Plan? What Plan?

Not knowing where you are going hardly stayed exciting forever, or so Lucius quickly discovered. The novelty of his aimless excursion rapidly gave way to uncertainty and indecisiveness. As his family home faded into the distance, he passed through the well-manicured land that surrounded the grounds. He passed some agricultural workers that were preparing the fields for the upcoming planting season, a few of which waved in his direction. Beyond the property line lay the open road, but the question remained. Just where was he going?

His options were many. If he headed due north, he would eventually find himself at the imperial capital of Travanti. He had been there once before with his father, it was the beating heart of the entire polity after all, a thriving hub of trade and politics. It would be simple to lose himself there, perhaps even emerge as something new. But the enormity of the beast was intimidating, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of running into some of his father’s associates. Politics really wasn’t his thing, anyways.

If he went south, he could head to the trade hub of Orvid, an inland city of middling size, but it sat on the vital trade routes that crossed the mountain range of Tal’Zaq. Plenty of business and mercantile operations went on there, so naturally many supporting guilds had offices there. He could certainly do worse, though its proximity to the mountains often made it the target of raids from bandits and other ne’er-do-wells.

West led to the Drakos Sea and the port city of Atin, a bustling metropolis that housed more than just markets and guilds, but also the seat of the Imperial Navy. From there, the rest of the world opened wide, so long as you weren’t afraid of the open ocean and a strong possibility of never seeing land again. He shrugged and muttered to nobody in particular, “Been awhile since I’ve been to a beach.”

He turned his horse to the west and began to travel at a leisurely pace towards the sea. A mote of excitement curled within him at the decision, he had never been there before and the prospect of seeing something new had brought forth a renewed interest in tomorrow. Of course, the city was easily several days away, but he wasn’t exactly concerned. He would be travelling through the imperial heartland, some of the safest territory on the continent. Still, he needed to be cautious as he travelled. There were plenty of beasts and roaming monsters that made their home where civilization lapsed, and he was neither trained nor equipped to handle anything more than a wolf or two. All he had for protection was a dagger that his brother had gifted him on his sixteenth birthday. It was finely crafted and beautifully engraved, so Lucius always kept it sharp and oiled. But this would do little to keep him safe against any other dangers, so he endeavored to stay on the main roads and avoid camping outdoors.

The first day of travel went without much incident. He stopped by a small stream to feed and water his horse around midday, and took the opportunity to snack on the rations that Darno had provided for him. They weren’t exactly tasty, but would give him plenty of energy to make it to a more appropriate stopping point. He progressed at a good pace for the remainder of the day, encountering only one other group of people on the road. It was a pair of young merchants, making the journey from Atin to Orvid on an errand for their guild.

Lucius hailed them and spoke with them briefly, asking about news from his intended destination. The pair were happy to make some conversation, but were a bit more open to divulge information once Lucius flicked them a silver coin. Merchants were a reliable sort, so long as you paid them well. If you didn’t, they could be real vicious bastards. He learned of some good gossip about Atin, namely that the governor was recruiting openly from the Adventurer’s Guild for some kind of job. He thanked the men for their help and wished them a fair journey, that small piece of excitement growing slightly larger as he continued on his way.

That night, he stopped at a small roadside inn for some well-deserved rest and a hot meal. It wasn’t exactly the greatest in the world, but the novelty of it made up for the lack of feather pillows. He spent the next morning slowly, taking his time as he prepared to set out once again. The innkeeper, a stout dwarven man with a full beard the color of midnight, warned him against being lazy in setting out,

“You best be getting’ a move on, boy. Next place ta lay yer head is a good way away. If ya leave now, ya might just make it by nightfall.”

Lucius hadn’t really been paying attention, but now he wished that he had. Sunset had come and gone, and there was no sign of anything as far as the eye could see. Lucius cursed at his own ineptitude, there was no way he was going to make it very far in the dark. The only positive was that the moon was mostly full, which cast a pale glow over the rolling hills of grass. Though he hadn’t planned on it, he would need to find a suitable place to camp for the night and hope that nothing went terribly wrong.

Almost two hours after sunset, he spied a sizeable thicket of trees and shrubs a bit off the side of the road. “Seems like as good a place as any. Might as well.” He guided his tired horse towards the growth, then stopped short as his horse whinnied anxiously. Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the tree line for obvious threats, initially thinking that his horse had simply gotten skittish in its exhaustion. But then an acrid scent crept into his nostrils,

“Burning. Something burned here. A campfire? No, wood doesn’t smell like that. What is that?”

Sliding down from the saddle, he quietly calmed the horse and began to guide it forward by the reins, despite its quiet protests. Keeping one hand on the hilt of his dagger, Lucius crept forward, his eyes peeled for signs of danger. The ghostly moonlight just barely illuminating his path, he crossed into the trees, and was immediately met with a chilling sight.

A body lay face down in the grass, his back charred down to bone. Lucius recoiled in shock at the sight and the scent, he had found the source. He took a deep breath and calmed his nerves, falling back on his training.

“Keep calm, stay aware and assess carefully. Don’t act rashly.” Kneeling close to the body, he examined the scene. The body was male and probably human, though there weren’t many features left to tell. What remained of its clothes seemed ragtag and cobbled together, while a crude knife gripped in its right hand gave him the rest of the information he needed,

“Brigands.” Lucius murmured aloud, “Didn’t think they made it this far inland. What did this to him?”

