Vistus

“... And that’s all we know,” Lae said, folding her arms and leaning back against the rock.

“That’s a lot to take in,” Jinny murmured.  She put down her book and looked up at the sky.

“What do you make of it?” asked Lae.

After hearing the news from Fericeus, Laerya decided to tell Jinny in case she also wanted to know more about the dead Cragwing’s origins. They sat with Akorri in Jinny’s usual place in the clearing, undisturbed by the other villagers. It was hard to enjoy the noonday sunshine when there was the threat of a walking corpse hanging in the air, but something about the usual hum of the village was rather comforting. No matter what business might be going on, Greenglade still operated as usual.

“What do I make of it?” Jinny echoed. Again, she looked surprised to be addressed.

Lae nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well... I don’t know, honestly.” Jinny glanced at her. “On the one hand, I’m sorry she was bullied that badly. But...” She fiddled with her hair. “Do you think she sent the Cragwing to attack Greenglade?”

“See, I dunno!” Lae replied. “’Cos I definitely heard the Cragwing coming this way, but I don’t really... I don’t wanna believe she did that. ‘Cos I feel bad for her.”

Jinny shifted her position slightly. “I can understand why she did that, though.”

“Huh?” Lae blinked. “I mean sure, she was bullied pretty bad but that’s no excuse to do something like that!”

Jinny flinched, turning her face away.

“Sorry.” Lae really needed to take more care when speaking with others. She figured being even a little confrontational with Jinny was not a good idea. She saw Akorri giving her a look from the corner of her eye and tried to ignore him. “I mean...” She was at a loss. Part of her wanted to defend the necromancer but every time she tried to come up with an excuse she drew a blank. The Cragwing probably had every intention of attacking the village, most likely under the necromancer’s orders. She couldn’t think of it any other way. “Why would she want to do that?”

Jinny’s ear twitched but she said nothing.

“Jinny, why?” Lae prompted her. She wanted to talk to the Feln again, even if she had to annoy her to do so. “Why would the necromancer do that?”

“Greenglade is not a good village.”

Lae paused. There was no one else around except for Jinny, yet she couldn’t believe the Feln would say that. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, come on...” Laerya tried to ignore her twinge of irritation. Why was talking to Jinny so difficult? “You said Greenglade’s not a good village. Why?”

The Feln did not respond.

“Jinny?” Akorri tilted his head slightly. “What’s up?”

“Can you just forget I said that?” Jinny’s voice, usually controlled and monotonous, wavered slightly.

“Yeah, sorr—”

“No!” Lae cut Akorri off and frowned. “Jinny, why d’you think that Greenglade’s bad?”

Akorri widened his eyes in disbelief as he stared at Lae. She had to wonder if she’d done something wrong. “If she doesn’t wanna say, she doesn’t have to. Just drop it, Lae.”

Laerya stared back at him. She had to know what Jinny thought. There must have been a reason for why she and the necromancer had similar opinions about the village. She couldn’t quite see their views. Greenglade seemed so friendly... but that was it. It seemed that way.

“Um... Laerya?” Jinny looked at her, her one visible blue eye wide in apprehension.

“Yeah?”

“Is it okay to tell you?”

Lae blinked. Why wouldn’t it be? “Of course it’s okay! I won’t tell a soul, if that’s what you mean. I swear it. And Akorri swears it too. ‘Cos he’s probably sticking around for this.”

Jinny looked at the red haired Fillian. Akorri shrugged in defeat.

“So yeah. We’re perfectly safe. You can tell us.”

Jinny’s ears lowered and she looked away. “Um... Okay.  Greenglade doesn’t, um, doesn’t treat some people very well. That is... those who aren’t very good at magic.” She winced. “It’s not, it’s not that bad really... I mean, it’s more the younger people than the adults but...”

Lae blinked slowly as she listened. She looked around, making sure no villager was in earshot. The clearing was always relatively empty when there were no sessions taking place, and today they were lucky. It was just the three of them here.

