Yvette looked around, the ground now clear of any sign of their fight. While she had a few aches and pains nothing felt too severe. While the scales may not have been enough to entirely deflect the arrows, it had fortunately ensured that none of the wounds were severe enough to cause lingering damage.

It was still too quiet. The lack of birds in the air, especially as it got darker and darker, kept filling her with a growing sense of dread even if she knew why they were gone. But worse than the quiet was the fact they could occasionally hear people yelling in the distance. Yvette kept wondering if there were more people searching the area, terrified another group would end up coming on them. She could almost feel the tension radiating off Gervas when he went to do his final look over of their clean up. She couldn’t help but admire the fact he was so dedicated to ensuring everything was as well hidden as possible before letting them leave, even though he had to be as worried as her that someone would come upon them. When he finally seemed satisfied and gave a nod she felt some of the tension leave her body. “Let’s go,” he said before he started to walk away.

“So where are we going?” Yvette asked. “It took us hours to get here, it’s not like we can backtrack all the way. Can we?”

“We could, but I don’t intend to. I want us to get far enough away that we can’t see them at all. I don’t want any sign we were here,” Gervas said. “But I want us out of here at first light, off this island.”

“Why can’t we just go to the shore and leave?” Yvette asked.

“They have ships and who knows what else. I don’t want to risk us accidentally running anything they laid out there,” Gervas said softly.

“Okay, that’s fair. Can I ask you something else?” Yvette asked, her stomach tightening into a small knot.

“What?” Gervas asked.

Yvette struggled to think of how to properly say this without hurting his feelings. “When you were moving the bodies, you were so…”

Gervas gave an exasperated sigh before speaking. “Yvette, please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”

“What do you think I’m going to say?” Yvette asked, her tone shifting defensively.

“Just ask me,” Gervas said, but she could hear the annoyance rising in his voice.

“Well, it was just kind of, I mean, a little, I guess. I just, ummm…” Yvette said, the knot in her stomach tightening even more. She could hear how annoyed he already was, she wondered if even asking it was wrong.

“Yvette, I really don’t want you to start being thrilled by the prospect of me moving bodies. It--”

“Wait, what?” Yvette asked, cutting him off. “Why would I ever be thrilled? It was creepy!”

Gervas whipped his head back around to look at her, almost stumbling over a rock. “Wait, what?”

“It was creepy! I mean, yeah, I do understand they were trying to kill us. After what happened before with the, well… you know,” Yvette said, motioning to her bracer. “I can’t really judge for that. They tried to kill us, you killed them first. Fine. But you were so methodical about it, so cold. It was kind of weird. Like you’d done it before.”

For a few moments Gervas didn’t say anything, but finally he began to chuckle.

“Huh? What’s so funny? Why did you think I would be thrilled by you moving bodies around? What kind of mages have you been protecting?” Yvette asked, struggling to keep the disgust and horror out of her voice. “Okay, I can see maybe a necromancer, but even then that’s kind of, well, ew.”

“It’s not that, sorry. And the worst kind, it seems,” Gervas said, the smile not leaving his face. “But I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized I was being creepy about it. I’ve done it plenty of times, I guess I’m just kind of used to it.”

The idea of that made Yvette shudder. “How do you get used to THAT of all things?”

“After a while it just becomes a thing, I suppose,” Gervas said with a shrug. “Mercenary work has a lot of that. Not everyone makes it back. Sometimes you have to bury your dead, sometimes people you even knew or talked to that morning. Sometimes you have to bury the people you’ve had to kill. After a while it’s just a body.”

“That’s horrific,” Yvette said with a shudder.

“Lots of things in this world are horrific, Yvette,” Gervas said. “But that’s one of the least ones. In the end, they tried to kill us, we tried to kill them, we succeeded. They died for it, quick and clean. Lots of worse things that can happen to a person.”

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Yvette nodded, though she couldn’t shake the feeling of unease at the thought. “Do you ever--”

“I try not to think about it,” Gervas said. “It helps. The more you think about it, the more you focus on it, the harder it gets. Then you hesitate. That hesitation can cost you your--”

His words were cut off by an explosion, the dusk illuminated by a blinding light. Yvette turned towards the sea, her mouth falling open when lightning bolt after lightning bolt tore through the air, crashing into the sea in a display of raw power and destruction. Then a cry tore through the air, but unlike any she had ever heard before. It sounded like the furious cry of a bird of some sort, but amplified and echoed by the storm itself. It only lasted a few more seconds, but even once it was over she couldn’t see anything but bright light, her ears ringing from the high pitched cry.

