Moonflame

Chapter 2 "Walk Through the Woods"

Walking down an old cobbled road surrounded by golden forest was an odd pair. One with pure black hair, dark hide armor, and a black longsword on his back. The other a bit taller with orange-blonde hair, a short curved blade, and brown leather armor with yellow cloth wrapped around his arms, and red around his legs. The two of them made it clear that they were not ordinary travelers by the way they walked with purpose, even if their tones were light hearted.

"So, let me get this straight. You're a werewolf, who's family was killed by the Silver Blades, but they kept you alive to experiment on? That's just fucking sick," Skoll said while casually swinging his scimitar in arcs around him.

"Well, they kinda wanted to see if you can change a werewolf's magical affinity, thus making it so that if you obtained power from them, you could still keep your natural element," Hati replied. "It was hell for the first few months, trying to make sure my entire body didn't melt into shadows. Still, I'm a little bit grateful."

"How can you be grateful to the people who imprisoned you?"

"I can take revenge now, can't I?" Hati pointed out. They continued walking. "What's your story..? Skoll, is it?"

"Yeah. I have no memories of my childhood," Skoll started. "My first memory is of waking up in a campsite, next to some elf hunter. He told me that he had found me, unconscious, outside an abandoned tower while he was hunting. Turns out, he was a werewolf and was being chased down by the Silver Blades, so we moved around constantly. Eventually, they found us and killed him. They didn't kill me because I'm not a werewolf-"

"Woah, hold up," Hati says, putting his hands up so that they stopped right there in the middle of the empty road. "You aren't a werewolf? You're just human. If so, they why are the SIlver Blades hunting you?"

"Let me get to that part you impatient dog. Afterwards I started following them and training to try and kill them all, but it looks like they found me first."

"Don't you even want to know about your past?" Hati asked, motioning for Skoll to keep walking.

"I do, but I that isn't my priority."

"It would be mine," Hati pointed out. The bright yellow leaves above their heads opened up and let light from the late afternoon sun into the clearing. Hati visibly flinched, his eyes hurting from the sudden light. His cloak turned transparent, before turning solid again. Skoll used the available light to take out a map he took of one of the werewolf hunter's bodies.

"Ok, hold up," Skoll said while sitting down on a stump in the clearing. "The map says that the closest fort should be close by. If we want to actually sneak up on them, we need to start sneaking now." He looked at Hati, to see his opinion.

"Alright, but first I want to rest in the clearing for a while. I know the road goes right through it, but I'm getting exhausted from all the walking we've been doing," Hati stated, preventing any backlash from Skoll before falling down and collapsing into the long grass. He sighed and then rolled into shade, his body looking reinvigorated as he napped.

"Damn he can fall asleep fast. Jeez..." Skoll shook his head and repositioned himself on the stump and look at the map again.

The map had the look of being hand-drawn on an old piece of paper that kept trying to roll itself into a cylinder. The Goldleaf wilds and surrounding areas were portrayed, with forest paths hand marked. There were 4 what looked to be wolf heads drawn, but 3 were crossed out, and they all seemed to be drawn at different times. 5 houses were drawn, 3 of them crossed out, but one of them looked more like a tower and looked like a fire on it. "Hmmm.." Looking through the map, he saw where they were and that a house was nearby, a ways north of where they are now. Skoll looked up at the sky, seeing the sun just above the trees, threatening to plunge the world into darkness until Selune rises to fill the world with her silver light. Skoll realized he remembered someone saying that to him, but he couldn't remember who...Was it from his past? Before he lost his memory?

A crash from the bushes off his left brought Skoll's attention back to the real world. He looked northward, toward the sound and saw a young werewolf hunter in rough leathers standing in the middle of the bush, looking terrified at Skoll. Skoll raised his hand and his orange aurora filled the clearing then concentrated on one point, the young hunter. He quickly jumped out of the way from the impending fireball, but he was met with a flaming sword bearing down on him, until something held the sword back.

A hand of shadows grabbed Skoll's wrist, preventing him from completely his swing, letting the boy get away. The hand let go, then a sharp cry of pain was heard from where the hunter ran. Skoll started walking to the kid to find him knocked out and Hati standing over him, pulling his fist back from his punch.

"You don't have to kill them. Usually, you can find a way to stop sentient beings without slaughtering them. Usually," Hati lectured before picking the young hunter and throwing him through the forest. "I hit him hard enough that he shouldn't even remember what happened here."

"I thought you were asleep, how did you wake up in time to do that?" Skoll asked, utterly confused. He looked back at the clearing and saw Hati laying down, asleep. He looked back at the awake Hati and looked back and forth between them. "You crafted an illusionary version of you to sleep while you..What, looked for danger?"

"Other way around. I figured out a way to make a clone of shadows that watches over me while I sleep. But, I have to spend a lot of magic before I sleep," Hati's shade stated rather normally. "I think I'll go to sleep as well. Don't worry, I'll probably wake up in 2 hours or something. I have never needed much sleep." The clone quickly melted into Hati's shadow as the sun falls below the horizon, creating a dim twilight.

Skoll looked around, then grabbed Hati's collar and dragged him into the bushes to the south, trying to prevent them from being seen, before lying down on the ground next to Hati and relaxing.