The morning heralded a new day with the sunlight beaming through the tree tops and leaving the vast vegetation speckled with light. Insects that were unseen had begun their chorus of chirps and trills among the trees, among the dead vegetation and among the bushes around us.

Today might be a new day but it wasn’t long before my memory came back and reminded me of the problems of the past. The large Banyan tree that sheltered us was covered in strangler vines that coiled around the trunk in a lighter shade of brown than that of the tree they were strangling.

After getting off my shoulder I made my way to my backpack and ate into a protein bar that I had brought along with me. While I slowly chewed through the rubbery tasteless bar, I looked over to our camp to see all three of my group were still sound asleep. When I was finished with my meal, I was left with a question about what to do with the wrapper it came in. On the one hand I could take it with me but then my bag would be full of junk, well, a different type of junk. The kind I couldn’t eat.

Do I keep it with me or just leave it here were my only options. But if I dump it here then would Ghilya be upset about me leaving rubbish in her home? Hang on, why do I care about her opinions, her species is occupying my home and killing humans mercilessly. I say screw them. And just like that I rolled the wrapper into a ball and threw it over one of the banyan's massive roots, obscuring it. The loud crinkling of the wrapper seemed to have made Ghilya and Thomas stir in their sleep, for a moment I felt my heart rate spike in fear.

Almost a moment later, they both woke up and began a series of stretches before getting their bearings. Ghilya looked around and then climbed up the banyan tree using the hardened strangler vines as purchase before disappearing into the canopy.

“What are you doing?” I shouted out to her.

She didn’t respond. Clarke however woke with a jolt of energy as he was disturbed by my shouting. He rubbed his eyes and then looked over to me with an irritable expression which I chose to ignore. Thomas dug into his morning snack while crouching next to his bag when we heard rustling from the branches above when a blur dropped from the canopy and landed in front of us letting out an “Oof” upon impact with the ground.

Ghilya looked around and pulled out a handful of berries from a pocket on her hip and chewed on them, looking at nothing in particular yet thoughtfully at the same time. She finished her assorted berries and nuts before Thomas finished chewing on his protein bar and then threw the wrapper into his bag.

“Where do we go now?” I asked Ghilya and she responded by pointing to her right. “I got our bearings from up there,” She said, pointing to the branches above. “We can go that way and we will arrive at the river.”

“Lead the way, Missy,” Thomas spoke.

The awkward silence brewed into a powerful force that soon enforced its own emotion onto me. Everything slowly felt more and more wrong the longer we went without saying a word. Ghilya walked us through the forest, throwing herself over the large exposed roots of Banyan trees and the hollowed logs of trees that had fallen. Clarke’s age started to show as he was in behind and slowing us down, Thomas was in front of him and I could see the look on his face whenever he had to look over his shoulder to see if Clarke was still following us.

Why did we bring him along, we should have just left him! Was what Thomas’ eyes were telling me.

Ghilya took notice of our exchanged glances and she slowed herself down to allow me to catch up to her and leaned over towards me and spoke with a hushed tone. “Why did you bring the old man? He is only going to slow us down and Xareith’s forces will catch up to us and kill you.”

I quickly glanced over to her and spoke in an equally quiet tone. “Back in our city, he is the Senator for our region and since he is a politician, he would be in a position of power to get the Dragon Lord to stop this invasion.” I explained.

My voice wavered in levels of certainty as I started to think about what she said. She was right, he was slowing us down. Then I started wondering if Thomas and I were up to the task of fixing this and talking to the Dragon Lord if he were to get killed in an untimely manner. Surely though, Clarke’s worth outweighed the cost of him slowing us down.

I looked over to Ghilya to see if she noticed my concerns but her stoic expressionless face didn’t give me a clue. Maybe she did know and chose not to say anything or pursue it any further. Truthfully, I am glad she didn’t.

“So, tell me about yourself.” She suddenly said.

It caught me off-guard and I stuttered as I tried to figure a way to explain to her my pathetic uneventful life… Well, uneventful until recently.

“Well, I uhh… Uhm, I don’t really know if there is much to explain.” I said nervously.

