“How could you forget?”

“You mean how could we all forget? I don’t see you lugging around our food supplies!”

“It wasn’t my job to do so! I carried Rhamon’s foodstuffs and his supplements, and that is all I have ever carried. Your job is yours and don’t put it on me.”

“Tsk! I won’t get pulled into arguing with you. What’s done is done. I am at fault as much as anyone else who needs to eat for forgetting. What matters isn’t who’s done it, but what we do about it?” Myron crossed his arms.

Silence fell over the group. “Do we.. Hunt Aimon?” Myron asked. Hana looked taken aback.

“I don’t see any other way.” Syl nodded. Mery and Dakini as well.

“We need to anyhow. This land doesn’t have many mortal animals in it, probably because of constant battles and war? Who knows. Unless we have someone with knowledge of what we can forage and eat from this place?” Dakini said.

“Leave the tracking to me, I’m an expert. I survived on this for years.” She added and turned into a four legged fox, her tails bunched up tightly together, stream-line, black fur, pink tipped ears and paws.

“Wait, are you all right in the head? We can’t hunt Aimon!”

“We have to.”

“That’s inhumane. I mean, I thought Myron, you of all people should agree! You treat your Aimon more humanely than anyone I have ever seen, and you don’t even have a special relationship with them.”

“First of all, that’s hurtful. What I have with my team is special. They are my friends and partners. Second of all. Aimon are Humans, well… People.” He shrugged. “But if I learned one thing early on; courtesy of Syl; it is that Aimon are still part of a food chain.”

“Nature is not about cuddles and love. It’s about survival, and beauty. It’s about eating to enjoy another day. With no other being left to consume, I’ll turn to the viable choice before me. As long as it’s not another Kitsune, Pygmaleon, Emeramantis, or Kentauros then I’m alright with it.”

Myron responded and set off, knowing that Hana had no choice but to follow. Rhamon picked her up when she didn’t and the two marched a little ways away from Myron and the others in silence.

“Are you okay with this, my love?” She asked, a whisper, turbulent emotions chipped at her voice and confidence.

“I have to be. I’ve never consumed the flesh of an Aimon, but I’ve dined on their Crystals every single day of training. To deny that Aimon are part of a food chain, and the solution to our current problem, would be Hypocrisy, and I hold myself to a higher standard than that.

So the group went on, up and down hills, until they came upon a valley, high up on the hilly range, where the land curved down to a flat road, which cut through the strange vegetation.

“This is the high-way. The only route leading from the Lands owned by the Baron, to the Oakenshield Duchy.” Rhamon supplied and kept on walking.

“If we have no choice but to travel further north in hopes of finding pray.” He looked to Dakini, who picked up her snout from the ground and nodded. “Then we better get through this fast. Otherwise we don’t know what or who may spot us. Patrols, Natives, Aimon.”

They went down, with the sun a deep orange, setting to their left, and into the trees that rose from the ground in helix formation. Two barks supporting one another as they twisted into the sky. Long and drooping leaves that oozed liquid, filling the earth with pools of neon colors caught between long and thing root formations.

Not a wink of light entered through the thick canopy, not a mushroom or weed grew on the ground. Iridescent rocks caught on the base of most trunks spewed forth a pale cyan light, as well as another particle, like big snowflakes, which bounced about from contact to contact never losing momentum.

Dakini perked up, her eyes swiveled before cutely pointing forward. Myron nodded. “She’s got something.” He said and took off after her.

Syl, Dakini, and Rhamon flew past him, maneuvering through the dense and peculiar forest. He ate their dust and swallowed his pride. He turned to Hana and shrugged.

His jaw fell, his eyes opened wide. “Well, thought they’d never leave your side.” Spoke the ambusher.

A young boy with a knife of a neon yellow metal pointed pointed straight at Hana’s neck, with his foot on the back of her knee, his other hand on her gorgeous head of hair.

“This is unfortunate.” Myron scanned the boy up and down, must have been in his early teens, all alone I this forest, dressed in leather and fur, with boots tied up with some ropes, large for his feet, and separate toe holds to allow better grip.

He had a tattoo running from his eyes down his cheeks, and a scar in his collarbone, where they met on his chest. Shaggy, windswept hair of sanguine-brown, and eyes of a similar color, dark and thick.

“What are you doing here?” The boy pulled Hana’s head back, she yelped. “Don’t make a sound.” She shut her mouth and caught her yelp before it came.

“Searching for food.”

“… There’s food all around you?’

“We don’t know what’s edible out here. This place is foreign. Hey, look… Put that knife down.”

