[Kiel]

“Dude, Pria, like, it's time, okay?” The dragon didn't respond to his telepathic plea and, like, Kiel stumbled over a branch. The head that was deflected by Nia's shadow totally came at Kiel instead. He stepped aside just before the thing could grab him up in its huge jaws, but it swooped sideways and he totally collided with the neck. Like, the next thing he knew, he was flying through the air — and that was so not a good look for a 'Vari, okay?

“Aieeeeeeeeeeee!” Everything happened in a matter of seconds. Like, vravity slowed his ascent and he spun in the air, like, enabling him to see the writhing heads waiting for him. “Now would be good. Like, now, nownownow!”

Then suddenly, the burgundy-coloured dragon was there, a ball of flame crashing into the hydra's central mass. “No. No, no, no.” Kiel flapped his hands, and then Oof!d when Shane's slender shadowkin form impacted his diaphragm. Instead of falling into the hydra's jaws or, like, onto the crozzled body, he and Shane sailed to one side and landed with, like, nose first in the undergrowth.

“Yes. Yes, yes! Nia, Rafe, keep trying to distract it, okay?” Even juvie hydra could be dangerous if they bit a full-grown dragon, and Pria was on the young side herself. Kiel shot to his feet, like, ready to launch himself back into battle, and then fell down with a yelp. “Ah, dude, like, I don't feel so hot.” He was woozy, like he'd lost a ton of his own blood already, but it was hard to see where it was coming from 'cause it was mixing up with the hydra's blood. And, like, he thought like maybe he'd cracked a couple of ribs when Shane diverted his fall. “Wah, kill it, kill it!”

[Ionia]

Nia had just thrown a knife toward the hydra's neck when the first dragonflame burst onto the hydra. Glancing up to the roar of the dragon, Nia ran to the area where Kiel had fallen. She didn't crouch beside him, or even check for injuries. She was only there to prevent any further damage to him as she readied took a defensive stance. Large wings beat the air as Kiel's dragon descended upon the hydra. Its fire licked repeatedly at the hydra in brief bursts.

Pria was a small dragon, noted the skotadi as she watched the dragon come snapping at the hydra, then fly out of reach as the hydra retaliated. Knowing that the hydra's venom was just as deadly to dragons, Nia took the preventative measure and ran toward the hydra's flank. Crouching as she ran, she skimmed a hand along the ground to fling the mass of shadows at the hydra's tail. The black whips clamped around the tail as it swung at Rafe, who was busy forming wind-shields to deflect the two hydra heads as they snapped at the juvenile dragon. The shadow-lock performed its purpose, but it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

Her elemental control was tiring, and she'd rather work with shadows that were more tangible to her mind. Watching the hydra's profile, Nia took a ready stance as shadows crawled forth from her wings. The shadows shot toward her wrists as she raised one arm and shot a whip toward the hydra's head. The tendrils knotted around the hydra's lower jaw as its mouth opened, and Nia punched forth her left arm to reinforce her control. Both arms holding whips, Nia looped around a tree and braced a foot against the trunk. With this action, the second hydra's head was pulled far away from Pria, leaving only the last head for the dragon to deal with. But the dragon had another idea. The dragon took note of the imprisoned head and shot fire straight at its face. Feeling the bright light of flames dissolve her shadow, Nia stumbled back as she broke her hold on the hydra. As the dragon finished off Nia's target, Rafe held the other head at bay with blasts of wind.

[Kiel]

“Dude, thanks, man.” Kiel had found where he was bleeding from and, like, dude. He'd thought it was just a bruise from where he'd smashed into a branch earlier, but it looked like it had dug in more than he'd realised and, like, there was a pretty deep, squishy slice. He was kinda lucky it hadn't been a wider branch, you know?

Patting Nia's leg to let her know he was all, like, good and stuff, he used Shane's shoulders to, like, prise himself up onto his knees and shuffle away from the screaming hydra. Like, it was more or less defeated now, you know, with just the one head left, and, like, Kiel didn't want to get in the way. Besides, like, he was pretty sure he had the BR flask in one of his pockets or his backpack someplace 'cause he'd started carrying it, like, everywhere he went, you know? But it would be, like, tough to find it with a venomous beasty breathing down his neck, you know?

“Dude, like, you guys are totally awesome, man!” It was kinda weird to be sidelined as a cheerleader, you know, but, like, he'd totally damaged a rib or two for real, man. If Nia was protecting him, she wasn't killing stuff, you know?