“Oh come on, it’s a long way to The Cauldron! Do you think we are going to be silent the whole way?” She groaned.

“I know, it is just that I don’t have much of a life to explain away. I mean, how far in my history do you want me to go back?”

She rolled her eyes infuriatingly at me and sighed exasperatingly. “From the beginning, obviously.”

I let out a deep breath. Deep inside my mind I had begun a thorough recollection of my memories as far back as I could remember. Geez, I don’t remember stuff.

“Okay, my brother and I grew up in a poor area.” I began while jerking my thumb towards my brother behind me. “And it was just our mother who raised us…”

An hour had passed and my mouth was starting to get dry from the talking and my throat ached. Ghilya seemed mildly upset from our recollection of what happened to our father. She tried to offer her sympathies but I assured her that we were both okay and we weren’t traumatised by it. I explained to her how life was in my school years and from then on to my post graduate school life. Ghilya was horrified by the conditions of Sanctuary Hills and the irony of the name, a place where you want a roof over your head but don’t mind the high insurance costs and the possibility of being a victim to a buffet of crimes across our country's entire legal doctrine. She showed particular interest in our body enhancements and brought up the strange encounter from last night.

“It’s a strange fashion thing, I guess. But nowadays nobody doesn’t want to be normal human, they want to be the prettiest and coolest looking thing on the streets. But it also means that people who do lose their normal limbs aren’t out of pocket for getting a replacement.” I explained.

“I thought you said that even poor people can afford to have their limbs replaced if need be, why would they be expensive all of a sudden? Is it only towards certain groups of your own kind?” Ghilya asked.

“Actually, it comes from our past.” A voice from behind spoke up.

I turned around to see Thomas with a finger raised as he brought up his point. He had a cocky smirk on his face as he walked through the forest. “Prosthetics weren't always affordable, missy.” He said.

“Can you stop calling me that?” Ghilya asked with an annoyed expression. “I have a name in case you aren’t aware.”

“Oh I am aware. But I don’t care.” Thomas said cockily. His expression suddenly went dead to emphasise his uncaring attitude. He seemed to have gotten good at hiding his emotions well lately, making him seem more in control than I was. Would I become as stoic as him? Would I still be myself?

“Come on, don’t be like this!” She groaned. “We don’t have to be enemies so why provoke me like this?”

Thomas shrugged his shoulders and made a noise of contempt. He looked around the forest without searching for anything in particular. His face glistened with sweat and dark moist patches were more prominent on his clothes than they were yesterday. I watched carefully as a bead suddenly fell from his forehead and dangled from the bottom of his cheek before dropping to the ground. My brother seemed to be deep in thought for a second before he returned his gaze towards us and spoke up.

“It might have something to do with your tribe killing my friends, colleagues and fellow man and all you other creatures kinda celebrating over the mountains of corpses like this is going to be your proudest moment in history. At least ours has more significant moments. I would like to see you try and top.” Thomas said plainly. He then let out a chuckle while Ghilya gasped at his coldness.

“That is not true. If Xareith isn’t stopped then he could bring destruction to my family and clan. Besides, what significant moments can you possibly have? I bet you cannot do this!” Just as she said that, she made some wild movements with her left hand and instantly a ball of fire appeared above her hand and it followed her.

I let out a “Whoa” in amazement, the flame moved along with her movements before she performed the same hand movements again which had snuffed out the flame from existence.

“Well, we did land on the moon.” Thomas said so matter-of-factly. “Two of them. As a matter of fact!”

Ghilya’s jaw dropped and she looked at Thomas in disbelief before turning to face me. I raised an eyebrow and nodded affirmingly. It was true, we did land on Qamar and Lua with a permanent colonial presence on one of them. But to Ghilya this must have seemed impossible given the technological discrepancy between our two races. She continued to gawk between Thomas and I hoping to figure out our tell and know we were joking. But alas she didn’t.

Clarke noticed her surprised expression and picked up his pace until he was standing next to Thomas before chiming in. “It's true! I’ve been to Lua myself.”

“Wait,” Ghilya said after finally snapping out of her stupor. “Which of the moons did you say?”

“Qamar and Lua.” Thomas said.

