The morning felt slow and languid, and the night has passed without much trouble. Well, maybe a little trouble. The jungle, even at night was not quiet. A single caw of a bird or a passing swish of leaves, were recorded in the women’s minds as a potential threat. When is such a state, sleeping is shallow and hardly restful enough. Thankfully, those were only some noises and not actual threats to their safety.

“Next night, I think we should be more on the lookout. We could change to keep guard throughout the night. I don’t want to wake up the next day in a belly of some beast, do you?” Farre proposed with conviction. Larisa and Ha’na could hardly argue. They didn’t want to end as some beast’s food either.

“Sounds good to me.” Ha’na said after she popped some akantus berries into her mouth. Larisa managed to snatch some after she woke up.

“Where should we go?” Larisa asked the two other women. They haven’t planned this far and sitting in one place for too long made Larisa restless and anxious.

“I actually don’t know. We could just travel towards one of the passes and get out of the jungle somewhere there. The expedition people are not that far stretched.” Farre offered.

“True, but don’t you see this is an opportunity, sergeant? We are in an ancient and magical jungle! Haven’t you heard stories and legends about this place? Don’t you want to find out more? I want to go as deep into this place as I can. Discover what I can. Learn what I can. There is no better time than now. Plus, we have this thing-” Ha’na pointed to the metal box laying next to them. “-which we cannot let fall into wrong hands. Whatever it is.”

“So, what? Are we going to live in this place now? Like forever? Maybe we should make reasonable plans that connect with reality, instead of letting our imagination take rains?” A crease started to form on Farre’s forehead.

“Maybe, you should have a look at the bigger picture, sergeant. If not us then who’s going to find these things out? And don’t you want to help Larisa? She doesn’t know anything about her past. Isn’t that worth investigating?” Larisa felt that she needn’t be here for them to even have this conversation.

“I suppose.” Farre shared a brief look with Larisa. “But before we talk more about this, shouldn’t we check what we’re dealing with? That box has been irritating me this whole time. Something dangerous is in there and we’re just letting it chill on a piece of grass.”

“Oh! I wholly agree, sergeant! Let’s see.” Ha’na said as she got up to have a closer look at the metal box they’ve stolen.

“You don’t have to call me ‘sergeant’ anymore. I’m pretty sure deserting stripped me of my rank.” Larisa felt some bitterness and disappointment leaked into the Essence. Farre took off her necklace last night.

“Then, Farre, will you help me open this? Looks heavy.”

“It is.” Larisa confirmed.

“Then you should do it, big girl. My leg’s still weak.” Farre said from her sitting spot. There was some airiness to her voice and Larisa thought that meant her leg was better than she’d said. But she didn’t mind helping Ha’na.

As she approached the metal box she tried to observe it more critically. Yes, it was metal and it was cold to Larisa’s touch. Other than that, she couldn’t feel any stray strands of the Essence coming out of it. It was quiet and Larisa didn’t like that. The surface of the box was pristine and had to scratches or smudges. Well, except the ones from the ropes that she tied around it before. The dark grey had a silver sheen to it in the right light and the latch on it looked complicated to Larisa.

“You just flip these parts up.” Ha’na said as she pointed to the two rectangle parts on the latch. Seemed easy enough, so Larisa got right into it, but still with vigilance behind her every movement.

“Wonder what’s in there. Maybe an ancient, large piece of halcite?” Ha’na whispered excitedly to herself.

When Larisa flipped the latch nothing happened. Only after she grabbed the sides of the box and lifted it up did the powerful Essence started to fill up the air. Larisa could hear Farre shuffle from behind them a bit further away from the box.

Ha’na peaked from behind Larisa’s shoulder at the contents of the box. When it was fully opened inside Larisa saw a piece of herself. At least, that was her first impression.

Upon closer inspection she noticed it was one big red scale. The smudges and scratches on it made her believe there were multiple of them but it was a whole, one giant scale. In comparison, Larisa’s scales weren’t much wider than her nails and this thing trumped it a hundred times over.

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“No…” Larisa heard Ha’na say. Her voice trembled like a sick song of a bird. Larisa’s heart hurt as she understood what she was looking at.

It was a dragon’s scale.

“This is impossible.” Ha’na continued to speak to herself. Larisa on the other hand wondered why was the Essence coming off of it so strong. The weaves it created were tangling between themselves, creating concentrated armour that covered the scale. The thickness of it was almost tangible. Larisa reached out to touch it.

