Ch. 2.8 | The Hunt
PoV: Sanya
The three of them materialized on top of the hill overlooking the half-empty town. People were still in the church yard digging new graves—they had a lot of ground to cover.
Nadiyya blinked once. “That was—chirp—interesting experience.”
“You’ll get used to it!” Mai exclaimed, reassuring Nadiyya with far too much optimistic energy and cheer.
“There's nothing we need here, correct?” Sanya asked.
One bird flew off from Nadiyya's shoulder and into the distance.
“Nothing. Let's head west,” Mai said. “And no—let me do the Displacing.”
“Westward is where they—yip—last seen, by that town. I haven't contacted the birds yet for—squeak—update. They could have gone east and closer to us—growl—far as I know.”
Sanya sighed. “Alright.”
What more intel could they get from the town, that Nadiyya hadn't already collected, or the guild already been contacted with? What would they do, pay their respects to the town? Sanya remembered the massacre at the academy, when the portal first opened. She wanted to avoid another area of such grief and loss.
So, it was onward, then.
“[Pocket Repository],” Mai retrieved her staff. Still touching, Mai pointed into the distance. “[Organic Displacement].”
In an eternity, but also a moment, the three of them found themselves in the distance. The hill they had stood on prior was but a dot on the horizon.
“Hey. You didn't blinky zoomy teleport Squawkles,” Nadiyya complained.
Mai titled her head. “Squawkles? . . .”
“The raven,” Sanya said.
“Do . . . Do ravens even squawk?”
Sanya shrugged.
Then, she felt the air around her warp and pop.
“Did you just throw up a time bubble?” Sanya asked.
Nadiyya nodded energetically. “Yes! A slow! So Squawkles can catch up to us.”
Sanya groaned. The last thing she wanted was for more time to be spent. Yet, she also did not want to argue. She'd allow this . . . that was assuming she could even convince Nadiyya to drop it. The raven would probably be helpful anyway. It was probably in their best interests to keep it near or for Nadiyya to manage it however she wished. She was good with that, it seemed.
How much longer until Sanya couldn't tolerate this strange character any longer? Which was weird, because she loved Mai's energy and antics. But Nadiyya's? . . .
Sanya was also getting a bit irritated with Mai, too. Her levels of freakiness, on top of her wanting to hurt herself in place of Sanya, and then not wanting to listen to her . . .
Did Sanya want to be in control? Nadiyya was a wild variable that Sanya did not know would listen to her at all.
Was that it?
Why was Sanya so irate? She was like this before, though, right?
Nadiyya dispelled her time bubble. A black bird fluttered onto her shoulder, letting out a dry caw of a noise. Did all ravens have some kind of throat ailment? They were like vultures in that regard—but much prettier elsewhere.
“Anything yet?” Mai asked. She did not have the passive [Spatial Sense] yet. There were a lot of things Sanya had in regards to Spatial magic that Mai didn't have . . . She just learned [Globetrot Anchor] though, so she was catching up! She could probably learn the passive if she put more of her mind to it. It just required a lot of sitting still, which was definitely the most difficult part for Mai.
Sanya shook her head.
Mai glanced up at Nadiyya. She looked confused for a moment, then shook her own head.
“[Organic Displacement].” This time, Mai had included Nadiyya's bird.
They found themselves in the distance once more.
“Anything nearby?” Mai asked.
The scenery hardly changed—still rolling hills of large grass patches and then dirt or sand. Groups of shrubbery and other bushes. Flowers—but few, they did not like the cold weather. Nearly leaf-less saplings sprouting about here and there.
Up above, clouds floated by, darker ones collected in larger masses. One of the suns was blocked by a puffy white cloud, while the other shone down on the world still.
The chilling breeze meandered through the air.
Sanya allowed herself to take a deep breath, ignoring that strange ache in her lower torso.
Sanya shook her head. “One more and we'll be in sight of the town. I think. Nadiyya? Anything?”
The girl made a bunch of animal noises. A grunting . . . muttering . . . tooth noises?
Sanya and Mai turned to blink at Nadiyya.
Was this the backlash replacement effect happening with her words, but much worse, or something else?
The answer became apparent when a rabbit bounded up to Nadiyya's feet.
It returned similar noises.
Nadiyya made more noises at it, and the rabbit hopped away.
Sanya and Mai continued their staring.
“Nope,” Nadiyya said, as if nothing had happened.
This girl could . . . beckon and communicate with rabbits? . . . On top of birds and cats, of course. What a weird magic. Sanya had to admit to herself that was the strangest thing she'd witnessed in the past month, at the very least.
Mai cast another [Organic Displacement]. The three of them and the bird once again found themselves on new ground, a horizon away.
A small village sat in the distance. It was barely two intersecting streets and the tiny stone cottages that lined them.
From here, Sanya could see bloodless corpses strewn about the streets. Sanya frowned. Mai grimaced.
Nadiyya screeched like a bird. Squackles echoed it.
Sanya and Mai both turned and blinked at her.
Nadiyya returned their looks with her signature grin.
Moments later, another black bird blinked into existence on Nadiyya's other shoulder. She held one hand out, and then a second bird landed on her elbow.
The birds started making dry throated caws. More ravens.
Nadiyya just nodded along. She could communicate clearly with birds . . . but did they even have a language like humans? How exactly did this work? Could the birds convey nouns and concepts and link them together in a way that made sense? Were Nadiyya's spells just animal noises then? How did that stick play into everything?
