A small gust of wind blew across the packed dirt road, threatening Ellie’s precarious balance standing on top of one of Galler’s broad shoulder, looking for all the world like a very odd parrot. Despite the boost, the impressive height of a gnome and a small child meant there was little change to the view. Still, it was a nice distraction to whittle the hours as they flew past the pair like birds in the sky. Another gust of wind, this one much harder, threatened to blow her completely off his shoulders, but Galler merely raised his arms with a grunt to steady her, his attention still focused on the road he was steadfastly treading down. It had been like this for almost two hours, by her reckoning. Or, to be more exact, by the reckoning of the stopwatch one of Galler’s new friends carried. She still didn’t understand why they never talked, or how exactly they were managing to follow them on their backs on the ground behind Galler as if dragged by something unseen, but they seemed friendly enough.

It had been a bit strange at first, even managing to startle her as they had left the town and she had noticed people from various buildings sliding towards them on the ground without a single expression on their faces, but Ellie considered herself a girl who could roll with the times. As long as those times were the kind that let her play with Galler on a trip. A road trip! For a second a smile almost ghosted across her face at the thought of it. Sure, she didn’t understand everything that they were going to do… something about going to the demons and meeting up with that tall friend of Tim’s that had a scary-looking bloody mark on his forehead. But whatever! New people, new places! It was going to be fun! Big brother had even let her ride on his shoulders when she started to get tired of walking!

A sound rang out, and Ellie’s eyes snapped back into focus as Galler started to whistle a truly tone-deaf song. Was it a song? She couldn’t tell for sure. It was just that bad. However, the abomination of a noise that was coming from her poor big brother’s mouth made her focus once again, as far as she could see.

Trees, and rocks, and rocks, and trees.

Ellie patted out a rhythm on her cheeks as she stepped over Galler’s head on her endless patrol to ‘look out for strange things approaching’, as Galler put it earlier. Something behind her snapped and crunched, causing Ellie’s head to whip around in concern, only relaxing when she saw the source of the noise was that one of Galler’s new friends had gotten caught on a rock and had somehow flipped over lengthwise.

A soft chuckle escaped Ellie’s lips. They were such clowns. Almost in as if he was acknowledging her praise of his prank, the lizardman who had flipped over paused for a few seconds, his mouth opening to groan, before something… invisible appeared to grab hold of his feet and continued to drag him behind Galler. A groan of… Ellie scrunched her eyebrows in concentration… panic? Fear?

Naw. Why would those guys be following her cool big brother around if they were scared? Maybe they were scared that Ellie took their joke the wrong way.

Ellie shrugged and shook her head.

What a prankster.

She turned her head to face the front yet again. Ellie didn’t mind a break from the monotony of her important watch duty, but as her big brother Tanlin always said, ‘Always do your job when the boss is looking. When he’s gone, it’s time to slack off. Only when he’s really gone, though! Otherwise yer liable to get shanked.”

She still needed to ask big brother Galler what ‘shanked’ meant.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A few more hours passed and the countryside dragged on and on and on. Ellie had long since abandoned her impor – no, her optional scouting post of standing on her big brother Galler’s shoulders in favor of laying draped over one of his shoulders like a limp sack of potatoes as she contemplated her most vile enemy yet:

Sheer boredom.

Yes, it was an absolute fact. There was nothing to look at but trees and rocks, followed by rocks and trees. She had tried getting Galler to talk about something funny, but all he went on about was how ‘It is necessary for us to meet with Mavier as soon as possible. We need to join forces before the government orders the new heroes to strike against the demons.’

Or something like that. She just hoped that her big brother and the nice demons would beat the crap out of those heroes. For what they’d done to her friends, Ellie wanted them to do more to the heroes like –

Ellie’s eyes sharpened as she cut off her thoughts mid sentence and banged her little fists against Galler’s shoulders to get his attention, only stopping when he looked her way and his eyeless gaze followed her pointed finger towards what seemed to be a… pit? A pit in the distance.

Galler sucked in his breath as his head started to rapidly twitch left and right, only stopping when Ellie banged her fists yet again on his chest.

“It… It says to leave that well alone!” Galler’s hoarse voice cried out, the distress clear in his tone. “That is for another one!”

This time she could feel Galler shudder as horror painted itself across his face.

“Ooooohhhhh heavens above.” He whispered. “It’s for another one. Not another one…. No…. can you smell it? In the air?”

Ellie shook her head in confusion. Was he even talking to her now? All she could smell was all the dust she had inhaled through their hours on the road. The sun beat down on them just as hatefully as always.

“Yesssss….” Galler breathed deeply through his scarred nose and fidgeted with the cracked leather of his shirt. “The pit… it truly is the start of another one. This I know, It told me!” Galler paused a moment.

“Quick, we must meet with Mavier as soon as possible.” Galler muttered, his voice cracked with notes of pure fear. “It has answered. The existence that feeds from that pit, that vile pit of gore and organs, will see us soon. We must be gone from here before then. Let’s go, let’s go!”

As soon as Galler finished feverishly muttering, he raised his arms to scoop up Ellie, setting her skinny frame across his shoulders as he increased his pace to a steady lope not unlike that of an animal’s.

And in the air, a minute change flickered, barely enough for Ellie to smell. Bit by bit the air filled with the smell of iron and rust.

Well. At least she wasn’t bored anymore.