“No way stranger. You’re in our land. Invading. You may as well be the baron’s men.”

“We’re not, we’re on the run, from the authorities in fact.” Hana shook her head to deny the accusation.

“I can’t trust that. Ever. You conquering folks have taken too much, to be trustworthy.”

Myron sensed Syl and the rest hurrying back. Rhamon should show up at any moment.

So he sat down, and crossed his legs. “Listen kid. Drop the knife. Let’s talk. I want to know what has happened to your people and the land which you inhabit if you’ll tell me. Maybe I can help.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“And why would a… civilized,” he said with irony dripping from his tongue. “Man like yourself work with a barbarian like me?”

“First of all. I’m not from here, I’m from another world entirely. So I don’t give a fuck what others think of you people. This is my first time interacting with your tribe, and while you holding that knife doesn’t give the best first impression.” Myron locked eyes with the young boy, who was not even a teen.

“I see that look in your eyes. I’ve seen such a thing only in art pieces back in my world. You’ve experienced things that a child like you shouldn’t have. You’ve grown up too fast, in a world that is too harsh.”

“You know nothing!” The pre-teen raised the knife, teeth gritted hard.

“And you’re dead!” Rhamon growled and appeared like the sun himself, clad in light, wielding the sun for a sword the wind as his steed.

“Rhamon don’t!” Hana eked out and the Kentauros stopped. The knife fell to the dirt, digging into it as if it where butter, sizzling and bubbling at the heat of it.

“Why? Why shouldn’t I kill him?” Rhamon’s eyes where jittering, his hands clenched tightly on his sword.

“He’s just a kid. That’s why. Because it would hurt me, that’s why.” Hana took his face into her hands and he crumbled. His knees touched the ground and his tall form succumbed to the hug of his beloved.

“I thought I had just lost you.” He whispered. Myron didn’t hear the rest. He grabbed the knife. “I’m keeping this before you get any ideas, young warrior.” He smiled and sat next to the boy.

“What is happening?” Asked the teen bewildered, jaw slack, ass on the dirt; and bulbous grass.

“You chanced upon the only Trainers that would not kill you or capture you on the spot. She is a Princess. I am from another world. The two of them are lovers.”

Myron chuckled as he saw the kid get progressively more broken as he spoke. Then he felt a gust go by. He turned around and saw a snake like Aimon standing on to legs with four arms, two small ones stretching for his neck and two enormous ones almost like wings but simply long and furry spread wide behind its lithe torso.

Syl appeared, her claws clashing with the sharp blade-protrusions on its purple-white snout, both above and below. The Aimon grunted and fell backwards, it’s massive arms stopping its fall. It’s lets kicked up but Dakini had already grabbed Myron and pulled him out of the way.

Her kick opened a tunnel through the wind, visible in how it cut it open.

“Netek! Enough!” The boy shouted moving to grab her, not before Rha”mon landed a devastating cut through her mid section. She bit at him but couldn’t pierce through his armor with her beaver like teeth; sheet metal that glinted with a raging blue Aether.

Rhamon didn’t have to be told to stop and hold back. He returned to Hana’s side, his weapon’s edge near the young boy’s back.

“Kenrou..”

“It’s fine Netek. Don’t worry. Me and Mister were having a peaceful conversation when you came.” Myron nodded emphatically, a smile growing on his face.

“That’s exactly right. I’m Myron, these are Syl, Dakini, and Mery, my comrades. Nice to meet you, Kenrou; Netek.”

Something in Myron’s tone seemed to calm the new Aimon, and she stood slowly, her eyes jumping from Rhamon to Myron. She walked and sat close to her Trainer peacefully, respectfully. He little legs retreating into her body, which grew past those legs into a tail that curled around her.

The rest of her body stood tall, her eyes peering from behind the thin and sharp blade atop her snout. Lightning blue.

“What is your story then, Kenrou? What are you doing all alone in this place? I hear it’s a highway between regions, patrolled frequently and heavily. Dangerous place for a kid.”

“I am not a kid.” Kenrou frowned.

“You look like one, to me. Though I will attest; strong and a bit wild.” Myron wasn’t kidding. Kenrou was well built, thing but packed with wiry muscles, his every movement rippled across the surface of his skin.

“Doesn’t matter if I look like one. I’m a proud warrior of the Lonian Tribe, bonded to a Sacred Dragon. Not a mere warrior in fact, and don’t you look down on me.”

“You’re not in any position to be caring about your pride, or your status. Little Kenrou.” Rhamon scuffed but the boy didn’t relent.

