Who Hunts Who

I didn’t offer the green bird a response, doing my best to simply hold myself together as we kept walking. Their wing stayed around me, as if to cover me, despite the fact that it must have been uncomfortable for them.

Even if there’s magic here, they probably...

No matter how much I wanted to be optimistic, my thoughts wouldn’t veer in that direction.

I don’t think they’ll be able to send me home, will they?

That idea repeated over and over in my head, only interrupted by similar thoughts about my family.

Do they know I’m gone? Did something happen to me, or..?

I was forced to consider the thought that this could be some kind of long, vivid dream, but I just as quickly pushed that thought aside. Even if it was a dream, it was real enough that it was more productive for me to act like it was real, since I wasn’t sure. Doing something potentially dangerous just to try and prove to myself that it was a dream would’ve been stupid. Not to mention, if the people around me were real then doing something stupid would’ve just made trouble for them.

In order to escape my own head, I came up with a random question.

“Does everybody glow here?”

“Here?” Itelber questioned back.

“In the Night Domain, in general.”

“Many of us do, but not all.” He said, a smile in his voice. I was actually a bit surprised by that answer, considering I could make myself glow if I wanted and I wasn’t even initially from here.

“Then do y-”

My question disappeared in my throat when I felt the green bird’s claws twitch and tighten on my shoulder, forcing me to stop in place. While I was momentarily confused by that and the murmurs of the other birds, I noticed that all of them had turned their heads in a particular direction. I couldn’t see anything when I tried to look where they were looking, but I could read the concern on their faces before their flames all seemed to dim.

“Byza, stay with them.” Illose commanded in a voice I could barely hear, and with no delay the green bird holding me responded.

“I’ll keep an eye on Itel and the kid, you all take care of it.”

“There’s something nearby?” I whispered, and though I could barely see the green bird, Byza, over my shoulder, I could tell he nodded. At the same time, I noticed that the light ridging between some of Itelber’s scales had disappeared.

It occurred to me that they likely lowered the light they emitted to better hide themselves, and considering the fact that I hadn’t been constantly glowing it made sense to me that they could also control whether or not they glowed.

“They’ll take care of it.” Itelber assured me, and Byza’s voice came in after to do the same as he shook my shoulder a bit.

“C’mere,” he said, pulling me against the leather of his chest and concealing me behind the comfortably toasty feathers of his wings. “I’ll keep you safe, just stay quiet for me, alright?”

I responded with a small nod, watching the vague outlines of Illose and the others disappear in the trees moments later.

After standing there for a while, as still as I’d ever been, I noticed that mine and Byza’s heartbeats, and the ever-so-slightest rustling of his feathers and the surrounding trees, were all I could really hear. From what I knew, forests were meant to be buzzing with life at all times, filled with the calls and motions of things like bugs and small mammals. Nocturnal animals were seemingly ubiquitous in my memories and, if the name of this place was any indication, one would think that a place called the Night Domain would be swarming with creatures that thrived in the dark.

While I could see glowing things of different types around me, including some occasionally flickering tiny animals, I was incredibly aware of the eerie quiet. Nothing was calling out, or making any significant sound. I realized I’d have no chance of finding Illose by that sense either, as I hadn’t even heard her footsteps when she’d still been nearby.

Is it always this quiet, then, or is this like the Night Domain’s daytime?

I recall Itelber mentioning something about different colored moons, but are there times where there isn’t even a moon in the sky, like in my world?

Even if I were to assume that was the case, it still made little sense to me that the forest was so quiet. Animals scurried around in the forest in the daytime, too, they were just different animals.

Illose and the other birds sensed something I couldn’t, apparently, so maybe there is noise in this forest, I’m just not sensitive enough to hear it?

I settled on that for the time being, and let my train of thought continue on a different track as I was stuck waiting in silence.

Intelligent, fire-covered, slim birds, with claws on their wings. People covered in reptile scales that sometimes glow, who otherwise look mostly like humans.

Considering the way Itelber answered my previous question, and the way they’d all reacted to me when they first saw me despite the fact that the only feature I shared with any of them were the sparse scales on my body, I could easily assume there were more people of varying types in this world.

Everything about my surroundings screamed to me that I was in a world of magic and fantasy, which was simultaneously a terrifying and exciting prospect. If I wanted to focus on the bright side, I at least woke up in an interesting place, and near kind people to boot. That didn’t mean I really wanted to stay here, but at the very least I wasn’t about to start screaming to leave anytime soon.

What other kinds of people are there here?

A litany of images passed through my mind, from mermaids to chupacabra, each a mythical creature at varying points on a theoretical “friendliness” scale. I’d already met people vaguely reminiscent of phoenix and lizardmen, so it seemed logical enough for me to begin to mentally sort the creatures I could think of based on how much I’d want to, or not want to, encounter them.

I don’t think I’d actually want to meet a mermaid... or a siren, for that matter. They’d probably kill me.

I held back from shuddering at the thought, still somewhat aware of my surroundings, but that restraint didn’t seem to matter when I noticed Illose and the others returning, their plumage somewhat bright again, through the trees.

As they came closer, I noticed that one of them had something thrown over their back, half in a large leather pack held shut by two large pieces of metal hooked into the bird’s torso. The pack itself was similar to the birds’ leather vests in the way it held on, as each of their vests had two or three clasps holding them closed that I imagined the birds were capable of latching and unlatching themselves even with their claws’ seemingly limited dexterity.

Maybe they use their dinosaur jaws for that too?

Whatever their methods, the slimy, toady thing whose mouth was large enough to just about swallow me whole seemed secure where it was tied. Illose seemed satisfied as she took a peek back at the thing herself.

“That bullmodo was stalking us.” She said.

As if Illose’s words were the last confirmation he needed that everything was safe, Byza’s wings finally fell away, and he took a step to my side.

“Disgusting thing,” another of the birds chimed, their voice an uncomfortable shriek, before Itelber joined the conversation.

“Disgusting, but useful. It's not only edible, but certain parts of it are particularly conductive for earth magic. If nothing else, it’ll fetch us a nice trade, but I suspect I’ll be keeping a few parts. If no one else wants it, I’ll take one of the legs for dinner.” Both he and Byza had returned to their brighter appearances, which I greatly appreciated as I attempted to decipher the complicated expression on Byza’s half-feathered face. His eyes were focused on the bullmodo, so I suppose it wasn’t that hard to interpret. He probably disliked the thing more than the bird who’d chimed their opinion before.

“Give em’ all to the lumosids, I say.” Another of the birds responded, and I could tell Itelber seemed excited by that idea.

“We do love amphibian monsters,” he added, “would you like to arrange some trades?” Given the context, I mentally filed away “lumosid” as the name either for what Itelber was or for his family.

“Let’s return to the village now,” Illose suggested, “swiftly. The bullmodo’s stench itself is likely to draw attention.”

It wasn’t long after we started walking that I understood the smell she was referring to, though I only caught a whiff of it a few times. It was muddy, pungent, and fishy, like a person who’d been wading through muck all day and had yet to shower.

I don’t think I’d want to eat that thing either, Byza.