This chapter contains smut.
Chapter 2: Distractions and Discretions
When the twin moons were halfway on their way to reach the peak of their arc, the celebration had slowly died down to an end, everyone making their way home. Gigi, Kar'liss and Seline all left together with Zephyr catching up shortly after, having supposed to stay back and clean dishes, but was let off for the night.
Kar'liss spoke up to Gigi. "So, miss big three zero, does this mean you're too old to hang out with us youngsters?" She teased.
"Dunno, how about you ask yourself in five years?" The minotaur replied flatly, but her thin tail swatted at the dragonborns ass, eliciting a small yelp from those scaled lips.
"Ugh, four years until I hit that mark too... I hope I'm out of that damn dish-pit before then." Zephyr joined in, lifting her glasses to rub her tired eyes.
"I hope you'll all still be taking care of yourselves by then, I don't want to have to realign your spines before you start getting grey hairs." Selina, the youngest of the four at 22, spoke up last, and the other three hummed or chuckled in response to the assumed joke. The apothecary apprentice looked at them with a cocked brow.
"What? What's funny?"
The group split off one by one as they stopped by at each other's houses, Kar'liss being the second to last to take a turn in the direction of where her house was. House was putting it nicely, it was just a repurposed shack near the docks. As soon as the others were out of sight, her posture faintly slouched, her expression softening with a melancholic sigh from her nose. She was just about to pull a key from her pocket when she froze mid motion, the thinner spines near the base of her neck twitching from that sixth sense feeling of being watched. Just as she turned her head to look behind her, the split second sight of a fist coming straight towards her jaw greeted her widened eyes. It connected, but not as solidly thanks to the flinching pullback of the dragonborns head.
In a blurred, dimly lit motion, the aggressor shoved Kar'liss up against the wall of her shack facing away from the beach, the moons hovering above casting a soft silver light upon said aggressor. The half shaved head of the bad mouthing huntress trainee stared daggers at Kar'liss, knife in one hand and the other clutching a fistful of the reptilian woman's vest.
"Agh- Stella," Kar'liss muttered, working her sore jaw and holding her hands up at her shoulders, palms facing outwards. "and company..."
The three others of the hunter trainee group stood behind Stella, one holding a practice bow knocked with an arrow.
"Think you're hot shit, casting that spell back there and embarrassing me in front of everyone? I know that wasn't the only time, I know it was you always pulling fast ones on us during drills. Let's see how well you can cast your little tricks without being able to speak them into existence."
Her voice dripped with venom, eyes glancing back at one of the others to nod him in. He stepped up and began to pry Kar'liss's mouth open.
Panic began to rise in the dragonborn's chest as Stella raised her knife, bringing it in closer to her tongue...
Pupils went paper thin, neck flexing and tongue clenching to the back of her throat, the folded skin covering her neck suddenly fanned out in a bright display of faded yellow. From two glands beside her uvula, twin streams of dark green poison shot out and sprayed onto Stella's face, primarily her eyes.
"AAAAGH FUCK! FUCK! GET IT OFF!" She recoiled immediately, instinctively rubbing her eyes and backpedaling, the knife falling to the ground. The one holding her mouth flinched back as well, giving Kar'liss just enough time to snatch up the blade and get into a more readied stance. Stella was helped over to the shore to try and wash her eyes, the other two staying back and facing their target. The practice bow was drawn back, but the other trainee's gaze flicked to do a double take up and to the side.
"Hey, um...the lighthouse is off." He barely spoke up over Stella's wailing, the only reason no one else was coming to check on the noise being that they were too far away from anyone in the village that cared to get up from bed.
"What?" The one with the bow dropped his aim a bit to look where the attention was being drawn to. Kar'liss hesitantly looked back around the corner to check as well, and sure enough the usual beacon from the lighthouse was out, leaving the ocean stretched out before it a dark, foggy wall. Before she could even mutter "what the fuck" under her breath at the vague outlines of massive sails, four small thumps graced her ears. Snapping her gaze back to her attackers, she stumbled back into the wall at the sight of what were now their dying bodies, all in a state of falling to the ground or gasping for breath they couldn't catch, each with an arrow stuck in either their neck or chest. Kar'liss watched in horror as the light steadily left their eyes, the only thing pulling her attention from her now dead competition was the quiet sound of row boats scraping up on the gravely shore.