“Kill it dead, Pria, okay? Like, no more kids, okay?” If she was confused by the half sentence, the dragon was too, like, preoccupied biting into the hydra's remaining neck and, like, ripping out a chunk of flesh to be all, like, "Huh?" As Shane morphed into a spider monkey so she could help him get his backpack off and, like, root around inside for the flask while he patted down his pockets, the burgundy dragon gave, like, a huge roar and used Rafe's winds to, like, trap the last head and burst fire at it.

The body went limp and Pria flapped herself silly to get back into the sky overhead. She gave a last, like, friendly roar and muttered into Kiel's brain, “Ew. I'm going for a bath.” Like, a second later, she'd poofed away.

“Dude. Like. Dude.” Shane dropped the flask in his lap and Kiel stared at it. He'd, like, slumped against a tree and was starting to feel crazy woozy. “Can one of you, like, splash some of this stuff on me before I, like, keel over and go for a visit with Xanth or something?”

[Ionia]

With only one head left, the hydra was unquestionably overpowered by the dragon and the zanaryan. Nia slid into a crouch beside Kiel for a break (and just in time because her shadows were starting to give out). “Hel yeah,” she grinned as Pria released her last blast of fire into Rafe's wind-prison. The hydra pretty much exploded by then, and as the hydra flew away, Nia stood to check on the hydra. Her wings fanned out from their tensely folded positions as she shook them out.

Hearing Kiel, however, Nia turned in time to see Kiel's shadowkin-now-pet-monkey drop a bottle into his lap. She hadn't noticed Kiel's injury while the air had thick with Pria's fire, Rafe's winds, and Nia's shadows. But now that the fight was done and Nia crouched beside the 'vari, she could see the blood spreading into the clothes from his side. “Xanth's no soul-collector,” said Nia in a matter-of-fact tone as she lifted the 'vari's shirt and scooted to make room for moonlight. Something had cut inches into Kiel's side and left an opening of jagged red flesh. Pushing the shirt higher up with one hand and uncorking the bottle with her other, Nia poured what she assumed to be a healing potion over the wound. She tilted the bottle and watched as it washed over the redness and made skin sizzle. As the skin folded together and began to mend, Nia whistled in respect. “Most healers would be jealous of this stuff. Here, rest up a bit,” she said as she held out the flask to tuck it in the crook of the 'vari's arm.

Stepping back, she massaged her aching legs and stretched her arm behind her back. Based on the aches, she guessed that the fight had led to some bruises on her, and that she'd probably gotten a cut on the back of her leg. Her feathers were all messy-feeling, too, like somebody had taken the ends and ran their hands upward. She'd have to fix that later. Walking toward Raphael, she grinned widely and clapped his back before crouching beside one of the hydra's heads. Prying the slack jaws open, Nia pulled a small throwing knife from her belt and sliced at the base of one of the fangs. As venom trickled out of the sliced vein of the poison gland, Nia accepted a vial from Raphael and held it out to collect the venom.

With the first one done, Nia examined three of the other hydra-heads and saw that they had been thoroughly burnt, which rendered their venom useless. As she finished up the last one, she saw Raphael walk back toward Kiel. “Let's check the nest for missing people. Probably no one left alive, but they deserve to be found...Kiel, can you get up?”

((Feel free to fast forward and stuff. Let me know if you want me to change the GMing. ;] ))

[Kiel]

“Wahhhhhh,” Kiel sighed, eyes closing against the sudden sizzle of healing flesh. It tickled, but, like, it hurt too, you know?

Accepting the flask back, he grinned and, like, as he watched Nia and Rafe move around the hydra, he launched into a story of how he'd come by the flask. “Wahahahaha, like, remember that hoo-ha-ha about vamps in Alexshire, like, a billion months back? Like, me and my friends were all, like, "something's hokey here, man" and, like, we kinda accidentally but not really, like, found out who really killed that Layla woman, right, and, like, Queen Bailey, wahahahahaha, how awesome would it be to be a queen, man, you know? She was so, like, grateful and stuff that she gave us these flasks, right, and mine had these—” Remembering that the secret top was meant to stay secret, he, like, backpedalled "these" a bit. “—this potion stuff in it, ahahaha. Like, how cool is that, you know?” It was potent stuff, though, so he didn't want to waste it on minor injuries, and, like, tucked it back in his pack.