“If you mess up just once...” Jinny swallowed. “You never hear the end of it.”

“But Alex is so patient with all of his students,” Lae said, shaking her head in disbelief. “And he’s got like, infinite patience with me! I can’t believe he’s still trying to teach me to be honest.”

“Alex is the exception,” Jinny replied. “He’s one of the better tutors. He actually tells students to shut up if they start jeering.”

Lae narrowed her eyes slightly. There was something about this that made sense. Jinny never participated in lessons when others were present, and she only trained with Alex...  She did not want to be judged. “Is that why you just sit and do nothing during our lessons instead of participating?” she asked.

Jinny froze. Her uneasy expression remained fixed for a few moments. Then she turned away.

“Ah...” Laerya had probably overstepped a mark there. She could never tell when she was overdoing it. She’d thought that was a reasonable question, but clearly it had upset Jinny, so she had gone wrong somewhere. “Never mind, stupid question. Ignore me.”

Jinny sighed and looked at the ground.

Laerya rubbed her head awkwardly, but waited a while before continuing the conversation. She was thinking about what Jinny said. Greenglade was a nice village, and the inhabitants did seem to care about each other, and she had no problems with them despite being an outsider. But then again, she only sat in on Alex’s lessons, and had only ever seen skilled magic users. The only one who ever needed help was her, and nobody mocked her for it. Was that because she was a foreigner, because Alex was their tutor, or simply because they weren’t mean?

After minutes of silence, Jinny took her leave. She gave hunger as her reason, but Lae figured she just wanted to be away from them for a while.

In the minutes that followed there was very little conversation between her and Akorri, so Lae was almost relieved when two villagers came into view, walking from the direction of the forest. This would have been normal, if not for the fact that Akorri audibly gasped when he saw them.  Lae glanced at him, and then looked back at the villagers, wondering why he was so shocked by them. They seemed normal enough; a Feln girl with a pale blue pelt, dressed in an admittedly expensive-looking dress, and an ice blue bat girl in dark skin tight clothing. Their dress sense was a little unconventional for a village like this, but otherwise they looked fine.

“What’s up?” Lae asked as she turned back to Akorri.

“What are they doing here?” His eyes were wide and his ears were twitching. He hissed under his breath, “Why are they here?”

“Huh? Dude, you okay?” Lae frowned at him.

“I know them,” Akorri replied abruptly.

“Oh? You made other villager friends? Cool! Let’s say hi!” Lae grinned. She hadn’t realised Akorri had been conversing with the locals. She called out to them, waving her hand. “Hello there!”

Akorri looked at her like she’d just set fire to his possessions. “No!”

“Huh? No?” Lae frowned, but before she could question Akorri the villagers approached them. She noticed that they were looking at him very intently.

“Ah... is this your friend?” the Feln asked him. Her voice was low and deliberately smooth.

Akorri stared at her. He took a moment before responding. “Yes.”

The Feln looked at him, and then at Lae. The bat girl’s sharp blue gaze was fixed on him.

“Hi,” Lae said. There was some awkwardness thanks to Akorri’s unwillingness to talk to these people, so she was going to do it for him. “I’m Laerya!”

The Feln narrowed her eyes as she looked at Laerya, and slowly nodded. “Nice to meet you...” She smiled. “I’m Lorelei, and this is Yuli.” The bat nodded. “Has your friend not told you about us?”

“Akorri? Nah.” Lae shook her head. “But he doesn’t tell me anything, so, no surprise there.”

“A shame. But yes, I would not fault him for not sharing. Sometimes you get too used to keeping secrets.” Lorelei looked at Akorri.

“Uh. I guess.” Lae blinked. What did that mean?

“Yes.” Lorelei cleared her throat and turned away. “Now, Yuli and I have things we need to get done, so we can’t hang around. But don’t worry, Akorri. We’ll visit again.”

Lae frowned. It felt like Lorelei was only talking to Akorri and not her. He wasn’t even responding! Why was he making things so intentionally awkward?

