Fan Fiction ❯ Lord of the Wild ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

He was up long before dawn the next morning, and packed a few belongings in a small bag before heading down the stairs to meet with his family. As soon as he saw his stepmother, she swept him into a tearful hug, which was quickly joined by his sisters and brothers. By the time he had managed to extract himself from their well wishes, his father had shown up with some riding leathers. He took a moment to admire the workmanship of the green dyed leathers before going back to his room to change.

By the time dawn came around, he was in the middle of the inn yard in the center of a circle of horses. He had released the seven horses, and another that the travelers had bought last night for him, and secured all their gear on them.

"Well, this is a surprise."

Kini looked up from where he was scratching the ears of a sleek chestnut stallion, blinking as he saw his new traveling companions watching him with various degrees of surprise showing on their faces.

"Sable doesn't normally let anyone touch him unless he is tired from walking all day. And then he is normally cranky about it." The woman wearing mail informed him, waving to the horse he was petting and scowling as he bared his teeth at her.

"He did take care of them last night as well, must know how to talk with them." Questirna smiled at him as she attached her bags to the saddle of a white and black mare.

Kini nodded shyly and watched as the others attached their bags to their horses before doing the same with the new mare. She was a faded yellow in color, and had a single startlingly black spot that covered one eye and moved up her head to crawl along her ear. She wasn't old, but looked tired, as if she hadn't had the best owner in the past. He was aware of the others watching him; maybe it was some kind of test? Did they really think he would judge the horse wrong?

Without turning his gaze to the others, he moved his hand up over her muzzle, stroking while he murmured softly in a low tone, not even bothering to use words.

After a moment she tossed her head with a whicker that sounded almost like a laugh and he grinned at her in reply. "We'll get along just fine, huh Marmalade?"

The tall blond man quirked an eyebrow at him. "Marmalade?" He asked curiously. "That is what her old owner called her."

"I must have seen her around town." Kini said innocently.

"We can get you another horse," the woman who had by now mounted Sable said, sounding disappointed.

"No, Marmalade is a jewel, she will do fine." Kini disagreed, looking to the mare and waiting for her to bow her head slightly before he swung into the saddle.

"She will tire quickly, and will not be able to keep up." One of the axemen said bluntly.

Kini pushed his bangs from his eyes and shook his head. "She won't."

Kini was right of course, and he hadn't made a very good friend of either of the axemen in being so. Throughout the day he was mostly left alone as the group traveled along the road, he rode behind them letting Marmalade keep her head and enjoyed the feel of her happy energy, spending his time talking to her and laughing at her antics. He didn't look back very often, but by the time the sun was starting to lower he was starting to feel fairly homesick. He had never been this far away before.

He hadn't talked with the others very much, he was feeling kind of put out because they hadn't even introduced themselves, the only one he really talked to was Questirna, sometimes she dropped back to speak with him for a couple minutes before rejoining her friends. He had caught some of their names though; the blond man was commonly called Gale, although Kini didn't think it was his full name if it was even his real name, the other two he spent most of his time with were Mist, a dark looking girl who was sometimes referred to as DarkMist, and a slender youth about Kini's age named Willow.

Questirna's friend on Sable was called Rorewna, or Rore when no one was trying to be firm with her. She seemed to be pretty energetic, but seemed to be battle happy, often trying to pick fights with the two axemen. Kini hadn't been able to pick up their names at all.

Gale stopped the group when the sun was almost to the horizon. "We'll stop and make camp here, we all know what to do, will you take care of the horses since you seem so good with them, Kinirchar?" He asked as the small group reined in their horses and dismounted off to the side of the road in a spot that looked like it had been used as a camp before.

Kini nodded, feeling shy when the tall man turned his attention on him, but not returning the gaze as he still got headaches from trying to see through their fuzziness. He heard the man grin. "After camp is set we'll work on training you a bit, so that you can see through our illusions."

Kini eyed up the horses after the others had all given him their reigns. They were restless, nervous looking. Something definitely wasn't right but having never traveled before he didn't know what could be wrong. He led the group of horses over to the side of the clearing closest to the road before letting go of the reigns. "I won't tie you down since your nervous." He told them as he began undoing the buckles on the saddles. "But if something happens and you need to run you have to promise me you'll all come back alright?"

