Time crawls by slowly when progress refuses to even make a cameo. The days and eventually a couple of weeks crawled ahead slowly, stubbornly refusing to pull over and let the group pass. Mostly everyone was okay with this, since it followed their long accepted routine; Kiah on the other hand was spending more and more time lecturing her egg about strategy, since it calmed her developing agoraphobia. She felt like they'd traveled ten times the radius of her home kingdom in the last few days, and thinking too much about the vast spaces without border made her feel ill. Being slightly damp from having had to cross a river earlier in the day wasn't helping.
"Maybe these aren't notes at all;" she joked bitterly as they entered yet another scruffy 'town' one morning. "Maybe Nicol just liked to doodle while he worked, and we're killing ourselves over squiggles that he thought made a pretty pattern." The others laughed genuinely and easily, glad that her resolve was holding up.
Through the huts they went, asking every person that spoke a common language if they'd seen this kind of writing before, and again, nobody had. Although they did get to have an 'interesting' conversation with a very loud and very insane young woman who claimed to be having prophetic dreams about a goat. At least she was more interesting than the typical raving lunatic they spoke to. Kiah was horribly tempted to poke at her great poof of "hair" which looked for all the world to be made of copper wire.
"I'm getting sick of this," growled Kiah as the group met up at midday to see if anyone had made progress. Nobody had, of course, and the fact that the others weren't phased by the lack of success didn't help. Well yes actually, it helped overall, but it didn't make Kiah feel any better. She tossed the notebook she'd been carrying to the ground, where it landed with a plop and a puff of dust. "Gods curse it."
The earth rumbled. All three pairs of eyes flew to Kiah.
"I'll never say that again!" she amended quickly, scooping the book back up and slipping it next to the egg in her bag as if to take back the statement.
The ground trembled again, louder this time.
Oh, good one Kiah.
"Yep, there's definitely an earthquake on the way." Rais, with his head down and eyes shut in concentration and paws splayed wide on the dirt, sounded more certain than Kiah had ever heard. She looked to Zeke questioningly.
"He's an earth elemental," Zeke whispered in answer. And then to Rais, "Well? How bad is it?"
"It's not good, but I could probably still stop it if we can get closer to the center before it builds up too much more. We need to go. Now." And for the first time in his life Rais took off running without so much as a polite pause for the others to catch up in.
"He can stop an earthquake?" Kiah boggled at Zeke as they ran.
"If it's not too big of one. It's an awesome ability- even small quakes do nasty, nasty things to the layout here. The landscape, I mean. It gets crazier than a randomly generated dungeon."
"...So..."
"Yeah?"
"So I didn't actually cause it, did I?"
"Try not to get lost!" Rais interrupted back over his shoulder without slowing down as he led the trailing group into a dry stony field and turned a sharp corner. The place looked like an ancient sandbox for temperamental toddlers. Mind-blowingly huge toddlers that liked throwing boulders of every size and shape around at random. With the occasional marooned picture frame or left sock lying around in the dusty red dirt, of course.
"Kiah! You're falling behind!"
Zeke's right, you are. No more criticizing others for not training enough from you, missy.
Excuse me for having prepared for general combat rather than spontaneous marathons, she grouched back at herself. Sprinter I am not.
"Go ahead with Rais, he might need your help! I'm going to... catch my breath...." She slowed down to a trot, then a hop, then a lean-forward-and-pant while the others kept going.
Well that was stupid. Now you have to sit here and wait for them. And it was true, any attempt to follow her now specks-in-the-distance companions would surely get her lost. Being raised in a small, one hundred percent explored and civilized country did not produce people with natural trailblazing ability.
"Well fine, then. So we'll sit here and wait. Stupid planet. Dimension. Whatever." She kicked vindictively at a cracked ceramic flowerpot that had found it's way here somehow or other. "Pah. Can't even say 'gods curse i-"
"She went over that way!"
Never ever saying that again-
Kiah crawled up onto the side of the nearest boulder and peeked over the top of it, looking back towards the town. A small, tight knot of unhappy looking people- most of them were of races that looked similar to people, anyway- were following the trail in the dust towards her. Sunlight caught on the metallic shine of more than one weapon. She caught snatches of their loud, angry conversation on the wind.
"Did you hear what she said right before it started?"
"If this quake ruins my garden, I swear I'll-"
"She and her friends looked up to no good, too."
"I've heard rumors about that green animal and the guy with the weird dragon. They're always trouble."
Kiah wouldn't have been surprised to have seen the angry 'don't start anything' guy from her first day in there, they sounded so much like him. She gulped and looked up to whisper at the sky. "Really, I won't say it again. I didn't mean anything. Honest." But the people were getting closer and closer, following a nice clear trail in the bright daylight on the dry ground. In about a minute they'd be on her boulder.
She looked around frantically- nothing but dusty earth, rocks, open ground beyond them, and these guys were taking their sweet time walking over while she was still out of breath. Running wasn't going to work.
