Melissa

I was sitting on a log when Lonna came back - staring into the firepit and feeling useless. Talith had kept me from chasing after her, but what was even the point of me being in this world if all I could do was sit around and let Lonna do the work? The thoughts honestly had me in a dark place, and despite Lonna practically screaming for Talith and me it took a moment for me to pull out of that headspace and return to the present.

“Monsters!” Lonna continued to scream. “Gate! Go! Carry! Winded!” 

“If you’re feeling winded then why are you screaming?” Talith asked, grumbling even as he made his way over to her. “And you’re asking me to carry you, too? What’s going on.”

“No… time…” Lonna replied at a more normal volume, breathing heavily between the words. “Monsters… gate… bad…”

“Fine,” Talith grumbled, grabbing hold of Lonna and marching towards his riding drake. “You’ll have to tell me more as we head into town, though.”

“What about me?” I asked, a little worried they’d leave me behind. “I know there’s wanted posters of me, but-”

“No!” Lonna interrupted, shaking her head. “You’ll… dammit… Move now, discuss after!”

“Right,” I replied, heading for my horse and quickly getting astride it. Thankfully we hadn’t removed the tack, as we hadn’t been sure whether we were settling in for the night or not.

Once everyone was mounted, we began to move towards the town. Only then did Lonna begin to speak again.

“One of Sorissa’s crazy underlings told me she unleashed monsters on the gate. We need to put a stop to them before a bunch of people die in her stupid diversion.”

“You talked with one of Sorissa’s underlings!?” Talith demanded.

“What do you mean by diversion?” Joanie asked. “What’s she trying to accomplish?”

Personally, there was a different question on my mind. “How can I help?”

“You can’t,” Lonna replied, singling me out first. “Yes, I talked to Sorissa’s underling - no idea what she’s actually after, though. She said she wanted to get to the scale before me, but she probably could have just gone in the normal way if that was all there was to it. Instead she did this, to… I don’t know… torment me or something? To slow us down? Not like it’s going to work, though.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, worried. “You’re just going to leave them to their fate?”

“Of course not!” Lonna scoffed, crossing her arms. “Talith and I are going to be defeating the monsters on our way through the gate. With luck, we’ll even be able to figure out what that bitch Kylee is up to on our way through. You and Joanie, meanwhile, are going to be sneaking in during the chaos. I’m sure the countess packed a cloak or something for you, so just dig it out, put it on, and rush through the gates while all eyes are on me.”

“I want to help,” I protested, gripping the reins tightly.

“Well you can’t,” Lonna replied, bluntly dashing my hopes. “You don’t know how to use a weapon, or how to fight against plant monsters. It’s not like they generally come with obvious weak points to stab at, you know? You have to deal massive amounts of physical damage if you wanna make an impact.”

“That’s…” I bit my lip. She was right. I knew she was right. I just didn’t want her to be.

“Best thing we can do is keep out of the way,” Joanie said, her horse coming up alongside mine.

“But you can fight, can’t you?” I protested. “Maybe I should go ahead alone, and then you can-”

“Nope nope,” Joanie interjected, shaking her head. “I’ve got strict orders to keep a watch over you, yup yup. Even above the official orders to stay by the princess.”

“But your presence could make a difference in the fight!”

“Nope nope,” Joanie replied, shaking her head again. “Can fight plants, for sure, but it’ll take a long time with the weapons we’ve got. Would have to break them down bit by bit. Better to let Princess Lonna just blast it, I think.”

“Exactly,” Lonna confirmed. “I’ll burn the damn thing to smithereens, and Talith will stomp on its ashes. Then we’ll skip the heroes party or whatever they wanna throw us and catch up with you.”

“The best thing you can do to help is keep out of the way,” Talith added, his voice a touch softer than I’d come to expect from him. “Get into town, and then through it - there’s another gate that exits out onto the mountain pass. Both gates are usually guarded, going off what I saw, but with monsters attacking the front end I’m not sure how many, if any, have been left behind. With a little luck you’ll figure out a way to slip through, and we’ll all meet up again when this is done.”