He could rule out an imperial patrol; if soldiers had taken him out, they would still be here cataloguing everything and securing the surrounding countryside. Professionals also didn’t leave bodies like this, they would’ve either buried or fully cremated them. Needing more information, Lucius carefully pressed onwards, fully drawing the dagger and holding it in a defensive grip out in front of him as he progressed. The horse refused to come with him, so he dropped the reins and gave it strict instructions to not run away. The horse seemed to agree with the compromise and went to graze nearby.

Lucius crept forward into the grove and made a grisly discovery. Five more bodies lay scattered in a small clearing, all of them burned beyond recognition. They lay at odd angles and slumped in broken heaps, and it was clear to Lucius that something terrible had happened here. A brief inspection showed that all of them were likely brigands, so he didn’t feel that bad about their gruesome deaths. The real issue was what had caused them, and if it was still lurking around.

Judging from the arrangement of the clearing, the brigands had likely used it as a campsite. Scanning around, he noticed a large heap of heavy rope grouped oddly around a tree. Kneeling beside it, he found it to be broken at odd areas, and that it had been burned apart. The wheels had started to turn in his head when he heard a footfall behind him.

He spun at just the right moment as his vision exploded with light, blinding him and sending him scrambling. Blinking stars and with a nose full of smoke, Lucius instinctually swiped in a wide arc with the dagger, but found no purchase. Sight had only just begun to return to him, giving him only the briefest view of a pale shadow dashing through the underbrush. The next he knew, he was grabbed around the collar and bodily thrown backwards into the large tree. The wind totally knocked out of him, Lucius gasped and again raised the dagger, only to have it knocked unceremoniously from his grasp. He was effectively pinned and helpless, fear now becoming dominant as he struggled to regain his senses. When at last he regained his sight, what he saw shocked him.

A woman stood before him; her mouth twisted into a toothy snarl as she bore down on him. Lucius was in such a state of confusion that he couldn’t properly react to his bizarre attacker. The woman was, most notably, completely nude and seemed to not care at all about it. Red hair the color of flame coursed down from her head and past her shoulders while yellow eyes that were slit vertically like a predator’s glared daggers into his own. One hand held him firmly in place, while her other arm was held slightly away and alight with a ball of intense green flame. But the strangest aspect of his attacker were the pointed, furred ears that sat atop her head, reminiscent of a fox’s. Additionally, he thought he caught hints of something moving in the shadows immediately behind her, though the bad lighting made it difficult to tell for sure.

But what was clear was that she saw him as a threat, and that fire of hers was no joke. A low, animalistic growl stirred deep in her chest as her eyes examined him, then reached their inevitable conclusion. The hand holding the flame reared back and balled into a fist, Lucius suddenly had an image flash before his eyes of his broken and charred body joining the pile just behind them, left for the scavengers to pick over.

“Wait! Stop!” He cried out in unmanly panic, “I’m not one of them!”

The fiery fist stopped in its tracks, granting him a moment of reprieve, “She can understand me! Maybe I can get out of this somehow!” “Hey, uh…miss…so I have no idea who those people are and I’m not associated with them in any way, shape or form. So, uh, yeah, if you could maybe…let me go we can just forget this whole thing ever happened. How does that sound?”

At first, it appeared his panicked overture had fallen on deaf, fluffy ears as the only immediate response to his pleas was a low growl from his captor. But then a change seemed to come over the woman; her posture became significantly less aggressive as she visibly relaxed, and the flame seemed to dim ever so slightly, though it refused to be extinguished completely. Likewise, a new sound rumbled from within her throat, this one taking on a lighter timbre that felt closer akin to curiosity and fascination. Her long fingers tightened around his collar as she stepped in for a closer look, eyeing him up and down with renewed interest.

Lucius wasn’t entire sure, but he was certain that this was felt like to be prey. He tried to shy away but had nowhere to go, as this woman clearly had no intention of letting him escape. At such close proximity, he could confirm what he had suspected, that it was a tail that protruded from the small of her back. It was of substantial length and width, sharing a color with the hairs on her head, though ending in a tip of jet black. She brought up the flame to get a better look at him, her face so close to his that they were practically touching.

While a few centimeters kept their noses apart, there was nothing keeping the rest of them separated, as she had fully pressed herself against him, ensuring that every inch of him was totally enveloped. Lucius’ mind went haywire as he found himself trapped between two very different emotions, and much to his private shame, he realized that he didn’t exactly hate his current situation. Her skin was as soft as fine silk and her flesh seemed to mold into the contours of his own body as it pressed further into him. But her scent was by far the strongest stimulus, overwhelming him with hints of wet earth, flowers and spices. The dizzying array of stimuli threatened to completely tear away his sense of reason, and a little voice in the back of his mind quietly considered letting it happen.

The woman then paused, her face drifting down towards the crook in his neck, and then she inhaled deeply. It took him a solid second to understand that she was smelling him, and he became extremely self-conscious. As soon as the episode started, she backed off and allowed her arms to go limp, the flame extinguished at last. She blinked a few times and revealed to him a new color to her eyes, shimmering like freshly polished emeralds. They stood apart for a few heartbeats, and he opened his mouth to begin speaking, only to have her eyes roll to the back of her head as she crumpled to the ground.

He dashed forward to catch her, and was only just barely able to prevent catastrophe. As he sank to the ground with the unconscious, but still breathing woman, he reeled while trying to understand what had exactly happened in the past few minutes. At the end of it all, there was only one thing he truly wondered,

“Do I really smell that bad?”