He was still hurting, but, like, scrambled to his feet anyway. Still in her monkey form, Shane snatched the backpack and held it aloft but, like, out of his reach, waddling after the other two on her hind legs with her tail flicking randomly. Kiel followed at a slower pace than he was, like, used to, one arm folded across his belly to ease the strain in the ribs he'd, like, cracked or whatever. Some of the damage had been healed by the potion Nia sloshed on him since the wound had been pretty close to the cracked ribs anyway, so, like, it was more just an ache now than anything, like, crippling.

“Sure, like, I agree, man. We have to go back for the guy we found earlier too, okay? Like, but, like. I kinda don't wanna find any kids like that, you know? Like, those poor kids, you know?” He followed the trail of broken bushes back the way the hydra had come until he came across a small hill-like structure of, like, branches and foliage. The stench was so strong that he had to cover his mouth with his hand. “Ewwwwwwwwwww. Like, ewwwwwwwwww. Dude, like. Ugh.”

[Ionia]

Nia remembered the chaos with the vampires. It was hard not to hear about it since her home in Calcia was quite close to New Alexandria. However, the distance between the village and the city was substantial enough that rumors stretched into fables, so Nia hadn't quite believed back then that a mere small group of people had solved the mystery and earned the respect of the vampire queen. Yet Kiel had his story and a rose flask to prove it, so the stories were true afterall. This guy. He seemed to enjoy poking his nose in people's businesses. The vampire thing, Anoria, Dionica...frankly Nia could have cared less about vampire politics or a clergyman's dreams, so she was baffled by Kiel's enthusiasm in it all.

As they walked and Kiel talked, Nia stayed slightly behind Raphael. Her control over the shadows had weakened, so she refrained from using them as feelers. Raph on the other hand was still comfortable with his routine of 'tasting' the air for a path. As they passed under a brighter patch of light, Nia spared a glance toward the slower 'vari. Nia and Raph had cuts and bruises, but Kiel seemed to have taken the brunt of the hydra's focus and was suffering because of it. She wasn't sorry for his injuries though. It wasn't her fault that Kiel had been hit, and anyway, he was bound to attract all the attention with his battlecries and charging.

“Let's hope we don't find the kids then,” Nia mentioned about the disappeared children. It had been days since they had been snatched from their village—she honestly did not believe in their survival and she did not wish to be the news-bearer.

Her joints ached as they descended a slope toward some sort of tall mound. Branches and an abundance of leaves were stacked to form a hill that was mixed with a cluster of tall boulders. A pervasive odor surrounded the vicinity of the mound, and as she grimaced, Nia lifted the collar of her shirt to use it like an air filter. Whatever material was used to make this hill, it reeked of decay.

Her boots crunched over dead leaves and branches as they neared the hill, and she heard Raph hiss from up ahead. “What?” But she immediately knew what it was when she glanced toward her friend. The body had been partially tucked into the branches and leaves of the large hill so she hadn't realized what it was until Raph found it. It was sprawled in awkward angles and parts of the limbs had been chewed off. Beside it was some sheep carcass that was similarly piled on top of a group of half-chewed bones. Among the bones, Nia could discern a large pale wing accompanied by a very humanoid figure. “Ugh, Neme have mercy.”

((Ready for round two? xwO))

[Kiel]

OOC: Sorry, Joy, can we skip the second one?

Kiel was moving slower than he was used to, you know? Like, he liked moving fast. His family joked that he could out-eat a Therian, but, like, it was because he was always on the move, you know? He didn't like that his movements were restricted like this, but at least he wasn't, like, bleeding out into the undergrowth or something. “Ugh, I'm gonna be sick.”

He gasped when Nia said she hoped they didn't find the kids. “Dude, how can you say that? That's, like, so mean!” Deep down, he knew what she meant, that the kids were dead already so he better hope he either had a cast-iron stomach or that they never, like, found the bodies or the remains or whatever. But Kiel was, like, an optimist or something. He really believed there was a chance the kids were still alive, like the hydras had a conscience or something, you know? “, I'm going to be sick.”

