zephyr’s wing.
“I will not permit you to attack a child for something as petty as feeding itself from the bounties of the forest!” Sera roared at it again, glaring at the figure, “This creature is under my protection, and to get to them, you’ll have to go through me. You have two options, return to your territory and we will not return, or we fight and you meet your end here and now.”
The scyther’s eyes, bloodshot as they were, looked over Sera. Its body froze for a brief moment, then its abdomen buzzed before its wings followed suit, taking to the sky. The buzzing slowly became fainter as it traveled to the north and slightly west from whence it came.
“Ri-lou?” a timid trembling voice asked from under Zephyr’s wing.
“Zeph.” Zephyr answered with a nod and a small grin, as if he himself had chased off the creature.
“Well then, little one, it seems they have gone.” Sera said, adopting a far gentler tone to speak to them in case they were unused to the ferocity of a dragon. “Will you be able to make your way home from here?”
To her surprise, this made the creature sniffle and tears welled up in its eyes threatening to surge down its cheeks. It started mumbling quietly to Zephyr, who started to explain.
“She says she has no home anymore. Some ‘trainer’ had gotten tired of looking after her when she didn’t want to fight and took her camping in the forest. When she woke, they were gone. The message left said ‘don’t bother coming back.’” Zephyr answered before his speech was drowned out by wailing from the creature.
“Oh.” Sera said, frowning. It was cruel, but perhaps there was more going on than what they let on? She didn’t want to become too involved with the denizens of this world, but it was hard for her to ignore a child in need.
“Can we keep her?” Zephyr asked, looking up at Sera. When she cocked a brow upward briefly, he added, “I like her shiny bits that poke out.”
“Of course you do.” Sera answered with a sigh. Of course he’d make a friend based on how ‘shiny’ they were or how similar to treasure they would be. “I don’t know how long we’ll be on this plane, but I see no problems looking after them for now. If they can’t get a new home by the time we have to return, then perhaps they can come with us.”
“I approve. We may continue with… whatever it was you were doing.” Zephyr nodded before holding onto the tightly curled creature while draping a wing over them.
“I’m so glad I have your approval.” Sera rolled her eyes and took a last look around.
The foliage was too dense to reasonably leave the forest here by flight. The bug might not have minded tearing through the branches, but she certainly would, especially if there were creatures akin to lice or fleas that she was unaware of lurking in those heights.
“We can’t fly out from here, so we’ll be making use of these trailblazer boots and get walking until we can fly again.” Sera informed. “Since that creature came from between North and Northwest, we will simply go the opposite direction, south-east. We’ll keep our word while looking for signs of civilization or a good place to camp for the night.”
“Zeph.” came one response, then none followed.
Sera shrugged and began walking through the forest. The undergrowth was populous enough to make leaving trails of her movements obvious. She frowned as the words of Twilight came back to mind regarding not being spotted by the hags, but at the same time, there was no guarantee they were even in a realm with the hags in the first place. Erring on the side of caution, she exercised her years of training in the forests to weave around tree and brush without leaving tracks where she could. While leaving tracks for her friends might be beneficial if they arrive at her origin point, it could lead others and create an ambush or lead the scythe mantis and its hive back to her.
Her trek through the forest felt strange. The magic didn’t move the same as the forests in Brevoy, nor that of her kingdom, yet some sort of power like magic was undoubtedly present. Only minutes later she caught sight of a pony with a pale yellow coat of fur, yet flames had replaced its mane and tail.
Sera crouched down while preparing to gather her magic to help put the creature’s fire out and keep it from burning when she noticed the flames gave no smoke, nor burned any of the twigs and leaves that were near it. A twig snapped and the creature looked her way before bolting off into the forest, only leaving hoof marks in the ground. Inspection of the area reaffirmed that despite the appearance of fire, it did not burn like fire would.
“What in the hells is this plane? It looks like the material plane, yet it holds a pony that would be at home in the elemental fire?” Sera grumbled with furrowed brows.
Sera wandered on through tree and brush for the next hour, pausing only when the little creature Zephyr had adopted squealed for her to stop and ran around to a bush to answer the call of nature. In her time traveling she had noticed mostly the fire ponies and a few black and white birds. Once she spotted an owl sleeping in a tree nook and a glimpse of some kind of pink round thing, but when she glanced back to the Riolu and extended a limb to help it climb back onto her back, the pink thing was gone from its prior place.
She noticed the trees started to thin somewhat to the west, deciding to turn toward the south-west to inspect it further. She could feel her hunger grow and thought she was hearing a small growling of someone’s stomach on her back, but she was hesitant to hunt these creatures for food without having a method to remove poison from them prepared. She was prepared for combat for the first day if they landed in a disadvantageous position in the plane, not for camping survival! She’d need to make camp before she would be able to prepare new spells.
The clearing thinned and she saw clear skies above with only one or two birds in the air, she let out a sigh and stretched out her wings while giving her body a thorough shake to get the dust and leaves that did fall onto her off.
“Whoah! What’s that pokemon! I gotta catch it!” A somewhat young voice called from her left, followed by a loud, “Go, Houndy!”
Sera blinked, turning to face the noise and watched as a half red half white orb sailed lazily at her head height, opened, and with a mass of red light, assembled into a strange bone-clad hellhound the size of a wolf baring its fangs at her aggressively. The pubescent male clad in extraordinarily light clothing and no armor save for a traveler’s backpack grinned wide in open anticipation.