Once the birds stopped, Nadiyya made similar noises, and they flew off again.
“What was all of that about?” Sanya asked.
“I had a bird tail each of—meow—quarries. I called them back for information and—grrrr—sent them back out again,” Nadiyya said.
“Why call them back here? Why not earlier or further away? It's not like you have a range,” Sanya said.
Nadiyya shrugged. “I don't—squeak—a good answer for that. Instinct. Impulse.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Well,” Nadiyya leaned in. “Do you want to hunt the mother or the daughter first?”
Sanya froze. “I'm sorry?” Sanya clenched her teeth and shifted her weight at the idea of hunting down a mother-daughter pair. Why had Nadiyya used that term? It made monsters seem human.
Were they human? At least the “daughter” was human before, right?
“Why are you apologizing?” Nadiyya tilted her head.
“Oh—I mean . . . like, can you repeat that? As in—”
“Mother and daughter? What do you mean?” Mai asked, finishing for Sanya.
“Ah! Progenitor and spawn—big monster thing or small less-monster thing?” Nadiyya clarified . . . kind-of.
“Small—would make the most sense?” Sanya said. “Work our way up, get familiar with the—wait this is the one that got turned, right?”
Mai nodded. “Big or small doesn't matter to you, you can blast them all the same.”
“I guess . . . Hmm . . . Let's just go with this one. Killing is second to . . . capturing or saving? Let's just see what she's like or if she's violent. She did massacre a town or two though . . .”
“North, then,” Nadiyya said.
“[Organic Displacement],” Mai cast, and then they were in a new place in the once-horizon, just moments ago.
“Close,” Nadiyya said, Squawkles cawing.
“Another?”
“Not as far. Westward some.”
Mai cast another, and as their world changed around them, a startling signature smushed up against Sanya's mana. She gasped.
“You okay?” Mai asked.
Sanya nodded. “She's nearby—powerful, too.”
The impression of a blood-red aura burned like a beacon northwest. It overwhelmed and paralyzed Sanya for a second before she got control over herself. The pressure dimmed into a faint thing in the back of her mind.
Nadiyya pointed in that direction. A black bird circled in the air above a small ravine.
Nadiyya cawed, and the bird blinked onto her shoulder, making throaty bird noises.
“Our prey is wounded,” she communicated.
“Wounded, how?” Mai asked.
Nadiyya and the bird exchanged more noises. Nadiyya answered Mai with a shrug. “Tripped and fell? . . . No, more like—awroo—jump? Poor thing,” Nadiyya pitied. “Approach with caution, but—squawk—probably safe. I sense no will to fight.”
The three of them walked down from their short hill and towards the crack in the earth not even a quarter of a kilometer away. A tenth, maybe.
In that distance, a big gray cloud above them decided to lightly shower. The grass became wet. Dirt began to turn into mud. Sand clung to boots.
Sanya got to the edge of the ravine, the ground opened up into deep jagged walls of rock, heading downward into darkness. Shadows and obfuscation from jutting rocks and twisting corridors fought back against the meager light filtering into the small spaces. The ravine broke off into branches, like an ambitious twig enlarged and lay flat on the ground.
“She's down there somewhere?” Sanya reiterated.
A weak wind brushed along the grass, swaying slightly, cooling Sanya. Rain continued to fall gently.
“Shh,” Nadiyya urged.
Sanya turned and tilted her head, eyebrow raised.
Then she heard it.
From deep below, Sanya could barely make out the sounds of choking sobs. Was their human-turned-monster target crying? . . .
“What do we do?” Mai asked.
Sanya shrugged. “Maybe she's trying to lure us down there—a false sense of security, so she can attack us when we least expect it.”
Nadiyya shook her head. “She's been down there—squeak—an hour. She will not fight.”
“Do we bring her back to Of-Jinan? She killed a lot of people, though. What do we do?” Sanya bit her lip.
It wasn't lost on Sanya that she had killed someone and been able to get away with it, somewhat. One innocent (arguably) person. Their quarry had murdered half an innocent town. How would one get away with doing that?
They didn't. So . . .
“Why don't we ask her?” Nadiyya proposed. “In fact, I'll go down there. My—chirp—eye can see in the dark.”
“Huh.”
Sanya froze. Ask their quarry what? On what to do? Wasn't that, like, really weird? That was, essentially, walking up to a mass murderer and asking what to do with them.
Except, this one was crying, and did not want to fight, according to Nadiyya. How trusted could her birds be, anyway?
Also, it was interesting that Nadiyya's cat-like eye could see in the dark. Had her mutation-esque backlash caused her more good than harm? Minus the fact she looked and seemed like an untamed beast? Unless that last part was there since before she became a Fauna mage? Could those ears hear better? Were those talons more durable and sharp?
If Nadiyya used her magic enough, would she grow wings? What did the backlash do? Did it have a pattern? Was it even backlash in a normal sense?
Nadiyya turned rightward. One of the cracks there precariously sloped downward into the darkness below. She headed towards that.
How much water had and would accumulate down there? Was it safe?
“Don't drown!” Sanya called.
Mai gasped. “Sanya!”
She scowled at Mai. “What?” She was only trying to, like, urge Nadiyya to be cautious and safe. That wasn't a bad thing, right?
“Nothing,” Mai muttered.