He smiled as he got nods from all the horses, and quickly finished getting all the saddlebags and saddles off and piling them neatly before he began rubbing the horses down one by one.

He was busily checking their hooves for any stones that might have gotten caught in them when Gale came up to him, looking at the lack of tethers on the horses with some surprise. "Is it really smart to leave them loose like that?" He asked.

Kini looked up at him and blinked at the fuzziness, falling backwards and landing under Sable's upraised hoof. "Can you teach me not to get dizzy now?" He asked plaintively, sitting up after Sable moved his leg out of the way.

Rore looked at him with no small amount of surprise. "If that had been me Sable would have stepped on my face." She stated, raising her eyebrow in question.

"Maybe Sable just likes cute boys instead of overactive warrior girls." Questirna said with a laugh, making Rore glower and Kini blush.

Gale eyed up the horses and Kini smacked Sable lightly on the shoulder when he saw the stallion was glaring belligerently. "Behave."

"Shall we do this where I won't get kicked or bitten?" Gale asked, still looking at the horses as if expecting a bite any moment.

"They wouldn't hurt you." Kini smiled, and then ducked his head again.

"Whatever you say." Gale said doubtfully. Then: "Here, catch this."

Kini put his hands up as if to catch something, looking up quickly to see what was coming. He saw nothing but he felt a breeze pass right through the skin of his hands, travel up along his arms and hit his brain with the force of a sledgehammer.

The next morning, Kinirchar woke up with a splitting headache. Mumbling something along the lines of never letting his friends talk him into drinking again under his breath, he tried to roll over, then blinked his eyes open as his hand encountered soft scales instead of the normal cotton/wool blend of his bed sheets. Suddenly it all came flooding back to him, the arrival of the strange people at the inn, and his subsequent leaving with them the next day.

Carefully, he listened for the sounds of his new companions around him, and caught the murmur of their voices on the far side of their camp clearing. The last thing he could remember about the night before was that Gale had come over to him, and offered to teach him more about his magic, and then he was waking up here. He had a feeling he was missing something, but his mind blissfully informed him that if he was, it wasn't in the least important.

Deciding the group wouldn't pay any more attention to him today than they had yesterday, he sat up, stroking his hand along the flank of the infant dragon resting next to him. "I'm glad you're here with me Kweli," he whispered softly. "I don't know if I would be able to do this without your company."

He continued to pet the dragon in silence for a couple moments, smiling as he studied him. The baby was a male, and really wasn't that small, about the length of Kini's arm from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail. Without the tail, he would only have gone to about the innkeeper's son's elbow though. Somehow he knew it wasn't right, that a dragon of Kweli's age, only a week old, should have been at least double this size, and should already have fully formed teeth, claws, and scales. This baby had no teeth yet, and his claws were too small to do any good. He did have scales, but they were soft, and wouldn't protect him from anything harder than a light bump.

"Kinirchar?" Gale's voice broke the silence Kini hadn't realized had fallen.

Kini focused his gaze on the source of the voice and his jaw slowly dropped open in surprise.

Rore and Questirna were the only two that looked the same as the young boy remembered from yesterday, the others having radically changed, seemingly overnight.

Gale and Willow were both glowing faintly. Well not really glowing, but they looked more alive then anything Kini had ever seen. They were still tall and slender, but their ears were pointed, and their eyes were larger then anything Kini could remember as being normal. And the way they moved, it was almost like how animals moved, graceful and totally sure of their place.

DarkMist was the exact opposite of them, but somehow completely like them. Her skin was the color of angry storm clouds, and her eyes were a deep blood red. Darkness seemed to be drawn to her, and death, whereas the others attracted light and life. But she had the same wide eyes and pointed ears, and moved with that same eternally graceful knowledge.

The other two men, whom Kini had thought simple axe men, were really dwarves. Something Kini had only heard of in fairy tales, whereas the elves Gale, Willow, and DarkMist appeared to be were at least fairly well known. Short and stout, but not fat at all, just stocky and muscular. Both had long beards and rounded cheeks along with deep set, twinkling eyes.