6 Chapter 6

Dario-

The fall was taking a while, I looked to Ryan and then my father. I'm sure Ryan had never been in a war or fight, in the mortal realm. However, I'm sure father had. Ryan and I will have to follow his lead on this mission. I looked back down watching how far we had made it, we were approaching land fast. I turned to my father, "HOW DO WE LAND?!"

The wind made it hard to hear, but I read his lips, "ROLL!" I turned to Ryan and yelled, "ROLL!" Hoping he heard me, I tucked my shoulder in and started to rotate my body. I braced for impact.

Sure enough, we hit hard! I rolled only stopping when my body slammed into a tree, "Fuck!" I coughed out the word, feeling air rush out of my body. When I finally caught my breath, I looked up to see my father had rolled near me and was already standing, waiting for me and Ryan to get up. When I saw Ryan, I couldn't help but laugh. He was stuck in a bush, I got to my feet and steadied myself. Father and I walked over to help him out.

With Ryan out of the bush, we examined our surroundings. Looking around, we were in a field with a few trees, bushes and animals around us. The animals were all looking at us, at least it wasn't mortals around when we fell.

"Shouldn't Aria have landed somewhere around here?" I looked to my father, he walked around and said, "Split up for the moment, see if you can find any evidence of Lady Aria."

I turned around looking in the area I ended up in, if we hit that hard… What if Aria didn't know to roll to land… I started to jog around the area seeing if I could find any trace of my Goddess. I noticed that the three of us made impact marks on the ground. If Aria landed here there would be an impact mark similar to ours.

I can't find anything, damn it! I've never been a good tracker, I've never had to even use the skill! Shit, this is the worst. I turned to see if Ryan or father had found anything yet, when Ryan yelled, "I've got something here!" I bolted over to him, he was holding a piece of fabric in his hand. I recognized it, "This is from the gown Aria was wearing today, she must have landed here!" I looked around for the impact mark, there was nothing there. How was that possible?

"She must have left, there is no sign of her other than that. She must have moved on from this area." Ryan was trying to make me feel better, the was a problem though, "No, I'm sorry. She wouldn't have left this area. If she survived the fall, she would have known I wasn't far behind to get her." I could feel myself getting discouraged when my father grabbed my shoulder, "Dario, we will check around. There is a village up the way. We can ask if they have seen a woman of her description. Someone is bound to know something."

I thought about it and father was right, Aria could have assumed we thought she was gone. Decided to leave the area and find help. I turned and started walking. We came up to the town, we were on a hilltop looking down at the area. It wasn't a big town, but big enough that someone would have seen Aria.

Once we made it to the town line, we were greeted by a man, He was easily the same height as me, but he was thin and lanky. "Welcome to Willow town. Enjoy your time here!" We waved to him as he walked into a nearby building marked, "Apothecary". We kept walking further into the town. There were people everywhere, father stopped a gentleman, "Excuse me sir, have you seen a woman with long white hair? She would have been wearing a brown and green gown." The guy shook his head and kept walking. Ryan and I followed suit, stopping everyone we saw and asking if they had seen Aria.

We weren't having any luck, we came to a fountain in the town. We sat on the edge of it, the cottages and shops around us alive with mortals going about their daily lives. Most of them weren't paying us any mind, when I saw someone looking at us from across the way, they had a hood up so I couldn't see any detail.

I hung my head and rubbed the back of my neck to try and look like nothing was wrong, "Father, Ryan. Directly in front of me is someone in a hood, are they staring at us?" I continued to rub at my neck waiting for their responses, "It seems like it, wanna throw down?" Ryan was already pumped, father was much calmer, "You guys stay here, I'm gonna go around and catch them from behind. You come when you look and see him gone meet me over there."

Father left I waited a few minutes and decided to, 'stretch out my back'. I caught a glimpse ahead of me, they were still there. When I saw father come up behind him and cover their face with his massive palm. I nudged Ryan and we walked over, when we turned the corner, father had the guy in a headlock. I pulled back his hood, "Quillian?!" My voice came off angry, "What are you doing here?"

Quillian almost looked scared but answered me, "Zale sent me. I was supposed to follow you guys to make sure Aria was either dead or if you found her to you know, finish her off." He smiled weirdly after that, my anger took over. I punched him. My father yelled, but I didn't hear him, my fists had taken over at that point. The only thing that stopped me, was Ryan grabbing me in a back hug, pinning my arms to my side stopping me.

"Calm down brother." When I looked at Quillian, I was surprised to see I actually did some damage to him. I didn't know that was possible, I'd never fought a God with my fists. His eye was actually swelling, was it because we were in the mortal realm. I took a deep breath, "Thanks Ryan, sorry father." I looked Quillian in the eye, "You're going to tell us everything you know. Do you know why Zale dropped Aria off the edge?"

Quillian shook his head, "I don't know the details of his plan. All I know is he wants to take over the Gods Palace as his own, when I told Zale how I failed with Aria, he knew his chances were slim to none. So he decided to call upon his warriors to attack the palace. But that's all I know." I felt the lie, there was plenty he wasn't telling us.

"I think he will be staying with us until we find Aria." My fathers voice was very matter of fact, he grabbed cuffs from his belt and clamped them onto Quillians wrists. We turned and walked, with our stalker in tow.