The two of them were already walking away without even waiting for Akorri to say anything. Lae felt rude just watching them go, so she gave them a hasty, “Bye!”

She waited until they were out of sight before she spoke to Akorri. “What the heck was that?”

“Why did you say hi to them?” Akorri glared at her.

“Uh. Because they’re your friends and I wanted to meet them.” Lae blinked. Something was wrong here. Akorri was visibly upset with her. “They... are your friends, aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t call them that.” Akorri groaned, rubbing his temple. “We know each other, but that’s the extent of our relationship. And no. They aren’t from here.”

“They’re not villagers?” Lae raised her eyebrows.

“No.” Akorri sighed. “Why are they here...?”

Lae shrugged. It was an interesting coincidence that Akorri knew these people, but she didn’t see why their visit here was so strange. “Maybe they wanna learn magic too?”

Akorri didn’t look convinced. “Maybe.”

Lae looked at him in confusion, but did not press the issue. She had no way of knowing what Akorri got up to when he wasn’t with her, and if he wasn’t going to explain, she wasn’t going to ask. It wasn’t important. Ha! I’m getting better at not being nosy, she thought to herself.

They sat together and talked a while longer, until Lae decided she’d wasted enough time.  Whatever was going on in this village, with a necromancer and apparently unwelcoming civilians, she needed to put to the back of her mind. She came here to learn magic, and that was what she was going to do. She would deal with everything else later.

She excused herself and headed back to her room to meditate.

-

Akorri was left on his own for a while, but Jinny arrived some time after Laerya left. She really had just gone to eat something, it seemed. They exchanged quiet greetings and sat together by the rock to enjoy the sun, but neither of them could focus much on the warmth. They were busy with their own thoughts, yet they were both thinking of the same thing.

“How many other walking corpses do you think there are around here?” Akorri asked after a while.

“I don’t know.” Jinny sighed. “I’d like to think that was the only one, but...”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but Akorri could figure out what she wanted to say well enough. “Yeah. We’re gonna have to be even more careful in the forest now.”

Jinny’s ears twitched. “Mm.”

Akorri tilted his head slightly as he looked at her, noticing the pensive expression on her face. “Say...” He didn’t think he would get much out of asking this, but he was curious. “What were you doing in the forest that day?”

Jinny glanced at him. “Um. I was just going for a walk.”

Akorri stared at her. “Unarmed, in dangerous territory.”

“You were also unarmed.”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting to go to the forest!”

“So why did you?”

“To follow you.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“Because...” Akorri paused. He still didn’t have a good answer to this question. Looking at her face, he suddenly couldn’t lie to her. The Red Rogue, the master thief with the silver tongue, couldn’t lie to such an earnest face. Not when she was actually looking him square in the eyes for once. “Because you looked so confident when you went out. It was weird to see, so I got curious, and had to follow you.”

Jinny’s ears twitched erratically. “You had to?” she asked.

“W-well, not ‘had to’, that’s a bit...” Akorri couldn’t tell if she was angry at him or not. She wasn’t glaring, but from her twitching ears he saw she was at least uncomfortable. “I’m... yeah, I’m just as nosy as Laerya.” He sighed heavily.

“Maybe.” To his surprise, he saw Jinny was actually smiling.

“You’re not mad?” he asked her.

“Hmm... no.” Jinny shook her head.

Akorri frowned in confusion. “But you should be. I’d be really creeped out if someone followed me.”

“Yes... but I’m not.”

“But...”

“I-it’s... it’s okay, Akorri.”

Akorri was inclined to believe Jinny was just lying to spare his feelings, but he couldn’t see any hint of anger in her expression or her movements. She sighed, leaning against the rock and looking up at the sky. She wasn’t angry at all. For once, Jinny was completely calm.

“If you’re sure...” Akorri murmured.

Jinny nodded. She took out her book, the one she had been reading the past few days, and flipped it open to the latest page. Akorri watched her, his own nerves ebbing as he began to forget the threat hanging over them.

