Finua

Chapter 6: Vaharakia

It was obscenely early when we mobilized the next morning, having reunited to sleep on a stack of hay bales, but hatred does not sleep, so we all sucked it up and followed Frax to the barn.

"Man, what a night," Dewey groaned between yawns. "I don't even know what we're doing anymore."

"We're finally going after your little band of thieves!" Frax said, lighting the barn up with his magic green light. "I have eyes all over this forest. They're on foot, we can catch up."

"It's like the fire within me has gone out..." Dewey continued nauseously. "I mean, guys, really, what's the point? If one of these shits just happens to be royalty or something, then if they die, we're gonna have a whole northern army on our hands. Because those guys love overreacting to dead relatives."

Yusla grabbed him by the scruff of his collar. "Do you hate Sh'raitha?" he hissed. "Do you hate your own people?"

"I kind of hate you right now... where's that boyish charm we all got to see when you were loaded?"

Yusla's eyes went wide and he hauled back and smacked Dewey in the face as hard as he could.

"Insecurity?" I muttered to Frax out of the corner of my mouth.

"You betcha! You're allowed to feel it, but if you want to be a magic user, you just need to keep tabs on the why."

"And you can't suppress a part of yourself, like him?"

"Well, you can't deny a part of yourself. You can ignore it, but you can't say it's not there."

"Hey, stop muttering!" Auga whined, trailing behind us. "It sounds like houseflies. It's annoying."

Lugoke stepped up to Dewey and seized his shoulder. "Do you need a reason for which to continue this chase?" he asked importantly.

"Does it involve the phrase pathetic scum?"

"Those pathetic scum—"

"Yiss..."

"—are on a mission to destroy our Lady and our way of life. We are all that stands in the way of Syfor Lek's downfall."

"And you seriously think they're gonna make it all the way to Syfor Lek?"

"They are," I answered glumly, "If everyone on the way asks each other 'you seriously think they're gonna make it all the way to Syfor Lek?'"

Dewey's expression fell thoughtfully into place as the stable doors creaked open and the dragganines slinked out. Frax walked backwards as they approached him, and the way he gestured and they followed, it was like he had them all on leashes connected to his fingertips. They were thick, sinuous, scaly beasts, and since they weren't trying to eat me this time, I was able to look closer at them: their fluid spines, their jagged manes, their mildly annoyed-looking faces, like they were all that one guy on the freeway who thinks he's too hot shit to slow down during a torrential downpour and therefore is the only one on the road who currently considers himself to be in a traffic jam. They were all like that.

And so was I. I was that person. I was going to fucking crash and burn into the people who destroyed my home, and leave them in the rain.

"Has anyone here," Frax said, his gaze fixed on the mounts he was ushering outside, "Ever ridden an animal before?"

"I hooked up with Argtow from accounting back in Sh'raitha once, he was pretty wild," Auga admitted. "I wouldn't say he was great, but he was certainly exhausting and I think the sweat and panting and all that stuff kind of tricked me into thinking he was great, so yeah, sure, I've ridden an animal before."