Idalia didn't like that smell. It made her tongue feel like it was licking the inside of a burnt cave. The whole forest, if you could still call it a forest, was quiet except for the crackle of dying fires and the soft pop-pop of things giving up and collapsing.
She crouched low, nostrils twitching, as [Smell] sifted through various scents. "Kelix," she whispered, though whispering felt useless when the world was already dead around them. "What happened here?"
Kelix didn't answer right away. He just stood, tall and still. His eyes were darker than usual—darker than the smoke.
He proceeded to move with a silence that made her bristle—like he was too calm, too used to this sight. She hated how steady he looked while her insides twisted into knots.
"Kelix," she hissed, stepping carefully over a splintered cart. "These are your kind. Why were they attacked by their own people?"
His gaze swept the ruins. Then, without turning, he said, "Because not all Wanderans are the same, Ida."
Idalia tilted her head, confused and uncomfortable. Wanderans had done this. Their scent was all over the ruins. She could smell the iron of their armor, the sour edge of their mana oil, the stupid pompous smell of their banners. She didn't get it. Wanderans had built this place. Why would they burn it down?
Liorexes would have never done such a thing to their own land.
"Did beasts do this, then?" she asked, sniffing at a charred plank. It smelled of hair. "No claws. No bite marks."
Kelix's jaw flexed. "No beasts," he said. His voice was quiet, brittle. "Soldiers."
"Soldiers?" Her ears perked. "But they're your—uh—your kind, right?"
Something sharp flashed in his eyes. "They're not my kind."
Idalia flinched at his tone, then huffed defensively. "I'm just saying! You look like them. Except less shiny."
He didn't answer that either. He was staring at a half-melted flag pole driven into the ground. The fabric mostly gone, except for a symbol stitched in black and gold.
A stylized serpent coiled around a black sun.
Kelix's hand trembled when he saw it. His breath turned into a hiss through his teeth. "The Colonel's mark," he muttered. "So it's true. He's still active."
Idalia blinked. "Colonel? That sounds like a food."
He didn't laugh. Not even a tiny smirk. That was how she knew it was bad.
They moved through what had once been a village. The stone huts, low roofs, small fires used for cooking. Demolished.
Idalia brushed her claws across the ground and found footprints. Wanderan. Small. Fleeing. Stopped halfway, replaced by drag marks.
She didn't like the pattern. It was the pattern of prey.
A faint sound. Her ears twitched. A cough, a broken exhale. She snapped her head to the side.
She froze, every muscle tight. Then, with a low growl, she darted toward it.
Under a half-collapsed roof, among broken beams, something moved.
A man.
Wanderan. But not quite like the others.
He had horns!
His horns curled back from his temples—thin, bone-white, almost delicate. Idalia blinked; she'd never seen horns on a Wanderan before. "Kelix! Kelix, look! This one has decorations on his head!"
Kelix knelt instantly beside the man, clearing rubble with careful hands. He lifted one of the beams with ease, just enough to keep the man from being crushed. "Hold still. You'll break your ribs worse."
The horned man wheezed, his lips cracked, his chest a ruin of burns and ash. "You—weren't with them…"
Kelix's jaw tensed. "No. We weren't."
"They came at dawn… no warning. Said we… harbored traitors. But there were no soldiers here." His eyes rolled weakly toward Idalia, then widened a little, like seeing her was both terrifying and comforting. "Please… my daughter…"
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Idalia crouched low, sniffing. He smelled like smoke and blood and old honey. "Where is she? We can sniff her out."
The man's trembling hand reached into his tattered cloak and pulled out something small. It looked like a ring of metal disks on a frayed cord.
A keychain, etched with runes that shimmered faintly even through soot.
He pressed it into Kelix's hand. "Find her… she wears a pendant that matches this… north, maybe she ran north—"
He coughed again, harder this time. A wet sound. His eyes began to glaze, but his voice rasped one last time: "Please… tell her Rian tried. Don't let… them take her too…"
Then he went still.
The fire crackled behind them, spitting sparks into the gray air.
Idalia bowed her head in his honor. Liorex or not… the gesture was respectful.
She tilted her head, her throat tight in a way she didn't understand. "Why do your people hurt each other like this? Beasts fight for food, or nests, or fun. But this… this was just to make things stop living."
Kelix stared at the keychain in his palm for a long moment. Then he stood, slipping it into his cloak. His voice was low. "Because sometimes, they stop seeing each other as people."
Idalia frowned. "That's stupid."
"Yes," Kelix said. "It is."
He looked at the burning banner again. The serpent. The mark of the one he hunted. And in that moment, Idalia saw his calm crack, just for a second like a storm blinking through glass.
His voice came out like static. "We'll find her. And when we do, we'll make them pay for this."