I nodded, reluctantly accepting my place in all this. Inside my own head, though, I swore an oath - a promise to pester Joanie into teaching me everything she could about fighting. Talith too for that matter. Even if our physiology didn’t exactly line up, there was a chance he still had a tip or two to pass on and I intended to find out.

“Great,” Lonna said. “Then let’s pick up the pace. Town is getting close, and-”

A scream tore through the air, followed by a loud explosion, and smoke rose into the sky. 

“Shit,” Lonna cursed, before turning half around in her seat. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

Talith grunted in response. Maybe he did something else, as well, because the riding drake sped up a little a moment later. I didn’t see what, though, and it didn’t seem fast enough to satiate Lonna regardless.

“Fuck it,” she grumbled. “Throw me.”

“Throw you!?” Talith practically screamed back. “Throw you where? Are you crazy?”

“Can you fly, or something?” I asked.

“Not even a little bit,” Lonna replied. “But I can use magic to propel myself forward and soften the landing.”

“Last time we tried that you crashed straight into a house,” Talith reminded her, causing my eyes to widen.

“Last time we tried that we were inside a town. This time we’re not. Just throw me up and over the trees, and I’ll take care of the last.”

“Aren’t you worried about breaking your head open on a branch or something?” I asked, eyeing above us. The canopy was thin enough to let the daylight through, but there were still some thick looking branches up there.

“I’ll blast a hole first, if I need to,” Lonna replied. “Now are you going to throw me or not, Talith? Because I’m telling you now that this damn drake of yours isn’t going to get me there in time.”

“We don’t know that,” Talith argued. “All we heard was one scream.”

As if in response to those words, we heard another - followed by yet another explosion, and a new billow of smoke.

“Fine. Then throw me straight up into the air, so I can at least get a good look.”

“Only if you promise not to fly off on your own,” Talith replied, crossing his arms.

“I just finished telling Melissa I can’t fly, remember?” Lonna tried, with a cheeky grin. Talith didn’t budge, though. “Ugh. Fine. I promise I’ll come right back down, alright? I just want to get a look at the state of things.”

“…Fine,” Talith eventually relented, throwing his hands up in the air. “But punch a hole in the trees first. I don’t want to be responsible for cracking your head open, even if it is empty.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Lonna replied, rolling her eyes even as she lifted a hand to the sky. “Close your eyes, alright?”

“Wh-” I started to ask, only to be interrupted by a bright flash of light. I closed my eyes in a hurry from there, so I didn’t get to see what followed, but it was bright enough to leave an impression even through my eyelids. Then there came a sound - a sizzling sound, followed by a loud boom as the air around us shook. Then something heavy came crashing down by above, followed by what felt like a sprinkling of dust. When I opened my eyes, I saw several branches on the ground, each sporting scorched ends, and ash scattered all over the place.

“Oops?” Lonna said, rubbing the back of her head. “I might have overdone it a bit.”

“You think?” Talith snapped back. “If I throw you up now they’ll probably try to shoot you down, thinking it’s another attacker!”

“Please, like I can’t handle a ballista or two,” Lonna retorted, hands on her hips. “Come on, don’t be such a big baby about it. One quick throw up above the trees to see what’s going on, and then I’ll come back down and give a report.”

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” I muttered, glancing at Joanie to see if she’d lend me any support. She was keeping silent, though, and I still wasn’t very good at reading the expressions of a giant rabbit head.

“I’ll be fine,” Lonna insisted. “Come on, the more time we waste here the more people get injured and the narrower our window to sneak Melissa through.”

Talith hesitated a moment longer, various unreadable expressions crossing his face, before eventually letting out a sigh. 

“Fine. But if you get hurt, you’re healing yourself, alright? No questions asked.”

