Dawn's Light

Chapter 37

The northeastern wind eerily howled at an unnatural speed as Verbena continues to follow Ahsa's wagon eastward across the wasteland. Celia felt the tailwind, then glanced behind her. "There's a storm coming," she noted the oncoming wall of clouds in the distance behind them.

'Let's hope to get to Ahsa's house before it arrives,'Verbena stated as she glanced into the white haze ahead of them. After a brief second, her head jerked slightly in surprise at the proximity of the previously-assumed distant mist. 'That fog is advancing on us,' The dragonet hesitated as her hair stood on end, 'I do not like this at all.' She shuttered slightly.

Celia frowned a bit as she felt goosebumps rose on her arms under her dense clothing. "I do not like this either," she glanced down, then watched as the perplexing vapor swallowed the cart below them. "We need to fly lower, I lost sight of Irin and Xan in the haze, and without Ahsa as a guide, we will become lost."

In response, Verbena looked down to the obscured expanse and swiftly descended into the unknown. She roared into the blind expanse and hoped Irin could hear her from their position on the ground.

Verbena's ears perked as Irin's roar resonated through the mist. Though the haze obscured the sound, it was the only clue she had to follow. She tilted her wings and glided towards the sound.

"How is the wind still howling, yet the fog is still so dense?" Celia mumbled to herself as a tremor ran up her spine.

Verbena briefly flapped her wings in an attempt to clear a bit of the opaque mist, but the minimal effect only lasted a brief moment before the mass of suspended water vapor swallowed the space. 'Irin!' She barked again.

'Are you all right?' Irin's mental voice entered Celia's mind as he gave a low verbal crumble in response to Verbena's call. 'Ahsa has used her magic to clear a sphere that the fog cannot enter. This haze seems dangerous and eerie.'

'We can tell this is mysterious,' Verbena admitted as she rushed toward the sound, then finally emerged into the space Irin mentioned. 'Finally,' she sighed in relief as she kept up with the cart. Thankfully, Ahsa had made the sphere of clear air just large enough for the airborne dragonet to continue to fly just above him.

Celia glanced up to the close proximity of the dense mist a mere arm-length above her head. After a pause, the human looked to Ahsa, "do you happen to know anything about this fog?"

Ahsa looked ahead with a far-away glaze to her eyes. "Yes," she admitted, "the nomads have many legends of this fog and what happens to those that wander into it without protection." She paused and closed her eyes, then opened them and looked to Celia. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

Celia nodded without hesitation. "Yes, I want to know. I want to learn more about the land beyond my homeland. I have already heard the few legends we have, and I have learned through my quest that the world I grew up in is tiny compared to the vast landscape." A small smile formed on her face.

"I understand your point of view," Ahsa admitted as she looked back ahead to the quadruped ice beast pulling the cart, "I try to learn what I can from beyond the border of black mist. "The nomadic tribes have a few different stories about this mist, but most of them are similar, so I will give you a rough amalgamation of the stories they have told me, and my own experience with this mist." The magic user took a deep breath, then began to tell the indigenous tales of the mist that surrounded them.

"According to the stories, this mist is the spirit of a dragon named "Light Mist" that once protected the land it owned with its magic. Some say the white creature was massive, while others make no mention of its size, but they all agree it bore a white coat that shimmered like mist as it moved. It loved to stay invisible and lead those that entered its territory into blind circles until they became so lost and discovered they arrived where they had started at the border.