She jumped when she felt something grab her hand and shake her. It took her a few moments to realize it was Gervas, that he was speaking to her. “What?” she asked, struggling to shake off the ringing in her ears.

“Are you okay?” Gervas asked, she suspected yelling it.

“Yes,” Yvette said before looking back towards the sea. She didn’t know if now it was just too dark or if the lightning had completely ruined her vision in the night, but she couldn’t see anything. “What was that?”

“Magic,” Gervas said.

“Of course it was magic, I mean what kind? I thought the Eterna Empire couldn’t do magic like that. Can they?” Yvette asked.

“Stop yelling,” Gervas said.

“I’m yelling?” Yvette asked. She shook her head and tried to lower her volume. “Sorry, ears are ringing still.” She let out a yelp when he tugged her along, further away from the village. She tried to keep up, but without being able to see she kept stumbling and could only barely keep up even with him holding her hand. However, her hearing was quickly returning and she was rewarded with the sound of a large thump, followed by muffled cursing from Gervas. She tried to keep the smile off her face when she asked her next question. “Did you run into a tree?”

“Shut up,” Gervas said.

Yvette tried, and failed miserably, to stop herself from laughing. “Maybe we should go back onto the shore or, wait, no. Bad idea. Lightning. I could use my light spell,” she said.

“No, don’t. We don’t want them finding us. We have no idea what--” Once more the world was illuminated by lightning crashing through the sky and that horrific cry tearing through their ears. Gervas didn’t hesitate, once more starting to walk, pulling her along behind him.

They lasted longer this time, but when they finally died down Gervas stopped once more. “Did you see anything?” Gervas asked her.

“No,” Yvette said back, this time careful to keep her voice down.

“What?” Gervas asked.

Yvette gave a soft sigh and could she this wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “I’m going to transform into something that can see. Then just hold onto me, okay?” she yelled.

Gervas didn’t respond.

“Well?” she asked.

“I nodded!”

Yvette rolled her eyes. She quickly went over all of the forms she had that would be at all useful for this situation. A sudden rush of excitement hit her when she realized she could just partially transform and, best of all, it was something she’d never really done before. While she had transformed as a troll a few times and even partially done it, this form was one she hadn’t taken in years. She reached out and tapped her bracer to activate the reagents.

Yvette then felt a sudden flash of embarrassment when she realized that the reagents were probably still active from earlier. At least Gervas couldn’t see her moment of forgetfulness, so nobody would ever know. She took a deep breath and focused her magic.

The world began to shift for a moment, then it was as if everything began to light up. Her eyes ached a little bit from the sudden shift, but even partially shifted she could make out so much more of the world. Everything around her was in little shades of gray and green.

“Ohhhh, this is awesome,” Yvette said.

“What is?” Gervas asked.

“Oh, you can hear me now?” Yvette asked before looking at him. He looked confused and she could now make out a few small bits of bark in his hair. She reached out and wiped it off before giving a light laugh and taking his hand. “Come on, let’s go,” she said before she started to walk.

“I thought you wanted me to hold onto you?” Gervas asked.

“I don’t need to do the full shift anymore,” Yvette said proudly. “Oh I haven’t done this form in ages, it’s so weird!” She couldn’t help herself feeling giddy and excited, though. There were a few select forms that all transformation mages like herself often learned, felines were one of the most common. But she couldn’t remember ever partially transforming like this. Compared to the strange magical sight of the troll it made the world seem almost mundane. But it also filled her with a wonderful sense of nostalgia, reminding her of her early days as a student.

Best of all, now that she had finished the spell her eyes didn’t ache or anything. While the partial transformation was still pretty draining to perform, maintaining it would likely be easier. She wondered if she could finally perform multiple partial transformations at once, if she--

She shook her head and shuddered at that thought. Last time she had tried doing anything like that she had almost died to that massive turtle. The last thing she wanted to do was over exert herself in case she needed to--

Yvette’s thoughts were shattered by yet another explosion over the sea, making her sigh. “Yeah, that.”