Through The Woods (Closed)

[Vaan]

"My people of course. Those people were the ones i held dear."

He thought it was slightly humorous that the woman would nick name him "Vann of the fog." It was a silly little thing, but it was well matched for how they met. He listened to the woman as she told a little about herself. He was slightly impressed about her family's role. He figured he might as well introduce himself a bit more, though he decide to leave where exactly he was from. He thought a little bit on his story before he said it.

"Well, my name is Vaan Mirran. I hail from Lycia, where my parents were knights. I was actually a Troubadour who traveled around with my sister, Penelo. After a while we went our different ways and i found a need to be able to protect and i found that i had a gift with dark magic. And i am just wondering... what are you doing here rather then with your clan?"

[Tamaya]

"I am exploring. Scouting. But most importantly, I am here to learn. The knowledge I bring back to my clan will give us power. It will help us survive, and thrive. By keeping our knowledge of the world outside of the plains current, we are maintaining our understanding of current world events and so helping ourselves protect ourselves. We too are caring for our people, the ones we hold dear."

After a brief pause, Tamaya turned to the Seer in confusion, a questioning look on her face.

"But where is your sister? And who are your people, Vaan Mirran?"

Tamaya wasn't suspicious; in fact, she was more curious than anything. Family and clan meant a lot to her; she understood this man's appreciation of and devotion to his people, but still wanted to know more.

[Vaan]

When Tamaya inquired where his sister and people were, Vaan's face took on a more sad and tried look. It was not a topic that he liked to speak about much. "I have lost contact with my sister a while ago. And my people were from a small village. I cared greatly about them." He gave a pause, feeling his great failures again. The woman had most likely meant nothing by it, but it still hurt.

A little while after Chaos whinnied and snorted, speaking to Vaan about the approaching danger. Vaan's face took a look of urgency as he interpreted what was being told to him. He looked over to Tamaya and spoke one word: "Wolves."

[Tamaya]

As the man spoke of his losses, Tamaya's face slowly fell as she empathized with the man's suffering. The raging wildfire that had killed a large portion of her clan once more burst into her memory, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying out in shame. She had been younger, yes, but she had still run like a child from the inferno. She hadn't saved anyone. She was no hero.

As they carried on in silence, Tamaya noticed Shikoba behaving more and more unusually. He was unsettled... Predators must be about. When Vaan then told her of the danger, she simply nodded and reached to her back, bringing the great bow she carried into a ready position. She drew an arrow from her quiver, nocked it, and then sat motionless, waiting and watching. The huntress was as tense as her bowstring, ready to strike.

[Vaan]

As Tamaya readied her bow Vaan pulled out his flux tomb and opened it for quicker casting. The magic immediately started to affect Vaan's mind and he went from being a little sad to a cool ready stat, itching to begin casting and fight. But the predators of the woods were in no such rush, and they seemed to be waiting for the right moment to strike. Chaos just seemed to get more and more nervous about them and it started to become clear that they were going to be surrounded soon by great numbers, unless they tried to break out of the forming ring. He saw one move in the fog ahead of them and decided not to take a shot at it yet. "Tamaya, can you shot while moving accurately? I we are going to get surrounded unless we try to break through. Or do you have a plan?" Vaan saw a wolf again and this time he let the flux seep into the ground. They were almost out of time.

[Tamaya]

"Indeed I can, Vaan. That's what I do best. If we just charge straight ahead, and break through the line, we should be able to outrun them, I hope. Let's try it! I like your plan."

With that, the nomadic woman raised her bow and let loose a strangely inspiring war cry, spurring Shikoba and charging forward, firing at a wolf she saw emerging from the mist. The arrow shot straight and true, sticking into the wolf's open maw and causing it to writhe in agony on the ground.

There were so many of them, though... They'd need to hurry.

[Vaan]

Vaan spurned Chaos right after Tamaya, letting the mounted archer take the lead. He unleashed the sent flux tomb on an advancing wolf, a single spike dropping the wolf where it stood. The predators seeing their prey making a run for it unleashed a howl that was echoed buy wolfs all around, and they started their move on the horses.

They busted out of hiding and actively started to come after them from all directions. Vaan readied another flux and let it fall out of his hand onto the ground, leaving a trail of shadowy vines grabbing at the pursuers. But that would not be enough to keep them off long enough.

[Tamaya]

Spinning around on the ruglike cloth that functioned as her 'saddle,' Tamaya began loosing shots with her bow, trusting Shikoba to stick to the path. Her shots were accurate, but certainly not as strong as Vaan of the Fog's dark magic. Her speed was her advantage; while Vaan could drop the wolves in one strike, she could fell one with three in just a little more time.

"Vaan! If you can keep the path ahead of us clear, I can hold them off from behind!"

Her quiver shook as she whipped arrow after arrow out, firing as quickly and accurately as she could. How many of them were there? She couldn't shoot forever, and after a while, she'd run out of not only strength but also arrows. That would be very unpleasant.

[Vaan]

"I can do that!"

