Ch. 3 Where am I?

Spinning, confusion, chaos, dark grey clouds whirling all around me. Blinding pain, darkness. I sat straight up, drenched in sweat. A horse-sized, pure black wolf, lying near me, picked up its head and gave me an annoyed look, I had apparently just woke her up. Just then a small black dragon flew down and landed on the ground in front of me. It stared in to my eyes, I reached out a gloved, yet bare-fingered, hand. He sniffed it with his tongue then climbed up my arm and rested across my shoulders. "How is he?" I asked, not sure why I asked it, but it felt like I should.

Behind me came a male's voice saying, "His fever has gotten worse and I don't know how to break it. Every time I try to pour water into his mouth or on his head his fire evaporates it before it touches his skin."

I looked around and saw that we were on the edge of a forest and the field on the edge of the forest was covered with blood and corpses. I slowly stood up, the motion making my head spin. I reached up and felt a bandage going around my head. "I'll change that in a minute. Just let me finish this first," said a female voice to my right. I looked that way and saw the back of an elf covered in tattoos of animals, her black hair came down below her bottom. As she moved around I saw that she was bandaging a young yet full-grown, male human. I felt a strange relationship to him. I stared at him for a moment then his name came to me: Honi, he was my boyfriend. I looked back up at the Elvin girl's face; she was Chu'mana, Chu for short. Her movements were fast yet graceful, as I watched her I felt the bandage around the back of my head and felt something wet. I brought my hand back down and look at it, there was blood smeared on my fingers where I had touch the bandaged wound. I looked up again as Chu finished putting Honi's arm in a sling. "Okay come sit down," she said shooing Honi off the stump. I walked over to the stump and as I walked I felt the ground below my feet and even though there were many rocks on the ground, none, not even the sharpest hurt my feet. I sat down on the stump, as the dragon, Shinen was it's name, flew away and into the forest.

I sat there patiently, as she unwrapped my head and cleaned out the wound. Behind me I heard her say, "Hey Knoton, I need some more herbs over here."

I looked up and saw a male elf walking over. He to was covered in tattoos, they were tattoos of the four elements and one of a thorny vine, and he had beautiful angelic wings "Any specific kind?" he asked as he got near us, I recognized his voice from earlier as the guy who was talking about the person with the fever.

"I can't remember what it's called but it's the one with the black, round leaves. As she finished talking the very plant she was talking about sprouted around his bare feet. "Thanks," she said as he neatly stepped out of the patch of herbs.

"No prob," he said walking back to his patient. As he turned, I saw that a few of his feathers were burned and blackened and there were a few splotches of blood.

Chug picked some of the plants and started making a mixture, as I watched Knoton walk over to what looked like a bond fire. As I looked closer I could see a figure of a male human, about my age, as the source of the flames. At first I thought they were cremating him, but then I remembered that he was half fire demon, he had been possessed ever since he had almost died in the forest fire that he had tried to stop. Honoo, that was his name, I had never seen his fire this big before unless he was charging up for a big fire attack. "Honoo," I said sadly under my breath.

But Chu heard me anyway, "Yeah, he got the worst of the battle yesterday." All the sudden it hit me, hard as an ogre's club. We were fighting hard; one of us had already been mortally injured and the rest of us had sustained one or more wounds, and even though we had killed what seemed like thousands there were still what seemed like millions. They were pure evil, they wore black robes, and their heads were hooded so that you could not see there faces. Their hands sticking out of the baggy black sleeves were skeletal and had bits of rotting flesh on them. Some had different weapons, but most had sickles. Honoo had taken a few arrow wounds, but he still had enough energy left for his biggest attack. He yelled at me to cover him. I steered Kage1, my huge black wolf, into the fray head first. I fought hard, Honi by my side on Coinin2, his huge black and white wolf, holding his arm close to his stomach, I could see bits of the bone sticking up in a few places and there was blood all over his shirt. After what felt like hours, days almost, Honoo yelled for us to get out of the way so we spun around and fought our way out of the fray. As we made it out I recall seeing the fire around Honoo, larger than ever, grow and grow as he unleashed his attack. The he brought his outspread hands together his fire focused on the enemy as the fire around him went to his hands and a river of fire came out. As I watched, what felt like a huge brick, hit me in the back of the head and knocked me off Kage and landed on my shoulder. As I lost consciousness I saw Honoo fall from his place in the sky then I saw Honi, Kage, and Coinin gather around then I gave into the darkness and it consumed me.

I stretched out my arms and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, I gasped out as it hit me. "Yeah you landed on your shoulder when you fell off Kage. I popped it back into the socket but I still haven't gotten a chance to put it in a sling, I will after I wrap up your head." As she finished talking, I felt something cool and relaxing rubbed on the back of my head where the wound was, and then she started wrapping my head again. She finished that and started putting a sling around my shoulder. As she did that, I saw about twenty feet away a huge green and golden dragon land in the clearing, and a red headed girl wearing black gi3 with a hood and black belt and faded blue jeans, jumped off and ran toward Honoo with a black dog that randomly appeared from behind her dragon following close behind her. She got to his side and knelt beside him, I couldn't tell because her back was turned to me but it looked like she reached out and started stroking his hair, how she did that I wasn't sure. When Chu finished wrapping my shoulder, I thanked her and used my free hand to pull my hood up over my head. I walked over beside the girl and looked down at her. I saw a glove by her side then I saw that she was indeed stroking his hair with a black scaled hand, that's how she could get through his fire. I remembered that the scales covered her arms and also went from her waste down, she was also half fire demon, she had the opposite half that Honoo had. She was sitting on her knees and saw her black scaled, bare feet.