“I think we have different names for the moons. Which ones are those?”

“Lua is the biggest one.” I said, raising my finger. “Qamar is the one that is like a stained yellow colour and Charybdis is the small purplish one.”

“In my language we call the largest one Lo’Rani and the yellow-ish one Bezer.”

Clarke rolled his eyes around and his hands flew in the air as he began to reiterate his sentence. “Fine! I have been to Lo’Rani years ago.”

Clarke began reiterating his tale of space travel as we marched through the humid, damp rainforest. Not long after the sound of water trickling could be heard in the distance. Finally, I was excited to see the river again and it finally felt like we made progress when we walked against the direction of the flow. It felt like we were making progress. Later that day when the sun was at its highest point we discovered that the river widened exponentially into a large clearing with a pebble beach on our side of the river. It felt very exposed being here.

We stopped on a lone hollow log that was resting on its side on the pebble beach. A rotten tree stump with exposed needle-like fragments of wood was found near the log. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and went to the river to cool down. As I knelt down by the flowing stream, I caught a glimmer of something shimmering in the water. I first thought it was just the sunlight rippling against the river bed but then I saw something moving among the rocks, it darted from one large rock to another until it rested in front of a dark grey stone. It was a small fish no bigger than my finger and it had a reflective stripe going down its light brown body. Whenever it wiggled its body, the reflective stripe shimmered brightly.

I chuckled as I soon realised the river was filled with the little fish and I went back to the group to inform them of my discovery. All three sat down on the log hunched over. Thomas and Clarke occasionally sipped from their canteens while Ghilya looked bored as she stared at one particular rock in front of her.

“Guys, check it out!” I said excitedly. I bounced on my feet as I pointed toward the river. “There’s these tiny little fish and they are so shiny!”

The reactions from the group were underwhelming; Clarke huffed amusedly while Thomas shook his head in disbelief, Ghilya simply acknowledged me with a grunt without breaking her focus on the rock. My excitement was almost immediately replaced with regret and emptiness when I heard that. They didn’t care, I told myself solemnly. Of course, it made sense they were not interested in some shiny river dwelling fish that I stumbled across because their thoughts were occupied with focusing on our hike. I fought against the urge to hang my head low in sadness and instead looked to where the river was coming from. Only a hundred metres away was the end of the pebble beach and the wide river narrowed itself into a thin passage that led to the mountains in the distance. The mountains were dark grey and they had grown slightly larger than the tree line than they had been earlier.

I always imagined the great mountain range to be capped with bright white snow. They seem so… different without snow on top.

After sitting down next to Thomas on the edge of the log I heard something. Muffled flapping sounds with no creature in sight to make them. The flapping sounds grew louder as I looked around for the source. Thomas noticed the sounds too, followed by Ghilya and Clarke all trying to find where the source was coming from.

“Dragons.” Ghilya exclaimed with a frightened look on her face.

When I inspected the sky on my right, following the river where we had been earlier, I saw small dark silhouettes flapping their wings hard. My optics zoomed in until I found myself staring down the scaly armoured snout of the lead dragon with another three following close behind it. The lead dragon’s snout was covered in scars and missing a horn on the right side of its face. It looked very furious.

“Shit!” I said, they were coming this way.

Ghilya turned to face us and pointed at something behind us. “Quick, hide in that log!”

Without question all three of us obeyed her. The sound of wings flapping grew louder with each beat bringing the dragons closer and closer to us. The image of the lead dragon’s face burned in my retina as I wondered how it got those scars and why it looked so angry. One by one we got on our hands and knees and threw our backpacks in front of us into the log before we shifted ourselves uncomfortably inside the log. I was just about to get in when Clark, who was in front of me, backed himself up and looked at Ghilya.

“What about you, aren’t you gonna get in?” Clarke spoke.

“I’ll be fine, they won’t suspect me here!” She threw a dismissive wave towards us.

