Chapter 3: The Journey towards Home

-------------------------------- Serayana's view

Even though Serayana went to the capital to get her magical affinities checked, she also picked up a rumor in court. The Demons movements in the south started to make the King worried, if they would start attacking then Serayana's home Medeth would be endangered. She needed to tell her father, who was currently bedridden because of an illness.

As she looked at Vor's back she noticed a huge tatoo of a beast she had never seen before, it was black and seemed to have many scales. 'Only slaves get a magical tatoo, but it is much smaller and not formed like a beast. Is he a runaway slave who tried to cover up his brand? That would explain why he hasn't got cloth,' thought Serayana.

She despised the slavery system, mostly elves were captured and enslaved, the enslavery of humans was usually forbidden, only criminals and the family of criminals were able to be enslaved. Half-Elves were a grey area, as they were very unusual, they would fetch a good price. If she were to travel alone, bandits maybe would try their luck to enslave her.

'Is he a criminal? He doesn't look like it. Maybe somebody of his family got into trouble with a noble... I could pretend that he is my slave, that way he would not run into trouble while he is with me, even if he is nearly naked,' pondered Serayana as she considered her options. 'We cannot go to Baguda, as they would question us. Even if we didn't do anything they would at least question us for a day and I don't want to waste time.I'

"Follow me." said the possible former slave towards Serayana as he stood at the cave entrance.

'If he was transported as a slave and only escaped because of the explosion then he shouldn't know where he currently is.' pondered Serayana. "Do you even know where we have to go, Vor?"

"No." responded Vor with a straight face.

"Why should I follow you then?" argued Serayana trying hard not to laugh about his response. 'How can he even keep a straight face while saying that?'

"Do you know where we have to go, shorty?" countered Vor.

"Of course do I know! We have to go..." Serayana looked outside the cave trying to orientate. "Where are we anyway?"

"So you don't know." teased Vor, he found the blunder of Serayana amusing.

"I... ehm... I don't know..." responded Serayana while her face went as red as a beetroot. 'How embarrassing...'

"Well, as you can see, we are in a cave, if you look past the crater to our front, you should see a lake, do you now know where we are? Because I don't." said Vor scratching his chin which was devoid of any hair.

"Why do you speak like you are my guide? If this is the Bourlean Sea over there, then we have to go to the right until we find a waycross. There should be a street, but I guess the explosion destroyed it." Serayana pointed to the right. 'He wanted to tease me, didn't he? He could have told me where we are since the beginning.'

"Well let's go then." said Vor as he started moving.

Serayana followed him closely while she was pondering. 'I should tell him that he has to act like my slave, who ran away with me as worgen attacked us. But would a former slave readily play the role of a slave?'

They already covered two-thirds of the way when Serayana mustered up the courage to tell Vor what she was thinking. "Vor, listen, you have to play the role of a slave until we arrive at Medeth. I cannot show myself in this fashion in Baguda as it is the home of our rival household Farnstone. It would cause me great shame if I were to show up in this attire in their city. We have to go to the village Tavin which is located on the way."

"I don't mind playing the role of a slave, but shouldn't we try to eat something first?" answered Vor indicating that he had not eaten in quite some time.

-------------------------------- Vorlianth's view

'She doesn't seem too hungry, perhaps she had lost her appetite due to the events. She is not aware of it, but she suppresses her feelings.' thought Vor, as he grasped that the explosion should have shooed all animals away.

"You are right, we should eat, we won't reach Tavin today, we probably need a whole day." spoke Serayana in a depressed way.

"The animals apparently ran away, are you sure we shouldn't go into that Baguda town, we could get us a vessel to move faster." inquired Vor. 'Does she want to sleep outside? As far as I know humans prefered to sleep in a house, but maybe that was just a quirk of the humans of Xavius.'

"I'm sorry, but no. It may be conceited of me, but I cannot do that."

"Not a chance?"

"No."

Thus the two of them made their way towards Tavin, taking the south-west way of the waycross. It was already dusk and the sun didn't seem to spend light for much longer, Vor also got hungrier with every minute and even Serayana seemed to feel her hunger now. In addition, Vor heard Serayana's tummy rumbling, she seemed to ignore that fact and tried to not let Vor notice it. Her red face did not help her in that aspect.

An hour later, it was already dark. The morale of the two reached a new low.

'We were followed since quite a while, are they waiting until we rest?' pondered Vor while he walked over the muddy road, his feet were already full of dirt. "We should rest, Mistress."

He could see the shock in Serayana's eyes. "M-Mistress? You only have to play the role of a slave, you don't have to actually act like a slave if we are alone. Yet it does sound better than "shorty"."

"Is that so, shorty?" teased Vor while he made his way to a place which was protected by rocks. He sat down and leaned against a tree. He pointed at straw which was probably once used as a bed.

"Is it okay that I am the one sleeping on straw?" questioned Serayana, uncomfortable with the thought of her benefactor sleeping on the ground.

"I am used to it." said Vor truthfully, since he originally was a dragon he never had the need to sleep on something else than the ground. "Also, I am going to make fire, wait here."

"Do you have something to light it?" asked Serayana with doubt written all over her face.

Vor stood up and searched for branches while he said: "I do know some fire magic." It wasn't a lie, since "some" was not a defined amount of magic spells, technically he didn't knew any real spells. As he went away he glanced back at Serayana, who looked back at him with surprise apparent in her fascinating face. Something told Vor that he should not have mentioned it. At least not this early.

When Vor had enough branches he lighted the fire with a flick of his hand.

"So you really know fire magic."

"I told you."

"Who are you really? A normal person shouldn't know their affinities, nor should they know how to use them." Serayana demanded an explanation.

'Well, Vorlianth, you messed up. Improvise!' Vor told himself.

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I hope you enjoyed chapter 3, next time there finally is some action again. (I am currently having some exams, which could slow down the release a little.)