The animal didn't appear to have seen me as it continued eating the small Duakn it had captured. It was a beautiful yet terrifying beast, it looked as if it could kill someone using only a quarter of its force, and it probably could. I didn't want to move, and it probably wouldn't have been wise as the beast probably didn't know I was here and that the noise I would probably make why moving would give up my presence. I stayed put for approximately fifteen minutes before it decided to move elsewhere, the animal moves just as gracefully as I thought it would, its fur moving with its muscles reflecting the sun of its back. The landscape with the mountains and the forest were already incredible, but seeing an animal as majestic as this while being in that landscape was simply a life changing experience, to see what true untamed nature looked like.

The view had been so beautiful that it had made me hold my breath for a few seconds, perhaps it could have also been the fear that the wild animal had made me feel, or maybe it had been a mixture of the two factors. Nevertheless, it was the first-time nature had left me breathless, human or werewolves' creations could never achieve anything that grand and spectacular. Even the fruits of nature's production were even more surprising and delicious than the ones grown in the labs or in the farms that used chemicals to make them grow faster and bigger.

The berries I had found since earlier weren't as big as the ones I usually had back home, they were small but seemed to actually be fresh on the contrary to the ones that grew on the farms near home. After I finished taking a few more berries, I walked back to the cave, I didn't see neither Masov or Nila in the distance so I guess they were still picking up some plants, all the others were back in the cavern and I could already smell the meat roasting, it was suspended on a branch over the fire and was slowly turning over it as to insure everything was going to be equally cooked. They were all taking like a big family around a table, except this setting wasn't as comfortable as a real table and real chairs would've been. I approached the fire and sat down next to Vreia, she smiled upon seeing me and then turned back to her conversation with Rya, as I was about to start a conversation with Geros who was at my left, I saw Nila and Masov coming back in the distance. I could see that they were carrying some plants, and I wasn't sure if I saw it well, but their suit appeared to have been sullied by some purple and green spots, they had probably tripped over plants or rock on their way there. They looked happy and it made me wonder if anything had happened during that time, did they finally admit how they felt toward each other? I waved at Nila hoping she would come in my direction so I could get some information about what happened during their trip, she looked at me and her smile widened as she put one of her fingers in front of her mouth as if to tell me it was a secret. I walked towards her and asked "what do you mean it's a secret?! I want to know!" I looked at her with pleading eyes as her smile turned evil, she laughed and said "that's for leaving the other day and not waiting for me! I would've come with you, do you have any idea how worried I was when you just left with that look in your eyes??", with a confused expression I asked her "what do you mean that look in your eyes?". She responded "you looked terrified; you know the look a child has when they think their parent left them alone? That's what you looked like except you fleeted instead of staying where you were like a child should do." I looked at her bewildered, I wouldn't have thought that my emotions were so apparent, after all I always thought I was able to control my facial expressions to prevent any weaknesses from coming out. I changed the subject not wanting to linger on those type of feelings, telling her how happy Masov looked and teasing her about her apparent feelings, she looked just as happy as him, I wouldn't tell her that obviously, but I guessed that they either told each other their feelings or that they kissed, although it might also be both. She looked over at him and her smile softened, her eyes reflected her happiness, and I could see the blossoming of her love for him. I stopped insisting on the subject to give her some privacy, but still told her with an evil smile that I would end up finding out or at least figuring out what had happened. To that she just responded with an vicious laughter "good luck, you'll need it", she smiled while saying that and it gave me hope of finding an opening in the near future to find out what had happened in those woods. We went back to the cavern to drop our respective earning and were joined by all, by pure coincidence Masov sat down next to Nila and I couldn't stop myself from rising my left eyebrow and to look at her with a knowing smile, she just blushed and turned her head as to avoid my gaze. Masov seemed to have seen the look I gave Nila since he started blushing and suddenly needed to drink some water.

As we were all sitting around the fire, we all took out what we had gathered except for Vreia and Rya who had filled our bottles. They gave them around and Masov who was the closest to mine and Nila's passed them to us, I took a sip as soon as I received mine, I had gone a day with almost no water and had longed after the bottles which had previously been to far for my liking. I thanked Masov and so did Nila she seemed to be avoiding eye contact with him as she timidly thanked him. We finished separating equally what we had gathered and headed out to try to find the mysterious cavern filled with the herbs, not that we absolutely needed to since we had found a really nice place, but with the two weeks extension it was tempting to explore the Kuja mountains since we probably wouldn't have another opportunity to do so.

