Of Both Worlds

Chapter Two

Ace gasped as he sat up. He was in a large green yurt on a red cot. He could see silhouettes of people walking outside of the tent. There was a bit of chatter outside. Ace groaned as he got to his feet. The white sheet fell to the floor as Ace walked for the door. He was wearing light blue scrubs and no shoes.

Ace opened the wooden door and walked outside. There were a good fifty people just casually walking around and talking to one another. "Where...am I?" Ace asked himself as he walked around. All the people here were teenagers, they all had scars or bruises or cuts, none of them looked to be in perfect condition.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Ace looked to see a dark skinned girl storming towards him.

"Excuse me?"

 "You're the dragonstruck Typic, I've been your nurse for the past few days."

"Days?" Ace didn't feel so good. "I can't have been out for days, it only felt like twenty minutes, I was walking on the beach with Aureliana and..."

"Look Typic, I don't think you should be out of bed, go back to the heath house." The girl commanded pointing to the yurt where he came from. Ace backed away from her. He started running, he didn't know where to. "Hey!" The girl called after him. 

Ace just kept running. A foot sprang out in front of him making Ace tumble to the ground. Ace rolled over to see Kaylin standing over him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Ace made up his mind then and there. "I need to see Dylan. Now."

Kaylin rolled her eyes. "Dylan's resting up in Tiger." Kaylin said holding out her hand. Ace didn't take it.

"Take me to him."

"Ha. Not likely, he's resting. Although there is someone who would like to meet you. His name is Kale."

"But-"

"No buts, let's go. I'll give you the tour of camp along the way." Ace got to his feet and followed Kaylin reluctantly. "First off, welcome to Talonhunter camp. Occasionally we pack up and move but usually this is it. We get our name because we hunt things with talons. There are three types of Talons. There are serpents which live in the water, dragons which are tied to the ground and wyverns which have wings. Dragons are our main problem though, like that forest dragon that attacked us a few nights ago, that was pretty bad. It practically chewed my right hand in half." Kaylin held up her right hand which was red and angry and the cut followed a jawline. "I'm benched for a month before I can even consider doing anything remotely like picking up a dagger or a bow. Stupid dragon."

Ace bit his tongue before he told Kaylin right. He settled on a different question instead. "Why do you hunt Talons?"

"Because they're monsters and could easily wipe out the human race."

"So you decided to wipe them out first?" Ace asked, his rage growing under his skin.

Kaylin gave Ace an uneasy look. "Well yeah. Anyway there's Eagle yurt." Kaylin pointed to another yurt on the side of the path. "Up there, that large building with the serpent skull on it, that's the mess hall. Down there at the bottom of the hill that's the training arena and the stables is just across from it. That's probably where we'll find Kale." Kaylin started down the hill, but took it rather slow, her bad hand clutched against her chest. As they got down the small hill they came upon a large caged in oval with one normal sized door in and one giant sized door.

"Kale!" Kaylin called out. A guy with brown hair poked his head out.

"Oh hey Kaylin, what can I do for you?"