"Wake up," snapped Miasma, unceremoniously prodding Ecru with her front hoof.
Ecru lifted his head slowly, his eyes still half closed. "Five more minutes," he mumbled, and his head dropped down to earth with a loud thump.
"No! You're waking up now!"
Ecru moodily blew a puff of fire at Miasma, but the fire dissipated quickly from around Miasma, not even touching her.
"You're my slave now, Ecru, do what I say," stated Miasma.
Ecru slowly picked himself up from the ground.
"That's a good boy. Now-"
"When are we looking for Marina?" interrupted Ecru.
Miasma shook her head. "Not now."
"We want to ride on your back and we'll direct you where to fly," Cyanide explained.
Ecru attempted to move, but the contract binded him so he would be still to let them climb into his back.
"Start flapping those wings," Cyanide demanded. "Fly us to a human village."
Ecru protested. "I'll have to fly across the desert. Do you have any idea how wide it is? I'll never be able to just fly across like that and be able to do anything else! How is this related to finding Marina?"
Miasma nodded. "Good point," referring to the problem of the desert. She really didn't care about Marina at all.
"Everybody off," Cyanide called, jumping off the dragon. Miasma followed.
"I suppose we'll have to go by way of shadow," Miasma sighed. "I was so hoping we could fly on that dragon's back."
"Shadow?" asked Ecru. "How do you travel by shadow?"
"Easy," Miasma stated, and both unicorns trotted to a large tree's shadow.
"Normally, unicorns can just disappear and teleport to another shadow in the vicinity, but Miasma and I have developed our talents to extend beyond that, and now we can reach, well, far enough!" Cyanide paused. "But we're going to bring you, so we need to open up a portal. Here- I'll do it."
"No, you did it last time, I'll do it," Miasma cut in.
"Oh, it's fine, I can do it," Cyanide said. He lowered and threw his head up before his mate could say anything else. There was a loud ripping sound, as his horn glowed and tore the shadow.
"Welcome to the Shadow World," Miasma whinnied. "Now, hurry through the tear, dragon. These things don't last too long you know."
Ecru, amazed, quickly launched himself through.
"Wow! Where am I now?" wondered Ecru aloud. The two unicorns quickly followed him in.
"Follow me," commanded Miasma, and together, the three mythical creatures began walking through the warped world of shadows towards the land of Man.
Marina yawned. "What time is it? Does time even exist? Does the level of energy in the universe truly stay constant? Is my wing healed now? What about my leg?" Such were the questions that swirled about in Marina's mind.
Marina slowly got up. There were many aches in her body, an after effect of her healing and mending body, but besides the aches and still sore leg, Marina felt fine. She tested her wings again. One of them was still down.
"Well, at least it's daytime," Marina said out loud to the crisp air. She began slowly walking to where she thought might be the edge of the forest. There were many boulders in the way because of the rock slide and so many times she had to go around and take large detours. Her stomach rumbled as she reached a river.
"Fish," groaned Marina. She could see tiny fish in the river, but all were too small to have any affect on her hunger. Marina jumped into the water, causing some fish to make a journey of a few feet into the grass, where they splashed to no effect. Marina didn't take notice and began drinking some of the cool water. Granted, the river wasn't that large, so Marina didn't spend too much time in the river and continued on her journey. When she finally reached the forest edge, Marina gave a yell of triumph.
"I made it out!" Marina grinned, when suddenly a giant shadow passed over her. "A dove?" wondered Marina, and jumped, flapping her wings to get into the air before she remembered. Marina landed awkwardly as her broken wing failed her. She would have to fight on the ground. Then, she remembered her beam and prepared for an attack.