Kar'liss was clever enough to get by mostly on her own most of her life, but you didn't need to be a scholar to know when an invasion was literally on your village's backdoor. If she wasn't already cold blooded, she would be now, but fear would have to wait. Swallowing her nerves as best she could, her shaky hands darted down to pick up the practice bow and arrow quiver from the dead trainee. Help, she needed to get help, but she didn't want to scream for it and call down an arrow for herself. The only guards posted in the village were at the waterfront, since the forest on the other side was so dense and thinly pathed that no one dared to try and move an army through it, and seeing the lack of alarm from the beach watch walls, there was one last place to turn to for help. Her eyes looked up to the monk temple southwest from the village walls, if she ran now she could hopefully make it in time...
--o--
Twigs and bushes snapped and rustled under the hurried yet tired footfalls of a human and minotaur, their pace having slowed to a heavy breathed jog from running for the past hour with very minimal stops to catch their breath. Zephyr stopped to hunch over, leaning a hand on a gnarled oak trunk while she took raspy, dry throated gasps. Gigi wasn't as winded as Zephyr, but it was clear that she wasn't fit for running as much as she was for hammering metal all day. Seline had calmed down a little since their escape, but she was barely keeping up with the others.
"Can we please...huhh...stop for a while? I don't think they're coming this way..." The half elf panted heavily, resting both hands on her knees.
Gigi looked back, ears flicking occasionally as she eyed the high climbing smoke pillars now about three miles away.
"We probably could, I think I hear a river up ahe-"
"Someone's coming." Gigi interrupted Zephyr, her head sharply turning to the right slightly.
"Hide." Zephyr whispered, going over to Seline to help pull her into a bush. It was a stretch, but it was the only thing she could think of. Gigi wasn't doing much better though, seeing as how she just laid down behind a fallen log and pulled shrubbery over herself.
Sure enough, the sound of approaching footsteps came closer, but only a single set. Zephyr looked to Selina, both holding their breath with beads of sweat rolling down the sides of their faces. The steps got closer, slowing to a stop, then a thankfully familiar voice spoke up.
"Y'all, it's me, come out. You suck at hiding."
Seline was first to spring out and run up to Kar'liss and wrap a tight hug around her.
"You're alive! Thank the Gods!" She cried out in exasperated joy.
"We tried to look for you, but it was just...we had to get out of there." Zephyr added, getting out of the bush and pulling a twig from her frazzled hair.
"How'd you get out? Your place is by the beach, they came in by ships." Gigi rose up, brushing moss and dirt from her shoulders. Seline pulled back from the hug to give Kar'liss a look over.
"And you're dressed...and equipped..." She added in, an uneasy air of suspicion began to linger.
"L-look, can we talk about everything later? After we move out a bit further or find a place to sit down?" The dragonborn glanced away, unable to meet the others' gazes. A brief moment of silence hung between them all until Gigi turned and began walking towards the sound of a distant river.
"We have a lot to talk about." She looked back at Zephyr for a split second, her commonly unreadable face giving the human a nervous shiver down her spine.
The group now reunited continued their travel through the dense woods, not a word spoken between anyone. Following the sound of the river led them to a decent enough spot where the trees started to spread out, said river not too far away from it. By the time Gigi and Kar'liss set up a small fire, both sure that they were far away enough for it to not be seen, the Eastern sky had begun to light up a dim orange from the first sliver of sun. Seline essentially collapsed to the ground when she tried to sit down with the others, her knees almost clacking together from how much she was shivering.
"So." Gigi broke the silence, looking at Zephyr first. "You exploded."
"Wait, that flash and fog was you? I thought it was that wizard guy." Kar'liss leaned forward with a furrowed brow.