We chose a rocky path that seemingly hadn't been used before as we all almost fell approximately three times during the two first hours, the rocks and the roots covered the paths as to make it look more like a parkour than an actual road. Vreia started singing during the third hour, it appeared to be in one of the dialects that was spoken in the north of Tryia, Ilak was mostly spoken by those who believed in ancient myths since it was the language in which they had been written a longtime ago.

The most famous of those ancient myths, that even aristocracy knew about was the story of Gulh. He was known as one of the creators, he reigned with Ioas and Phyla, Ioas's beloved. Rather than creating things like Ioas and Phyla, he orchestrated them, he found new ways to make the animals live, new uses for objects that were seen as useless. He wasn't as popular, but some believed he was a better creator that Ioas had ever been, gods weren't supposed to step on each other's territory and that's where Gulh's myth began. Most gods were greedy of their things and Ioas wasn't an exception, no one could touch his creations without his permission, none of the gods would usually feel any emotions for anything they created, well except for greed that is. Gulh, knowingly or not broke that unstated law as he tried to save his friend and his lover Maylda, she was one of the first werewolves to ever walk on our kingdom, she was also a direct relative of the first queen of our kingdom.

Ioas apparently didn't take well the fact that another good could possess in a certain way one of his creations, he would've banished Halde to the world of his beloved, but at the same time prevented him from possessing any special abilities such as aura. Gulh, pitying the man that had became his friend modified his physical composition, as to give him the possibility to breath and live underwater. Halde and Maylda had many children and some of them inherited the morphology of their dad, some gained the powers of their mother, the unlucky ones gained none of the abilities nor the morphology of their parents, they became the Daklers. Gulh, became a pariah that had betrayed the most important god for a friend, he got banished as well, but wasn't as lucky as his friend, since Ioas insured he couldn't survive.

He made sure Gulh would know that his actions would not be forgiven as he ripped off every ability he ever had and banished him in the northern part of the territory where only the worst of his creations were. Nobody knew what happened after that since even Maylda and Halde never got to know what had happened to Gulh after he had helped them escape Ioas's fury.

I glanced at the others, and I tried to see if they understood the lyrics of the song, if some of them actually understood the lyrics, they were good at hiding it as they were all enjoying the music, while looking confused. I looked over at Nila and she touched her upper lip with the index of her right hand, we had tried to come up with a variation of a sign language that was mostly used by villagers while hunting, to make it easier for us to talk when we didn't want other to hear or simply for when we went hunting. The signal she had just used was meant to ask what the person what doing or saying in that case, I guessed she wanted to know if I knew what Vreia was chanting as no one appeared to have understood what dialect it came from.

I couldn't simply respond what dialect it was since I wasn't supposed to know what it was, the books that were written in that language had mostly been lost or were kept by a select few.. I just go lucky honestly to be able to get my hands on one of them. I responded by placing the fingertips of my right hand on my torso and then on my forehead as to signify her guess was as good as mine.

I hated lying but sometimes I just had to. After all, I couldn't just tell her I knew how to speak and understand Ilak, when only those who lived in the north and approximately ten other people in Estol knew how to understand it would be like putting a sign above my head telling everyone who I was. She nodded to tell me she understood, she turned back to Masov and started a conversation, I was to far to understand anything of it but judging by her smile she looked happy. Khail appeared next to me and whispered looking at Vreia, "where do you think she comes from to be able to talk that language?", I answered smiling as honestly as possible "good question, probably not from the capital". He paused and looked at me for second before walking faster to go talk to Geros and Helaena instead, I didn't mind the quiet of the nature, but it seemed to be a little to calm as I could only hear the noises of our feet making contact with the road.

We still had a few hours walking before having to set camp for the night, we would probably end up in a small cave to protect us from the wilderness, but it probably wouldn't be as comfortable as the one we had stayed in last week. Vreia continued to sing along the way and Rya tried to join her at some point, it could've confused me too, I thought the song had some kind of rhythm or at least some words that would repeat themselves, but as soon as Rya tried to repeat the word a third time on the beat that resembled the last one, Vreia would say another word. It happened a few times, but at the fourth time, no one could stop themselves from laughing. Even Vreia interrupted her song as to laugh with us, she looked at Rya with a smile on her face and thanked her for trying to join, we could hear her northern accent that had re-emerged after she had started singing.

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