Chapter 12

Fiore opens her eyes, only to have to close them almost immediately - there's a beam of sunlight shining directly on her face, and it feels like a knife to her brain. Hissing in pain, Fiore curls up on her side to cover her face and tries to think - the last thing she remembers is…oh.

The Elves!

Evidently, going to them was not the best of ideas after all - they knocked her out with magic, and she doesn't have the faintest idea what happened to Jack afterwards. And now...now she feels like she could be sick at any moment, did they give her some kind of potion? Something to keep her weak and helpless?

The thought makes a pit form in her stomach, and Fiore looks around carefully before slowly sliding off the bed she's on. The whole room spins at the motion, but Fiore stumbles over to a wall before getting an idea as footsteps walk past. She might not be able force an escape like Jack would be able to, since the Elves almost certainly gave her some kind of muscle relaxant if they're prisoners - as she's stronger than any mortal human, though neither Fae nor Succubi are the strongest beings out there by far, that would be dragons without question - but that doesn't mean she has to wait for Jack to rescue her either.

Glamoring herself into invisibility, she staggers to a wall and makes her way to the door to wait. Luckily, it seems she doesn't have to wait long at all - about five minutes in, the door opens and the elf woman from the forest walks in with a tray in her hands. That tray crashes to the ground, clear liquid that might be water spilling everywhere, when she realizes Fiore's nowhere to be seen. She looks around frantically, then says "Ó ní hea, caithfidh tú a bheith ag magadh, is tubaiste é seo!"

She runs out the door a moment later, and Fiore grins when that leaves her escape wide open - she didn't shut the door to an empty room, leaving any possible spells to keep her in null and void. All the better for her, then. Because the last thing she wants to do is get any more attention from the Elves onto her as she makes her escape.

Keeping to the wall, both to keep out of the way of any people and to keep her balance, Fiore slowly makes her way out of the room to search for Jack.

'Find Jack, get the heck out of this place, go looking for Mt. Rainier. Pray his dad is up on the volcano. Easy enough, right?'

Jack jumps about a mile in the air when Rania suddenly runs up to her brother - he was talking with the King and Queen, who Jack heavily suspects are their parents but doesn't have any definitive proof as of yet, explaining the situation the two traveling companions are in as best he understands - and asks "What's going on? Is something wrong with Fiore?"

Aeson swallows, then says "I don't know yet. Rania, cad é? Ar tharla rud éigin?"

"Tá sí imithe! Níl a fhios agam conas nó cathain, ach dhúisigh sí agus d'imigh! Dúnadh an doras, mar a bhí na fuinneoga, ach níl aon chomhartha uirthi!"

Aeson swallows, then asks "Cé chomh marbh is atá muid, dar leat?"

"Mar sin. An-. Marbh. Mura féidir linn í a fháil, .i."

Jack glances between the two of them, then asks "Hey, mind sharing the sudden emergency?"

Aeson nods, then semi-nervously says "It would appear your friend, ah, got up and went for a walk..."

Jack stares at the two of them for a moment, then asks "Are you seriously telling me you lost Fiore?" Aeson opens his mouth, but Jack snaps "You knocked her out with magic, attempted to do the same with me, had me put her in a room and come to this one with the promise that nobody would go in and try anything, and now she's vanished! That's called losing her!"

He can feel his wings shifting in his back, but he honestly doesn't care right this instant - they managed to lose Fiore! He suddenly feels a sharp, ripping, tearing sensation in his back, and then warmth runs down his lower back - honestly, the detail that his back I'd now burning only makes him angrier, and it's probably that same anger that's keeping him on his feet. Because half his back has just been ripped open, destroying the white robe-like shirt he was wearing in the process, his wings feel just as raw as his back, and all he wants to do is either throttle these two or go and find Fiore.

Aeson and Rania simultaneously gulp, and Rania says "I can…I can fix the shirt, if you'd like. With a few alterations..."

Jack growls, then says "I'm going to find Fiore. Either help me or stay out of my way."

Aeson nods his head at once, and says "We'll split up, cover more ground that way."

Jack nods and takes off at a run, not even glancing back.

Rania murmurs "I can't decide which would be better, him finding her first or one of us."

Aeson mutters "Let's just get the 'finding her' bit out of the way first..."

Gaelin and Tanelia Fenlar exchange glances once everyone's gone, and Tanelia puts a hand on her husband's arm and quietly says "We have to let them sort this out..."

Gaelin rubs at his temples, trying in vain to stave off a migraine, and says "I swear we were never this impulsive, Tanelia. How in the world do the two of them get into these kinds of messes?!"

Tanelia gives him a small smirk, asking "Are you absolutely sure they don't get it from either of us? I remember quite a few times you found yourself in sticky situations and needed my help to get out of them."

Gaelin closes his eyes, and says "I never put my foot in it so deep with a dragon before, though!"

There weren't any dragons around, up until Drayce Fallon quite literally flew in. They came to an agreement that worked out for everyone - he stays up on Mt. Ranier, enriching the land around him via the elemental energy dragons naturally emit and warding away anything that might try to attack the area with his mere presence, and they would get rid of Dakkar Styx's underlings that have routinely tried to sneak into their forest and get to him.

And exactly none of those minions of Styx's have ever blatantly gotten their attention as Jack Fallon and Fiore Rhian did.

He needs a drink.

A really strong drink.

He'll order one of the servants to break out a casket from 1,000 years ago for tonight.

Fiore crashes to the ground, feeling like she might throw up from sheer nausea - is this something the Elves did to her? Or something about Sagami's magic and that of this place? Hells, at this point, she wouldn't put it past Dakkar and Antonino to have had her drugged on something all this time and now she's going into withdrawal.