“A Man lives and dies by his Pride.”

“Funny that, Pride is a sin where I’m from.” Myron chuckled on his lonesome. “It’s fine then, Warrior Kenrou. I accept since I’ve already grown heavily interested in your Tribe. Sounds old.”

“We’ve been worshiping the Mighty Draconda Matriarch and her offspring for thousands of Years. We have stories from the time before the System. This is our land, and you Aimon hating humans have come here to take it.”

“I don’t have Aimon.” Myron said and Kenrou bit his lip.

“That may seem to be the way, but I can never trust you. Too many have died at your, civilized hands. Barbarians you call us, you killed my brother, and my cousins, and my brothers friends, my uncles and even my aunts. Villages whole have been burned and plundered, not a soul left to tell a tale of what happened. You sell us as slaves to do… I don’t even know what.” Kenrou clenched his fists, his palms white, nails biting into his skin.

“I didn’t do that. Calm yourself, Warrior. It’s unbecoming.”

That worked a bit of magic. Kenrou stopped, his eyes crestfallen, he turned to Neket and caressed her neck below the sharp ears and down to her lumbering arms.

Myron looked to Syl, and then to Hana and Rhamon, he flashed them a smile. Mery caught on and chuckled turning some heads. “Oh, I see.” Dakini smiled a toothy grin. “I’m in damnit!” She slapped her fist on her chest.

“What are you going on about?”

“I think we should join them in their Tribe.” Myron said.

“What? No. No way!” Hana shook her head.

“It’s the solution, think about it. Within civilization, allowing us to restock and to sleep protected from the weather and from Wild Aimon. While also outside of Imperial borders and thus out of their sight.”

“Who said that my Tribe would accept you?” Kenrou asked, bewildered. Myron waved him away.

“Myron, the Natives of these lands, are not to be messed with. All the progress Western Nobility has made in recent times has been with the bloodshed of their people. We are demons to them as the Aether of Aimon is to Safe Zones. The Plague to Livestock.”

“They sound like good guys to me, fighting a defensive war for the sake of their land and homes, their people and their history. It’s the right side of history. We could help?”

He turned to Kenrou and Neket. “Be honest, how dire is the situation?”

“What?” Kenrou stood. “The Lonian Tribe is powerful, protected by Dragons, we will win this war, and don’t you dare doubt it!”

“See?!” Myron pointed to Kenrou as he turned back to Hana, Syl and Rhamon now by her side, arms crossed, deliberating, doubting. “I’m exactly right.”

“Take us to your people, your father and mother could meet us and judge us first. Maybe we stay a ways away as they come to a conclusion, train up, give information if we have any, or if we can gather any? We can do that, right; Dakini?” She smiled and nodded emphatically.

“I’m not sure about this Myron.” Hana said, Rhamon nodded. Myron ignored them a bit, and waited for Syl to give her verdict.

“I will follow your wishes Myron, no matter what I ultimately think about them.”

“Syl.”

“I know. I am not a slave. I am not your tool. I know. I don’t have to listen. But that is how I’ve lived. The Trainer makes the final decision, in training, in battle, in the day to day. My duty may at times be harder to accomplish and some times easier, but your feet will lead us where they will and I will strive to do my best to protect you all none the less.”

“Aw, Syl, you’re very sweet.” Mery melted into a hug, pulling Syl into it and crushing the wind out of her lungs. “I wove u!” She shouted from within her silky-smooth hair.

Myron stood and hugged them, pulling Dakini who was twirling her foot on the ground, all awkward. “Group hug!” He shouted and squized them all.

“Thank you for being with me.” Myron said as he pulled away.

“I’m sorry about this Hana, but we’re a group, and the majority wins.”

“That doesn’t seem as a very honest way to vote to me.”

“Yet it is. I won’t push my Aimon into any decision. I will listen to their opinions and their council. You do as well. You and Rhamon have a special bond. If you want to protect it, maybe it’s time you took another leap.”

Hana shook her head, links arms with Rhamon. “Let us go then.”

“Also, consider Bonding with another Aimon in the future. You can’t be leaving everything onto Rhamon’s shoulders.” Myron said and then turned to Kenrou, letting Hana digest or ignore his words, didn’t matter to him either way.

“Now, young and proud warrior of you tribe. Lead us back.”

…

“No, I can’t.”

“???” Myron cocked his head to the side, lips pursed.

“Can’t?”

“I’ve run away from home.” Kenrou looked left and right. Avoiding Myron’s piercing gaze. “Thus, I shan’t return.”