A plan a plan a plan a plan-
It took a precious minute for Kiah to dig her bow out of her pack and pull on the arrows so they stuck out the top within easy reach, but it only took a second for her to fit one to the string, scamper to stand on top of her rock, and fire it off to stick in the dirt just before the group's feet. They fell quickly silent and glared belligerently up at her as she held a second arrow to the string, not pulling it back but holding it at her side as a clear threat all the same.
The fact that they were now close enough for even her to actually hit was, ironically, not comforting.
"Okay. Now you guys are all going to turn around and go home, and my friends an I won't come back to bother you any more." Kiah tried not to look surprised at how steady her voice was. The murderous, predatory glints kindling in their eyes when they saw that she was alone didn't add to her confidence. Out of the corner of her vision Kiah saw a quick motion and a silver flicker and only had time to realize that one woman had flanked her and was getting ready to throw a knife, no time was left for thinking as she pulled her bowstring taught swung around to aim and-
!
-missed horribly despite the practically point blank range thanks to a wordless mental protest that somehow came without question from the dragon-to-be in her pack. The thrown knife grazed her right arm, leaving a harmlessly shallow but stinging cut, and the rest of the people rushed at her rock to pull her down before she could ready another shot.
I didn't want to do it!, Kiah argued mentally at the egg, which seemed inanimately silent once more, but now this is going to be even worse! She pulled her old standby dagger out of it's hip sheath quickly and was trying to figure out whether or not she could possibly threaten a break into the crowd long enough for her to run through it, but her thoughts were interrupted again, this time by more deep rumbling.
The grumbles before had only been a purr; this was an angry growl mounting into a roar. Guess Rais didn't get there in time, she thought distantly as she tried to keep her balance on a rock that was quickly starting to feel like a galloping horse. The angry crowd, against all logic that Kiah could grasp, scattered and started running away in every direction.
That is a bad, bad, bad bad sign. Kiah dropped to her stomach and clung to the rock in fear and confusion, and then in shock as the ground itself started tearing in places like cracking ice on the surface of a pond with near deafening crunches. A few of the rents were big enough that decently sized boulders rolled into them and disappeared They weren't kidding that this place goes crazy when earthquakes hit!
"I DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING!" she shouted, trying to be heard over the roar by whatever stranded and cranky deity could possibly be eavesdropping. "REALLY! YOU CAN TURN IT OFF NOW!"
-----------------------------
It seemed to take forever for the earth to shop shaking itself, as earthquakes usually seemed to do, but even once back on still ground Kiah felt horribly unsettled. Having come from a place where quakes were almost entirely a thing of the past made the event take on a dark omen of world-threatening caliber in her mind.
Could I possibly really have woken something up? She looked around nervously, but the angry crowd seemed to be gone for good and no aftershocks were presenting themselves.
Well... even if I did, everything seems to be okay now. She sighed in relief and started walking closer to the treeline that the others had disappeared into, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of their return.
"That was quite a ride, huh little buddy?" Smiling to herself at the thought of the hitchhiker in her bag, earlier 'disagreement' already forgiven, Kiah slipped the pack off one arm and swung it around in front of herself to check on her charge inside and say a few comforting words, in case he was as upset as she had been. "How're you holding up in there? Still nice and comf-"
Kiah stopped dead, blinking in disbelief with a loose jaw and then pointing accusingly at the egg which was now, inexplicably, a beautiful gemstone like dark indigo-blue. "You! It! Buh- wuh- I didn't-"
Well that answered that question, didn't it?
"Blue. It just had to be blue, did it? Well, then. Fine. Be that way," Kiah muttered grouchily under her breath. "I know I pissed you off, Someone, but don't go taking it out on the little guy. Hrmph! See if I care." And to illustrate her point she gave the egg a quick kiss before zipping it away and settling it on her back again. "Gah, how am I going to explain this to everyone?"
Kiah sat herself atop another, smaller rock, and settled in to wait for the others and think about what came next. She really, really hopped she wouldn't have to go on some weird Quest of Apology or anything, since it sounded ridiculous and really, what had she done wrong anyway? Surely Zeke would have the answer. So, making one-sided idle chatter to her pack now and again, she waited.
And waited.
And waited a bit more.
And, as the sun began do go down and forced her to think about what she'd been trying not to, she sighed.
"They're not coming back, are they?"
Now now now, being horribly grouchy about it isn't going to do you a jot of good.
It sure makes me feel better.
Oh quit being unproductive and start walking.
So, with another resigned sigh, Kiah slid down from her uncomfortable seat and jogged in the direction she had seen Zeke, Shiva, and Rais going. They wouldn't have ditched her, she was sure of that, and wasn't very worried over their safety- for all that they were kind of loopy, the three of them made a good team. All in all it shouldn't take more than a day, should it? To find a group of people that was likewise looking for her and that contained a great big thundering young bunnydragon?