Whatever the case, she feels like she's going to be violently sick followed by coming down with a super-flu. She aches all over, her head is spinning like a spinner top, her chest hurts, her throat hurts almost as much, it's hard to breathe, and she's got a migraine to rival the one Sagami gave her yesterday. In short, she feels absolutely helpless, even more pathetic, and all she wants to do is climb into the Genesis trunk and curl up on her Futon next to Jack like last night.

Hurried footsteps run toward her, and all Fiore can think to do is hold her breath and focus on keeping her Glamor up.

And then the dark-haired Elf with the sword from the forest comes around the nearby corner, looking absolutely frantic as he comes into sight. He glances around the corridor, then says "Fiore, I know we had a less-than-stellar start, but I swear to you no harm will befall you here. Either of you."

Fiore finds that rather hard to believe, considering the shitshow that happened in the forest.

Aeson looks around once more, tilting his head for a moment like he's listening - for her, Fiore realizes, he's listening for her - and then slowly says "Fiore, listen. Jack's worried about you. With all the black magic Rania said is in your system, I'm sure you feel about as strong as a newborn fawn right now. It's because the magic that was put into you is reacting with the magic that permeates the very air in Amonserin. And your body is currently the unfortunate battleground. We can help you, but you need to come out now. Alright? You need to let us help you."

Before Jack Fallon loses his mind and accidentally levels Asathaes - from what Rania can tell, he can control the element of Earth…with training, anyway. At the moment, he's more likely to set off an earthquake by accident if he completely loses his cool than anything else, and the prospect is absolutely terrifying. And, unfortunately, only another dragon can teach him how to control the Elemental Energy he's starting to generate if he doesn't want to spend decades in isolation learning through trial and error - luckily for everyone, there's one nearby.

All that's left is to convince him to help Jack - hopefully, the boy's right about being his son.

And, hopefully he shows up soon, because Aeson most emphatically does not want to be the one who really lost her after finding her - even if she hasn't revealed herself, he can hear her heartbeat somewhere in the corridor.

Until suddenly, Fiore shimmers into view on the ground - looking absolutely awful, like she's about to throw up and then pass out directly after. Her skin has gone pale and clammy, her face is dripping with sweat, and she's physically shaking like she can't stay on her feet any longer.

Aeson breathes out a sigh of relief, muttering "Go raibh maith agat na Réaltaí…" While he's willing to bet she doesn't have the strength to keep her Glamor up rather than having willingly revealed herself to him, he'll take anything he can get right now.

Fiore weakly scrambles back as he moves towards her, raising one shaking hand defensively while saying "Stay back! I'll electrocute you if you try anything!"

Aeson nods, not showing any of his doubt about that - he's certain she'd make the attempt, no question there…but he's also certain she can't generate much more than a few volts right now, if even that. Still, he kneels down a few feet away and says "I wouldn't dare try. May we start over? Perhaps with an introduction on my part?"

Fiore stares at him for a minute, curled in on herself in an attempt at being as small as possible, then asks "Where am I? What is this place?"

"This is the city of Asathaes, capital of the kingdom of Amonserin. More specifically, you're in the palace. I'm Aeson, and you met my sister Rania as well as a squadron of the Forest Wardens just inside the border of our lands."

Fiore asks "I take it 'your lands' refers to the entirety of the National Forest?"

Aeson nods, saying "Indeed. We may have to keep up appearances for the humans by letting them in, but they're kept well-away from our cities and people." What in the world is he going to do now? He found Fiore Rhian, but he can't go anywhere else she's likely to vanish once more! He can't signal anyone, seeing as the corridor is currently empty, and he's not his sister with her skill in magic so he can't contact them to lead them here!

As if she read his mind, Fiore asks "Where's Jack? What have you done with him?"

Aeson shakes his head at once, and says "He's in the palace as well, we split up to search for you upon learning of your disappearance. He's not been harmed, you have my word. When my sister discovered you had vanished, he and I were speaking with our King and Queen about your…quest, I suppose you might call it."

At Fiore's wary look, he quickly adds "He was less-than-specific about your reasons, I assure you, said that it was your choice to tell us or not and he wasn't about to take it from you."

Fiore huffs under her breath, because that only sounds exactly like something Jack would say.

Aeson off-handedly adds "He did promise it would be the last thing anyone did if they laid so much as a hand on you, though."

Now Fiore can't help but laugh a little - seems his heritage as a dragon is making itself known. She couldn't ask for better timing on that particular front.

Aeson shifts so he's sitting down, and says "He seems very attached to you." Dragons have mates, he knows that much, but he hasn't got a clue if threatening to end a person for going anywhere near someone means that someone is their mate or not. But, Stars, if he had to take a guess...Jack Fallon seems extremely protective of Fiore Rhian and her being his Mate would absolutely explain it.

Fiore shrugs, saying "I saved his life, he saved mine…it generates closeness, I suppose." What would she know about Jack's feelings? At least, regarding her? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hasn't been trying to seduce him or anything, hasn't done anything to actively try to get him to like her. After a moment, she adds "We've been each other's key to what we want. Helping each other or using each other, however you want to look at it, the result is the same in the end."

One of the guards turns a corner right then, and Aeson breathes a sigh of relief and says "Stay there, I'll be right back." Swiftly making his way over to the guard, Aeson says "Cuir in iúl don bhanphrionsa agus dár n-aoi go bhfuaireamar í. Beir leat anseo iad - Jack, go háirithe. Eisean ar dtús mura bhfuil tú in ann Rania a aimsiú."

The guard nods at once and heads off, saying "Ar ball, a Mhórgacht!"