Her hand met air where the Essence coalesced. Beneath it Larisa touched a Wild Fire.

Her ears could hear a sizzling sound and pulsating heat started to travel through her arm and deep into her heart. Her muscles spasmed and she couldn’t remove her hand. There was pain but also a numbing feeling that followed after. She could hear screams and a force dragging her away from the fiery scale.

The blond woman was able to make out screams like “Larisa!” and “Bestian!” that penetrated deep into her ears. When her back met wet and soft grass, all she could feel was a dam breaking in her mind. Darkness and confusion followed as memories flew suddenly undisturbed.

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“Dad! Look! I made it!” Young Larisa, for that what she saw in her mind’s eyes, came closer to a male figure dressed in robes familiar to what Ha’na wore. His hair was blonde as hers and his skin was fair and smooth. A light beard adored his face and young Larisa thought he looked silly.

“Oh! I see! Great job, darling. Should we try it out?” The man reached for the leaf that Larisa held. It had a dark-seeing paste inside.

The man - her father - smeared some under his eyes and blinked a couple of times.

“That’s potent, Larisa! Seems like you got a handle on it, don’t you?” He put the leaf down onto a desk inside the cave. It was the cave Larisa spent the wet seasons in. Why did she hate that place again?

“Come here! Dad’s going to show you something amazing he found!” He took young Larisa into his arms and brought her before a big and old-looking book.

“See here?” He asked as he pointed to a name at the bottom of the page. “That’s your great-great-great-grandfather, Naris. All these people before him are our ancestors.” He gestured to a bunch of names written down on the page. Some of these names Larisa couldn’t even read, and her dad was always saying that she was great at reading.

“What’s your name, dad?” Maybe Larisa could find it on the page if she tried hard enough.

“My name won’t be here since it’s an old book and no one has written anything new here in decades.” He paused to think. His eyes liked to look up when he did that. Larisa enjoyed looking at them. They had the same colour as hers. Light green with a splash of azure.

“Maybe we could write our names here? What do you say, Larisa?” He proposed.

“Yes!” Young Larisa exclaimed as she wiggled out of her dad’s embrace. She reached for the quill at the side, dipped it into the black ink and started to write her name at the very bottom of the page. She then gave the quill to her dad.

“Now, it’s your turn!”

“Heh. Yes, dear girl. Now look.” He touched the quill next to Larisa’s scribbled name and wrote a beautiful sounding name.

“My name is A-”

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“Wake up, you kur!” A terrible shriek woke Larisa up from the darkness she found herself in. She couldn’t help but jump up from her laying position but a piercing and fiery pain in her right arm made her go right back down.

“Agh!” Larisa made an awfully pained sound.

“Don’t move, stupid. Your arm’s pretty badly burned.” Farre said from Larisa’s one side. On the other, she managed to make out an image of Ha’na going through her stuff. She was taking the leaf tubes with pastes and medicines one by one, seemingly looking for something.

“Shit! It that it?” Ha’na exclaimed in a hurried voice as she came closer to Farre. She showed her the contents of one of the tubes. Larisa could smell a deep flowery scent with a hint of earthiness to it. It was a sabadyla petals paste. She used it on Farre’s leg wound to lessen pain.

“Yes! Put it on her hand. That’s the worst area.” Farre said as she took hold of Larisa’s left shoulder. She looked deep into her eyes.

“Why did you touch that, you kurnet bestian?! You could’ve lost your whole arm if we didn’t pull you away faster!” She shook her by the shoulder as her voice rose in pitch.

“Do not move her! There’s only so much of this stuff!” Ha’na reprimanded Farre, who huffed and looked at Larisa with some concern. It bled into the Essence. Larisa felt a different kind of warm then.

“What happened? We lost you there for a moment.” Farre prodded Larisa to answer.

“There was a fire and I blanked out.” She paused to gather her thoughts. “I saw my father.” At that, both women froze with surprise.

“Really? Tell us.” Ha’na asked as she smeared the paste into a particularly deep burn. Larisa wondered if she’ll be able to use that hand again.

“I saw him. I almost saw his name.” Larisa thought to the book she saw in her flashback. It was still in the cave, she remembered. She simply never touched it out of her own volition. Something always stopped her. “I know where we need to go.” There could be answers there as to who Larisa was.

And, also, why her heart was breaking into pieces at the simple thought of her father.