I knelt beside her and saw a trail of tears going down her face. I took her other hand that was still gloved, she looked at me with misted over eyes that had red irises and slitted pupils and were red and swollen, I could feel tears rising inside me. "We'll bring him back," I said softly, "he won't die here, not this way." She nodded slowly, then glancing at him, she embraced me and stared sobbing into my shoulder, and even though I normally hated human contact, I wrapped my good arm around her until she cried herself to sleep. I whistled and Kage came trotting over. I got Knoton to help me put her on Kage's back. "Alfred," I said, speaking the dragon's name. Kage carried her to the green and golden dragon, who gently picked her up with a clawed hand and laid her on the ground. Then he lay down beside her, wrapped his tail around her, and covered her with a wing, then went to sleep as the dog crawled under his wing and went to sleep.

I turned to Knoton, "Hey, do you remember that dissolvable dirt you came up with," I asked, not knowing how I thought of that.

"Yeah, why?" he asked, completely confused.

"Is it okay for it to go through a person's–or demon's–digestive track?"

"I think so. But I don't know what that has to do with anything."

"I need you to make some of that mud for me."

"Okay, whatever," he said lifting his hand that was tattooed to look like a rock, all the sudden a big ball of mud appeared in his hand, "Is this enough?" he asked.

"Yes," I said taking my gloves off and taking the ball of mud from his hands, it wasn't too soggy or too dry, it was perfect for molding. I made about a dozen or so balls then used my thumb to hollow them out into crusts and laid them beside Honoo to dry, which they did fast. I gave the hollowed out balls to Knoton and told him to fill the balls with water and then freeze the water, which he did. After that I covered the balls with another layer of mud then I threw them into Honoo's mouth. "Now when the water melts, which it probably is already, then the balls will dissolve and the water will go into his throat."

"Smart," said a female, elvan voice behind me.

I turned around and saw an elf with black, feathered wings; she was wearing a short sleeve, black shirt and worn leather pants. One of her wings was strapped to her back, "Thank you Seraphim. Brake your wing?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said turning her head to look at her broken wing, "got hit by an arrow yesterday and when I fell I landed on my wing. So how's he doing?"

"So far, not good, but we're hoping." I looked towards Knoton; he was talking to Chu as she set Asmodious's (an elf with white bat wings) leg and sewed shut an arrow wound in his shoulder.

All the sudden a female centaur came running out of the woods, her fur, hair, and eyes were a chestnut color, an albino striped hyena–which really just meant it didn't any stripes–at her heels. She was wearing a short sleeve leather shirt under a long sleeve chain-mail shirt. She had a bandage around both her hands that went up her arms and covered her shoulders. At the spot were her person and horse bodies met she had two double bladed axes. "Hurry, hurry, there's a small party of about fifty of them coming this way.

We all started rushing around getting ready to go to battle; I whistled and ran toward Kage who was now running towards me, "Tala, weapons!" I heard and spun around catching the two swords that Saphrim threw at me, and threw them across my back. By this time, Kage had reached me and I jumped and grabbed the fur at the base of his neck and pulled myself onto his back, which was slightly hard using only one hand. As I guided the large she-wolf towards the forest Honi and Coinin appeared beside me.

"Hey, ready to go kick some butt?" he asked, grinning.

"Oh yeah, bring it on," I replied, grinning back. As we raced through the forest, I looked around the camp, and saw that Chu and Knoton stayed to watch Cara and Honoo, and to finish working on Asmodious' arm, also I saw an orange centaur lying on his side a few feet away. He was wearing nothing and he had blood soaked bandages all over his body, "Kyon," I said sadly as we raced into the forest with Saphrim riding a black horse with white feathered wings right behind us and Tohru–the centaur–leading the way.

We rode about half a mile before we started hearing battle sounds, about ten minutes later we rushed in to battle. We slew the last thirty to thirty-five "things" just as Asmodious arrived on a white horse with black dragon wings. "Man, that sucks, I missed all the action . . . again," he frowned.

"Aw, poor Asmodious," I teased him.

"I will hurt you."

"Right sure, I'm so scared."

"Yeah, you better be," he jeered as he guided his horse towards me and Kage, as he passed me he tried to punch me, but I was ready and I easily dodged him and punched him in the back as he rode past making him almost fall off his horse.

We went back to the camp and as we arrived I saw Cara kneeling by Honoo stroking his hair gently and the dog beside her with his head on her knees. As I watched them I could tell that Honoo's flame had gone down considerably sense we had left. "Hey Cara, how's he doing?" I asked riding up beside her and jumping off Kage, the huge she-wolf walked off and laid down beside Coinin, they were mates and had been together ever sense Honi and I had been together, which was a very long time.

"Much better," she said looking up at me, her eyes were still puffy from crying but the "puffiness" had gone down a bit. As I looked back at Honoo, I could tell his fire had gone down to about half as high as it had been earlier. Knoton came over and tossed a few ice balls in his mouth, but before they made it in, they melted but they didn't evaporate this time.

I looked around camp; Honi was training by himself, and Tohru and Asmodious, doing the same. Kage and Coinin were watching Chu play with a litter of wolf pups from a nearby pack, the mother–a silverish-black wolf–was watching about three feet away. Kyon was still unconscious but his bandages were fresh now.

"Honoo!" I heard Cara shout. I spun back around to see Honoo's eyes halfway open.

"Oh. . . Honoo," I gasped. Honi arrived at my side, knelt beside me and threw his arms around me just as everyone else arrived.

Honoo looked at Cara then at me, "Where am I?" he asked.

1 Kage-kanji for shadow(Cage)

2 Coinin-"Little wolf." Old Gaelic byname composed of the word cano "wolf" and a diminutive suffix.

3 Gi-used when learning marshal arts(Gi)

(Not sure if the pronunciations are correct but it's how I say them if I learn the correct pronunciations I will update)