Idalia's claws flexed in the ash. Her tail lashed. She didn't understand all of it—the names, the wars, the flags—but she understood hurt. And she understood hunting.
She bared her teeth. "Then we hunt them now."
Kelix nodded once. "Yes. We hunt."
And so they did.
Through the smoke. Through the broken trees. Toward the camp by the shore—where Wanderans in gold-stitched armor laughed around fires made from the homes of their own.
???
Bushes. They were ashen, scratchy, probably poisonous but who cared? Idalia squirmed low, tail twitching like a hyperactive antenna.
She peeked through the gray leaves at the Wanderan camp, or, as she liked to think of it, "a place with a bunch of silly tall-armor apes."
Kelix crouched beside her, calm as a rock in a storm. Which was super annoying. The kind of calm that made her want to hiss and kick dirt at him. Not that she would. Well… maybe just a little.
They were currently plunked near a shore of Vulkhanzhar. But she was mindfully enthralled that her and Kelix were about the same height now. The bushes were just high enough to hide them both. Both satisfyingly good.
Kelix froze. His eyes were on a banner looming within the camp. There it was again—a serpent coiled around a black sun. His jaw tightened, muscles in his neck straining. Idalia had never seen him look like that before. Like the fire in front of them had ignited inside him instead.
"That mark," his voice was low, dangerous. "The Colonel's mercenaries. The same dogs who razed my homeland."
He spat the words like venom, and for once, Idalia didn't tease him for sounding dramatic. She saw the trembling in his fingers as he clutched the edge of a burned cloth.
She tilted her head, eyes wide. "The same ones who—"
"Yes," he snapped. Then quieter, as though afraid to let the world hear: "The ones who took everything." He pointed forward.
"See the two-legs at the front?" Kelix said. "Ignore them. I need you to find the one with the strongest life-force."
Kelix explained rough terms to her. Armor. Soldier. Camp. Formations she didn't understand completely because they were vague and mysterious. Although that didn't matter. She knew life force. That was how she hunted.
[Knowledge Core [D]: 3% → 5%]
[Spatial Sight] could extend as far out as she willed herself to concentrate. So finding this strongest person wouldn't be much of a problem.
Anyway, Idalia understood the task and allowed her [Spatial Sight] to surge forward past the strange walls and structures that the Wanderan's occupied.
It slipped past the guards as though she'd walked right past them. It entered the camp as if she were gliding above it. Inside, she saw the creatures' heat—glowing, colored silhouettes. Mana Heat, Alpha Pawail would call them.
Some gave off green heat. Others yellow. She noticed a slight difference in pressure between the two. The yellows felt more threatening than the greens.
But Kelix said those weren't the targets. She had to peer further. Deeper ahead—and—Aha. What? Woah. There! The big one. Dark-yellow aura, sitting smugly in the largest tent. Dangerous vibes practically slapped her in the face.
She twitched her ears. And grinned. Danger equaled fun. Her fur stood like it had been brushed by static when she tore her gaze away from the figure.
"Kelix…" she hissed. "There are three at the center. But I don't think we should—"
"Good. I need you to roar a portal for us to get inside their tent. I'll be quick."
Her heart thundered at the ridiculousness of the request. However, a part of her still felt exhilarated. She could break in, snap her jaws around the arms of these strong foes. Maybe she could gain lots of strength if she took at least one of them out.
"Fine, Kelix. But you're leaving one to me."
"Do. Not. Eat. A single one." Kelix's eyes were stern. Deadly serious. Even though she was almost bigger than him now. It felt like he could crush her with a glance.
She growled, offended, but knew better than to argue too hard.
But it felt like a scolding to her. And she hated it.
"Don't… don't tell me what to do, Kelix! I'll claw and bite whether you like it or not. I am a hunter after all. But if you insist, I won't eat one of your fellow Wanderans."
Kelix let out a soft laugh, like Idalia had made a joke. "I'm not sure where you're basing that from. Because they're Wanderan like me? Nope. Not at all. I want to tear them apart."
Idalia's ears perked. "Then why can't I…!"
Kelix scratched behind her ear, the sensation making her foot thump softly. How rude. But was this what they call scritches? "I don't want you becoming more monstrous than you are, Ida. Now let's hurry up so I can take out some Captains."
Rolling her eyes at his command, Idalia twisted her neck and breathed out her signature technique: [Portal Breath]. This was less noisy than [Portal Roar], obviously. Her mind was set on the three powerful individuals inside the tent.
Space shivered, the air did the shimmer-shake thing, and—poof!—a rip appeared, sparkly and wobbling.
Kelix dove in first. Idalia followed, tail lashing, snout twitching, excited enough to squeak. And then—oh boy—the hilarity began.
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