A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 29: I'm With My Kin???

We had run through the night, me refusing to sleep even though my body was calling for it.

I was carried a bit harshly, like my well being was not cared about even with the pitiful state of my attire. The bit of my sleeves led had come off and I now had a strapless shirt, the only thing keeping it up though all of the jostling and running being the strings that had been tied together in the front. My pants were nearing underwear with how much underbrush tore away at it, and I feared I would soon be naked and vulnerable to the elements.

My journey ended soon enough, when we arrived at a mountain. Yes, a mountain. There were caves in it, unable to be reached even while climbing with the best gear because of the sheer drop. The only thing that made me sure this was our destination was because of the lights glowing in the caves, and the laughter and noises ringing out of them.

...what's your plan, dude? Jump?

Apparently, yes.

Where we had been before was conquered soon enough as we soared into the sky not a second later, faster than even Thérèse's little basilisk stunt as we stepped into the cave at the next moment like nothing had happened. My hair wasn't even wind blown, like we'd been up here the whole time. If my jaw could drop and wasn't paralyzed, it would.

Inside was not just the innards of some long worn cave. No, inside were giant tunnels that reminded me of the basilisk, going through its throat. Yet, so much bigger. Why was everything in this world so big?

But that was not what my jaw dropped for.

It was the "people."

They said it was a village earlier, right? I don't expect a village to have a setup with a complexity that even rivals Takuya's hamster's cage.

And I didn't expect that the people wouldn't be human. I had thought the man was reprimanding the boy earlier because he was merely human and couldn't possibly hope to take such a sized beast. But no, I guess he was merely scolding him like a teacher berates a student, "You didn't do this right. You have to do this, this, and this next time."

Now, I understand why they weren't frightened about his health after he got tossed around with the harness. It was because he was like the rest of them.

Dragons walked around. In these wide caves, they walked around freely while disturbing the illusion that the caves were for small people, with the entrances being only a few people around. I thought they were rabbit holes at first, too far up. Inside was so different that I almost compared it to Narnia.

"Tear Fang! You're back! Where's Lawrence?!" A woman trotted up, her face peeved.

"I left him and Katerine behind," the man answered, assuaging her anger.

"She stayed with him?!" Her voice rose a pitch, incredulous.

"She did not follow me. And she could learn the same lesson as him, trying to ride a Rogue. He could've killed himself, and his sister as well. I don't understand what goes through his mind most of the time," the man shook his head, walking together with the woman that was most likely his wife, guessing from how he held her close so dearly. It was the same as me and Takuya, leaning her her head on his shoulder with a distorted expression of being lost.

Except, Takuya never carried a bloody, soaked infant under his arm.

"I don't either. I just hope one day we can make sense out of it," the mother closed her eyes.

"He's got two nieces and a nephew now, so he better shape up before he meets them."

"That's right, Ana had a little girl," the Mother's face brightened bitterly, with a small smile. "She still hasn't contacted a after all this time. I really want to meet the little one, having heard so much about her from Earl. I wonder what she's like?"