Lacing up my boots, there was eerie silence between me and Flontina. She was finishing up dressing, clipping her hair back in an half-up style with a golden feather, something given to the Master of the Winds. A title she earned years ago, and a title she never really liked.
Catching my stare in the mirror, she turned and gave me a bright smile, completely concealing the fear in her eyes.
We aren't strangers to risking our lives, but never like this.
"Ready Lara?"
She faced me, dressed to the tee in her white leather coat lined with ferret fur. Despite being in the desert, she looked very bundled up, ready for life in the North. But this was her best coat. Both protective and temperature adjusting. So to her, she feels like she's wearing nothing, but to the outside eyes, she looks insane.
"Almost," I stood up straight, brushing off my own jacket. I was dressed much lighter than her, in my blue wrap-tunic and in my black leather armor. Tucking my sword into it's rightful place on my belt, I strapped my pouch to my thigh, making sure it was filled with health and energy potions.
Adjusting my belt-pouch to my back, I made sure my tunic was tucked all the way through, the loose ends of the fabric covering my front and back, leaving large slits on the sides of my legs, revealing my skin-tight pants made of Scaralage fibers, one of the strongest materials clothes could be made of. My high-collared shirt was also made of these fibers, and even my arm and leg warmers.
Although in this case they are more of socks covering my arm from my metallic guards that protect my shins and forearms.
Overall I'm dressed and equip lightly, optimizing my speed and agility over my strength.
"Now I'm ready," I huff, adjusting my hair in a ponytail in a ribbon, one given to me by Rebecca before I left for this mission.
"Shall we?" She opened the door for me, and the two of us walked down to the dinning hall where there was a screaming match going on.
"We don't want to provoke the beast!" Another senior adventurer screamed at Parter, globs of spit going everywhere.
Parter didn't even wipe the saliva off his face nor even hesitated to deck the man right in the face, causing a whole uproar, about 5 men having to hold Parter back from attacking the old man again.
I was almost frozen in shock. Parter is usually so level headed but this time there looked like there was smoke pouring out of his ears.
"You're just going to let people die?!" Parter screamed, his voice reverberating in the air, "That dragon isn't going to just hide away in its cage! It's going to terrorize this land if we don't do something?!"
"The soldiers of this land already tried and it just made things worse!" Another person yelled, though through the chaos I couldn't figure out who said it.
"Uh I'm going to go help Kent," Flontina tried to whisper to me but she basically yelled into my ear considering the chatter around us.
I stood on my tippy-toes, seeing Kent is holding onto Parter's shoulder as people slowly released him. Flontina managed to push her way through the crowd, grabbing onto Parter's other shoulder, muttering something to him which seemed to calm him down.
"Lara," Harken sudden appeared beside me, "Good morning."
"Morning," I mumble, still trying to look through the crowd. It was definitely less people than the first day we all arrived, and I have yet to see Sephla.
"Sephla left before this all started," Harken spoke like he could read my mind, "And most of these people believe we should all leave."
"I can tell," I sarcastically replied, finally looking to him, taking in his appearance.
Like me, he's dressed rather lightly. Wearing an upper chest-plate and shoulder armor on top of his red tunic. He has matching metallic shin and forearm guards as well as a waist-satchel like me. His boots were much more heavy duty compared to me as well. His hair has gotten quite long, and the top half of it was pulled into a tiny ponytail.
We both looked more like adventurers in training than actual warriors ready for battle.
But both of us focused on agility, though Harken was more willing to take on brute force than I was.
"We were supposed to leave by now," Harken mumbled, leaning down to whisper into my ear, his hot breath warming my ear, or maybe that was just me? "My team is ready now, are you?"
"What?" I whipped my head to him, "We're leaving without your father?"
"He suspected this would happen, and told me to take you and my team to complete the mission without him."
I didn't hear about this.
"Do you think we can do you?" I asked, feeling nerves build up in my stomach.
"I think we can," Harken gave me an awkward smile, "Yeah, we can do it."
"Great," I sighed, following Harken out as we slowly made our way out where Folkner and Yolanna were waiting beside an earth horse.
Not a real horse, one made up of dirt and implanted with an earth spirit. It's a high-level skill for earth-attributes as it requires the deepest connection with earth spirits.
"Wow," I found myself forgetting all about the incidents leading up to this moment, approaching the horse and reaching out, touching it's mane made of grass. It was like I could feel life pouring out of it. The spirits that embedded themselves into the dirt and into the fibers of the grass.
It felt so warm.
"Impressed?" Folkner asked, beaming with pride as he approached his stallion, "It took me a long time to master this majestic beast but it was worth every aching minute."
"It's amazing," I was in awe, only snapping out of it when Harken tapped me on the shoulder.
"We can keep admiring the horse later, let's go." He seemed irritated but focused.
Taking a deep breath, I fell into concentration.
"Okay Tallow, let's soar."