Elemental Thief Part I : Child of Calamity

Hunters

Davanos didn't know exactly who they were looking for as they left the main work camp outside of Reysana, nor could he say why he came along on what was clearly a Royal's mission. No one asked, and for once, his brother didn't make a deal about him being out of place amongst them.

They had been speaking with the older human woman, shocked into silence at her supposed crime, when a messenger had come into the tent in a hurry. The man's shocked expression at seeing a General, two Princes, and a couple humans with his Commander had been amusing, until Lianza had nodded to the man, who murmured quietly.

"She's gone."

Davanos wondered if the Royals had become lazy, or if the Cassaei had begun to get smarter, some combination of the two, sneaking into camp to devour helpless humans as the Guard patrolled elsewhere. Or the human masked her trail, and the Royals didn't know how to work with it. Davanos had experience with humans outside of the confines of a prison, working as a City Guard. He interacted with them daily, but he had never not been able to smell some sort of their trail before.

Perhaps it was curiosity that had him flying with his brother, Commander Lianza, and a group of four Guard the short distance to the first way-station camp. He landed with his brother, letting Lianza lead the both of them to the small tent and walk inside the cramped, humid shelter, letting the variety of smells and emotions wash over him.

There were layers upon layers of scents here, but when Lianza moved to one bed, Davanos focused on the newest scent there.

"She was afraid." Davanos said softly, frowning. "Upset, afraid and..."

Eikos nodded. "Regretful. Like she didn't want to go."

"I don't smell anyone else." Lianza shook his head, looking at the two of them. "Someone made her leave?"

Eikos frowned and shook his head. "Unless it was her roommate... but... her smell, it just ends. I can't...its like she disappeared into thin air."

Davanos slowly walked around the entire tent, letting out a slow breath. "Is that possible? You said she had power, that you sensed it. Is it possible to use power to mask one's scent?"

Eikos gave him a lost look, slightly tinged with frustration, so Davanos left it, turning and walking out of the tent, moving towards the Wild, trying to catch a scent, hoping that if she blocked it, she didn't block it for long. Eikos had followed him, as had Lianza, each one of them trying to pick up a trace in the breeze, none of them succeeding.

There was a shift in the trees, and suddenly a Feysha stood in front of them, a woman, her expression unreadable. "What are you hunting?"

The three of them stopped then, giving her space, and Eikos inclined his head. "A human girl. She disappeared from the tent sometime last night."

"No humans have escaped into the Wild from here. We've been around, we would have found them." She shook her head, offering a shrug before nodding away from the coast, towards the area where the Wild wasn't as strong. "Shaktay is chasing your sisters, though. He's been running most of yesterday and today. They flew away from him. Much like you two did. You children of Verana have a hard time with lessons."

Davanos sensed a smirk coming from Lianza out of the corner of his eye, though when he glanced fully, the man looked as stoic as ever. He shook his head and turned to look at the Feysha again. "Is it possible someone could use power to move, or to mask their trail?"

"Power moves us all the time. It is our connection to the Earth that keeps us still." She shrugged at that, watching the three of them. "Trails are physical, harder to do than to decide not to be where you are."

The woman had virtually disappeared then herself, slipping back into the woods and leaving them standing there, staring at nothing in particular.

After a moment, Lianza shook his head. "If she's running, she's putting distance between her and what she's running from, which means away from there. I don't think anyone was involved in taking her. If your sisters are alone out there, I say we go find them, then we can see if we can pick up a trail afterwards."

"Shaktay has said he can track people through the air. It's how he always found us, even if we flew. Maybe he can do the same thing." Eikos said with a nod to his commander.

Davanos gave them both a weird look. "How far are you going to chase her? She's a thief. She wants to be gone. She's trying to survive. If she's fifteen, she didn't deserve to be in your camps, anyway."

"No. But if she's a lone human girl, with no weapons, she's as good as dead out there." Eikos gave him that lazy, cocky look his brother got when he was preparing for an argument. "You can go back to your city, if you would like. Fewer monsters there."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Lianza offered, before spreading his wings and leaping into the air, leaving the two of them and their four guards to follow him deeper into Rulin territory.

They flew for several hours, skimming the treetops, trying to find a trail, a scent, some sign of something else. Shaktay, Draisia, Kaiyal, or even the errant human girl.

Finally, they caught sight of a Feyshan form running through the woods at a decent clip and coasted above him. If he was visible, it meant he knew they were there, and he wanted them to come with him, though Davanos couldn't figure out why until Shaktay whistled shrilly and sprinted forward. It only took them a few more moments before they caught the scent of Cassaei as well, followed by the sounds of screams, roars, and yelling.

Davanos drew his blades and picked up speed, counting each breath, each heartbeat between the last of the Cassaei's roars and how far away they were.

Not that far. The sounds had been clear as day from where they were, until there was only silence, leaving his heart sinking like a stone in his throat. It had been far enough that it could have been the other side of the world for all the good they did.

The stenches of fear and pain, terror and anger wafted at him first, then death had him choking so heavily that he had to cut to the side, banking to take in the entire clearing.

Shaktay was standing in front of the two young girls, pulling his shirt over Kaiyal's head, speaking low to them in Feysha about the human girl. Davanos brought himself down to land, feeling a sudden sureness that he was moving toward something he needed to move toward, and his life would never be the same again.