The inside of the log was spacious enough to fit three grown men inside. All three of us had our backpacks separating each other. Outside the log, the air thrusted with each beat of their wings, growing louder and louder until I was sure they had to be directly above us. I hope they didn’t see us. Do dragons have a far enough eyesight? Their flapping nearly had an echo inside the log. My train of thought was disrupted by a ground shaking thump that made the hollow log roll from side to side. The fourth and final dragon landed, the pebbles crunching loudly under their feet. The sound of grinding the pebbles beneath their massive weight spoke highly of their own capabilities. Each crunch underfoot or paw or whatever a dragon has was slowly approaching us.

My heart raced with fear and I had to control myself from shivering and giving ourselves away. Clarke and Thomas looked calm as they remained perfectly still while looking out both ends of the log, making sure the dragons were not looking in on us. Clarke’s left hand reached out in front of me and then the back of his pants, slowly and carefully pulling out his revolver before bringing it to his face. Outside, I could hear the crunch of rocks growing closer, each step toward me made me tremble and my hands started to shake in fear.

“Greetings, wood elf!” A deep feminine voice spoke. I assumed the voice to belong to the lead dragon.

“Hello, dragons,” Ghilya responded. “What brings you all to this beautiful river?”

“ We are hunting for a small group of humans that have escaped their besieged city. All creatures are advised to keep an eye out for any signs of them.”

“Well you won’t find any here,” Ghilya chuckled. “I haven’t seen any in these parts of the woods.”

Her attempt at humour didn’t seem to move the dragons. I could only guess by the rumbling sounds they made that they were either annoyed or very hungry. From a distance I heard one of the dragon’s step closer to us. With each crunch of pebble rocks and sand drawing nearer until I was certain it passed the leader dragon and was approaching us. My heart beat with a ferocity I had never felt before and my anxiety was spiking once more until I was paranoid that if they got closer to us then they could smell us. The footfalls stopped where I was positively certain that the dragon was next to the log. Heavy breathing was amplified within the confines of our crawlspace and I was fighting the urge to make any sounds, but the breathing grew heavier even when it sounded like it was being suppressed and then I realised that it was not my breathing that was being loud; it was Thomas. I looked past Clarke to see my brother’s body inflate and deflate with such rapidity that I thought he was on the verge of a panic attack.

“We have reason to believe that humans are nearby. If you encounter them” The dragon spoke.

“Oh really?” When Ghilya said that, her voice went up in pitch. She sounded mildly shaken as though she was being called out by the dragons. Without seeing their faces there was no way for me to know if they were accusing her or simply stating a fact. I hoped that Ghilya wouldn’t say the wrong thing to give us away.

“Do you have any proof of that?” She continued.

“One of our foot patrols spotted this deep in the forest, an hour away from the river.” Aside from the rumbling sounds from their chests, I could not find out what was going on, I heard something crinkle and then Ghilya simply responded with “I see, I will definitely keep my eyes out for them.”

A thought occurred to me and the idea of it being realised horrified me. So instead, I had thought hard about it not being the case and how the possibility of it being real was infinitesimal.

“If you find the humans, we ask you to cast a signal spell and we will come to you and deal with the humans.” The female dragon said before the log was suddenly rocked by a massive gust of wind from the dragons’ wings thrusting downward. We stayed in the log listening to the sound of their wing beats grow fainter as they flew away when Ghilya finally responded. “You guys can come out now.” She solemnly said.

Thomas threw his bag out of the log and climbed his way out, shortly followed by Clarke and myself. Ghilya stood a few feet away from the log, staring out to the river, unmoving. On the ground in front of her I saw the indentations in the ground where the dragons had landed. I gulped. A part of me was glad to not have seen the dragons up close, even with my enhancements and weapons I had a nagging feeling that firepower was not something I was superior in. Ghilya didn’t turn around to look at us when we got out nor did she respond when Clarke groaned loudly when he stretched his back after being cramped for that short while.

“You okay, missy?” Thomas asked. His hand reached out to touch her shoulder but she flinched when he neared her, then she turned around, her cheeks were flushed red and her brow was furrowed into her forehead. She had her small fists clenched tightly into a ball which shook with a restrained anger.

“Do I look alright to you!?” She bellowed.

“Whoa, what’s the deal here. Why are we getting so hostile here?” Clarke said defensively.