“You know, you’ll have to let me borrow that book sometime.”

-

“This isn’t working. I’m gonna die.”

“We all die eventually, Lae.”

“No I mean, I’m gonna die now.”

“That’s less probable. Why are you gonna die now?”

“Because I can’t do this!”

Laerya kicked the ground and tugged at her ears, groaning. It had been over a week since they arrived in Greenglade, and she was still trying to find her magic. She had managed to sit still and meditate for around half an hour, which was impressive anyway, but in that time she could not get in touch with any magical ability she might have.

She and Akorri stood outside in their usual place, deciding to hang around after the training session with Alex. The grey sky promised rain and there was a slight chill in the air, but the village was still buzzing with life as normal.

“What can’t you do?”

Lae almost jumped out of her skin at the voice. She whipped around to see Lorelei, who had been the one who’d spoken, and Yuli approaching her, and fought to snap at them for scaring her. She noticed Akorri narrowed his eyes once he saw them.

“Forgive me for asking, but are you practising magic?” Yuli spoke up this time.

“Yeah,” replied Lae. “Just going through a minor hiccup, is all. I’ll get on it... eventually.”

“Indeed. Every magic user experiences such things,” Lorelei said. “Not to worry. What you’re going through is normal, and you will get past it soon enough.”

“Thank you...” Lae hadn’t really been expecting encouragement from a stranger, but she wasn’t going to complain.

Lorelei nodded and walked away with Yuli, leaving Lae feeling a little bewildered by the exchange. She was even more confused when she saw the frown on Akorri’s face.

“They’re weird,” he mumbled. “But you know what’s weirder...?”

“What?” Lae asked.

“I can see Jinny heading for the forest again.”

Lae saw the Feln in question walking into the woods. Before she could say anything Akorri set off to follow her, and Lae had to grab his tail to stop him.

“Oi!” he retorted. “Let go!”

“You were gonna be a creep and stalk her again,” Lae pointed out.

“I... I wasn’t.”

“Then why were you walking towards her?”

“Because I wanted to say hello.”

 “Please. She clearly had somewhere to be and you were gonna follow her, right? Like you followed her the first time?” Laerya let go of Akorri, raising her eyebrow at him. She actually shared his curiosity, though. Jinny strolled into the forest so casually, too casually for someone who knew how dangerous it was in there. What was she doing?

“You wanna know too, don’t you?” Akorri smirked. He must have been reading her face. Lae hated when he did that.

“All right, fine, I wanna know. But you know I’m nosy so whatever,” she grumbled.

“Oh yeah, it’s been mentioned.” Akorri nodded. “I know it’s rude to follow her, but...” He cleared his throat, wringing his hands. “I uh, I guess I just wanna make sure she doesn’t run into any trouble again,” he mumbled.

Lae’s eyebrows shot up. An honest answer from Akorri? Now that was strange. She shared his sentiment; knowing what was lurking in the forest, she didn’t want Jinny going in there alone. So they actually had a reason to follow her.

“All right, we’ll go,” she said with a reluctant sigh. I wanna make sure she’ll be okay too.”

The two of them followed Jinny into the forest, Akorri forcing Lae to sneak around. She wasn’t as good at it as he was, but they remained undetected as they watched the white Feln walking through the woods.

There was no noise, except for the occasional twig Jinny stepped on, and Akorri made sure to look out for bandits. Lae had her ears pricked for walking corpses, but she heard nothing out of the ordinary. Wherever the Cragwing was, it was far from here.

Then she heard a rumble. She thought she’d imagined it first, but the further she went into the woods the louder it got, until it started to sound like growling. She bit her lip, preparing to attack whatever was causing it.

Jinny weaved through the trees and bushes until something black came into view, hidden but not completely obscured by the foliage. This was the thing that was growling. Lae tensed her muscles, ready to spring before it could attack Jinny.

Then the Feln parted the shrubbery, and Lae saw it.

Lying in the forest, curled up as tightly as possible, was a big, black dragon.