Nia's prayer for mercy didn't bode well, though. Kiel stumbled around to her left to find even more remains, this time small enough to be a child — or a couple of them, actually — and then he really was being sick. The new smell mingled with the stench of blood and rotting flesh, making him retch all over again. “Burn it,” he choked out. “Please.” Like, he had planned to get Nia and Raph to help him, like, carry the bodies back to Serendipity so their families could have proper rites, but there wasn't enough of them left and, like, no way he wanted them to see this. Like, he knew the predator-prey relationship was vital to the Balance of the world and all 'cause, like, his Nymphy friends talked about that stuff a lot. He ate meat and, like, Shane hunted her own food and all, and sometimes his too if they were travelling, but, like, it seemed like these guys had seriously suffered, you know?

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and swallowing repeatedly, Kiel patted himself down in search of something they could use to light a bonfire. Normally, for a campfire, he rubbed two twigs together, but jungle wood wasn't dry enough. “Like, either of you got a tinderbox or something, man?” That was even assuming the pile of sticks and leaves would light in this humidity.

[Ionia]

((Sure sure. Also feel free to fast forward. ))

Her breath was short and intermittent. The stench was too strong to ignore and it took all of her discipline not to cough—she'd only breathe more of it if she choked. Keeping the fabric of her shirt to her nose, Nia strode slowly along half of the mound, counting the number of bodies that might have belonged to an individual. At times, she couldn't be sure if some of the bones belonged to multiple beings, or just one person. Her heart sank as she stopped beside Kiel to observe the small, humanoid figures. She didn't say a word, but bowed her head for a moment of silence. Elysians died regularly from battles or predators, but children were highly treasured by the anyeli, for they did not have many. “We will tell their families.” It had to be done, and her only comfort in the deed was that just perhaps, the villagers would start watching their children more closely.

A fresh breeze picked up from behind them, and she turned to see her zanaryan friend nod from his spot. Welcoming the fresher air, Nia placed a hand on Kiel's shoulder before turning her back to the bodies. Fire wouldn't grow on this pile of rot and maggots, so they dispersed briefly to collect drier material. When they'd finished piling their own twigs and leaves along the base of the mound, Nia pulled her tinderbox from a side pouch and crouched to the ground. After a few failed attempts of striking flint with steel, a tiny spark finally glowed among the tinder. Blowing gently to nurse the flame, she let it grow before settling it at the foot of the mound. The fire crawled quickly along the base, but as it ventured upward, some patches sputtered and almost seemed to die out. However, Nia fed more tinder to the areas as Raph fanned the flames.

Eventually, the hydra's nest was dotted by patches of dancing flames. They couldn't just leave such a massive fire in the forests like this, so they sat at a distance, just watching and waiting for the mess to burn down. Seated between Kiel and Raph, Nia had hugged her knees toward her torso and was simply stared into the lights.

“The hydra was a bigger beast than expected,” Raph suddenly said over the crackle of flames, “we were lucky to bump into you, Kiel.”

Neither she nor Raphael were the sort who gave compliments easily, so she was surprised to hear the zanaryan say such a thing. Tilting her head slightly to observe her friend, Nia paused, chewed the inside of her lip, and pondered. “When we get back, I'm getting drinks for the both of you,” she glanced from Raph to Kiel. Her lips quirked with a sly smile, “I'll treat Pria and Shane, too.” It wasn't a thank you, or even a compliment, but it was something.

[Kiel]

Kiel still had tears in his eyes but, like, he'd thankfully not burst into sobs like a little girl. He totally blamed the tears on the smoke, man.

“Me, too, man, like, for sers.” If he'd gone up against the hydra by himself, like, no more Kiel, you know? Shane mewled and dropped her head in his lap so he could stroke her soft fur. Like, the 'kin always knew when he needed a hug, you know?

Nia's offer took him by surprise and he grinned at her. “Like, for real? Like, really for real? 'cause, like, woohoo!” His fist pumped the air and he hopped to his feet, deciding the fire had burned out enough of a ring that they could leave it to its own devices now. Except, like, he stamped a few bits of ember out just to be safe, then raced back to help the pair up. So easily were his injuries and his heartache buried beneath mounds of hunger and excitement — until Shane decided she'd found a new best friend and, like, weaved around Nia's legs to mewl at her instead of him. Not that he could blame her. Like, she got his gluttony from him, he guessed.

“Pria, Pria, Pria! Guess what, guess what!” Even his mental voice was bouncing. The dragon's sleepy response quickly turned into a mental roar of glee when he translated the promise of treats and he grinned again at Nia and Raf. “Wahahahaha, she said she'd meet us there!”

OOC: I think this'd be a nice spot to end the thread, if that's okay with you? ^^