Ghilya raised her left fist and then opened it, dropping a small ball of scrunched up silver wrapping. It fell to the ground, Ghilya didn’t break her eye contact with my brother as he knelt down to pick it up to observe it. He unwrapped it and narrowed himself towards her, holding the wrapper in his fingers.

Oh shit, that’s my wrapper I said alarmingly to myself.

“What’s the big deal, it's just a wrapper.” Thomas said.

“Oh of course it's just that to you,” She sneered. “to you that is just garbage and my home land a massive dump for you to waste away at your leisure!”

“I don’t see why you are getting pissy at me. All my rubbish is in a plastic bag in my backpack. I am not stupid enough to leave evidence like this wandering around given the nature of our expedition!”

Right as he said that, I felt the knot in my stomach grow tight until it felt like a punch in the gut. He was right, how could I have been so stupid to leave something like that lying around? I should have waited until we had a campfire going or something so I could dispose of it. Ghilya then adjusted her glance to Clarke and his hands flew up defensively as he claimed he was allergic to the brand. And suddenly, my anxiety worked up and my heart was beating faster again as all three glances slowly turned to me. I tried to swallow, however my mouth was dry. Dammit, what do I do, what do I say? How the Hell do I get out of this with my skin intact!?

Ghilya slowly approached me. Then her hands suddenly flew from her sides to my collar and with surprising strength she pulled me close to her until our noses were almost touching. “Do you have any idea how furious I am?” She slowly spoke.

I tried to say something but it came out as stutters and half formed words that were not properly placed in a sentence. She shook me once while still clinging to my collar.

“Do you seriously consider my home to be some kind of dump that exists merely at your whim!? What the Hell were you thinking, what gives you the right to treat my home like you humans have done yours. It's no wonder that Xareith was able to convince the others to join his cause, you practically made it easy for him.”

Ghilya shoved me backwards so hard that I landed in front of the log and pain shot up through my buttocks after landing hard on the pebble beach. She looked down at me, scoffed and then walked off.

“Hey, missy!” Thomas shouted out to her “Where are you going?”

She continued her trek away from the river and into the forest as she replied without stopping or looking back “You guys are on your own!” She shouted as she continued to storm off unhindered.

Clarke and Thomas turned to face me with an angered look on their faces.

“Great job, you fucking idiot!” Thomas chastised. He scrunched up the wrapper tightly then threw it at my face. Clarke remained silent throughout the whole event. Then, to my surprise, Thomas came towards me and violently grabbed me by my shoulders again, his fingers digging into my flesh shooting pain through my chest and into my head. He picked me up and then shoved me into the direction Ghilya walked off to.

“Listen, fuckhead!” he said, jabbing a finger hard into my chest. “You are going that way and you are going to get her back.” Thomas had his teeth exposed as he spoke gritted teeth.

I shook my head in disbelief, the way Thomas acted seemed almost polar opposite to yesterday when he was dismissive and suspicious of her at every turn. Even now, he never actually called her by her name. I couldn’t think why Thomas was suddenly eager to get her back.

“Hold on, wait a second.” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

“No, no hold on anything. Get. Her. Back!” Thomas said each with a sharp jab into my chest with his index finger.

“Why do you care whether she is here or not? You were suspicious of her from the start, I thought you would be happy if she was gone?” I blurted out.

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t valuable, you fuckwit! Now get out of here and don’t return until you get her back.”

The sharp pain of guilt and betrayal echoed within me as I held back the urge to cry. I turned to face the forest that Ghilya disappeared into. It seemed daunting to me as the trees suddenly grew exponentially and size and appeared to almost dare me to enter and find my way. I didn’t know what other choices I had were, but I still had my gun with me. So, I walked towards the forest. Several feet into the tree line I looked behind me to see Clarke resting on the log while Thomas paced around it as he rubbed his fingers along his chin. I wasn’t certain but I felt a strong sense of intimidation being here, once more my anxiety worked its way up and I pressed down on the urge to cry as I was feeling overwhelmed with sensations. I walked forward and kept my guard up as I watched the trees carefully for any sign of Ghilya or her comrades.

Come now, Ghilya, show yourself and make this easy for me… Please? I promise not to litter again.