Vaan pushed Chaos to pass Tamaya so she could get a better firing area behind her. As he was passing a wolf leaped out of brush and managed to get its teeth into Chaos' side before falling off to the ground below with a dark spike through its head. The horse gave a whine but still maintained its speed, trusting his rider to make sure they both got through this. They managed to get in front and Vaan started to unleash his magic that rushed ahead and either strangled the wolfs or spiked them and then moved them out of the way far enough for the two riders to pass. All this quick casting was not free however, and he started to rapidly grow tiered. He had to just hold on a little longer. All the sudden a loud nightmarish shrike erupted in his head and the entire world seemed to morph. He turned to see what it was and saw that they were no longer being chased by wolfs, but the monsters of Luas.

The wolves however were not aware of their transformation and the they still were just wolves, but in Vaan's haunted eyes they were much more.

[Tamaya]

"OK! Let's go!"

The nomad pushed forward alongside Vaan of the fog, firing arrows at the wolves coming in from the rear. Her arms ached, and her muscles roared in protest, but she set her mind to the task and simply kept shooting. Her quiver trembled as she plucked arrows from it with rhythmic regularity, sending bolt after bolt into their attackers.

Things were looking better, as the number of wolves attacking decreased, but Tamaya was in a predicament of her own.

"Vaan! I'm running out of arrows!"

[Vaan]

No, no-no-no-no. This was not happening. It was not real. It could not be. But his mind was not done with and as he told himself over and over that it was not happening, he started to think he was lying.

"Vaan! I'm running out of arrows!"

Vaan looked behind to her and his eyes saw Tamaya, but his mind did not. He was fleeing for his life again in his mind and that was a fellow survivor. He yelled to her.

"Just a little farther! We are almost out of here!"

Vaan turned to take out the last few monsters ahead of them. His targeted them with his Dark arts, but rather than his usual shadow black ground based magic, his magic lashed out directly at his targets taking them down in one blow and the magic also took on a reddish taint as well.

With the ones in front taken care of he turned to see how his teammate was doing and caught something move then lunge at her from behind the brush. "Susie! Watch out!" He unleashed a single powerful tendril at it. Was it too late, or would it get to it before it got to her?

[Tamaya]

"Right! I'm coming!"

Her bowstring continued its dirge of death as the nomad maintained her assault. Slowly but surely, the number of arrows dwindled until her hand scraped the side of her quiver and found nothing to fire.

"...I'm done. I can fight no more..."

Suddenly, a wolf exploded from the foliage, and Tamaya winced as she raised her bow in a futile and feeble attempt to defend herself. There was no way she'd escape this. The end seemed near.

And then the tendril flew in front of her as Vaan said something about a Susie. Who was that? Name notwithstanding, the wolf was slammed back into the forest with a crack as the woman spurred her horse forward, toward the light that signified the end of the forest.

"Hurry, Vaan! We are almost there!"

[Vaan]

Vaan could do nothing but watch her be taken down by the monster, the attack getting there just a little to late. He watched as she was brought down off the horse and died in front of his gaze. Or no, the spell did get there in time and she was safe! Wait; it was both at the same time? His vision showed him two things at once, his memory and reality, which mixed in front of him like two pictures overlapping each other. The two visions started to move in a wavy unbalanced fashion as they became desynced with each other and his visions swam.

His head raced faster and faster as it drove to a fever pitch, and the last of his senses joined his visions madness. Thousands of sounds echoed through his scull as his skin crawled with dozens of sensations. He felt like he was spinning around and around in many directions as he vainly tried to force it to stop. Somewhere he heard his name being called. They were so close. The past was almost changed. They were almost safely away. Just a little more.

The two horse riders broke out of the woods and the fog was mostly lifted outside of the forest. The wolves gave one last howl calling off the chase as they returned back to where they had came. Vaan's racing mind suddenly stopped as they escaped the forest, and along with the sensations his consensus went with it. As he blacked out he had no thought going through his head, nor a feeling in his body. His horse rode past the wooded area a bit before he simply fell off Chaos and he hit the ground below and rolled over twice before stopping, his dazed face in the air and his bloody casting hand next to him. After a while a small moan escaped his lips.

[Tamaya]

They raced on, both horses' hooves flying over the ground as they finally burst free of the thick trees, leaving the forest and their pursuers behind. Tamaya sighed in relief and let her bow slump, mustering the effort to stow it away again before she saw her companion go tumbling off his horse, laying motionless as the steed slowed and stopped as well.

"VAAN!"

Leaping off of Shikoba, the woman ran over, dropping and cradling his head on her lap. He was breathing, that was good. Bleeding, too. Not so good. Waving her horse over, Tamaya rooted in her bag and grabbed some strips of soft cloth. Beginning to bandage the bleeding hand, she hummed a soothing song of her tribe.

"Stay still... We're safe now."

[Vaan]

As Vaan slowly regained feeling he could here the faint sound of pleasant humming. He could feel the warm sun on him and he felt at peace. This was short lived as a headache picked and the rest of his body began to report the aches it was in. He shifted his head a little and a voice spoke to him, telling him that they were safe and to stay still. He slowly opened his eyes to find a woman tending to his hand which was clearly bleeding and that he was on the ground. It took him a moment to even recognize Tamaya and a little while more to figure out why he was on the ground. Not long after he recalled a fuzzy event that lead to this a horse head snorted in his face.

He rubbed Chaos' mussel slowly with his non bleeding hand. He was to tiered to do much of anything but seeing his mount reminded him of what he needed to do. He then tried to move but as soon as he tried to sit up it became clear that he had hurt his back. He pointed at his staff on Chaos and spoke with a weak voice. "My staff... Please"