Ashes of the Fallen

"Alright guys, good work," I said to the departing NPCs as they all filtered out one by one, returning to whatever duties they may have had. Katherine was front and center, waiting for me as always. Selene though, was still missing in action.

Something was up with her.

"Sigurd! You're back so soon!" she yelled out as she ran over and gave me a hug.

"Er, yeah I'm back," I replied, a bit confused with the sudden skinship. Not bothering to fight it, I simply enjoyed the contact as she seemed awfully flirtatious.

Maybe, she was in heat, or something.

"What have you been up to, Katherine?" I asked.

"Selene and I have been training the kittens!" she enthusiastically let out as she wrapped her arms around mine and began to follow me. "They're so big now, Selene has them listening to commands and they can hunt now too!"

"They can hunt, can they… rabbits, I imagine?"

"Foxes too!" she followed up with another smile.

I wanted to pat her head, like a child, at times like these.

She was an odd one, with a clearly different development through her artificial childhood. Well, it was unique I suppose, she did stand out.

"And what of Selene, what is she up to?" I asked kindly, not wanting to give Kate any sense of my doubt and suspicion. "Is she with the kittens and Barkley?"

"Oh, um, no she went hunting by herself," she answered dejectedly.

So, Kate was aware too.

She struck me as an airhead half the time but it was more her personality than her lack of intelligence. It figures she would know if Selene was acting up, they had known each other for a while, according to their backstory at least.

"Hey Kate, do you think it's guilt, that bothers her?"

Katherine loosened her grip on my arm for a second as she seemed to be deep in thought, then with a sudden flick of her hair she grabbed tighter and looked away.

Talking while hiding her face from me, "Selene is tormented by her desire to protect, to be dependable… and if she feels she has failed in that regard, she retreats and secludes herself, attempting to fix her imagined faults. I've told her before, not to worry about it… but she won't stop. I'm scared she's going to do something crazy in the future, and put herself in harm's way."

"I agree with you," I said as I returned a hug. "I'll have a talk with her."

Departing at the cabin, I made my way out into the forest in order to find Selene. Supposedly, she would take the creek that led towards the Rattanorv cave and would hunt until she could no longer, and then return to base.

Finding her would be easy if I messaged her, but I wanted to surprise her.

Looking up at the tallest tree in the vicinity, I gave a quick thought to my magic words. In a flash, my body was deconstructed and turned into raw energy as I soared through the air only to rematerialize on a tree branch some thirty feet off the ground. Looking ahead to another branch and waiting the few seconds for the cooldown to reset, I repeated the process. Three [Flash Steps] later and I was at the top of the tallest tree, overlooking the entire area from a vantage point that was hard to beat.

Manually activating my [Keen Sight] that I had picked up from my Archery Proficiency, every target within range glimmered for a second as a slight luminescence. Most targets were small, inconsequential creatures, but there were a few larger blips.

Jumping off the top of the tree, the nearly hundred foot drop caused me to hold my breath for a moment as I used a [Flash Step] right before hitting the ground to alter my course. I hit the ground with a roll, kicking dirt up and tripping over a root as I stumbled to regain my traction. After a few more haphazard movements, I ultimately came down face first into a cluster of overly wet moss.

Too wet, for the time of day.

And it smelled funny.

Wonderful, I thought to myself as I stood up and walked over towards the creek that was a bit off to the side. At least, there was fresh water everywhere around here. After washing my face off, I gave some thought to practicing with [Flash Step].

If I mastered it, there was a distinct possibility that I could pull off a few tricks.

Air-to-ground combat seemed interesting.

Another time, though.

Thirty minutes passed me by before I finally caught sight of Selene, fighting with a bear by her lonesome. Leaning against a tree and watching the fight unfold, she started with a few well-placed arrows that hit near the heart but were too shallow to pierce through. Her accuracy was amazing and with her actual level being much higher than mine, I figured she would be relatively safe.

The bear stood up on its hind legs for a split-second as it turned to face Selene and roared, to threaten and voice its anger all in one. Dropping to all fours the bear charged, covering the distance between them with an unbelievable quickness that didn't seem to register with its size. Selene stood her ground and fired off three more arrows as they harmlessly sunk into the thick neck of the white bear as it neared upon her.