Winged

Chapter 13

Ever since landing a couple of days ago, Urodas world was thrown for a loop. The humid and thick air made it difficult to fly - and every time she thought too hard about certain things she just became more upset; at herself, and at her situation.

She had left the Hopelan village not long after the queen left her with an off-colored feeling in her stomach. The group had met in town, gathered food and basic necessities - some swords and shields from the local armory - it all was going well,  and they were advancing on other civilizations to make appearances and inform them of the coming struggle with the dragons. 

But as they had flown westward these past couple days, something continued to nag at the back of her mind... She buried it deeper, as usual, but this thought did not cease to nip at the bottom of her skull like a baby bird nips as a dangling worm.

Uroda hopped from the branch she was, for some reason, sitting in to join the rest of the slayers. Prodontis, Bartol, Frykas, Piekno, Wojna, Hosh, and Swan - who was busy massaging the hands of Flora.

The eight slayers and the Queen, looking at a map of a world Uroda had never seen before - not of own accord, she added silently, but because she never even knew it existed. Many names stood out on the map - from west to east,

Sokol

Bishban

Therian

Hopelan

and.... Kind.

"Kind?" Uroda pointed to the map, her finger lingering under what seemed to be a large structure to the north west of the volcano they'd just passed. 

"That's... nevermind them. We won't interact with them much, they are rather hostile towards us." The Queen stated,  "And besides, they aren't much use to us if we are to deal with this dragon."

Uroda nodded. She had seen how big that dragon truly was, and it was frightening how clearly outmatched even the Slayers were. The atmosphere shifted from focus to one of doubt, if not then quickly corrected by Piekno as she stood firm,

"We need to continue our search for weapons to deal with such a formidable class of dragon, and for any texts that could clue us into any strategies when deal with this beast."

Frykas scoffed, turning his nose up at the map in front of him,  "I know not why we ask these pathetic maggots for handouts..." The lanky slayers words shocked Uroda, but seemed to phase right through the rest of the group,

"Freakas, weren't you the one who didn't let me slay the dragon while we had the chance?"

"Wojna, stop. Yoh had no chance - I'm surprised Frykas even stopped yoh, I know I wouldn't have been so kind." Bartol chuckled to himself, in an almost cold and sarcastic way. Swan took a second to glance over at the conversation, still hanging onto their queen in a very possessive way,

"Your bickering is offending the queen."

"Shut your beak - your insistence  on hanging onto the queen like feathers on wings is offensive to us." Hosh scowled, then broke into a smile as Swan sent daggers from her eyes towards her twin. His large stature had seemingly little sway in his decision to run away as Swan leapt from her seat and began playfully chasing her sibling around. The Queen Flora's attention was on Swan at that moment, a warm presence in her gaze; a slow flicker of the embers of attraction she held for her Swan.

"This is a disaster..." Prodontis muttered, rubbing his eyes in frustration.

Wojna looked towards Uroda, who had not yet spoken in the exchange, and felt a bit sad. She hopped over to Uroda and gave her a tiny nudge with her elbow.