10) La Vie En Rose

Liam held Cecilia in a long embrace. She was cold to the touch. Had she not acted, he’d be dead. But he didn’t like that doing so caused her harm.

Cecilia’s hand was given proper care. Simon, had been a war medic in yet another past life and had plenty of experience with burns. He sterilized it, applied ointments and bandaged it. She claimed to not need it since she healed exceptionally fast from burns, but she appreciated it.

As they sat around for breakfast she divulged some of the details of her power;

‘My magic revealed itself shortly after I arrived. I had a fever for days, and when I feared for my life the most; it rushed out of me. Thankfully, the people around were kind and understanding, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I was asked to keep my magic a secret and was taught to control it in private.’

‘Were you told to hide it because you’re an eartherner?’ Liam asks.

‘Eartherner or not, magic is feared, but Eartherners have a much higher propensity for magic than people of this world do. 1 in 100 eartherners awaken to magic powers, to our 1 in 6000.’ Izzy confirmed. ‘When I was growing up with magic my only choices were to join the military as a weapon, or hide in the forest. You can tell which one I chose. But thanks to King Elios, magic folk can live free lives.’

‘Is it just fire magic, Cecilia?’ Izzy asks after a pause.

‘I can do some stuff,’ she says as she holds her other open hand out to the ground. Some pebbles shake and some dirt begins to spin slightly before stopping. ’but no matter how hard I practice, fire is the only one that I have any control over.’

She holds her index finger up and a small flame sputters to life on the tip before extinguishing with a pop. She begins to shiver violently.

Being out here was dangerous, they could only push their luck so long before more Eclipse Hawks came around, so Aloe and Liam got to work sketching the day’s subject.

The monstrous bird had been hanging over the cliff before Xon put in the effort to pull it up.

It had light brown feathers adorning its top side, while its underside was mostly black aside from a few white spots. Its talons were sharp, but the one on the hallux was longer and honed to a blade's edge.

Its head was brown with a few spots of white and had a black beak. Not much stood out about it, which made it clear it was female.

It had a massive 9 meter wing span and was estimated to be around 100kg.

Izzy had observed them from afar for a long time. But this was the first one she’d been able to examine directly and to the best of her knowledge was going to be the first one ever documented. She’d noted that grown males were around 30-40% larger than the females, so they had to have wingspans of 13-15 meters, much larger than she’d estimated.

Opening its mouth, Izzy was elated to find that it had teeth. Something she’d only theorized based on the discarded bones of its prey.

Izzy began dissecting it without even touching it. Her magic was terrifying, but for this purpose it was very useful because she didn’t have to get her hands dirty... or so Liam thought. She dug her hands in and started inspecting the contents of its chest cavity and stomach. She confirmed it had been eating Star-Rats, but they were freshly eaten and hadn’t begun to digest yet, so there didn’t seem to be any offspring. More than likely it would feed it to their young before they could be birthed and the chicks would become the hosts.

After they plucked the entire body of its feathers; Izzy cut meat from its breasts, back and completely removed its legs. She carefully wrapped all the meat and put it in one bag and put the feathers, feet and head in two more. The remaining carcass was pushed off the cliff.

Descending back into the valley Xon carries all the meat on his back and to Cecilia's dismay; her in his arms. She couldn’t decide what smelled worse; the bags or him. But she had no other choice for the time being. She expended all her energy in that one attack and would have slowed them down if she walked herself.

After lunch Cecilia felt strong enough to walk, but stayed back with Simon and Xon in case she needed help.

Through the day they saw plenty of basic creatures; Puff Rabbits, Gray Snakes, Zoomles, and Leaf Roaches. They all looked how they sounded, except for the Zoomles, who were pretty much just grasshoppers the size of small dogs.

Liam wasn’t even mad anymore that these were basically just creatures he’d seen in his world, but slightly more upsetting.

They settle for the night sheltered between a few big rocks.

They cooked up some of the Eclipse Hawk meat. It was sort of like chicken, but it was much leaner and a little bitter, but good none the less. Cecilia horked down an entire drumstick on her own. She earned it.

Liam laid there staring at the blanket of stars in the night sky. He’d remembered the night prior when Cecilia held him for warmth. She was so warm then, so he had his suspicions. And after this morning's revelations; it was clear she just wanted to be close to him. Truthfully, he really liked her. He’d never been a forward person and he appreciated her advances, so… maybe he should step up and return the favor…

Cecilia was curled into a ball, shivering, when she felt a hand wrap around her torso and a warmth envelop her back. She looked back to see Liam’s nervous smile.

‘I-’ Liam barely opened his mouth before she opened hers;

‘Took you long enough~’ she said coyly.

She rolled over, wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She could hear his heart beating a mile a minute.

She smelled like Xon, but he could get used to it.