“Yes, fine, whatever!” Lonna snapped. “Just throw me!”

Talith drew his arm back, tilting his body until he was practically lying atop the riding drake, and then launched Lonna into the sky. I watched her go up through the trees, up so high that I struggled to keep an eye on her without getting blinded by the slowly setting sun. Then came another scream, followed by another explosion - except this time we could see it. A ball of fire that exploded upon impact, sending fire flying everywhere.

“Shit,” Talith muttered.

“Shit!?” I asked. “What do you mean ‘shit’? Is Lonna going to be okay?”

“She’s going to be fine,” Talith replied, glaring up at the sky. “Not so sure about her cloak though.”

Another scream came before I could reply. A more familiar scream this time, as Lonna plummeted towards the ground while letting loose a string of curses all the while.

“Should we try to catch her!?” I called out, screaming a bit myself just to be heard over her.

“Don’t worry!” Talith called back. “She’s got this!”

I hesitated, unsure exactly what the clay giant meant. At least until the curses turned to something else - a language I didn’t recognize, full of words I was pretty sure I’d struggle to pronounce, let alone memorize. The moment the last word left her mouth, though, she began to notably slow, eventually coming to a stop with her feet on the ground.

She was also back to cursing.

“Tree blighted, roots taken, bitch of a magi! Who the fuck throws an exploding fireball at someone who’s over the woods? I’m pretty sure the whole damn forest is going to go up in smoke after that!”

“Um… Lonna?” I said, raising a hand to catch her attention.

“What?” she snapped at me, narrowing her eyes. “Going to lecture me about recklessly launching into the sky? Wanna say you told me so?”

“No it’s just… You’re um… Sort of still on fire?”

Lonna blinked at me, then glanced down at herself, seeming to notice for the first time that her clothing was alight.

 “...Dammit!” she cursed, even as the flames spontaneously went out. “Mom made me that cloak!”

There wasn’t much of a cloak left, to be honest. What was left of it was stained black, burned clean through in some places and obviously charred all over. The clothes underneath didn’t seem to be in a much better state, but they were at least still intact enough to cover her modestly.

“That’s it!” Lonna snarled. “I don’t care about the monsters or the town anymore! I’m going to wring that magi’s neck - and if I have to kill all the monsters and save the town on my way to them, so be it! They’re not getting away with this!”

“Maybe you should take a moment to calm down?” I suggested. “Before you do something you’ll regret?”

“Fuck that,” Lonna replied, marching up to her horse, which had calmly been following the back of the procession. Honestly, I had to give credit to it - and the rest of our mounts - for staying so calm through all this. But they had belonged to the guard, so maybe they’d received some form of special training?

“Talith, come help me onto this thing!” she demanded. “I’ll ride in front, and you can come clean up the mess once you catch up. Melissa and Joanie - wait, like, five minutes and then follow. I’ll have created enough of a mess by then that you should be able to slip past the guards and find your way through the gate. Maybe tell them I’m your guard or something, and that I told you to get to safety, if anyone has the wherewithal to question you in the first place.”

“Right,” I replied. 

To be honest, I didn’t like the plan. It made me feel useless - but I kinda was at the moment, so… Well, all I could really do was follow Lonna’s orders and try to be less useless the next time a situation like this came up.

Because something told me that this was far from the last hectic battle I’d be part of…

“Alright, everyone!” Lonna called out, now sitting upon her horse with help from Talith, who was currently striding back towards his own mount. “Let’s head out!”

~~~

Author's Notes

Hey there! Been a bit since I was able to post an update for this series... To be honest, we've had some pretty bad writer's block for it! And also Kay's been sorta obsessed with MOV, so getting some writing time to myself to work on this has been a bitt of an issue.... (Kassandra Kylie here btw - one of Kay's headmates - hi)Still, I think we made some good progress this time around! Hopefully we'll get the next one out before too much longer...